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The five senses In the popular pool game "Marco Polo," one sightless swimmer calls out "Marco" and seeks out other swimmers when they respond "Polo." If you've tried it, you'll know it's not an easy game. Every splash, whisper or giggle is a clue, but these hints can be surprisingly misleading. In this activity you'll learn a little bit more about your sense of hearing and how it works. Most of us chiefly rely on eyesight, which is part of why we become so disoriented when forced to resort to a different sense. Nevertheless, our ears share a lot of important information about the world around us. From the shout, "Fire!" to a relaxing melody, your ears convey useful signals and you wouldn't want them to deceive you. Sound travels through the air in waves. Your ears are specially equipped to receive and understand these waves. Each ear collects and channels sound waves, transforming them into vibrations. Within your inner ear tiny hair cells respond to these vibrations and send signals that your brain can decode and interpret as a variety of sounds. But why exactly do we have two ears instead of just one? Try this activity and find out. • Adhesive tape (or chalk if outside on pavement or sidewalk) • Meter stick or measuring tape • Earplugs (optional) • One or two noisemakers: a clock that audibly ticks, music box, small musical instrument, cell phone, pennies in a closed jar, a book (optional) • Pencil and paper • Blindfold your partner and ask him or her to stand on the central X. Record or draw the direction your partner is facing and ask your partner to remain in that spot throughout the activity. • Explain to your partner that you will stand in different parts of the room and say his or her name. Your partner will then guess where you are (left, right, in front, behind) and how far away you are standing. • When you're both ready to begin, ask your partner to cover one ear using a hand or inserting an earplug. • Stand on one of the lines you have made in the room. Say your partner's name in a normal speaking voice. Ask him or her to guess where and how far away you are standing. Did your partner guess where you were standing? • On a piece of paper, record which ear your partner used, where you actually stood (distance and direction from the central X), and what your partner guessed. • Move to a different location and repeat. Try this from different lines all over the room and record your partner's guesses. Is your partner better at guessing when you're close by or far away? How well does your partner guess distance? What about direction? • Once you've tried several spots in the room, ask your partner to use both ears and try the above steps again. Is your partner better at guessing distance with two ears than one? What about direction? You can also try the above steps after asking your partner to cover the other ear. Is one ear better for guessing locations and distances than the other? Does it make any difference which ear is covered? • Extra: Try this activity and vary how loudly you say your partner's name. Does volume make it easier or more difficult for your partner to judge distance? What about direction? Is a whisper harder to locate than a shout? • Extra: Instead of speaking, try using an object that makes noise such as a ticking clock, music box or cell phone—or use a homemade noisemaker by shaking pennies in a closed jar or opening and sharply closing a hardbound book. How does a noisemaker compare with a voice? Are some sounds harder to locate than others? Try this activity while your partner stays perfectly still, then allow your partner to move his or her head. Does head turning or tilting make a difference? • Change places with your partner and compare your findings! Observations and results Were two ears better than one in identifying distance and direction? Was direction more difficult to guess with one ear when you and your partner were closer to one another? Each ear receives information that is sent to your brain. Because your ears are not side by side, they receive different information. If someone standing to your left claps his hands, your left ear will receive this sound wave more quickly than your right one. In addition, the clap will sound louder in your left ear than in your right . Your brain uses these differences to better understand where a sound is coming from. This can also explain why—as you may have noticed—it's hard to tell the difference between a sound directly in front of or behind you, even if you are using both ears. When the sound source is exactly equidistant to both ears, they receive very similar information and your brain has fewer clues as to where the source may be. If indoors, remove tape from the floor. More to explore One Ear Is Not Like the Other, Study Finds from Scientific American Our Sense of Hearing from Neuroscience for Kids A Brain Map of Auditory Space from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Your Ears from KidsHealth How Hearing Works from How Stuff Works
Man-made disasters have an element of human intent, negligence or error involving a failure of a man-made system, as opposed to natural disasters resulting from natural hazards. Such man-made disasters are crime, arson, civil disorder, terrorism, war, biological / chemical threat, cyber attacks, etc. Terrorism is the use of force or violence against persons or property in violation of the criminal laws of the United States for purposes of intimidation, coercion or ransom. Terrorists often use threats to create fear among the public, to try to convince citizens that their government is powerless to prevent terrorism, and to get immediate publicity for their causes. Acts of terrorism range from threats of terrorism, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings, bomb scares and bombings, and cyber attacks (computer-based), to the use of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. High-risk targets include military and civilian government facilities, international airports, large cities and high-profile landmarks. Terrorists might also target large public gatherings, water and food supplies, utilities and corporate centers. Further, they are capable of spreading fear by sending explosives or chemical and biological agents through the mail. In the immediate area of a terrorist event, you would need to rely on police, fire and other officials for instructions. However, you can prepare in much the same way you would prepare for other crisis events. Preparing for Terrorism - Wherever you are, be aware of your surroundings. The very nature of terrorism suggests there may be little or no warning. - Take precautions when traveling. Be aware of conspicuous or unusual behavior. Do not accept packages from strangers. Do not leave luggage unattended. Unusual behavior, suspicious packages and strange devices should be promptly reported to the police or security personnel. - Do not be afraid to move or leave if you feel uncomfortable or if something does not seem right. - Learn where emergency exits are located in buildings you frequent. Notice where exits are when you enter unfamiliar buildings. Plan how to get out of a building, subway or congested public area or traffic. Note where staircases are located. Notice heavy or breakable objects that could move, fall or break in an explosion. - Assemble a disaster supply kit at home and learn first aid. Separate the supplies you would take if you had to evacuate quickly, and put them in a backpack or container, ready to go. - Be familiar with different types of fire extinguishers and how to locate them. Know the location and availability of hard hats in buildings in which you spend a lot of time. If you receive a bomb threat, get as much information from the caller as possible. Keep the caller on the line and record everything that is said. Then notify the police and the building management if applicable. If you are notified of a bomb threat, do not touch any suspicious packages. Clear the area around suspicious packages and notify the police immediately. In evacuating a building, don't stand in front of windows, glass doors or other potentially hazardous areas. Do not block sidewalk or streets to be used by emergency officials or others still exiting the building. Suspicious Parcels & Letters Be wary of suspicious packages and letters. They can contain explosives, chemical or biological agents. Be particularly cautious at your place of employment. Some typical characteristics postal inspectors have detected over the years, which ought to trigger suspicion, include parcels that: - Are unexpected or from someone unfamiliar to you - Are marked with restrictive endorsements, such as "Personal," "Confidential" or "Do not x-ray" - Have protruding wires or aluminum foil, strange odors, or stains - Show a city or state in the postmark that doesn't match the return address - Are of unusual weight, given their size, or are lopsided or oddly shaped - Are marked with any threatening language - Have inappropriate or unusual labeling - Have excessive postage or excessive packaging material such as masking tape and string - Have misspellings of common words - Are addressed to someone no longer with your organization or are otherwise outdated - Have incorrect titles or title without a name - Are not addressed to a specific person - Have handwritten or poorly typed addresses With suspicious envelopes and packages other than those that might contain explosives, take these additional steps against possible biological and chemical agents: - Refrain from eating or drinking in a designated mail handling area. - Place suspicious envelopes or packages in a plastic bag or some other type of container to prevent leakage of contents. Never sniff or smell suspect mail. - If you do not have a container, then cover the envelope or package with anything available (e.g., clothing, paper, trash can, etc.) and do not remove the cover. - Leave the room and close the door, or section off the area to prevent others from entering. - Wash your hands with soap and water to prevent spreading any powder to your face. - If you are at work, report the incident to your building security official or an available supervisor, who should notify police and other authorities without delay. - List all people who were in the room or area when this suspicious letter or package was recognized. Give a copy of this list to both the local public health authorities and law enforcement officials for follow-up investigations and advice. - If you are at home, report the incident to local police.
By Waziyatawin and Michael Yellow Bird, from the Introduction to For Indigenous Minds Only: A Decolonization Handbook: Introduction and Background In 2005, eight Indigenous intellectuals created the volume For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook, to offer hands-on suggestions and activities for Indigenous communities to engage in as they worked to develop decolonizing activities. Beginning from the assumption that Indigenous Peoples have the power, strength, and intelligence to develop culturally specific decolonization strategies to pursue our own strategies of liberation, we attempted to begin to demystify the language of colonization and decolonization. Through a step-by-step process, we hoped to help Indigenous readers identify useful concepts, terms, and intellectual frameworks that will assist all of us in our struggle toward meaningful change and self-determination. The handbook covered a wide range of topics including Indigenous governance, education, languages, oral tradition, repatriation, images and stereotypes, nutritional strategies, and truthtelling. View original post 8,371 more words
When superstorm Sandy hit New York in 2012, it caused a massive 14-foot storm surge. Several New York City subway stations were flooded and the subway was shut down for days. Although the authorities prepared well for the incoming storm, it still resulted in some $5 billion in damage to the transport system. In other words, it could have been much worse. Water management is only going to become more important as extreme weather events increase due to climate change and the proportion of people living in cities grows to more than 70% by 2050. Worse still, urbanisation increases the risk of water disasters such as floods because development reduces the amounts of permeable surfaces where water can soak into the ground, creating runoff that contributes to flooding. This poses a particular risk to urban subways and underground railway systems, which can suffer flooding from various sources including tidal surges, river (fluvial) flooding, surface water (pluvial) flooding and burst water pipes. London Underground recently identified 57 stations that were at high risk of flooding, saying it was “only a matter of time” before heavy rainfall caused serious problems for the city’s subterranean transport network. So what can city leaders do to meet this challenge? How Deep is This Issue? Some cities are already used to dealing with flooding. The New York subway uses 700 pumps that typically drain on average around 50 million litres of water (nearly 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools) a day from the network. Before the Sandy flood, the city implemented $30 million worth of projects to prevent flooding, targeting the most flood-prone stations, installing valves to keep pumped out water from re-entering the subway and improving sewers to avoid future flooding. But the subway was still severely affected by flooding because its pump system couldn’t work once its power was knocked out. Citizens of Taipei in Taiwan are accustomed to severe weather associated with typhoons, which the country experiences on average three to four times a year. And around 2 million passengers use the Taipei Metro (MRT) every day. As a result, the risk of flooding is high on the agenda for the MRT planners and managers. Their stated goal is to protect against floods that reach 50cm higher than those likely to occur once in 200 years. To do this they have raised all station entrances and network openings by between 60cm and 120cm above the adjacent ground level, as well as installing flood gates and flood control structures along the river. But when Typhoon Nari swept through Taiwan in September 2001, with one of the highest rainfall records in northern Taiwan, the resulting flash floods and the failure of several pumping stations flooded a number of MRT stations. Flooding caused 94 deaths and approximately $800 million of damage. In London, this kind of flooding is highly unlikely due to the Thames Barrier, a kind of closable river gate that spans 520 metres across the River Thames and protects 125km² of central London tidal surges. This means that Underground stations within the tidal Thames floodplain are pretty safe. It was designed to protect against all but the kind of floods that would likely occur only once in 1000 years. But other rivers in London that flow into the Thames, such as the River Lee, the Silk Stream and the River Wandle, still pose some risk of fluvial flooding. Climate change is also making extreme rainfall more likely in the UK, which in turn might increase the risk of surface flooding of Underground tunnels. Even more likely is flooding from London’s water 31,100km of water mains. For example, in June 2012 water from a burst water mains founds its way into the tube, flooding the Central line for 26 hours. Not an Easy Fix In principle, there are two ways of mitigating flood risk: structural and non-structural. Structural measures include engineered solutions to reduce or avoid possible impact of flooding, such as building levees and tidal barriers. Non-structural measures don’t involve physical construction but are instead about reducing risks and impacts in other ways, through policies and laws, public awareness and education. This includes things such as making sure building work considers its impact on flood risks, preventing loss of permeable surfaces, and better forecasting and early-warning systems. Several measures apply directly to underground transport systems. For example, cities can install backup power for pump systems to reduce or avoid the potential for infrastructure damage when power outages occur, and clear flooded tunnels more quickly. Similarly, flood gates and raised entrances at stations could allow the underground transport system to continue operations even during floods. Some new technology includes subway “plugs”, being developed by the US government, which look and work like big balloons. They can inflate in just a few minutes to help prevent water from entering underground tunnels. When not in use, the plug packs down to a small storage space in the tunnel, ready for remote, immediate inflation in an emergency. But for all this useful engineering, we do have to realise that there is no feasible way to provide total flood prevention and there will always be some risk of flooding. That means we need to become more resilient to flooding when it does occur through prevention, preparation and planning. This way we can develop early warning systems, limit exposure to flooding and the damage it causes, and organise more effective recovery.
This technique projects accurate patterns onto a target and then measures the displacement or distortion in order to calculate the shape, size or position of the object. In the easiest form, a line is projected onto a target and observed under a known angle from a camera. The distortions in the line can then be translated into height variations. This technique is often referred to as laser triangulation. Structured illumination is often used to obtain height information and especially for 3D inspection tasks. Uses for this technique include: inspection of food items to check for correct volume or product deformations and foreign object inclusion. It can also be used to check the surface profile of objects against known good examples or a golden template to ensure perfect product quality. To obtain the most accurate 3D information, very narrow and sharp illuminated lines are required. This is usually achieved by using laser technology or structured LED illumination. In addition a narrow pass filter is fixed on the camera, only transmitting the reflected laser or LED light with no ambient light. Structured lighting is also widely used in alignment applications where markers are required to adjust tools or components and is also employed in medical applications such as the placement of patients for X-ray or radiation.
Glaciers in the European Alps are vanishing, transforming landscapes and leaving communities without an essential source of water. Scientists have a fix, but it won’t last forever. Alpine winters bring snow and rain to fill streams and rivers. In the summer, when rainfall tapers off, melting glaciers feed waterways. Like most humans, glaciers gain weight over the holidays and lose that weight in the summer. In especially cool years they lose a little extra, and in especially hot years they gain a little more. Over time, losses and gains tend to even out, though global warming is changing that. Rising temperatures have disrupted the cycle of growth and melt. Glaciers are now shedding ice faster than they can accumulate it. This is bad news for the Swiss Alps, sometimes known as ‘Europe’s water tower’. Shrinking glaciers will provide less water each year. And, because spring will arrive earlier as a result of climate change, glaciers will provide more water at the end of winter and less water during the summer, when it is needed most. In a recent study, scientists proposed using dams to collect water from melting glaciers. Dams would store surplus runoff in the spring and save if for the summer. If engineers built dams large enough to hold a combined one cubic kilometer of water, that could save enough water to offset two-thirds of the summertime shortage expected with climate change. In practice, this becomes more difficult. Switzerland’s 4,000 glaciers are disperse and many of them hard to reach. And, unfortunately, dams would only provide a temporary fix. They would merely addresses the seasonal shift in glacial melt and not the long-term disappearance of glaciers. For that, scientists will need to come up with a more permanent solution. See this story at Popular Science.
November is National Diabetes Awareness month. If you or someone you love are living with diabetes, you likely understand the importance of controlling blood sugar levels to stay within the target range your doctor sets. When blood sugar levels are well-controlled, it can help prevent or delay serious, long-term health issues including vision loss, heart disease, and kidney disease. Diabetes can have a severe impact on your eyes, resulting in vision changes, vision loss, and even blindness. That’s because high blood sugar damages the tiny capillaries in the eye’s most sensitive tissues that relay information to your brain to produce good vision. Once high blood sugar levels cause damage to the retina, the vision loss you suffer is irreversible. But there’s hope! By following your doctor’s advice, monitoring blood glucose levels, and keeping blood sugar levels under control, you can prevent or delay serious eye damage. Here are 6 action steps people with diabetes can take to protect their vision: - Know Your Numbers The sensitive blood vessels that supply the most vulnerable parts of your eye are often the first to suffer damage when blood sugar levels spike. Specifically, high blood sugar affects the retina. The retina is the thin tissue covering about 65% of the back of your eye. It’s home to millions of light-sensitive cells that enable your eyes to relay information about what you’re seeing to your brain through the optic nerve. When blood sugar spikes, it damages the blood vessels that supply your retina. This can cause blurry vision—which may be temporary or permanent. People with diabetes are at high risk for three specific eye diseases: diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and cataracts. By knowing your blood sugar numbers and keeping them in target range, you can reduce your risk for these sight-stealing conditions. - Quit Smoking According to the CDC, in 2019, over 34 million adults were daily smokers—that’s 14% of the population. Smoking kills 480,000 Americans each year. It’s the No.1 cause of preventable death in the US. With the stress of the pandemic, it’s likely those numbers have increased. Smoking harms every single bodily system, and is particularly harmful for diabetics. Smoking damages the body’s veins, arteries and capillaries, which further irritates the damage to the eyes associated with diabetes. If you’re a smoker, stop smoking—today! If you’re a smoker with diabetes, stop smoking—yesterday! - Move It Just as smoking is bad for every bodily system, exercise is good for every bodily system—so get moving! Walk around the block a few times at lunch. Park at the far end of the parking lot and take some extra steps. Work out with a friend at the gym or on Zoom. Regular exercise helps control blood sugar levels, and can therefore lower your risk for developing diabetic-related eye disease. So put it on your calendar each week to make sure you save time for this life-enhancing appointment with yourself. Talk with your doctor before starting any exercise program to find out which exercises they recommend for you. - Rock Your Sunglasses While you’re outside walking around the block for exercise, don’t forget your sunglasses! Even when it’s cloudy, the sun’s UVA and UVB rays penetrate cloud cover and damage your eyes, contributing to eye conditions such as cataracts and macular degeneration. So grab your sunglasses on your way out the door to protect your vision in style. - Focus on Healthy Eating We’ve heard it since childhood: You are what you eat. Healthy eyes start with healthy meals. To protect diabetic eyes, eat a well-balanced diet that includes foods that give your body healthy nutrients. These include Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Beta-Carotene, Lutein, Omega-3 fatty acids, zinc and zeaxanthin. You can achieve this by eating a diet rich in colorful fruits and vegetables, leafy greens, fatty fish such as salmon, tuna or mackerel, nuts including walnuts and almonds, plus beans, lentils, and mushrooms. - Annual Dilated Eye Exam We saved the best for last: To ensure that your efforts to keep blood glucose in check are helping to keep your vision healthy, visit your eye doctor each year—or more often if recommended—for a dilated comprehensive eye exam. This visit will include a screening for diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and cataracts. When your eyes dilate, the pupil widens so that your optometrist can clearly see the back of your eye to examine the retina, the macula, and optic nerve. By examining these delicate tissues, your eye doctor can detect early stages of diabetic retinopathy long before you notice any symptoms. This early diagnosis combined with preventive action can mean the difference between losing vision permanently and maintaining your ability to see clearly. If you notice any blurred vision or changes to your vision between regularly scheduled appointments, it’s critical that you call your optometrist to discuss these changes. Don’t wait until your next appointment—your vision could be at risk if you do.
Going to a Therapist What Is Therapy? Therapy is a way to get help with a mental health problem or get extra support if you are going through a tough time. If you go to therapy, you'll have meetings with a therapist to talk and learn. You'll learn skills to cope, feel better, and get help with the problem you're having. What Problems Do Therapists Help With? Therapists are trained to help people with all kinds of problems. For example: They help people who are going through tough times like: - family problems - school problems - dealing with a health condition They help people who have been through things like: - bullying and peer pressure They help people work out difficult feelings like: - sadness, depression, or grief - stress, anxiety, or worry - low self-esteem They help people with conditions like: - anxiety disorders - eating disorders - self-harm behaviors - learning disorders - sleep problems What Happens in Therapy? In therapy, people meet with a therapist to talk and learn ways to work out their problems. At the beginning, the therapist asks questions about your problems. They also ask about other things in your life, such as family, school, and health. They listen to what it's like for you so they can understand you. They talk with you and with your parent — sometimes together, sometimes separately. They explain how they can help you. Together you decide on goals for your therapy. You have more visits with your therapist to work on your goals. In therapy visits, you might: - Talk. Therapists have people talk about their feelings. When you put your feelings into words, you learn more about yourself. When you talk through your difficult feelings, it helps you deal with them. It helps you pause instead of act on upset feelings. When you talk about your good feelings, and what's going well for you, it builds more good feelings. Therapists guide you to see how your feelings, thoughts, choices, and actions affect each other. - Learn things. Therapists teach lessons about emotions, thoughts, coping skills, facing fears, and more. Parents and caregivers may learn ways to help you too. What each person learns about in therapy depends on what they need help with. - Practice new skills. A therapist might teach skills like mindfulness, positive self-talk, and calm breathing. In your therapy visits, you'll practice the skills you learn. - Work out problems. Your therapist will ask how problems affect you at home and at school. You'll talk this through. You'll use the skills you're learning to work out problems. - Find your strengths. Therapy helps you build inner strengths like courage and confidence. It helps you see how capable you are. And that helps you feel happier in your life. How Long Do People Do Therapy? How long therapy lasts depends on your goals. Most of the time, a therapist will want to meet with you once a week for a few months. How Can You Help Yourself? If you're going to a therapist, here are things you can do to get the most out of it: - Be ready to grow. Have a positive mindset. Believe in yourself. Tell yourself, "I can" instead of, "I can't." - Practice skills you're learning in therapy. The more you practice, the more skillful you become. The skills you learn in therapy are tools for your everyday life. With practice, these skills start to come naturally to you. They're there for you when you need them. - Ask parents, teachers, and friends for support. Spend time with people you feel good around, and who bring out your best. Let them help and show they care. - Work on your strengths. Spend time doing the things you are good at. This helps you build your confidence. It helps your strengths keep growing. - Take care of your body. Get exercise every day. Eat healthy foods and drink lots of water. Get plenty of sleep. Take time to relax. These things boost your mood and your mental well-being. - Take care of your mind. Practice mindful breathing to help you be calm and focused. Practice self-talk that is positive, kind, and hopeful. The more you do this, the more it helps.
The larynx, commonly called the voice box, is a cartilage encased organ with three critical functions: - The production of sound - Maintaining an open breathing passage - Closing the airway during swallowing to prevent aspiration. Treatment of disorders of the larynx including cancer must take these functions into account. The larynx is divided into three anatomical regions or levels: - Supraglottis: Tissues above the sound producing structures - Glottis: The sound producing vocal cords - Subglottis: The area below the vocal cords but above the windpipe or trachea. Symptoms and treatment of laryngeal cancer depends to some degree on the region(s) involved. What is Laryngeal Cancer? Most cancers that arises in the larynx begin on the mucosal surface and are called squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Much less common forms of laryngeal cancers are salivary gland cancers which arise from the tiny salivary glands below the mucosa, or cancers arising from muscle, cartilage or other structural tissues (sarcomas). SCC of the larynx is associated with smoking, although the contribution of secondhand smoke and the effect of past smoking are less certain. Some cases of laryngeal cancer arise without known risk factors. What are symptoms of laryngeal cancer? Early laryngeal cancer may not have any symptoms at all. Small growths of the vocal cords may produce hoarseness or coughing, making glottic cancer more likely to be diagnosed early. Early cancer of the supraglottis (above the vocal cords) may cause pain, perhaps made worse with swallowing, and the pain may feel like it involves the ear, a phenomenon known as referred ear pain. Moderate to advanced laryngeal cancer may cause: - Difficulty or painful swallowing - Difficulty breathing - Noisy breathing - Severe hoarseness - Coughing of blood (hemoptysis) - Mass or growth in the neck Johns Hopkins Head and Neck Cancer Surgery Specialists Our head and neck surgeons and speech language pathologists take a proactive approach to cancer treatment. Meet the Johns Hopkins specialists who will work closely with you during your journey. How is laryngeal cancer diagnosed? The larynx cannot be seen by health care providers without special equipment. The larynx can be seen using a laryngeal mirror, or a fiberoptic telescope with a video camera. Cancer typically causes changes in the appearance of the mucosal lining or the symmetrical structures of the larynx that can be seen with these devices. It also may be detected using radiographic imaging including MRI, CT scan or ultrasound. When a suspicious larynx lesion is detected additional testing to confirm the diagnosis is performed by obtaining a biopsy, taking a small sample of the tissue. Because of the sensitivity of the larynx this must be done under general anesthesia in an operating room in most cases. At the same time, the surgeon can gather important information about the extent of the tumor by more thorough visualization and directly touching the tissues. A PET/CT scan or other imaging study may be done to assess the status of lymph nodes and possible spread. How is laryngeal cancer treated? Laryngeal cancer treatment is determined by the: - Type of cancer - Extent or stage of the tumor - Precise portions of the larynx involved with tumor. There are three types of treatment available for most cancers including laryngeal cancer: - Radiation therapy Early Laryngeal Cancer Early cancers (smaller tumors with minimal involvement of the larynx) may be treated successfully with just one of these types of treatment; more advanced cancers may require combined therapy using two or all three types of treatment. Selected early cancers of the vocal cords (glottis) and supraglottis (above the vocal cords) may be removed through the mouth using minimally invasive surgery such as a robot or with a laser. If you are not a candidate for surgery, alternative treatment is full course radiation therapy. Advanced Laryngeal Cancer Mid-sized cancers are often treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Very extensive cancers that have already grown beyond the cartilage walls of the voice box or have caused destruction of laryngeal function are treated with surgery followed by radiation therapy. Types of Surgery to Remove Laryngeal Cancers Head and neck surgeons use a range of surgical procedures to treat selected laryngeal cancer including approaches that preserve the three functions of the larynx. For the most extensive cases, surgery must remove the entire larynx (total laryngectomy), a procedure that separates the breathing and swallowing passages allowing safe secure breathing and resumption of a normal diet, but with a permanent breathing opening in the neck. Patients who undergo total laryngectomy can resume speech using one of several approaches such as voice prosthesis or electrolarynx. Johns Hopkins Head and Neck Cancer Surgery Johns Hopkins Head and Neck Cancer Surgery provides comprehensive surgical care and treatment for head and neck cancers. Our surgeons are at the leading edge of head and neck cancer treatment. You will benefit from the skilled care of head and neck surgeons, guiding clinical advancements in the field of head and neck cancer care.
Glomerulonephritis can be caused by various disorders, such as infections, an inherited genetic disorder, or autoimmune disorders. Diagnosis is based on tests of blood and urine and sometimes imaging tests, a biopsy of the kidneys, or both. People often need to restrict salt and protein intake and take diuretics or antibiotics until kidney function improves. (See also Overview of Kidney Filtering Disorders Overview of Kidney Filtering Disorders Each kidney contains about 1 million filtering units (glomeruli). The glomeruli are made up of many microscopic clusters of tiny blood vessels (capillaries) with small pores. These blood vessels... read more .) Glomerulonephritis can be Acute: Develops over a short time Chronic: Develops and progresses slowly In 1% of children and 10% of adults who have acute glomerulonephritis, it evolves into rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, in which most of the glomeruli are destroyed, resulting in kidney failure Overview of Kidney Failure This chapter includes a new section on COVID-19 and acute kidney injury (AKI). Kidney failure is the inability of the kidneys to adequately filter metabolic waste products from the blood. Kidney... read more . Glomerulonephritis can be Primary, originating in the kidneys Secondary, caused by a vast array of disorders The disorders that cause secondary glomerulonephritis may affect parts of the body other than the kidneys. Acute glomerulonephritis most often occurs as a complication of a throat or skin infection with streptococcus (for example, strep throat), a type of bacteria. Acute glomerulonephritis that occurs after a streptococcal infection Streptococcal Infections Streptococcal infections are caused by any one of several species of Streptococcus. These gram-positive, sphere-shaped (coccal) bacteria (see figure How Bacteria Shape Up) cause many disorders... read more (poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis) typically develops in children between the ages of 2 and 10 after recovery from the infection. Infections with other types of bacteria, such as staphylococcus and pneumococcus, viral infections, such as chickenpox Chickenpox Chickenpox is a highly contagious viral infection with the varicella-zoster virus that causes a characteristic itchy rash, consisting of small, raised, blistered, or crusted spots. Chickenpox... read more , and parasitic infections, such as malaria Malaria Malaria is infection of red blood cells with one of five species of Plasmodium, a protozoan. Malaria causes fever, chills, sweating, a general feeling of illness (malaise), and sometimes diarrhea... read more , can also result in acute glomerulonephritis. Acute glomerulonephritis that results from any of these infections is called postinfectious glomerulonephritis. Acute glomerulonephritis may also be caused by noninfectious disorders, including membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis, immunoglobulin A (IgA) nephropathy, immunoglobulin A–associated vasculitis Immunoglobulin A–Associated Vasculitis Immunoglobulin A–associated vasculitis (formerly called Henoch-Schönlein purpura) is inflammation of mainly small blood vessels that most often occurs in children. A rash of reddish purple bumps... read more , systemic lupus erythematosus Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) Systemic lupus erythematosus is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory connective tissue disorder that can involve joints, kidneys, skin, mucous membranes, and blood vessel walls. Problems in the... read more (lupus), cryoglobulinemia Cryoglobulinemia Conditions that cause an abnormal protein or an abnormal amount of certain normal proteins in the blood can cause blood vessels to become fragile. When these fragile blood vessels break, people... read more , Goodpasture syndrome Goodpasture Syndrome Goodpasture syndrome is an uncommon autoimmune disorder in which bleeding into the lungs and progressive kidney failure occur. People usually have difficulty breathing and may cough up blood... read more , and granulomatosis with polyangiitis Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis Granulomatosis with polyangiitis often begins with inflammation of small- and medium-sized blood vessels and tissues in the nose, sinuses, throat, lungs, or kidneys. The cause is unknown. The... read more . Acute glomerulonephritis that develops into rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis most often results from conditions that involve an abnormal immune reaction. Often, chronic glomerulonephritis seems to result from some of the same conditions that cause acute glomerulonephritis, such as IgA nephropathy or membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis. Sometimes, acute glomerulonephritis does not resolve and instead becomes long lasting (chronic). Occasionally, chronic glomerulonephritis is caused by hereditary nephritis Alport Syndrome Alport syndrome is a hereditary (genetic) disorder that results in glomerulonephritis in which kidney function is poor, blood is present in the urine, and deafness and eye abnormalities sometimes... read more , an inherited genetic disorder. In many people with chronic glomerulonephritis, the cause cannot be identified. About half of the people with acute glomerulonephritis have no symptoms. If symptoms do occur, the first to appear are tissue swelling (edema) due to fluid retention, low urine volume, and production of urine that is dark because it contains blood. Edema may first appear as puffiness of the face and eyelids but later is prominent in the legs. Blood pressure increases (see The Body's Control of Blood Pressure The Body's Control of Blood Pressure High blood pressure (hypertension) is persistently high pressure in the arteries. Often no cause for high blood pressure can be identified, but sometimes it occurs as a result of an underlying... read more ) as kidney function becomes impaired. Some people become drowsy or confused. In older people, nonspecific symptoms, such as nausea and a general feeling of illness (malaise), are more common. When rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis develops, weakness, fatigue, and fever are the most frequent early symptoms. Loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and joint pain are also common. About 50% of people have a flu-like illness in the month before kidney failure develops. These people have edema and usually produce very little urine. High blood pressure is uncommon and rarely severe when it does occur. Because chronic glomerulonephritis usually causes only very mild or subtle symptoms, it goes undetected for a long time in most people. Edema may occur. High blood pressure High Blood Pressure High blood pressure (hypertension) is persistently high pressure in the arteries. Often no cause for high blood pressure can be identified, but sometimes it occurs as a result of an underlying... read more is common. The disease may progress to kidney failure, which can cause itchiness, decreased appetite, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and difficulty breathing. Doctors investigate the possibility of acute glomerulonephritis in people who develop symptoms that suggest the disorder. They also investigate the possibility in people whose laboratory test results (which may be done to evaluate nonspecific symptoms or as part of a routine medical evaluation) indicate kidney dysfunction or blood in the urine. Laboratory tests show variable amounts of protein and blood cells in the urine and often kidney dysfunction, as shown by a high concentration of urea and creatinine (waste products) in the blood. In people with rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, casts (clumps of red blood cells or white blood cells) are often visible in a urine sample that is examined under a microscope. Blood tests usually detect anemia Overview of Anemia Anemia is a condition in which the number of red blood cells is low. Red blood cells contain hemoglobin, a protein that enables them to carry oxygen from the lungs and deliver it to all parts... read more . When doctors suspect glomerulonephritis, a biopsy of a kidney Tissue and Cell Sampling Site-specific biopsies and cell sampling are also used in the evaluation of people with suspected kidney and urinary tract disorders. (See also Overview of the Urinary Tract.) A kidney biopsy... read more is usually done to confirm the diagnosis, help determine the cause, and determine the amount of scarring and potential for reversibility. Kidney biopsy is done by inserting a needle in one of the kidneys under ultrasound or computed tomography (CT) guidance to obtain a small amount of kidney tissue. Although kidney biopsy is an invasive procedure and occasionally can cause complications, it is usually safe. Chronic glomerulonephritis develops gradually, and therefore, a doctor may not be able to tell exactly when it began. It may be discovered when a urine test, done as part of a medical examination, reveals the presence of protein and blood cells in the urine in a person who is feeling well, has normal kidney function, and has no symptoms. Doctors usually do an imaging test of the kidneys, such as ultrasonography or CT. A kidney biopsy is the most reliable way to distinguish chronic glomerulonephritis from other kidney disorders. A biopsy, however, is rarely done in advanced stages. In these cases, the kidneys are shrunken and scarred, and the chance of obtaining specific information about the cause is small. Doctors suspect that the kidneys are shrunken and scarred if kidney function has been poor for a long time and the kidneys appear abnormally small on an imaging test. Determining the cause of glomerulonephritis Additional tests are sometimes helpful for identifying the cause. For example, in the diagnosis of postinfectious glomerulonephritis, a throat culture may provide evidence of streptococcal infection. Blood levels of antibodies against streptococci may be higher than normal or progressively increase over several weeks. Acute glomerulonephritis that follows an infection other than strep throat is usually easier to diagnose because its symptoms often begin while the infection is still obvious. Cultures and blood tests that help identify the organisms that cause these other types of infections are sometimes needed to confirm the diagnosis. When doctors suspect an autoimmune cause for glomerulonephritis, they do blood tests for antibodies directed against some of the body's own tissues (called autoantibodies) and tests that assess the complement system, a system of proteins involved in the body's immune system. Acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis resolves completely in most cases, especially in children. About 1% of children and 10% of adults develop chronic kidney disease Chronic Kidney Disease Chronic kidney disease is a slowly progressive (months to years) decline in the kidneys’ ability to filter metabolic waste products from the blood. Major causes are diabetes and high blood pressure... read more . The prognosis for people with rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis depends on the severity of glomerular scarring and whether the underlying disease, such as infection, can be cured. In some people who are treated early (within days to weeks), kidney function is preserved and dialysis is not needed. However, because the early symptoms can be subtle and vague, most people who have rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis are not aware of the underlying disease and do not seek medical care until kidney failure develops. If treatment occurs late, the person is more likely to develop chronic kidney disease Chronic Kidney Disease Chronic kidney disease is a slowly progressive (months to years) decline in the kidneys’ ability to filter metabolic waste products from the blood. Major causes are diabetes and high blood pressure... read more with kidney failure. Because kidney failure tends to develop before people notice it, 80 to 90% of people who have rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis become dependent upon dialysis Dialysis Dialysis is an artificial process for removing waste products and excess fluids from the body, a process that is needed when the kidneys are not functioning properly. There are a number of reasons... read more . The prognosis also depends on the cause, the person's age, and any other diseases the person might have. When the cause is unknown or the person is older, the prognosis is worse. In some children and adults who do not recover completely from acute glomerulonephritis, other types of kidney disorders develop, such as asymptomatic proteinuria and hematuria syndrome Asymptomatic Proteinuria and Hematuria Syndrome Asymptomatic proteinuria and hematuria syndrome is the result of diseases of glomeruli (clusters of microscopic blood vessels in the kidneys that have small pores through which blood is filtered)... read more or nephrotic syndrome Nephrotic Syndrome Nephrotic syndrome is a disorder of the glomeruli (clusters of microscopic blood vessels in the kidneys that have small pores through which blood is filtered) in which excessive amounts of protein... read more . Other people with acute glomerulonephritis, especially older adults, often develop chronic glomerulonephritis. Treating the causative disorder For rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, suppression of the immune system For chronic glomerulonephritis, an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or an angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB) and reducing dietary sodium No specific treatment is available in most cases of acute glomerulonephritis. The disorder causing glomerulonephritis is treated when possible. Following a diet that is low in protein and sodium may be necessary until kidney function recovers. Diuretics may be prescribed to help the kidneys excrete excess sodium and water. High blood pressure needs to be treated. When a bacterial infection is suspected as the cause of acute glomerulonephritis, antibiotics are usually ineffective because the nephritis begins 1 to 6 weeks (average, 2 weeks) after the infection, which has, by then, usually resolved. However, if a bacterial infection is still present when acute glomerulonephritis is discovered, antibiotic therapy is started. Antimalarial drugs may be beneficial if glomerulonephritis is caused by malaria. Some autoimmune disorders that cause glomerulonephritis are treated with corticosteroids, drugs that suppress the immune system, or both. Rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis For rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, drugs to suppress the immune system are started promptly. High doses of corticosteroids are usually given intravenously for about a week, followed by a variable period of time when they are taken by mouth. Cyclophosphamide, an immunosuppressant, may also be given. In addition, plasma exchange is sometimes used to remove antibodies from the blood. The sooner treatment occurs, the less likely are kidney failure and the need for dialysis. Kidney transplantation Kidney Transplantation Kidney transplantation is the removal of a healthy kidney from a living or recently deceased person and then its transfer into a person with end-stage kidney failure. (See also Overview of Transplantation... read more is sometimes considered for people who develop chronic kidney disease with kidney failure, but rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis may recur in the transplanted kidney. Taking either an ACE inhibitor or an ARB often slows progression of chronic glomerulonephritis and tends to reduce blood pressure and the excretion of protein in the urine. Reducing blood pressure and sodium intake are considered beneficial. Restricting the amount of protein in the diet is modestly helpful in reducing the rate of kidney deterioration. End-stage kidney failure can be treated with dialysis Dialysis Dialysis is an artificial process for removing waste products and excess fluids from the body, a process that is needed when the kidneys are not functioning properly. There are a number of reasons... read more or a kidney transplant Kidney Transplantation Kidney transplantation is the removal of a healthy kidney from a living or recently deceased person and then its transfer into a person with end-stage kidney failure. (See also Overview of Transplantation... read more . The following are some English-language resources that may be useful. Please note that THE MANUAL is not responsible for the content of these resources. American Kidney Fund, Glomerulonephritis: General information on glomerulonephritis, including answers to frequently asked questions National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), Glomerular Diseases: General information on glomerular diseases, including the roles of glomeruli in normal kidney function, chronic kidney disease, and nephrotic syndrome
You have no doubt heard and used the terms “social skills” and “pragmatics”, but what is the difference between the two? Most people use these terms interchangeably, but they don’t have the exact same definition! Pragmatics is one component of social communication skills, alongside social interaction, social cognition, and language processing as shown in my infographic below and as outlined by ASHA. This infographic is available for free download. Download it in the speech therapy freebie section! What are Social Skills? Social skills is a loose, umbrella term for all aspects of beings able to communicate effectively, clearly, and positively with others in social situations. This may include changing your language depending on who you’re talking to, for example, a child versus an adult or someone who already understands the topic versus someone who needs more basic information. Or it may be picking up cues to understand what isn’t explicitly said, taking someone else’s perspective, or following the “rules” of a conversation and storytelling. Social communication includes social interaction, social cognition, pragmatics, and language processing. What are Pragmatics? Pragmatic language refers to the social skills used in daily interactions, in both verbal and nonverbal communication. This includes body language, facial expressions, gestures, communicative intent, and topic maintenance. In short, it means knowing what to say, when to say it, and how to say it: - Speech acts (requests, comments, promises, directives, etc.) - Communicative intentions (expressing intentions through verbal and nonverbal means) - Prosody (rhythm, stress & intonation of speech) - Perlocutionary/illocutionary/locutionary acts - Grice’s maxims of conversation - Quantity (be informative, given as much info as needed & not more) - Quality (be truthful) - Relation (be relevant) - Manner (be orderly & clear) - Style (conversation, expository, narration, etc.) - Interaction & transaction - Cohesion & coherence - Responsiveness & assertiveness - Topic maintenance (selecting & staying on topic) - Social reciprocity (turn taking, initiating & responding to bids for interaction) - Event knowledge - Co-construction of meaning - Deictic expressions - Communication breakdown & repair - Contingency & adjacency - Body language (positioning & posture) - Facial Expressions - Eye Contact - Proxemics (respecting personal space) Social communication skills are a major part of what we target in speech therapy. With that in mind, I’ve rounded up some helpful links to get you started: You may be interested in downloading these free social skills lists! Do you have any favorite strategies for targeting pragmatic language?
The Importance of Vitamin C in Guinea Pigs Guinea pigs must take vitamin C because they cannot synthesize it in their bodies. Therefore, it is imperative that these animals be fed a vitamin C- rich diet that will allow them to meet their nutritional needs and prevent the onset of hypovitaminosis or other diseases. A daily supply of vitamin C is obtained by adding raw, vitamin C- rich vegetables to the diet, but occasionally it may be necessary to add vitamin supplements or complexes. In this AnimalWised article, we discuss the importance of vitamin C in guinea pigs, the foods that contain it, and the doses necessary to meet your guinea pig's nutritional needs. What is vitamin C? Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin that is necessary for the synthesis and repair of collagen, which is a primary component of bones, ligaments, and tendons.Humans, primates, bats and guinea pigs lack the necessary mechanisms to synthesize this vitamin. The rest of mammals can synthesize it naturally in the liver. Importance of vitamin C for guinea pigs The importance of vitamin C for guinea pigs lies in their inability to synthesize it endogenously. The specific cause that makes the guinea pig's body unable to synthesize vitamin C is the absence of L-gluconolactone oxidase, an enzyme responsible for synthesizing the vitamin from glucose. Vitamin C is crucial for the normal development and maintenance of the skin, joints, and mucosal surfaces, such as the gums. It also plays a crucial role in wound healing. Vitamin C deficiency increases the risk of infection and skin problems in guinea pigs, among many other health problems. Vitamin C dosage for guinea pigs On average, Guinea pigs require between 5 and 30 mg of vitamin C per kg of body weight per day. However, pregnant, nursing, young, and ill guinea pigs may need more: - In pregnant or lactating females: The requirement is 30-40 mg per kg body weight per day. - In sick animals with vitamin C deficiency: The requirement is 60-100 mg per kg body weight per day. Here's more information about how to properly care for a pregnant guinea pig. What foods have vitamin C for guinea pigs? The easiest way to meet the vitamin C needs of guinea pigs is to add raw vegetables rich in vitamin C to their diet. Keep in mind that greens, vegetables and fruits should be introduced gradually to avoid digestive upset. - Bell peppers: among vegetables with the highest concentration of vitamin C, green bell peppers have the highest content, although red bell peppers are also a good source. Greens, vegetables and fruits should be introduced gradually to avoid digestive upset. - Green carrot leaves. - Fruits: such as strawberries or kiwi. Remember that overfeeding these fruits, which are high in sugar, can cause an imbalance of gut bacteria and lead to serious digestive problems. - Citrus fruits: such as oranges or tangerines. Although they are a good source of vitamin C, the citric acid found in these fruits can cause inflammation in the corners of the lips. You should only provide small doses of these fruits occasionally as a treat. If you have ever wondered if it is safe for guinea pigs to eat bread, don't miss our article on can guinea pigs eat bread? How to give vitamin C to your guinea pig? Pigs develop food preferences early in life and have difficulty adapting to changes in the type, appearance, or presentation of food. Any sudden change in diet may result in food refusal. There are several ways to provide vitamin C to guinea pigs. Let us take a look at some of them: - Fresh vegetables that contain vitamin C: Fruits and vegetables should be washed, dried and served at room temperature. - Commercial food: guinea pig pellets and mixes are usually fortified with vitamin C. Since vitamin C is a compound that decomposes easily, it is important that you follow the storage conditions indicated on the packaging and observe the expiration date. - Vitamin C preparations or vitamin complexes: Vitamin C preparations for guinea pigs are usually effervescent tablets or drops added to drinking water. You can also find vitamin complexes formulated specifically for guinea pigs that combine a variety of vitamins. Guinea pigs get the most vitamin C by eating raw vegetables with vitamin C and food containing vitamin C. Preparations or vitamin complexes have the following disadvantages. - Need for exact dosage: they require precise and accurate calculation of the product. - Source of stress: some preparations require manipulating the guinea pig to administer the vitamin, which can be stressful for the animal. - Rejection of water consumption: Diluted products in drinking water may change the taste or smell of the water, causing some guinea pigs to reject the water. In addition, the vitamin in the water is rapidly degraded and loses its effectiveness. - Decreased effectiveness: Factors such as light, plastic, glass and metals can oxidize the active ingredient. Be sure to use up or replace your guinea pig pellets within 90 days of the manufacture date or the vitamin C may degrade. Store the pellets in a dark, cool place to preserve the vitamin C. All of these reasons suggest that vitamin C supplementation with guinea pig food is preferable to vitamin supplements or complexes, unless prescribed by a veterinarian. If you wish to know more information about what kind of fruits and vegetables you should give to your guinea pig in order to keep their diet balanced, don't miss our article on what fruits and vegetables are good for guinea pigs? Vitamin C deficiency in guinea pigs Scurvy in guinea pigs is caused by an insufficient supply of vitamin C. This deficiency can be caused by periods of prolonged fasting or by consuming diets that are deficient in this vitamin. The clinical signs associated with a lack of vitamin C in guinea pigs are: - Loss of weigh. - Anemia and generalized hemorrhage. - Poor wound healing. - Rough hair coat. - Decreased immune response. - Nasal discharge. - Hemorrhages and ulcers on its gums. - Dentin changes and mobile teeth. - Musculoskeletal disorders in neonates. - Enlargement of costochondral junctions and epiphyses of long bones at radiological level. - Reluctance to walk or move. If you notice any of these symptoms your guinea pig should be seen by your veterinarian as soon as possible. The most common diagnosis is based on a change in diet and oral vitamin C supplementation. In addition, it may be necessary to establish a symptomatic treatment based on the animal's symptoms. Keep reading if you want to find more information about what to do in case your guinea pig has diarrhea. If you want to read similar articles to The Importance of Vitamin C in Guinea Pigs, we recommend you visit our Diet problems category. - Association of Spanish Veterinarians Specialists in Small Animals (AVEPA). (2012). The essential small mammal clinic for general veterinarians . - National Research Council (US) Subcommittee on Laboratory Animal Nutrition. (nineteen ninety five). Nutrient Requirements of Guinea Pig . National Academies Press.
- 1 How does Earth experience day and night? - 2 When the whole Earth experiences equal day and night it is? - 3 Why Earth has day and night and why it has different seasons? - 4 Why is it day on one side of the Earth and night on the other? - 5 Why is a day on Earth 24 hours? - 6 What would happen if the Earth stopped rotating? - 7 What day has 12 hours of daylight? - 8 How much of the earth is always in sunlight? - 9 Which City Has Longest Day in India Ncert? - 10 Is Earth moving away from the sun? - 11 What is the main cause of the seasons? - 12 Why does it get dark? - 13 Which country has 40 minutes night? - 14 What country is always dark? - 15 Which country has no night? How does Earth experience day and night? We have day and night because the Earth rotates. It spins on its axis, which is an imaginary line passing through the North and South Poles. The Earth spins slowly all the time, but we don’t feel any movement because it turns smoothly and at the same speed. When the whole Earth experiences equal day and night it is? On 21st March and September 23rd, direct rays of the sun fall on the equator. At this position, neither of the poles is tilted towards the sun; so, the whole earth experiences equal days and equal nights. This is called an equinox. Why Earth has day and night and why it has different seasons? Earth’s axis is an imaginary pole going right through the center of Earth from “top” to “bottom.” Earth spins around this pole, making one complete turn each day. That is why we have day and night, and why every part of Earth’s surface gets some of each. Earth has seasons because its axis doesn’t stand up straight. Why is it day on one side of the Earth and night on the other? Only half of the globe is facing the Sun at any one time, but because the Earth rotates in 24 hours all of the Earth has faced the Sun during this time. In the part lit by the Sun, it is day. The other side of the globe is in the shadow and does not receive the light of the Sun. In this part of the Earth, it is night. Why is a day on Earth 24 hours? This is why our day is longer than 23 hours and 56 minutes, which is the time required to spin a full 360 degrees. Owing to its revolution around the Sun, the Earth must rotate approximately 361° to mark a solar day. That extra rotation takes 235.91 seconds, which is why our solar day is 24 hours on average. What would happen if the Earth stopped rotating? At the Equator, the earth’s rotational motion is at its fastest, about a thousand miles an hour. If that motion suddenly stopped, the momentum would send things flying eastward. Moving rocks and oceans would trigger earthquakes and tsunamis. The still-moving atmosphere would scour landscapes. What day has 12 hours of daylight? September Equinox (Approximately September 22-23) The September equinox marks the beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. There are 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness at all points on the earth’s surface on the two equinoxes. How much of the earth is always in sunlight? Because the radius of the Sun is larger, more than 50% of the Earth’s surface is illuminated by the Sun’s surface. There are some simple approximations which can get you close to the right value. Which City Has Longest Day in India Ncert? CHANDIGARH: Every year, we encounter the summer solstice around June 21. Summer is here and the sun seems to have climbed higher up in the sky than at other times. In Chandigarh, on June 21, sunrise will be at 5.20 am and sunset at 7.28 pm. Is Earth moving away from the sun? We are not getting closer to the sun, but scientists have shown that the distance between the sun and the Earth is changing. The rate at which the sun is slowing is also tiny (around 3 milliseconds every 100 years). As the sun loses its momentum and mass, the Earth can slowly slip away from the sun’s pull. What is the main cause of the seasons? As the earth spins on its axis, producing night and day, it also moves about the sun in an elliptical (elongated circle) orbit that requires about 365 1/4 days to complete. The earth’s spin axis is tilted with respect to its orbital plane. This is what causes the seasons. Why does it get dark? The sun’s light pours outward to illuminate every portion of our solar system so that the space around the sun is almost entirely flooded with light. But there are dark places. These are in the shadows of planets, moons and other objects in orbit around the sun. And it’s these shadows that create night. Which country has 40 minutes night? The 40-minute night in Norway takes place in June 21 situation. At this time, the entire part of the earth from 66 degree north latitude to 90 degree north latitude remains under sunlight and this the reason why the sun sets for only 40 minutes. Hammerfest is a very beautiful place. What country is always dark? Located over 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Tromsø, Norway, is home to extreme light variation between seasons. During the Polar Night, which lasts from November to January, the sun doesn’t rise at all. Then the days get progressively longer until the Midnight Sun period, from May to July, when it never sets. Which country has no night? In Svalbard, Norway, which is the northern-most inhabited region of Europe, the sun shines continuously from April 10 to August 23. Visit the region and live for days, for there is no night. Don’t forget to get a peek of the northern lights when visiting.
As in many other fields, in sports too, women were latecomers and considered as the ‘other sex’ – at least until the twenty-first century. When sport developed in its modern forms towards the second half of the nineteenth century, women were (and to a certain degree still are) considered too weak to participate in strenuous physical activities, and were thus excluded from various sports, competitions and events. Although they gradually gained access to all sports, competitive sport was – and is still today – one of the few areas in modern societies with strict gender segregation: in most sports, men do not compete against women and playing sport is always ‘doing gender’. Yet, in many epochs and in many regions of the world, there were female ‘rebels’ who did not comply with the ideals, norms and rules that contributed to women’s marginalization. Who were these women, what were their aims and motivations, which strategies did they apply and how did they fight and win their battles against the gender order of their time? The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Sport in Society. Table of Contents Susanna Hedenborg and Gertrud Pfister 1. The shady past of female boxers – what case studies in the USA reveal Gertrud Pfister and Gerald Gems 2. Christl Cranz, Germany’s ski icon of the 1930s: the Nazis’ image of the ideal German woman? Annette R. Hofmann 3. Lis Hartel – an extraordinary equestrian 4. Ewy Rosqvist, rally queen: gender, identity and car racing at the beginning of the 1960s 5. Wanda Rutkiewicz – crossing boundaries in women’s mountaineering 6. ‘It’s not how you look; it’s what you do.’ Western Canadian Barrel Racers, Rodeo Legitimacy and Femininity Desirea Weninger and Christine Dallaire Susanna Hedenborg is Professor in Sport Science, Malmö University, Sweden. Gertrud Pfister is Professor Emeritus of Sport, Individual & Society, Copenhagen University, Denmark
What is it made from? The Romans named the planet Mars after their god of war because its colour reminded them of the blood shed on the battlefield. Mars, like blood, derives its red colour from oxidised iron. Haemoglobin carries oxygen bound to iron in the blood, whereas dust, soil and rock rich in oxidised iron give Mars its reddish hue. If you look at Mars through an Earth-bound telescope - or take a glance at some Hubble Space Telescope pictures of the planet - you'll notice that some areas are brighter than others. By looking at the wavelength of sunlight absorbed and re-emitted by different areas, astronomers have known for some time that the difference in brightness coincides with differences in the way in which iron is bound up in the surface materials. Bright areas are rich in heavily oxidised iron minerals and dark areas contain unoxidised iron bearing minerals. Dust is a smokescreen Appearances, however, can be deceptive - and Mars is no exception. The nature of the surface seen from a distance reveals little about the composition of the underlying rock because the planet is covered with dust, the product of billions of years of erosion by the Martian wind. In some places, rock is exposed, but in others wind-blown dust has masked underlying features. Near the north pole, for example, the dust has been blown into dunes. Our knowledge of the composition of the underlying Martian surface took a leap forward in 1997 when NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft landed in the Xanthe Terra region of the northern hemisphere. On board Sojourner, Pathfinder's small rover, was the first instrument to land on Mars capable of analysing soil and rocks in situ. ALH84001, the famous martian meteorite that is made from 'mafic' type rock. "Before the Pathfinder mission there was a general consensus that the Martian surface is very mafic (made from volcanic lava) like the Martian meteorites. But the first measurements by Pathfinder showed that the rocks are felsic (containing the whitish mineral feldspar), rather like the Earth's continental crust," says Heinrich Wänke, from the Max Planck Insitut für Chemie, Mainz, the institute where the APX-spectrometer on board Sojourner was designed and built. Mafic rocks are high in magnesium and iron and are thought to derive from pristine mantle material; felsic rocks are rich in silicates, potassium and sulphur but low in magnesium and are thought to derive from rock that has undergone subsequent processing since the planet's formation. Two types of rock emerge Taking into account evidence from the Martian meteorites, Pathfinder and observations from orbiting spacecraft, planetary scientists have deduced that the low lying plains in the northern hemisphere are felsic and the ancient highlands in the southern hemisphere are mainly mafic in composition. This division corresponds well with a relatively recent volcanic origin for the northern lowlands and the existence of an ancient, primordial crust in the south. Recent spectral analyses of light reflected from Martian soil and dust reveals that it is made from a mixture of small grains of the two types of rock roughly in proportion to their prevalence in the underlying surface. Space missions so far have given us the general picture. The next step is to map the surface composition of Mars with far greater accuracy. "We want to know the iron content of the surface, the oxidation level of the iron, the hydration of the rocks and clay minerals, the types of silicates present and the abundance of non-silicate materials such as carbonates and nitrates," says Jean-Pierre Bibring from the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Orsay, France, who is Principal Investigator for the Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (OMEGA), which flies on board Mars Express. OMEGA with the help of two other Mars Express instruments, the HRSC and MARSIS, will map the composition of the Martian surface to this level of detail. Morphology & Erosion Discharge rates have been estimated at 10 000 times the average discharge of the Earth's largest rivers, such as the Mississippi, and 100 times the peak discharge of the largest known flood on Earth. This occurred in the Scablands region of the north-west US about 10 000 years ago when a dam made from ice melted suddenly to release a vast amount of water from Lake Missoula. "The resemblance between the Lake Missoula floods and the Martian outflow channels is quite striking," according to Michael Carr from the US Geological Survey in his book 'Water on Mars'. Some outflow channels, such as those to the east of the Valles Marineris, seem to have occurred, like the flood in the Scablands, when the containment around a lake was breached suddenly. But others emerge from regions where the ground seems to have collapsed downwards leaving a jumble of large blocks of rock. "These areas of chaotic terrain are the source of many of the outflow channels. They are huge collapsed fissures in the ground, which are much bigger than comparable features on Earth" says Costard. Vast volumes of fast flowing fluid created streamlined islands like these in the Chryse Basin. Comparison with similar features on Earth, is revealing. Areas of chaotic terrain in Siberia formed when ice filling the spaces in the upper layer of rock and soil melted suddenly, causing the rock to fracture and collapse. On Mars, the ground ice must have trapped a large quantity of water in an underground aquifer at very high pressure. The water would have been released when the ground ice melted suddenly, perhaps when the temperature of the atmosphere increased. But a warm climate isn't essential. Other, more likely mechanisms are the heat generated by an impact, volcanic eruption or sudden underground heating of the aquifer. Several of these mechanisms may account for different floods, which seem to have occurred episodically over a span of more than 2 billion years. "Events occurring before 3.8 billion years ago didn't involve ground ice. But after that time, ground ice became important" says Costard. 'Water on Mars', Michael H. Carr, 1996, Oxford University Clues to climate history In 1666, Gian Domenico Cassini, the Italian-French astronomer, first observed how the white poles of Mars wax and wane with the planet's seasons. He assumed they were covered by water ice like the Earth's poles. Now we know that frozen carbon dioxide is also present and that an unusual area of what is called "layered terrain" surrounds both poles. The two poles, though, are far from identical. The residual cap at the north pole - the cap left in summer after the winter deposits have melted - is larger than that in the south, but the area of layered terrain is smaller. Sand dune fields, which surround the layered terrain at both poles, are more extensive in the north. The north residual cap consists almost entirely of water ice, whereas frozen carbon dioxide seems to predominate in the south. During winter, both poles expand enormously in surface area and consist of frozen water and carbon dioxide. The polar layered terrains are thought to hold the key to understanding Mars's climate history. "At the south and north pole, the layers are a few tens or hundreds of metres thick. And it's quite evident that they alternate - light and dark. This layering is due to wind blown debris and sedimentation for sure," says Gian Gabriele Ori from the Universita d'Annunzio, Pescara, Italy and a Co-Investigator on the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera. Each season, freezing water and carbon dioxide trap wind blown dust and other debris at the poles. Gradually, layers are built up that preserve a record of water, carbon dioxide and dust over timescales ranging from seasonal to millions of years. Both polar regions are considerably higher than the surrounding areas, lending support to the notion that they are made of layered terrain deposited over aeons. The extension of the layered terrains beyond the present residual polar caps suggests that the poles have moved over time, which is not surprising as the inclination of Mars's axis of rotation varies cyclically over thousands of years. Cyclical variations in the shape of Mars's orbit around the Sun also affect the climate, which influences the growth of layered deposits. "No-one knows why the layered terrain in the south is larger than in the north," says Ori. "But if an ocean was once present in the northern hemisphere, it could have limited the extent of the polar deposits there." Another piece of circumstantial evidence for an ocean is the extensive sand dune field around the northern layered terrain. "Sand is a component of the sediment on the ocean floor. The fact that there is a lot of sand in the north is supporting evidence for an ocean there at some time," says Ori. These uncertainties will be resolved only when better data is returned on the topography and physical appearance of the polar regions. Mars Global Surveyor has been sending back the data since the late 1990s and now the OMEGA and HRSC instruments on Mars Express are helping to build up an even clearer picture.
A warrior is a person habitually engaged in combat. In tribal societies, warriors often form a caste or class of their own. In feudalism, the vassals essentially form a military or warrior class, even if in actual warfare, peasants may be called to fight as well. In some societies, warfare may be so central that the entire people (or, more often, the male population) may be considered warriors, for example the Maori or Germanic tribes. A pre-modern soldier is also called a warrior. The word warrior implies one who is not part of a full-time army. Without strict hierarchial discipline constantly being imposed on them, warriors in pre-modern societies were often guided by societal warrior codes. Professional warriors are people who are paid money for engaging in military campaigns and fall into one of two categories: Soldiers; when fighting on behalf of their own state, or Mercenaries; when offering their services commercially and unrelated to their own nationality. The classification of somebody who is involved in acts of violence may be a matter of perspective, and there may be disagreement whether a given person is a hooligan, a gangster, a terrorist, a rebel, a freedom fighter, a mercenary or a soldier.
Definitions for capitonym This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word capitonym A word that changes sound and meaning when the case is changed; a case-sensitive word. Origin: capital + -onym A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning when it is capitalized; the capitalization usually applies due to one form being a proper noun or eponym. It is a portmanteau of the word capital with the suffix -onym. A capitonym is a form of homograph and – when the two forms are pronounced differently – also of heteronym. In situations where both words should be capitalized, there will be nothing to distinguish between them except the context in which they are used. Although some pairs, such as march and March, are completely unrelated, in other cases, such as august and catholic, the capitalized form is a name that is etymologically related to the uncapitalized form. For example, August derives from the name of Imperator Augustus, who named himself after the word augustus, whence English august came. Likewise, both Catholic and catholic derive from a Greek adjective meaning "universal". Capital letters may be used to differentiate between a set of objects, and a particular example of that object. For instance in Astronomical terminology a distinction may be drawn between a moon, any natural satellite, and the Moon, to be specific the natural satellite of Earth. Likewise, Sun with a capital may be used to emphasise that the sun of Earth is under discussion. Find a translation for the capitonym definition in other languages: Select another language:
Ancient Venus may have been habitable, according to a new NASA study that suggests that the planet had a shallow liquid-water ocean and cooler surface temperatures for up to 2 billion years of its early history. The findings were obtained with a computer model of the planet’s ancient climate, similar to the type used to predict future climate change on Earth. Venus today has a carbon dioxide atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth’s. There is almost no water vapour. Temperatures reach 462 degrees Celsius at its surface, researchers said. Scientists long have theorised that Venus formed out of ingredients similar to Earth’s, but followed a different evolutionary path. Measurements by NASA’s Pioneer mission to Venus in the 1980s first suggested Venus originally may have had an ocean. However, since Venus is closer to the Sun than Earth and receives far more sunlight, the planet’s ocean evaporated, water-vapour molecules were broken apart by ultraviolet radiation, and hydrogen escaped to space. With no water left on the surface, carbon dioxide built up in the atmosphere, leading to a so-called runaway greenhouse effect that created present conditions. Until recently, it was assumed that a thick atmosphere like that of modern Venus was required for the planet to have today’s slow rotation rate. However, newer research has shown that a thin atmosphere like that of modern Earth could have produced the same result. That means an ancient Venus with an Earth-like atmosphere could have had the same rotation rate it has today. The GISS team postulated ancient Venus had more dry land overall than Earth, especially in the tropics. That limits the amount of water evaporated from the oceans and, as a result, the greenhouse effect by water vapour. This type of surface appears ideal for making a planet habitable; there seems to have been enough water to support abundant life, with sufficient land to reduce the planet’s sensitivity to changes from incoming sunlight. Researchers simulated conditions of a hypothetical early Venus with an atmosphere similar to Earth’s, a day as long as Venus’ current day, and a shallow ocean consistent with early data from the Pioneer spacecraft. “Venus’ slow spin exposes its dayside to the Sun for almost two months at a time,” co—author and fellow GISS scientist Anthony Del Genio said. “This warms the surface and produces rain that creates a thick layer of clouds, which acts like an umbrella to shield the surface from much of the solar heating,” Del Genio said. “The result is mean climate temperatures that are actually a few degrees cooler than Earth’s today,” he said. The research appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Latest posts by Sebastien Clarke (see all) - New Shepard sets reusability mark on latest suborbital spaceflight - December 12, 2019 - How NASA’s Next Mars Rover Will Hunt for Alien Life - December 11, 2019 - Blue Origin Will Launch (and Land) a Reusable Spacecraft Today. Watch It Live - December 10, 2019
During World War II, the demands of war drove a sharp increase in aviation innovation. Between 1939 and 1945, more aircraft were produced by the world’s air forces than in any other period before or since (total production from 1940-1945 is estimated at over 295,000 aircraft. Compare that to today, where only a few thousand are produced worldwide every year). Not all of these innovative aircraft were considered a success, however. The number manufactured included some obscure experimental aircraft that were eventually deemed unsuitable for combat. Here are a few of these intriguing and often overlooked aircraft developed in WWII. The Blackburn B-20 was built in 1940 in an attempt to combine the features of a floatplane and flying boat. It featured a large float under the fuselage and two smaller floats near the wings, which folded into the plane during flight. This feature gave the B-20 much more speed than other flying boats. However, during a test flight, the prototype was unsuccessful. While production soon ended for the B-20, you can still see what remains of the aircraft on exhibit in the Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum. Flettner FI-282 Kolibri Known as the “Hummingbird,” the FI-282 was designed by Anton Flettner for the Luftwaffe. While Germany experimented with helicopters for years, the FI-282 was the first generation of helicopters to be mass-produced. Flettner designed the helicopter to have intermeshing rotors with crossing blades, allowing the F1-282 to fly without needing a tail rotor. After the war, Flettner immigrated to the U.S., where he designed helicopters for the U.S. Air Force. Ryan FR Fireball The Fireball was the Navy’s first jet fighter, and was equipped with an unusual power system, a propeller in the front and a jet engine in the rear. During takeoff and landing, the Fireball’s pilots used its propeller engine and reserved the jet engine for when they needed an extra boost of speed. Ryan only produced 66 Fireballs because the fighter was deemed too slow for carrier operations, even with the jet engine. Vought V-173 “Flying Pancake” The aptly named “Flying Pancake” was a flat, disc-shaped aircraft powered by two piston engines that drove propellers on either side of the wingtips. With a wingspan of 23 feet, the V-173 could take off at low speeds and land in small spaces. The aircraft was so peculiarly shaped that it was often mistaken for a UFO during test flights. Only one V-173 was ever manufactured. F-82 Twin Mustang During World War II, a need arose for a long-range fighter to escort the Boeing B-29 Superfortress on bombing missions. The U.S. Air Force met this demand by joining two lightweight airframes together to create a twin fuselage fighter. The F-82 holds the record for the longest nonstop flight ever made by a propeller-driven fighter for its flight from Hawaii to New York without stopping to refuel. Although the war ended before the Twin Mustang could be mass-produced, it later served in the Korean War.
Throughout the world, in countries rich and poor, people have no access to basic physical and mental healthcare nor to immunizations from infectious disease. Some people have no access because they lack the resources to buy and the state does not provide it. Others may be able to afford healthcare but because there are no services available in their communities they must do without it. In some countries because of discrimination or social stigmas such as a person¡¦s status as a prisoner, refugee, immigrant or a member of a lower class or caste they are deprived of this basic human right. However all people should have access to affordable universal healthcare. In a nation ...view middle of the document... The link is direct in the case of other basic social and economic human rights such as the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself, and one¡¦s family. Nevertheless, poverty and lack of health protection are indirectly linked to failures to secure civil rights. Some of the realizations of other human rights are not possible if an individual cannot maintain his/her own health. Most crucial health needs includes the prevention of stillbirths and infant mortality; the improvement of environmental and industrial hygiene, the prevention treatment, and control of diseases, with the provision of medical care to the sick. Health and human rights are interconnected and the effects of violations of dignity and physical integrity on health (mental or otherwise) are as crucial as the effects of poor health on dignity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognizes that ¡§The right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.¡¨ Governments have obligations to respect, protect and fulfill the right to health as well as other human rights. Health is central to the person the state¡¦s commitment to the health of the population is a fundamental right; This is why today¡¦s Healthcare is believed to be the Fourth Inalienable Human Right. Healthcare is further defined as ¡§all those activities intended to sustain, promote, and enhance health.¡¨ A few questions that are being raised in the local and state governments as well as governments abroad are: should all people have access to healthcare and should varying social factors affect our ability to receive healthcare? It is amazing that even in this century the government has no idea as to what we should do in regards to healthcare who should receive and why they should receive, and how much they should receive it we deem them worthy to receive it. According to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and estimated 42.6 million Americans are medically uninsured ; there is no estimated count for those who are in the United States illegally, of the 42.6 million approximately 25% are children. Children are less likely to be uninsured especially if they reside with adults (parents or guardians) who are uninsured, because of social factors such as their attitudes towards healthcare. It seems that there is a percentage of people who fall within a social class who don¡¦t see the need to have healthcare until something happens, likewise there are those who want healthcare for themselves and their children but cannot afford the cost; but would have it if it were affordable or the government provided it. A survey was conducted in 2003 as to whether or not it should be the government¡¦s full responsibility to provide healthcare in the United States, of 31,773 respondents; 38% stated the government...
In the quant section of the GMAT, there are a fair number of formulae to know in order to answer the ensemble of questions that may be asked of you. Most of them are covered in any basic test prep material, but a formula is always just a short hand version of a much longer manual process. There is an anecdote about a primary school teacher who wanted to keep a misbehaved child busy for a period, so she asked him to sum up all the numbers from 1 to 100. To her dismay, the child answered the question in a matter of seconds, and the answer was correct. The child explained to his teacher that, instead of simply adding 1+2+3…, you could create a pairwise addition that would always yield the same number. If you added 1 to 100, you would get 101. If you added 2 to 99, you would still get 101. If you added 3 to 98, you’d still get 101, and so on. Thus the addition of 100 different numbers could be turned into a multiplication of two simple numbers: 101 x 50. The student in question was mathematical prodigy Carl Friedrich Gauss. Now such brilliance is hard to see the first time, but easy to transform into a formula once it has been discovered. Why did this shortcut method work? Quite simply, because the numbers are in arithmetic progression, which is to say, the spacing between each number is a constant. This allows the mean to be equal to the median, and the median is a very easy number to calculate. In an odd numbered set, it is the middle term. In an even numbered set, it is the average of the two middle terms. Thus, from 1 to 100, the median is the average of 50 and 51, or 50.5. Multiplying this number by the number of terms gives us 50.5 x 100, or 5,050. Had we asked for the sum of all numbers from 0 to 100, we’d have a median (and average) of exactly 50, and 101 terms. This is the same equation that Gauss used, and obviously yields the same result as 1 to 100 since we’re only adding the term 0. In general, the formula is going to be the Mean x Number of terms. There are two possible caveats with this formula, the first is in calculating the number of terms quickly, and the second is in taking into account calculations where the frequency might come into play. Let’s demonstrate this with a (real life) GMAT question: What is the sum of all even integers from 650 to 750, inclusive? This question can appear daunting if you don’t know how to approach such problems, so let’s delve into the mathematics of how to solve it (without taking a wild Gauss). First, let’s consider what would happen if we dropped the word “even” from the question. We’d want all the integers from 650 to 750. In this arithmetic progression, the median would be 700, and thus so would the mean. The number of terms is easiest to consider as (Biggest – Smallest) + 1. This is because we have to account for both end points. Consider the number of terms from 50 to 60. We’d have 11 terms (you may want to count using fingers and toes). The total would thus be Mean (700) x number of terms (101), which would equal 70,700. This is the trap answer E because we discounted the word “even”, and clearly 70,000 is the same trap but without the +1 extra term (650 to 749, in effect). It thus has to be either A, B or C, but which one? The issue of missing terms is addressed by simply dividing by the frequency. In this case, even numbers account for ½ of the total numbers, so we’ll have to divide by 2. The only other issue is to determine where the endpoints must lie. 650 is even, and so is 750, so we don’t need to change anything except the frequency, which becomes: Mean (700) x number of terms ((100/2) + 1). The extra term always needs to be added back in, so in effect we have 700 x 51, or 35,700. The correct answer is C. B is the trap answer in case we overlooked the +1 at the end. For completion’s sake, let’s examine what would happen had the question asked us for only the odd numbers. The same average would still exist, but the number of terms would now be (biggest-smallest/2) +1, which is ((749-651)/2) +1 = (98/2) +1 = 49+1, or exactly 50. Thus the sum of all the odd numbers from 650 to 750 is 35,000. This jives with our calculations of the even numbers summing to 35,700 and the total of all numbers being 70,700. Given an infinite amount of time and a calculator (or abacus), you could easily find the answers to these questions without a general case formula. However, since you have about 2 minutes to read the question, accomplish all required calculations and lock in an answer choice, you are best served to have the formulae memorized or a strong notion of how to calculate the answer using the information provided. The GMAT is an exam about how you think more than what you know, but you don’t have to be Gauss if you’re well prepared for questions you expect to see. Ron Awad is a GMAT instructor for Veritas Prep based in Montreal, bringing you occasional tips and tricks for success on your exam. After graduating from McGill and receiving his MBA from Concordia, Ron started teaching GMAT prep and his Veritas Prep students have given him rave reviews ever since.
Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to demonstrate that the earth orbited the sun, upsetting the prevailing notion that the earth was the center of the cosmos. But the Polish astronomer died in obscurity in 1543 and was buried in an unmarked grave. Five centuries later, archaeologists say they have located his long-sought resting place, under the marble floor tiles of a church. In a sense, the search for Copernicus’ grave always led down the narrow cobblestone road into Frombork, a sleepy Polish town of about 2,500 on the Baltic coast where Copernicus lived and worked. The Frombork Cathedral, atop one of the region’s few hills, has red brick walls and a simple design. Towers built into the surrounding defensive walls, testaments to centuries of border conflicts, rise almost as high as the church, commanding a view of the town below, the Baltic Sea and sometimes a sliver of Russia ten miles to the north. A Communist-era sign with rusting planetary orbs proclaims Frombork’s former resident. Mikolaj Kopernik (he later used the Latinized version of his name) was born in 1473 in Torun, in eastern Poland, to a comfortable merchant family. When his father died ten years later, the boy’s uncle, a bishop, oversaw his wide-ranging education, sending him to elite universities in Krakow, Bologna and Padua to prepare him for a career in the church. In 1503, after establishing himself as a respected astronomer, Copernicus returned to Poland to work for his uncle, who found him a job as a church administrator and lawyer in Frombork. (Then, as now, it was easier to study astronomy as a hobby than to make a living at it.) From his rooms in a brick tower a few hundred feet from the cathedral’s front door, he collected rents, oversaw the region’s defenses and practiced medicine. He spent his spare time translating poetry from Greek into Latin, suggesting currency reforms, painting—and revising humanity’s sense of its place in the universe. A 30-year project, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, or On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, was Copernicus’ response to the unwieldy mathematics used since the days of the ancient Greeks to explain the motion of the sun, moon and five known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). Astronomers had worked from the assumption that the earth was the center of the universe, forcing them to draw convoluted orbits for the planets, which even had to reverse directions for the theory to be consistent with their observed trajectories. Once Copernicus put the sun at the center of the picture and adjusted the mathematics, the planetary orbits became regular, smooth and elegant. His inspiration came early, but the cautious scholar took half a lifetime to check his figures before publishing them in 1543, the year he died at age 70. “The scorn which I had to fear on account of the newness and absurdity of my opinion,” he admitted in the book’s preface, “almost drove me to abandon a work already undertaken.” True to his prediction, his contemporaries found his massive logical leap “patently absurd,” says Owen Gingerich, professor emeritus of astronomy and the history of science at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and author of The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus. “It would take several generations to sink in. Very few scholars saw it as a real description of the universe.” His book remained obscure for dec-ades. The Catholic Church censored Coelestium in 1616 only after Galileo drew their attention to it. Copernicus’ death wasn’t even noted in the cathedral’s records. “We know when Copernicus died only because somebody replaced him” as canon of the Frombork Cathedral, says Jerzy Gassowski, an archaeologist at the Pultusk School of Humanities in central Poland. In 2004, Frombork’s bishop approached Gassowski and proposed a new search for the scientist. At least four other excavation teams, the first digging as early as 1802, had looked in vain for Copernicus’ body. A ground-penetrating radar survey showed more than 100 possible graves underneath the cathedral’s gray-and-black marble tiles. “I wasn’t enthusiastic,” Gassowski recalls. “I just thought we’d dig year after year and never find him.” But the bishop, Jacek Jezierski, was more optimistic, thanks to a historian’s hunch that Copernicus might be buried near the altar where he prayed every day. The excavation was complicated. Digging had to stop several times a day for masses, concerts, weddings and funerals. When the workers lifted the cathedral’s marble floor tiles to dig a square pit about ten feet on a side, they found loose, shifting sand. The bass note vibrations of the cathedral’s organ twice caused the pit’s sand walls to collapse. Two weeks of exploratory digging in August 2004 turned up three skeletons. Two were too young, and the other had been buried in a labeled coffin. Then, last summer, the archaeologists uncovered parts of more than a dozen bodies. Some were encased in coffins, others had been wrapped in shrouds long since decayed; most had been damaged or mixed up over the centuries. In August, Pultusk archaeologist Beata Jurkiewicz carefully lifted a skull from the bottom of the pit. Forensic anthropologist Karol Piasecki said the skull, which lacked a jawbone, was that of a roughly 70-year-old male. “It was an amazing moment, but I’m a skeptical person,” says Jurkiewicz. The researchers sent the partial skull to the Warsaw police department’s main crime lab, where police artist Dariusz Zajdel did a forensic reconstruction, the same technique police use to flesh out and help identify decomposed murder victims. From detailed measurements of the shape of the skull and its grooves and deformations, Zajdel used a computer program to create a portrait of a severe old man with a long face, a nose that had been broken decades before his death and a scar above his right eye. Subtract 30 years, and the likeness Zajdel created bears a strong resemblance to the surviving portraits of a middle-aged Copernicus, all based on a much copied self-portrait that has been lost. It was enough for Gassowski and Jurkiewicz. “When I found out who it was, I called him Nicky and treated him like my best buddy,” Zajdel says.
All of us agree to this point that reading to our children is very important but very few knows that toddlers and pre-schoolers who are read to every day have many advantages and benefits. Not only does reading enhance a child’s vocabulary, and to help them understand how to read and write, but reading aloud to children also helps them to understand different topics about the world and everyday life. The importance of reading cannot be emphasized enough in young children and as a parent, we need to make reading a priority. There is a long list of benefits kids gets but here is a snapshot of how important books and stories are for children. - Sitting down with a book provides children with a time for quiet and calmness in their busy lives - Stories can stimulate imaginationand play - Reading provides parents with more opportunities to bond with their children - Stories provoke curiosity and discussion - Books provides inspiration, thought and reflection - Picture books help readers to develop an appreciation for art and writing - Reading a variety of books exposes children to a wide range of language features and vocabulary - Listening to stories assists in the development of literacy skills and language development - Exposure to books contributes to the understanding of print concepts (eg. left to right, top to bottom) - Books and stories fill a child’s mind with knowledge Hence it is very important for us as a parent to introduce reading to our kids. These day’s you can find many books in stores with pictorial form of storytelling. These books can be a great way to introduce books and reading to young children. Also read: How to get good marks or grades in school Send your thoughts and suggestions at [email protected]
Foundations II Literary Terms for Vocabulary Quizzes Directions: The following terms are to be used all year in class discussion, to prepare you for AP English courses as well as college level discussion and writing about literature. We have weekly vocabulary quizzes on them, so you must memorize them. I recommend flashcards. Allegory: That type of literature in which the characters and setting are inter-related symbols that contribute to a larger, significant meaning. Alliteration: A sound device in which there is a repetition of the first consonant sound in words located close together. Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Allusion: An indirect reference by one text to another in relation to a historical, political, mythological, biblical, or other literary source. Ambiguity: Purposeful use of open-ended interpretations by the author in order to make the reader think. Anaphora: A rhetorical device in which there is a purposeful repetition of a word at the beginning of phrases, clauses, or paragraphs. Example: "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a hat, a coat, and a gun." Antagonist: The character who opposes the protagonist. Antanaclasis: The rhetorical device that purposefully uses the repetition of the same word in a different context in consecutive phrases, clauses, or sentences. It's purpose is humor. Example: "If you aren't fired with enthusiasm for your job, you will be fired with enthusiasm." Example: ""Set down the corpse, or I will make a corpse of you." Aphorism: Aphorism is a statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner. Example: Fish and guests both smell after several days Example: Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old age a regret. Antithesis: A rhetorical device in which there is a juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in parallel structure. Example: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Assonance: A sound device in which there is a repetition of the vowel sound in words located close together. Easy and Eve, Harley and barley, keep, and reap are all examples of the repetition of the same long “e” sound in various positions in words (first, end, and middle). Blank Verse: A structure of poetry that is unrhymed iambic pentameter. Caesura: A pause in the middle of a line of poetry. Caesuras are most commonly shown by the use of colons or dashes in the middle of a line of poetry. Conflict: The struggle of opposing forces within a work of literature. (Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Society, Man vs. Self are examples) Consonance: The sound device in which there is the repetition of the consonant sound in the middle or end of words. Examples: Buzz and busy, and last and late. Couplet: Two lines of verse forming a unit of meaning. Couplets usually rhyme. Dialect: accent or regionalization of speech. Diction: word choice Elegy: A structure of poetry in which a meditative poem laments a death. Epistrophe: A rhetorical device in which there is a purposeful repetition of a word or words at the end of consecutive phrases, clauses, or sentences. Example: "of the people, for the people, by the people." **Euphemism: A softer, kinder way of something that might be perceived as harsh (although honest). Example: "a little thin on top"=balding. "a few extra pounds"=in need of a diet. Figurative Language: Description that is not literal. Figurative language is made up of similes, metaphors, personification, allusion, hyperbole, and synecdoche. Flat Character: a character that has little dimension or layers to him/her. (Opposite of a Round Character.) Foil: a flat character in a drama that is used to bring out characteristics of the main character. (Example in Romeo and Juliet Benvolio is a foil for Romeo; he is very rational and logical and, thus, highlights Romeo's rashness and impulsivity.) Foreshadowing: Hints or predictions about what will happen in the story. Free Verse: The structure of poetry that uses no rhyme, metrical pattern (rhythm), or conventions of punctuation or (sometimes) spelling. This structure uses sensory detail and the use of white space to underscore the meaning of the poem. Hyperbole: A deliberate exaggeration Iamb: A popular type of meter that is unstressed, stressed. Imagery: Literal description that presents a picture with words created by sensory images (using the five senses). Irony: The opposite of what one expects. There are 3 kinds of ironies: dramatic, verbal, and situational. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience and the narrator know something the characters do not. Verbal irony is sarcasm or when the meaning of one speaker is misunderstood by one or more other characters. Situational irony is when the setting for an event is odd or humorous. (Ex: a fire at a firehouse). Lyric Poetry: The structure of poetry that expresses strong emotional state in a relatively short form. Metaphor: The comparison of two unlike things without the use of “like” or “as.” An extended metaphor is the use of a metaphor for more than four lines. Meter: The rhythm or beat of a poem. This measure is based on the emphasis of stressed or unstressed syllables within a line of poetry. Metonymy: A figure of speech (a type of metaphor) in which a word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated. Example: “crown” for king; “sword” for military; “pen” for literature; “fireside” for domestic life. Mood: The feeling the reader gets from the literature. Mood is often interpreted by diction, tone, and topic and/or theme of a piece of literature. Motif: The repetition of an element that is significant within a piece of literature. recurring element that has symbolic significance in a stor Onomatopoeia: Words whose sounds suggest their meanings. Examples: hiss, pop, slam, sizzle. Paradox: A seemingly contradictory or absurd statement that is nevertheless true or sensible. “The pen is mightier than the sword” is a paradox using metonymy. Parallelism: The arrangement of related words, phrases, or clauses used to create emphasis through similarity. Example: “Give me liberty, or give me death.” (In each part of the statement the “You” implied subject, verb, indirect object, and direct object parallel each other). Parody: Humorous imitations of styles, characters, or plots of other works of literature. Personification: The poetic device by which an inanimate object or animal is given human qualities. Plot: Artistic arrangement of events (actions) in a piece of literature. Point of View: Perspective from which the story is told. First, second, or third are common. Protagonist: The main character from whose perspective we experience the literature Quatrain: A four-lined poem. Refrain: A repetition of a line or part of a line in a poem or song. Rhetorical Questions: A question posed that is not meant to be answered. Its purpose is to make the reader think. Round Character: a multidimensional character who is dynamic (changes through the course of the literature). (The opposite of a Flat Character.) Rhyme: Repetitions of similar sounds sustained through two or more lines of verse. End rhyme: Occurs when the last words of at least two lines rhyme. Masculine rhyme: Is perfect rhyme found only in one syllable in the final stressed syllable. Example: shapes, drapes. Feminine rhyme consists of two or more rhyming syllables which may be unaccented. Example: Going, and flowing; scenting and repenting; auroral, and choral. Eye Rhyme: Looks like it should rhyme (by nature of similar spelling) but actually doesn’t. Example: cough and bough; love and move. Slant Rhyme: Rhyme that is not perfect but has consonance in common. Example: bodies and ladies; soul and all. Satire: That type of literature that makes fun of society in order to bring about social Setting: The time and place of the story. Shaped Poem (or Concrete Poem): that structure of poetry in which the words of the poem are arranged on paper to suggest a shape that relates to the theme or topic of the poem. Simile: The comparison of two unlike things with the use of “like” or “as.” Sonnet: A fourteen line poem about love written in iambic pentameter. The Shakespearean sonnet (or “English sonnet”) is comprised of three quatrains and a couplet. Stanza: A formal grouping of lines in a poem. Symbol: A concrete object that stands for an abstract concept. Example: the flag represents a country and nationalistic beliefs. Synecdoche: A literal part for a whole. Example: In "All hands on deck,' the ““hands” is a part of the whole for sailors. Military “brass” refers to the brass on the uniforms of military men. The more "brass," the higher ranking the man. In this case, the brass that is literally on the uniform stands for the whole military man. Synecdoche is like metonymy except that the part for a whole in metonymy is symbolic, not literal. Synesthesia: The overlapping or confusion of senses for effect. Example: The grass smells green. (Green is a color, not a smell) Syntax: The study of the use of patterns of formations of paragraph, sentence, or phrase structures. Theme: The message that an author is trying to communicate to the reader. Themes are never expressed as one word like “love” or “power.” They are statements like “Love makes madmen of us all,” or “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Tone: The attitude of the writer/narrator toward the topic of the literature.
Coal is best known for its role supplying electricity throughout the United States—nearly half of the country's electricity comes from coal. But while the vast majority of it is burned at conventional coal-fired power plants, coal is also turned into a gas for conversion into electricity, hydrogen, and other energy products. The U.S. Department of Energy explains that coal gasification is a thermo-chemical process in which the gasifier's heat and pressure break down coal into its chemical constituents. The resulting "syngas" is comprised primarily of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, and occasionally other gaseous compounds. Proponents of coal gasification say that syngas can be used for electricity production, used in energy-efficient fuel cell technology, or as chemical "building blocks" for industrial purposes. The hydrogen can also be extracted for use in fueling a hydrogen economy. But these developments are ongoing, and researchers continue to focus on improving coal gasification technology to realize these and other potential applications for the future. Coal gas can also be converted into a transportation fuel as a substitute for gasoline in vehicles, but it is far less efficient than the current production and burning of petroleum-based gasoline. Coal gasification is said to have greater efficiency than conventional coal-burning because it can effectively use the gases twice: the coal gases are first cleansed of impurities and fired in a turbine to generate electricity. Then, the exhaust heat from the gas turbine can be captured and used to generate steam for a steam turbine-generator. This is called a combined cycle, and DOE says a coal gasification plant using this dual process can potentially achieve an efficiency of 50 percent or more, compared with a conventional coal power plant, which is often just above 30 percent.
Updated 4 March 2010 "Spirograph" is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc. It refers to a child's toy that uses toothed wheels to draw patterns, you can see some examples here. This page approaches those patterns from a more mathematical point of view, which isn't constrained by the physical properties of the wheels used in the real toy. This allows us to explore a larger set of patterns, including those generated my more than 2 wheels. Interactive spirograph drawing The parametric equation for a circle is x = R.cos (θ) y = R.sin (θ) As 'θ' varies from 0 to 2π this will trace one lap around the circle ('R' is the radius). This is our basic wheel. If we multiply θ by a positive integer this will be equivalent to making the wheel rotate faster. A negative integer will make the wheel rotate in the opposite direction. To create the spirograph patterns we combine two wheels rotating at different speeds, say n1 and n2. x = R1.cos (n1θ) + R2.cos (n2θ) y = R1.sin (n1θ) + R2.sin (n2θ) Here the second wheel of radius R2 makes n2 full turns as it travels n1 times around the inner wheel of radius R1. These are idealised wheels, when using the toy, the radius of the inner wheel would be R1-R2. The other way we differ from the toy is that in the physical version the rates n1 and n2 are determined by the number of teeth on the wheels, which are constrained by the wheels' radii. We aren't limited in this way. The starting positions of the wheels can be changed by adding in a phase component: ψ; x = R1.cos (n1(θ+ψ1)) + R2.cos (n2(θ+ψ2)) y = R1.sin (n1(θ+ψ1)) + R2.sin (n2(θ+ψ2)) Although it would be difficult with the plastic toy, mathematically it's quite simple to add additional wheels, for instance, having a third wheel rotating around the other two can be represented as x = R1.cos (n1θ) + R2.cos (n2θ) + R3.cos (n3θ) y = R1.sin (n1θ) + R2.sin (n2θ) + R3.sin (n3θ) For two wheels the symmetry is \|n1-n2\| (assuming n1 and n2 have no common factors). If they do have a common factor, say 'k', then the symmetry would be \|n1-n2\| / k and the algorithm will draw over the same pattern k times. For more wheels the symmetry is the highest common factor of the set of differences. With three wheels it will be hcf (n1-n2, n1-n3, n2-n3) / k = hcf (n1-n2, n2-n3) / k Where 'k' is the largest common factor of n1, n2, n3. This four wheel animation. The speeds are [3, -13, 11, 19] and the sizes [3,3,2,1]. The differences in the rates are all multiples of 8, so the pattern has 8-fold symetry. The animation is created by changing the relative phases of the wheels. If you would like to generate your own Spirographs using python you can download the following scripts. (c) John Whitehouse 2012
Researchers from the Cornell University have become the first to manipulate atomically thin magnets with an electric field, an innovation that provides a blueprint for creating remarkably powerful and efficient data storage in computer chips, among other applications. The research is explained in a paper titled, “Electric-field switching of two-dimensional van der Waals magnets,” which was published on March 12, 2018, in Nature Materials by Jie Shan, professor of applied and engineering physics; Kin Fai Mak, assistant professor of physics; and postdoctoral scholar Shengwei Jiang. Back in 1966, Cornell physicist David Mermin and his postdoc Herbert Wagner hypothesized that 2D magnets could not exist if the spins of their electrons could point in any direction. It was only in 2017 that a few of the first 2D materials with correct alignment of spins were found, paving the way to a totally new group of materials termed as 2D van der Waals magnets. Shan and Mak, who specialize in studying atomically thin materials, jumped at the chance to research the new magnets and their unique features. If it’s a bulk material, you can’t easily access the atoms inside. But if the magnet is just a monolayer, you can do a lot to it. You can apply an electric field to it, put extra electrons into it, and that can modulate the material properties. Kin Fai Mak Making use of a sample of chromium triiodide, the researchers aimed to do just that. Their goal was to apply a small quantity of voltage to form an electric field and regulate the 2D compound’s magnetism, bestowing them the ability to turn it on and off. To accomplish this, they stacked two atomic layers of chromium triiodide with atomically thin gate dielectrics and electrodes. This developed a field-effect device that could flip the electron-spin direction in the chromium triiodide layers using small gate voltages, triggering the magnetic switching. At temperatures below 57° Kelvin, the process is repeatable and reversible. The discovery is a vital one for the future of electronics as “the majority of existing technology is based on magnetic switching, like in memory devices that record and store data,” said Shan. However, magnets in a majority of advanced electronics do not respond to an electric field. Instead, a current is transmitted through a coil, forming a magnetic field that can be used to turn the magnet on and off. It is an inefficient technique as the current produces heat and consumes electrical power. Two-dimensional chromium-triiodide magnets have an exclusive advantage in that an electric field can be directly applied to trigger the switching, and very minimal energy is needed. “The process is also very effective because if you have a nanometer thickness and you apply just one volt, the field is already 1 volt per nanometer. That’s huge,” said Shan. The team plans to pursue exploring 2D magnets and expects to form new partnerships around campus, including with engineers and scientists who can assist them find new 2D magnetic materials that, unlike chromium triiodide, can function at room temperature. In a sense, what we have demonstrated here is more like a device concept.When we find the right kind of material that can operate at a higher temperature, we can immediately apply this idea to those materials. But it’s not there yet. Kin Fai Mak
Children have an intuitive understanding of fractions. When you give your son a cookie and ask him to share ½ of it with his sister, he will know exactly what you want him to do. However, when the teacher asks him whether 1/8 is larger than 1/3, he may be stumped. Children tend to fall back on the rules that apply to whole numbers, that 8 is larger than 3, overly generalizing them to fractions and leading to a great many misunderstandings. Thus, the misunderstanding that 1/8 is larger than 1/3. As parents, it is essential that we support our children in developing a meaningful, conceptual understanding of fractions they can apply flexibly into adulthood. Below are four fundamental understandings that children must acquire about fractions. These understandings are best developed using concrete materials that children can manipulate with their hands and minds. Standard pattern blocks (shown in the Images below) may be a useful tool in developing these key concepts. One of the visual features that makes pattern blocks so effective is they match color to shape, which aids in building children’s mental models of these math concepts. Fractions represent a relationship to the whole When we first think about fractions, it is typical to think of them as numbers, such as ½ or ¼. However, to build toward a deeper understanding of fractions, we actually need to introduce fractions as a relationship to the whole, or what we refer to as the unit. Using pattern blocks, we can introduce the yellow hexagon as the unit equal to one whole or 1. Then we can help children to visualize that the red trapezoid is equal to ½ of 1, because 2 red trapezoids come together to equal 1 (Images 1-3). We can repeat this procedure, demonstrating how a blue rhombus represents 1/3 of 1 because 3 blue rhombuses (also known as rhombi) come together to equal 1 yellow hexagon (Images 4-6). Using concrete pattern blocks, children come to more fully understand that a fraction is not simply a number to be memorized, but rather a relationship to the unit. Fractions should be applied to many different wholes Next, we can expand our children’s understanding of fractions to include a variety of different representations of units. For instance, in Images 7-9, a green triangle represents 1/6 of the unit, when the unit is equal to a yellow hexagon. However, when we change the unit so that 1 is equal to a red trapezoid, now a green triangle actually represents the fraction 1/3 (Images 10-12). We can again re-set the unit as equaling one blue rhombus. Here, the green triangle changes again, such that it represents ½ of the unit (Images 13- 15). Children come to see that a green triangle does not hold a value in and of itself, but instead its value varies in relationship to the unit. This relational understanding of the unit is essential as children advance in their work with fractions, so they come to understand that a green triangle can represent 1/6, 1/3, and 1/2, depending on how its relationship to the unit has been constructed. The numerator and the denominator are defined in relationship to the whole Typically, when children are introduced to the terms numerator and denominator, they are simply told, “the numerator is on the top and the denominator is on the bottom.” However, this process of labeling does not advance their understanding. Instead, children should be guided to discover that the denominator indicates the number of pieces that comprise the unit and the numerator indicates how many of those equal size pieces you have. For instance, the fraction 3/4 can be understood as first breaking a unit into 4 pieces (e.g., the denominator 4) and then using 3 of those equal-size pieces (e.g, the numerator 3). In another example, ½ can be thought of as having 1 of 2 equal size parts of the unit (Images 16-17). The numerator tells us how many pieces we have. For 1/2, we have 1 of 2 equal size pieces of the whole. The denominator, the number down under the line, tells us how many equal size pieces there are to the whole. For 1/2, the 2 down under the line tells us that there are 2 equal size pieces to the whole. Equivalent fractions refer to the same part of the whole Finally, these understandings can be expanded to develop conceptual understanding of a traditionally-procedural topic: equivalent fractions. Rather than simply instructing children to find a common denominator, you can instead help children explore equivalent fractions using pattern blocks. When children discover that different fractional parts cover the same area of the unit, they see for themselves that these fractions are equivalent (Image 18). For instance, in this example children can visualize that ½ covers the same area of the unit as 3/6, thus ½ is equivalent to 3/6. We encourage all parents to consider new and creative ways to build these four key understandings with their children, using concrete, everyday materials such as chocolate bars, folded paper, or even small coins that illustrate the relationship between the part and the whole.
The measure of an angle is determined by the amount of rotation from the initial side to the terminal side. One way to measure an angle is in terms of degrees. A measure of one degree () is equivalent to a rotation of of a complete revolution. To measure angles, it is convenient to mark degrees on the circumference of a circle. Thus, a complete revolution is , half a revolution is , a quarter of a revolution is and so forth.
A recent study appearing in the current issue of the journal Science reveals that polar bears evolved as early as some 600,000 years ago. An international team led by DNA researchers from the German Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK‐F) shows the largest arctic carnivore to be five times older than previously recognized. The new findings on the evolutionary history of polar bears are the result of an analysis of information from the nuclear genome of polar and brown bears, and shed new light on conservation issues regarding this endangered arctic specialist. Polar bears are uniquely specialized for life in the arctic. This fact is undisputed, and supported by a range of morphological, physiological and behavioural evidence. However, conducting research on the evolutionary history of polar bears is difficult. The arctic giant spends most of its life on sea ice, and typically also dies there. Its remains sink to the sea floor, where they get ground up by glaciers, or remain undiscovered. Fossil remains of polar bears are therefore scarce. Because the genetic information contained in each organism carries a lot of information about the past, researchers can study the history of the species by looking at the genes of today’s polar bears. Recent studies had suggested that the ancestor of polar bears was a brown bear that lived some 150,000 years ago, in the late Pleistocene. That research was based on DNA from the mitochondria ‐ organelles often called the ‘powerhouses of the cell’. Researchers from the German Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK‐F), together with scientists from Spain, Sweden and the USA, now took an in‐depth look at the genetic information contained in the cell nucleus. Frank Hailer, BiK‐F, lead author of the study explains: “Instead of the traditional approach of looking at mitochondrial DNA we studied many pieces of nuclear DNA that are each independently inherited. We characterized those pieces, or genetic markers, in multiple polar and brown bear individuals.”
Contaminant Level (MCL) \|Beta Particle Emitters\|\|4 milirem / year\| Tritium is a radioactive isotope that occurs naturally in the environment in very low concentrations. Most tritium in the environment is in the form of tritiated water, which easily disburses in the atmosphere, water bodies, soil, and rock. Like H2O, tritiated water is colorless and odorless. Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years and emits a very weak beta particle. Tritium is produced naturally in the upper atmosphere when cosmic rays strike nitrogen molecules in the air. Tritium is also produced during nuclear weapons explosions, as a byproduct in reactors producing electricity, and in special production reactors, where the isotope lithium-6 is bombarded to produce tritium. Tritium is also used in various self-luminescent devices, such as exit signs in buildings, aircraft dials, gauges, luminous paints, and wristwatches. Tritium is used in life science research, and in studies investigating the metabolism of potential new drugs. It is estimated that 1/4 of US nuclear plants are leaking tritium into drinking water supplies. According to the EPA: As with all ionizing radiation, exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer. However, because it emits very low energy radiation and leaves the body relatively quickly, for a given amount of activity ingested, tritium is one of the least dangerous radionuclides. Since tritium is almost always found as water, it goes directly into soft tissues and organs. The associated dose to these tissues are generally uniform and dependent on the tissues' water content. There is no known treatment. According to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission : Like normal hydrogen, tritium can bond with oxygen to form water. When this happens, the resulting water (called “tritiated water”) is radioactive. Tritiated water (not to be confused with heavy water) is chemically identical to normal water and the tritium cannot be filtered out of the water. (whole house & well units)
Moths and butterflies have complete metamorphosis. Adult females lay eggs, and the young that emerge from these eggs are worm-like larvae called caterpillars. The caterpillars eat and grow fast, and eventually they stop feeding and transform into a pupa, a resting stage that cannot move or feed. Often the caterpillar makes a cocoon to protect it before it transforms. Pupae that do not make a cocoon are called chrysalids. Inside the pupal case the moth or butterfly completes its transformation and emerges as a winged adult. Development - Life Cycle: metamorphosis No one has provided updates yet.
After the Civil War ended in 1865, Radical Republicans in Congress attempted to protect blacks’ rights by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866 , which enabled blacks to file lawsuits against whites and sit on juries. To safeguard these rights permanently, states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and enfranchised black men with the Fifteenth Amendment. Congress also passed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which outlawed racial terrorism, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 , which prohibited racial discrimination in most public places. Radical Republicans also tried to use the Freedmen’s Bureau to redistribute confiscated southern plantation lands to blacks in order to put them on more equal footing with white farmers. In addition to these measures, Congress sent federal troops into the South to help blacks register to vote. However, opposition from President Andrew Johnson, a conservative Supreme Court, and the white southern elite thwarted Radical Republicans’ attempts at protecting blacks’ rights. Johnson, for example, disbanded the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. Then, in the complex maneuvering of the Compromise of 1877 , Republicans traded the presidency (the election of Rutherford B. Hayes) for the premature withdrawal of federal troops from the South. This compromise effectively ended Reconstruction and set back the hope of equality for southern blacks for decades. Within a few short years, the powerful white elite had returned to power in southern legislatures and had reinstated its racist policies in the South. During the last decades of the 1800s, life for southern blacks was harsh. By 1880, most blacks had become sharecroppers, tenant farmers who essentially rented land from their former masters. Even though most former slaves actually preferred the sharecropping system to wage labor, it kept them bound to their white landlords in virtual slavery. In addition, local statutes called black codes kept blacks “in their place.” These laws made “offenses” such as loitering, unemployment, indebtedness, voting, and even having sex with white women illegal for blacks. State authorities fined and arrested blacks who disobeyed these laws, so the codes effectively made racism legal. Moreover, the black codes gave the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan even more of a motive and opportunity to terrorize blacks. As a result, almost all southern blacks at the time lived in abject poverty and had virtually no social or political rights. Although northern blacks enjoyed more rights than southern blacks, they still suffered from severe racial prejudice. One South Carolina politician who believed in the “natural” racial superiority of whites claimed that the average black American was “a fiend, a wild beast, seeking whom he may devour.” Another social commentator likened blacks to wild animals that operated only on instinct. It is therefore not surprising that most blacks even in the North were able to obtain only unskilled jobs and lived in some of the poorest neighborhoods.
Solar wind pulses help blow away martian atmosphere Scientists found that Mars' atmosphere does not drift away at a steady pace; instead, atmospheric escape occurs in bursts. Provided by the American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C. March 11, 2010 Mars is constantly losing parts of its atmosphere to space. The processes driving that loss of atmosphere are not understood completely. A new study shows that pressure from solar wind pulses is a significant contributor to Mars' atmospheric escape. N. J. T. Edberg, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom, and Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala, Sweden, and other scientists analyzed solar wind data and satellite observations that track the flux of heavy ions leaving Mars' atmosphere. The scientists found that Mars' atmosphere does not drift away at a steady pace; instead, atmospheric escape occurs in bursts. The researchers relate those bursts of atmospheric loss to solar events known as corotating interaction regions (CIRs). CIRs form when regions of fast solar wind encounter slower solar wind, creating a high-pressure pulse. When these CIR pulses pass by Mars, they can drive away particles from Mars' atmosphere. The scientists found that during times when these CIRs occurred, the outflow of atmospheric particles from Mars was about 2.5 times the outflow when these events were not occurring. Furthermore, about one third of the material lost from Mars into space is lost during CIRs. The study should help scientists better understand the evolution of Mars' atmosphere.
You may want to read this article first: Discrete vs. Continuous Variables. What is a Continuous Probability Distribution? Probability distributions are either continuous probability distributions or discrete probability distributions. A discrete distribution has a range of values that are countable. For example, the numbers on birthday cards have a possible range from 0 to 122 (122 is the age of Jeanne Calment the oldest person who ever lived). A continuous distribution has a range of values that are infinite, and therefore uncountable. For example, time is infinite: you could count from 0 seconds to a billion seconds…a trillion seconds…and so on, forever. Discrete vs. Continuous Probability Distributions A discrete probability distribution is made up of discrete variables, while a continuous probability distribution is made up of continuous variables. The two types of distributions differ in several other ways. - The probability that a particular random variable will equal a certain value is zero. For example, let’s say you had a continuous probability distribution for men’s heights. What is the probability that a man will have a height of exactly 70 inches? The chart shows that the average man has a height of 70 inches (50% of the area of the curve is to the left of 70, and 50% is to the right). But it’s impossible to figure out the probability of any one man measuring exactly 70 inches. Why not? Imagine measuring a man who is 70 inches tall. It’s unlikely that he’s exactly 70 inches. He’s probably 70.1 inches, or perhaps 69.97 inches. And it doesn’t stop there…he could be 70.1045 inches, or 69.9795589 inches…and so on. The fact is, it’s impossible to exactly measure any variable that’s on a continuous scale, and so it’s impossible to figure out the probability of one exact measurement occurring in a continuous probability distribution. - Discrete probability distributions are usually described with a frequency distribution table, or other type of graph or chart. For example, the following chart shows the probability of rolling a die. All of the die rolls have an equal chance of being rolled (one out of six, or 1/6). This gives you a discrete probability distribution of: Roll 1 2 3 4 5 6 Odds 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6 Continuous probability distributions are expressed with a formula (a Probability Density Function) describing the shape of the distribution. Need help with a homework or test question? With Chegg Study, you can get step-by-step solutions to your questions from an expert in the field. If you rather get 1:1 study help, Chegg Tutors offers 30 minutes of free tutoring to new users, so you can try them out before committing to a subscription. If you prefer an online interactive environment to learn R and statistics, this free R Tutorial by Datacamp is a great way to get started. If you're are somewhat comfortable with R and are interested in going deeper into Statistics, try this Statistics with R track. Comments? Need to post a correction? Please post a comment on our Facebook page.
What is whooping cough? Whooping cough is an infection caused by a bacterium called Bordetella pertussis. Pertussis (which means 'forceful cough') is another name for whooping cough. How do you catch whooping cough? Whooping cough is caught by being coughed or sneezed on, or spending a large amount of time in the same close breathing space as someone with the infection (often by a parent, or an older child or adult who does not know they are infected). If everyone has been immunised in the last few years there is little whooping cough around, but if immunisation uptake is low or it have been a long time since people were immunised then there is a higher risk of catching the infection. Babies tend to catch whooping cough from their immediate family members. Is whooping cough dangerous? In babies less than six months of age, and occasionally in older children, it can cause severe disease. In Australia, one baby dies about every two years from whooping cough, and more are left brain damaged by the infection. In older children, whooping cough is not usually life threatening. However, it causes a very nasty cough that often lasts many weeks - the Chinese call it the 100-day cough. Children with whooping cough can't stop coughing and can’t catch their breath. At the end of a coughing bout, when they gasp or whoop, they may go blue, and often vomit. They can wake several times a night with the cough, so the whole family gets very little sleep. The forceful coughing can often cause scleral haemorrhage (bleeding in the whites of the eye). Can whooping cough be prevented? Immunisation is the best way of preventing whooping cough or making it less severe. It is given to babies from six weeks of age, and starts to provide protection after the second dose, which is given at four months of age. If everyone is immunised, then there is very little whooping cough in the community. The whooping cough vaccine can be given to mothers in pregnancy and to parents, grandparents, siblings and any carer to reduce the risk to newborn babies. Family members in contact with young infants with whooping cough are given an antibiotic (usually azithromycin, erythromycin or clarithromycin), but this is a much less efficient way of preventing the spread than immunisation. Unfortunately the antibiotic does not shorten whooping cough illness, once the coughing stage has begun. Is whooping cough vaccine dangerous? Whooping cough vaccine has side effects for some people, but these are mostly minor (soreness and/or swelling at the site of the injection, sometimes fever or irritability) and is almost never dangerous. The new vaccine for adults (parents) is designed to be very safe to give to adults, even if they have been vaccinated or had whooping cough before. Does the vaccine always work? No vaccine is 100 per cent effective. The whooping cough vaccine works best when there is little whooping cough circulating in the community or if it has not been too long since the vaccine was received. Even when there is a lot of whooping cough around, immunised children are less likely to catch it. If an immunised child does catch whooping cough, the illness is almost always milder than it is in children who have not been immunised. How do I get my child immunised? A vaccine to protect your child against whooping cough can be given by your family doctor, at a local child health clinic or in the emergency department of a hospital. This vaccine is free as it is part of the Australian Immunisation Schedule that is funded by the government. There is also a vaccine to prevent adolescents and adults from getting whooping cough that is also free, as it is part of the Australian Immunisation Schedule and funded by the government. It is important to note that although the vaccine is free, a consultation fee may apply. For more information visit the Immunise Australia Program website: www.immunise.health.gov.au - To check your child’s immunisation is up to date. - Consult your GP or local child health clinic to obtain a free vaccination.
Full Wolf Moon or Supermoon? According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the first full moon of the year is referred to as the Full Wolf Moon, named in Native American and Colonial times for when the wolves howled outside the villages. But this year, we also have a Supermoon during the Full Wolf Moon! The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is elliptical, meaning it is not perfectly circular. This allows for the Moon to have a point farthest from the Earth (apogee) and closest to the Earth (perigee) while it orbits the Earth. At 9:24 EST on January 1st, 2018 the Moon becomes full, which occurs just 4.5 hours after is reaches perigee, making the Full Wolf Moon, also a Supermoon! During a Supermoon the Moon appears 14% larger and 30% brighter than usual! Read more on the Supermoon on space.com This January is extra special because we have a Blue Moon on January 31st, 2018 at 8:27am. A Blue Moon is defined as the second full moon in one calendar month. What an exciting start to the year! Moon Illusion Effect: When the moon rises behind distant objects on the horizon it appears huge in an optical illusion known as the Moon Illusion Effect. When the moon is high in the sky it appears small because there are no objects to compare it to – for scale. Alternatively, when the moon rises on the horizon behind objects on the earth such as trees, houses, or buildings, our brain decides it is farther away than when it is high overhead in the sky. Our brain inflates the moon’s size when it is at the horizon to look the size we think it should be. To test this: next time you see a huge moon rising on the horizon, roll up a piece of paper into a tube and look through it with one eye. Tape the tube of paper the size of the moon when it is near the horizon. Then later in the night when the moon is high in the sky, take that same tube of paper and look through it with one eye at the moon. You’ll see it is in the same size in the tube! Your brain just made you think it looked huge at the horizon because of the objects in the foreground!
Tools to improve and enhance your memory: The Loci system Tools to improve and enhance your memory: The "Loci system" You might have heard of Mnemonics and how they can help you improve your memory. Mnemonics aren't difficult or tiresome activities; in fact, it's as if there's no pressure when doing the actual memorization because of how simple and pleasant the steps can be. An example of a mnemonic method is the Loci System. A good scenario when the loci system can be effectively used is when a person has several items or a list needed for immediate remembering. How To Be An Expert Persuader..! Tools to improve and enhance your memory: putting the "Loci system" into practice Tools to improve and enhance your memory: Putting the The "Loci system" into practice The first important thing to remember when using the Loci method is the familiarization of a place and the correct order of locations of the chosen place. It could be the dining room, bedroom or kitchen at home or a favorite route in the park. It doesn't matter where, as long as the location can be easily recalled accurately by the doer. Let's say, the specific locations are the parking lot, pond, willow tree and the benches in the park. So, let's pretend the items are umbrella, dog food, cell phone and picnic basket. To associate the items, visualize strongly hundreds of open umbrellas falling down on the parking lot as you find a space where you could park. The next step in the "Loci system" Next, as you pass by the pond, you pick up the usual dog food to feed the fish followed by the big willow tree bearing cell phones for fruits and lastly, as you sat by the benches, a picnic basket approaches and sells you what is inside it. Each time you visit the park or any other place you're strongly familiar with; you can immediately associate the specific locations with any items you need to remember. When using this method, it's better to imagine objects in familiar places in bizarre or amusing ways because it helps a lot in retaining information. Click below to learn more about the Loci System and other memory improvement techniques/tools How to improve your memory in a snap? It’s never too late to use your memory capacity to its full potential. Memory Training For Students. Students Will Learn How To Remembering Information Taught In School. Study Less And Still Get Better Grades. Audio Program. Memory training for serious students Tools to improve and enhance your memory: effective memorization techniques A good memory can boost your confidence and esteem This is how I built my site: free info for those who want to know A GOOD MEMORY IS NECESSARY FOR BEHAVUIORAL INTERVIEWS LEARNING MEMORY: ECD PRESENTATION CHECK-LIST: DO NOT FORGET TO CHECK THESE BEFORE YOU PRESENT
\|Ejercicios resueltos\|\|Short Compositions\| Write about 100 to 150 words in the following topic: Describe what you can do at home and in your town to protect the environment. Problems such as global warming make us worry about the way we are taking care of the environment. Not only governments are responsible, we can also take measures to protect the environment. There are easy-to-do things that we can do at home. We should save water by taking showers instead of baths. Keeping the water running when we brush our teeth or shave is something we should avoid doing. Moreover, there are also things we can do every day to save electricity. For example, we can turn the lights off whenever we leave a room and use compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use less electricity than other bulbs. In our town, there are recycling bins that we should use to recycle our paper, glass and plastic rubbish. Keeping the parks clean and using public transport is also essential to reduce pollution. In short, protecting the environment is a task that we should all be involved in.
Mongol Empire, sprawling empire founded in the early 1200s by Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. By the late 1200s, the Mongol Empire included almost all of East and Southwest Asia and extended into central Europe. It was the largest contiguous land empire in history. The immense size of the Mongol Empire proved to be its undoing. Under Genghis Khan’s descendants, the empire was divided into separate, virtually independent states. Political rivalries and cultural differences led to disunity, and Mongol cohesiveness dissolved. The empire collapsed as the power of the states disintegrated during the 14th and 15th centuries. \|II\|\|BEFORE THE MONGOL EMPIRE\| \|A\|\|The Mongol Tribes of East Asia\| The Mongols were a loose confederation of Mongolian-speaking tribes until Genghis Khan united them in 1206. Their homelands extended through present-day Mongolia, north into the southern fringes of the Siberia region of Russia, and east into what is now the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. Here, on the eastern edge of the Asian steppe (a vast plateau of grassy plains), the Mongols developed a nomadic way of life. The Mongols continually moved across the steppe in search of new grazing lands for their livestock. Their flocks of sheep provided food and clothing. Their horses provided transportation as well as a favorite drink, fermented mare’s milk, or koumiss. The Mongols made their homes in portable, circular tents they called ger. These tents (also known as yurts) are still common in Mongolia, where nomadic traditions continue. The Mongols began training in horsemanship and archery at a very early age. They learned to shoot their arrows with precision while standing in the stirrups of a galloping horse. This skill was used in hunting, raiding, and warfare. Their domesticated horses came from wild herds native to the steppe. This small, hardy species became known as Przewalski’s horse in the late 1800s. The importance that the Mongols attached to their horses is evident on every page of the Secret History of the Mongols, written in the mid-1200s. The author of this anonymous native work on the rise of the Mongol Empire never mentions a horse without providing its exact description—for example, how a young Genghis Khan, mounted on a chestnut stallion with a hairless tail, tracked down thieves who had made off with the family herd of eight light-bay geldings. The Mongols were organized into clans, which in turn were part of a larger, much looser organization, the tribe. The hierarchy of the tribe was bound together by personal bonds of mutual protection and loyalty extending downward from the tribal chieftains, to subordinate clan chiefs, to individual warriors. Tribal and clan affairs were discussed and decided upon at the kuriltai, an assembly of tribal leaders. One of its functions was to elect a khan (leader). Before Genghis Khan, however, the khan had little real power. In addition, the Mongol tribes were deeply divided by clan rivalries, and warfare between them was endemic. For almost 2,000 years before Genghis Khan, various nomadic peoples of East Asia had raided the settled peoples of northern China. The Chinese built fortifications along their northern frontier to keep out the raiders. (These fortifications long preceded the impressive stone walls that became known as the Great Wall in modern times.) Nevertheless, several nomadic groups broke through the barriers and established local dynasties in China. One of these groups, a Mongolian-speaking people known as the Khitans, took advantage of the waning control of the Chinese Tang dynasty to conquer an area that extended well into northern China. They founded the Liao dynasty in the early 900s to rule their empire, Khitai. The Liao prevented the Chinese Song dynasty, which rose to power in 960, from reclaiming lands north of the Huang He (Yellow River) that had been lost by the Tang. Early in the 1100s the Jurchens, a confederation of Tungusic-speaking tribes, rose up against the Liao. The Song encouraged the uprising in hope of regaining territory held by the Liao. The Jurchens not only conquered the Liao in 1125 but also took over a large portion of the northern Song domains. For their new empire, the Jurchens adopted the dynastic name of Jin (“Golden”). The remnants of the Song court fled south to Hangzhou and established the Southern Song dynasty. The Khitans retreated westward and reestablished their kingdom as Kara-Khitai. A contingent of the Mongol tribes had fought on the side of the Liao in their final battles against the Jin. The Jin thereafter allied with the Tatars, a Turkic people who lived to the east and south of the Mongols. \|C\|\|Rise of Genghis Khan\| In 1161 the Mongol chieftain Kutula was defeated by the Jin in alliance with the Tatars. Several years later, Kutula’s nephew and successor, Yesugei, was killed by the Tatars. Yesugei’s son, Temujin, gradually rose to power. By 1196 he was the undisputed leader of the Borjigin tribe. He then led a series of military campaigns in which he managed to defeat all the Mongol and Tatar tribes between the Altay Mountains in the west and the Hinggan Mountains in the east (roughly the area of present-day Mongolia). In 1206 Temujin convened a kuriltai of all the Mongol chieftains. They proclaimed him supreme ruler with the title of Genghis Khan (also spelled Chinggis Khan), meaning “Great Leader.” The kuriltai also divided Mongol territory among strong military leaders who pledged their allegiance to Genghis Khan. \|III\|\|THE MONGOL EMPIRE UNDER GENGHIS KHAN\| \|A\|\|Conquests in China\| His power secured in the Mongol homelands, Genghis Khan soon launched a campaign to destroy the Jin dynasty of northern China. First, however, he subdued the Tanguts, whose Xixia (Hsi-Hsia) dynasty ruled the area between the Mongol and Jin domains. Mongol forces invaded Jin territory in 1211. Two years later they broke through the northern Chinese fortifications and surged into the Huabei Pingyuan (North China Plain). By the spring of 1214 the entire area north of the Huang He (Yellow River) was in Mongol hands. The Jin emperor purchased peace at an enormous ransom, and the Mongols withdrew. Shortly after, the emperor judged it prudent to move his capital from its northern site of Beijing. The Mongols interpreted his move as a resumption of hostilities and returned to sack and pillage Beijing. Genghis Khan then turned his attention westward. In 1218 a Mongol army led by the great general Jebe subdued the neighboring kingdom of Kara-Khitai, located between the Tibetan Plateau (now part of China) and Lake Balqash (now in southeastern Kazakhstan). \|B\|\|Campaign in Central Asia\| The conquest of Kara-Khitai brought the Mongols into Central Asia. Their new western frontier abutted Khwarizm, a vast but poorly organized empire ruled by Sultan Muhammad. Khwarizm included the western part of Turkistan as well as most of Iran. The sultan gave the Mongols an immediate cause for war by having two of Genghis Khan’s ambassadors beheaded. The Mongol army reached Khwarizm’s northern frontier city of Otrar in the autumn of 1219. Leaving one unit there, Genghis Khan continued south to capture and plunder the great cities of Bukhara (Bukhoro) and Samarqand. Panic-stricken, Sultan Muhammad fled westward, pursued by a Mongol army, and died on an island in the Caspian Sea. The Mongols then turned north, crossing the Caucasus Mountains into what is now Russia. They defeated a coalition of Kipchak Turks and Russians in Crimea (part of present-day Ukraine) and returned eastward. Genghis Khan passed the summer of 1220 resting his troops and horses in mountain pastures south of Samarqand. In the autumn he moved his forces south into Khorâsân, the eastern province of Iran. At that time Khorâsân extended far beyond its present-day border with Afghanistan. Mongol troops under the command of Genghis Khan’s youngest son, Tolui, laid waste to some of the province’s most important cities, including Nishapur (now Neyshâbûr, Iran), Merv (now Mary, Turkmenistan), and Herât (now in northern Afghanistan). The region never fully recovered from the devastation of the Mongol onslaught. At Nishapur alone, more than 1 million people were massacred. According to the Persian historian Ala-ad-Din Ata-Malik Juvaini, who became a civil servant of the Mongols and wrote of their conquests in his History of the World-Conqueror, “It was commanded that … in the exaction of vengeance not even cats and dogs should be left alive.” In the autumn of 1221 Genghis Khan moved to attack Sultan Jalal al-Din, the son of Sultan Muhammad. Overtaken on the banks of the Indus River and surrounded by the Mongol forces, Jalal al-Din made a dramatic escape by swimming across the river. He contrived to harass the Mongols for several years until his death in 1231 in Anatolia (the Asian part of present-day Turkey; also known as Asia Minor). \|C\|\|Return to the East\| The battle at the Indus River marked the end of Genghis Khan’s campaign in the west. He returned to northern China after receiving news of an uprising there by the Tanguts, the founders of the Xixia dynasty. Genghis Khan led a campaign of brutal suppression that completely destroyed the Tanguts. It proved to be his final conquest, for he died in August 1227. Genghis Khan was one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever seen. He had conquered a vast area stretching from northern China to the Caspian Sea. In addition, he had laid the foundation for the continuance of his empire by building a strong army and establishing basic laws of governance. \|D\|\|The Mongol Army\| Genghis Khan unleashed a seemingly invincible military force. Although usually outnumbered, the Mongol forces dominated the battlefield. Their absolute discipline, well-understood chain of command, superior mobility, and innovative military tactics distinguished them from other armies of the day. Rather than leading their forces into battle, the Mongol generals directed operations from a distance. A standard tactic they employed was to sweep an entire wing of the army around an enemy flank to attack from behind. Prisoners, if not massacred, were forced to form the front line in subsequent operations. Mongol soldiers were well-trained in marksmanship and horsemanship. A soldier was clad in armor of leather strips lacquered to keep out water. His bow, backed with horn or sinew, was one of the most powerful in the world. After showering the enemy with arrows he would change to his lance or to a curved sword and charge for close fighting. The Mongols’ greatest advantage was their mobility. They brought with them on their campaigns so many horses that a soldier could ride a fresh mount daily for three or four days running. Once an enemy’s initial resistance was broken, the Mongols would overrun the territory with a rapidity not to be duplicated until the tank warfare of the 20th century. Rivers, however broad, formed no obstacle; the Mongol armies would cross them in a kind of collapsible boat that they carried as standard equipment. They were equally skilled in organizing sieges. On one occasion they even diverted a river that ran through a besieged city and attacked along the dry river bed. \|E\|\|System of Rule\| Genghis Khan instituted a legal code, the Great Book of Yasas, that formed the basis of governance for most of the empire’s duration. From the fragments that survive, it appears that the yasas (laws) were an amalgam of Mongol customary law and the khan’s own innovations. The yasas included such provisions as a ban on thrusting a knife into fire, possibly based on a fear of offending the spirits of nature. Of particular importance was the yasa exempting the clergy of conquered peoples, as were the Mongols’ own religious leaders, from the payment of taxes and the performance of military service and forced labor. In governing their empire, the Mongols readily admitted into their service officials belonging to all nations and creeds. Genghis Khan began the practice by taking into his court both Muslim and Chinese advisers. One of his most trusted advisers, the Khitan prince Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai, had shrewdly warned: “The empire was won on horseback, but it will not be governed on horseback.” It is believed that his advice prompted the Mongols to turn from the wholesale massacre of settled populations to using the talents of the conquered peoples in governing the empire. The Mongols developed an efficient communications system within their vast empire. The system was based on the yam, or post-horse station, which supplied food, horses, and service to the Mongol khan’s troops and couriers. The yam network made it possible for news to travel quickly to and from the khan’s headquarters; the couriers were able, if necessary, to cover a distance of 250 mi (400 km) in one day. In addition, the Mongols encouraged open trade throughout their empire. They revived, secured, and expanded the ancient trade routes known as the Silk Road. Under Mongol rule, these trade routes fostered the first significant cultural exchanges between East Asia and Europe. \|IV\|\|THE MONGOL EMPIRE AFTER GENGHIS KHAN\| On his deathbed Genghis Khan chose his third-eldest son, Ögödei, to succeed him as the great khan. Before his death Genghis had already divided his empire among his heirs, in accordance with Mongol custom. His sons Jochi, Jagatai, Ögödei, and Tolui each inherited a section of the empire. To Ögödei he gave all Mongol territory in East Asia except the Mongol homelands, which went to Tolui. Jagatai took the central part of the empire, and Jochi the lands farthest to the west. They and their successors continued the Mongol wars of conquest, further expanding the empire. \|A\|\|Reign of Ögödei Khan\| In the spring of 1229 a kuriltai duly elected Ögödei as the great khan. The empire prospered and expanded under Ögödei’s able and energetic rule. In the first few years of his reign, the Mongols completed the conquest of northern China and declared war on the Southern Song dynasty. Ögödei built a grand capital at Karakorum, in the heart of the Mongol homelands. Most significantly, he authorized a campaign into Europe in 1235. A Mongol army of about 150,000 stormed into eastern Europe under the command of Jochi’s son Batu and one of the ablest Mongol generals, Subadai. The Mongol forces crossed the Volga River in the autumn of 1237 and attacked the principalities of Russia, capturing town after town. Early in 1238 they turned northward and approached to within 60 mi (100 km) of Novgorod but then withdrew southward, fearing that the spring thaw might render the roads impassable for their horses. In the summer of 1240 the Mongols resumed their attack. In December they captured and destroyed the important city of Kyiv (Kiev) on the Dnieper River, opening the way into central Europe. The right flank of Batu’s army advanced through Poland, inflicting a crushing defeat on a Polish-German army in the region of Silesia in April 1241, and then turned south to join the main army in Hungary. Quickly victorious there, the Mongols became masters of the area east of the Danube River. In December they crossed the river in pursuit of the king of Hungary, Béla IV. Batu’s forces soon reached the coast of the Adriatic Sea and seemed poised for an invasion of western Europe. However, news then arrived that Ögödei had died in November. Batu withdrew the bulk of his forces in the spring of 1242 and returned to Karakorum in order to participate in the selection of a successor. Eastern and central Europe had proved to be disunited and ill-prepared to resist the Mongol armies. Fortunately for the rest of Europe, the Mongols were never to return in force. \|B\|\|Reign of Guyuk Khan\| Ögödei’s death was followed by an interregnum lasting nearly five years, during which time his widow, Töregene, acted as regent (substitute for a monarch). In 1243 Mongol forces defeated the Seljuk sultanate of Rûm, centered in Konya, thereby extending the Mongol Empire into Anatolia (present-day Turkey). A kuriltai finally convened in 1246 to elect Ögödei’s successor, choosing his son Guyuk. Witnessing the kuriltai was the Italian Franciscan friar Giovanni de Piano Carpini, who had come to the Mongol court as the bearer of letters from Pope Innocent IV. Guyuk brusquely rejected the pope’s protests against the Mongol invasion of Poland and Hungary and called upon him, together with all the crowned heads of Europe, to tender their allegiance to him. Subsequent efforts to convert the Mongols to Christianity likewise failed. However, Carpini had made the first recorded European visit to China, preceding the Venetian merchant Marco Polo by 29 years. Guyuk’s reign was cut short in 1248. He died while traveling west to meet up with his cousin Batu, apparently with the intention of attacking him. Batu had strongly contested Guyuk’s election as great khan and had remained opposed to him. Guyuk’s widow, Oghul-Ghaimish, was regent of the empire until a kuriltai was finally convened in 1251 to choose Guyuk’s successor. \|C\|\|Reign of Mangu Khan\| Despite opposition from Guyuk’s sons and their supporters, the kuriltai elected Mangu (also spelled Mongke), the eldest son of Tolui (Genghis Khan’s youngest heir). A plot to overthrow the new great khan was uncovered while the inaugural celebrations were still in progress; those responsible were banished or executed. This succession struggle was the first show of the disunity that eventually broke up the Mongol Empire. Under Mangu’s leadership the Mongols embarked on new wars of conquest. In 1253 the khan’s brother Kublai invaded the territory of the Southern Song dynasty in southern China, while another brother, Hulagu, set out on a campaign into Southwest Asia that culminated in the sack of Baghd?d in 1258. In autumn of that year, Mangu took the field in person against the Song. He died the following summer while directing a siege. \|V\|\|DIVISION AND DECLINE OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE\| The death of Mangu in 1259 marks the virtual end of a unified Mongol Empire. The initial partitioning of the empire by Genghis Khan had opened the way for further division. His descendants and their heirs established separate khanates (states ruled by khans), which remained at least nominally united through Mangu’s reign. He was succeeded by his brother Kublai, who faced open opposition from two of the khanates and would never enjoy universal sovereignty. By then, kinship ties proved inadequate to overcome the internal dissent tearing apart the empire. The Mongols were skilled conquerors but inexperienced administrators. The Mongol overlords therefore tended to adopt local systems of rule. They also tended to integrate culturally with the peoples they conquered. In a relatively short period of time, the khanates became politically and culturally distinct. Religious differences, for example, appeared early—the Mongol overlords in western Asia converted to Islam, while those in China became Buddhists or Lamaists. By 1279, when the empire reached its largest size, it was made up of four virtually independent khanates: the Yuan dynasty of China in the east, the Jagatai khanate in the center, the Golden Horde in the west, and the Il-Khanid dynasty in the southwest. Each khanate followed its own path of decline. Their histories are discussed separately in the following sections. \|A\|\|The Yuan Dynasty of China\| After becoming the great khan, Kublai continued the war against the Southern Song dynasty, which governed the regions south of the Yangtze River. The long campaign against the Song effectively ended with the capture of its emperor in 1276, but the area around Guangzhou (also known as Canton) held out until 1279. Kublai founded the Yuan dynasty and proclaimed himself emperor of China. He moved the Mongol capital from Karakorum to the site now occupied by Beijing, which he named Khanbalik (romanized as Cambaluc). Kublai had accomplished the Mongols’ ultimate conquest, bringing one of the world’s most advanced civilizations under Mongol domination. All of China was united under a single ruler for the first time in more than 300 years. In addition, the kingdoms of Korea and the mainland of Southeast Asia were reduced to docile tributaries (payers of tribute). Kublai’s overseas expeditions were less successful. An army sent to the island of Java (now part of Indonesia) was tricked by Prince Wijaya, a local ruler, into destroying his enemies. Wijaya then forced his unwitting allies to withdraw by a skillful guerrilla campaign. Even more disastrous were Kublai’s attempts to invade Japan. In 1274 a typhoon, celebrated in Japanese history as the kamikaze (“divine wind”), destroyed the entire Mongol armada sent to invade Japan. A similar disaster ended a second invasion attempt in 1281. In China, Kublai’s reign was a period of peace, commercial prosperity, religious tolerance, and a cultural flowering. Kublai himself converted to Buddhism and made it the official religion of his empire. He lived in a style of dazzling opulence that belied his nomadic origins. He also encouraged contacts with the outside world, giving audience to ambassadors and merchants from many nations. His curiosity about Christianity led to a visit in 1275 by the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, who ended up staying in China for 17 years as Kublai’s civil servant. Polo’s accounts of his travels and experiences gave Europeans their first inside view of the great civilization in the East. \|A1\|\|Decline of the Yuan Dynasty\| The decline of the Yuan dynasty began with Kublai’s death in 1294. His successors were prevented by dynastic conflict, lack of discipline, and short-lived reigns from achieving any renown. Only Kublai ruled longer than his final successor, Tokon-Temur, who took power in 1333. During his reign, constant intrigues and dissensions among the Mongol aristocracy encouraged the outbreak of revolts. By the late 1350s the greater part of southern China was in the hands of various guerrilla leaders. One rebel, a former Buddhist monk named Zhu Yuanzhang, had gained control over the entire area south of the Yangtze River by 1368. The Mongols, who were involved in their own internal quarrels, seemed almost indifferent to the loss of this vast region, and they offered no effective resistance to Zhu’s invasion of the north that year. Tokon-Temur fled, and Zhu made a triumphal entry into Khanbalik. He founded the Ming dynasty, which ruled China until 1644. \|B\|\|The Jagatai Khanate of Central Asia\| To his second son, Jagatai, Genghis Khan gave a territory stretching westward from what is now China’s westernmost region, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, to the area southeast of the Aral Sea. His domain came to be known as the Jagatai khanate. The central location of this khanate made it a strategic communications zone of the Mongol Empire. It was also the weakest of the Mongol khanates. Jagatai khans were made and unmade by the great khans, who through the reign of Kublai Khan maintained a tight grip over the khanate’s affairs. Jagatai and his early successors continued the Mongols’ traditional nomadic way of life in the eastern part of the khanate. The major cities of the west were mostly inhabited by Turkic-speaking Muslims. They had a settled way of life based on agriculture and regarded their Mongol overlords as barbarians. In the 14th century the authority of the Jagatai khans over their Muslim subjects diminished sharply. The Jagatai khanate lost Transoxiana (roughly corresponding to present-day Uzbekistan) to the Turkic aristocracy in 1347. The Jagatai khans’ rule was thereafter confined to the eastern region of the original khanate, lasting there until the 1500s. \|B1\|\|Rise of Tamerlane\| By 1370 Transoxiana had become the first conquest of Tamerlane. He came from the Barlas tribe of Mongols, who had settled in Transoxiana in the 1200s and over time had adopted Turkic Muslim culture. Originally a minor aristocrat, Tamerlane concocted a mythical descent from Genghis Khan and rose to power by an adroit combination of treachery and military genius. By 1402 he loosely controlled an empire stretching from India to the Mediterranean Sea. Tamerlane’s rise to power signaled the end of the Mongol Empire. His exploits delivered the fatal blow to the empire’s two westernmost khanates, the Golden Horde of Russia and the Il-Khanid dynasty of Southwest Asia. \|C\|\|The Golden Horde of Russia\| To his eldest son, Jochi, Genghis Khan gave a vast and indeterminate domain extending from east of present-day Kazakhstan to the banks of the Volga River in western Russia. Upon Jochi’s death in 1227, his territory was divided by his heirs. The western portion went to his second son, Batu, who subsequently led the Mongol campaign into Europe and thereby extended his domain westward to the Danube River. Batu’s khanate became known as the Golden Horde. (The Turkic word ordu, from which the word horde is derived, means an encampment.) It was also known as the khanate of Kipchak, after the Kipchak Turks who originally dominated the region. Over time, they mingled with their Mongol conquerors, and their Turkic language gradually replaced Mongolian. The Mongols themselves became known to Europeans as Tatars (or Tartars), after the Turkic-speaking people who made up a large portion of their forces. Batu established his capital, Sarai, on the eastern bank of the lower Volga, near modern Volgograd. He allowed the local Russian princes to keep their thrones as long as they paid tribute and homage to him. This system operated without significant resistance for more than 130 years. Islam became the official religion of the Golden Horde under Özbeg (Uzbek). His long and prosperous reign, from 1313 to 1341, is generally regarded as the golden age of the Russian Mongols. A period of anarchy followed, during which the real ruler of the Golden Horde was a general named Mamay. With his defeat in 1380 by the Russian grand prince of Muscovy (a Russian principality), Dmitry Donskoy, the Russians seemed on the verge of overthrowing the Golden Horde. However, the Mongol khan Tokhtamish intervened. He saw an opportunity to expand his domain in southern Siberia, the khanate of the White Horde, which abutted the eastern border of the Golden Horde. By the end of 1378 Tokhtamish occupied Sarai. The final clash between Mamay and Tokhtamish resulted in a complete victory for the White Horde. Now also master of the Golden Horde, Tokhtamish sacked the Russian capital of Moscow in 1382 and reduced the Russians once again to the status of vassals and tributaries. \|C1\|\|Final Decline of the Golden Horde\| Emboldened by these victories, Tokhtamish began invading Tamerlane’s territories in Central Asia. In response, Tamerlane attacked Tokhtamish, finally defeating him in 1395. In doing so, Tamerlane so greatly weakened the Golden Horde that he unwittingly helped unify the Russians. The Golden Horde broke up in the 1400s, emerging as the independent khanates of Kazan’, Astrakhan’, Sibir (Siberia), and Crimea. In the 1500s three of these independent khanates were conquered by Russian tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich (Ivan the Terrible), and in 1783 the last one, Crimea, was annexed to Russia. \|D\|\|The Il-Khanid Dynasty of Southwest Asia\| During the reign of Mangu Khan, his brother Hulagu invaded the powerful Muslim caliphate of the Abbasids. In 1257 Hulagu launched a three-pronged attack on the Abbasid capital of Baghd?d (now the capital of Iraq). The Abbasid caliph (supreme leader of the Muslim community), al-Mustasim, surrendered in February 1258, and Baghd?d was pillaged and destroyed. Hulagu ordered al-Mustasim put to death. After capturing Baghd?d, Hulagu established the Il-Khanid dynasty. His khanate formed the southwestern section of the Mongol Empire. In 1259 he set out on a campaign to overtake Syria. The cities of Aleppo and Damascus soon fell, and the Mongols pressed on to the frontier of Egypt, then ruled by the Mamluks. However, news of Mangu’s death prompted Hulagu to return east, leaving his general Ked-Buka in command with much-reduced forces. In 1260 the Mamluk general Baybars attacked Mongol forces at Ayn Jalut, near the Jordan River in Palestine. Ked-Buka was defeated, captured, and executed. Following the battle, the Mamluks annexed Syria and Baybars became the sultan of the powerful Mamluk state. For the Mongols, the battle ended a widespread reputation for invincibility. It also marked the end of Mongol expansion toward the Mediterranean. \|D1\|\|Height and Decline of the Il-Khanid Dynasty\| In 1295 Hulagu’s great-grandson Ghazan began his short but brilliant reign, bringing the Il-Khanid dynasty to its height. He introduced new systems of taxation, reformed the armed forces, and improved communications. Along with Mongolian, the Turkish, Persian, and Arabic languages were employed in government. Iranian culture was promoted, although new Mongol elements were infused in both art and architecture. Ghazan converted to Islam and made it the official religion of his realm. He also took great interest in the history and traditions of his people, on which he was an authority. At his suggestion one of his ministers, the Iranian historian Rashid ad-Din, compiled the Jami-at-Tawarikh (Collection of Histories), a vast historical encyclopedia. Ghazan himself was the primary source for much of its information about the Mongols. The administration of the later Il-Khans, however, was poor, and when the khan Abu Said died without a male heir in 1395, the khanate broke up into small states ruled mainly by Iranians. By the end of the century, Tamerlane had swept the region into his empire. \|VI\|\|LEGACY OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE\| The Mongol Empire ushered in an era of frequent and extended contacts between East and West. For the first time, Europeans journeyed as far east as China. Artisans, envoys, missionaries, and merchants—including Marco Polo—made the trip. This increased contact created a demand for Asian goods in Europe and inspired Europeans to search for a sea route to Asia.
Get the class attention and teach them about spring, Easter and some farm animals with this entertaining story book! Isn't it clear? Rabbits don't lay eggs! Oh, you thought they do? Well, a lot of children also think of the same. Rupert the main character is a little rabbit who arrives to the farmyard and creates a stir when he tries to fit in with the others and make himself useful. Unfortunately enough he can't lay eggs like the duck of the farm and also he can't cock-a-doodle-do like the rooster. Luckily, soon he finds himself something useful to do when he starts digging. He ends up with an unusual job to do. How to start? Introduce or revise a set of vocabulary about the farm or Easter. To introduce farm animals use flashcards then colouring pages. To revise or reinforce vocabulary put children in groups or pairs and tell them to try to think of as many farm animals as they can. Make younger children draw the animals whilst older ones can practice spelling. Alternatively you can let them imitate and guess different farm animals or use some farm animal voices as children love guessing. Talk about the pictures, the characters, the storyline of the book. Ask questions and make sure you listen to the kids' reflection. Let them talk about Rupert and the other characters. Ask them what they expect to happen next. After reading the book: Typical speaking activity is to dramatize the story. Involving role play is a great idea to practice the language. To make it more entertaining for the children let them make some masks that they can use during the play. The most important thing is to let them enjoy the story and practice the language as much as they can. Do your children like animal stories? What is their favourite one? Rabbits don't lay eggs! on The Bookdepository Rabbits don't lay eggs: Story Books For Kids by Lili Thomson published on Miss T. ESL
Just-forming stars, like growing babies, are always hungry and must "feed" on huge amounts of gas and dust from dense envelopes surrounding them at birth. Now a team of astronomers including Robert Gutermuth, a University of Massachusetts Amherst expert in imaging data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, reports observing an unusual "baby" star that periodically emits infrared light bursts, suggesting it may be twins, that is, a binary star. The discovery is reported this month in Nature. The extremely young object, dubbed LRLL 54361, is about 100,000 years old and is located about 950 light years away toward the Perseus constellation. Years of monitoring its infrared with the Spitzer instrument reveal that it becomes 10 times brighter every 25.34 days, Gutermuth and colleagues say. This periodicity suggests that a companion to the central forming star is likely inhibiting the infall of gas and dust until its closest orbital approach, when matter eventually comes crashing down onto the protostellar "twins." Gutermuth, who surveys star-forming molecular clouds with Spitzer to search for protostars, says, "The idea that this object is a baby binary system fits our data, so, twins fit our data. In single protostars, we would still see matter dumping onto the star non-uniformly, but never with the regularity or intensity of the bursts we observe in LRLL 54361. The 25.43-day period is consistent with the orbital period we would expect from a very close binary star." The protostar twins, embedded in a gas "cocoon" many times larger than our solar system, offer an unusual chance to study what looks like a developing binary star system, he adds. Because dense envelopes of gas and dust surround embryonic stars, the only detectable light to escape is at longer, infrared wavelengths. "Spitzer's infrared camera is perfect for penetrating this cool dust to detect emission from the warm center," says Gutermuth. "When you have two young stars feeding from the same circumstellar disk, the gravitational influence of the secondary companion can cause hiccups, an inhibition of infalling material from the disk. But when the orbital paths approach closely, that material can rush in, triggering feeding pulses for both stars and releasing a bright burst of light. The flash moves out from the center, reflecting off the disk and cavities in the envelope like an echo reverberating out from cave walls. We've seen the light flashes with Spitzer and have imaged the echo-tracing cavities in its envelope with the Hubble Space Telescope." The light echo to which Gutermuth refers is seen in images taken at the near-infrared limit of the Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 instrument. The lead investigator for this work and the Spitzer study is UMass Amherst alumnus James Muzerolle, now of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore. The investigators are careful to point out that they're not sure what is at the center of object LRLL 54361, but if it is an embryonic binary star, the prospects are exciting. Scientists have shown that close binary low mass stars are a somewhat rare outcome of the star formation process. But understanding their formation is critical to address some of the fundamental open questions in star and planet formation, such as how protostars form, how they accumulate their mass and how planets form from their circumstellar disks, Gutermuth points out. It's believed that most of a central star's mass is assembled early, whereas planet formation in spinning outer gaseous disks may take several million years to complete. Another reason this object is so interesting, he says, is that it provides a new demonstration of the impact of time-domain astronomy. "By analyzing the variability of this object's light over time, we have obtained a unique set of constraints on its physical nature. This system offers us a rare chance to observe the evolution of the disk and envelope around a binary star in almost real time." "Looking ahead, we'll characterize this system further at millimeter wavelengths with the aid of the Large Millimeter Telescope now becoming operational under a partnership between UMass Amherst and Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica. Studying millimeter variability over time will be part of our approach." University of Massachusetts at Amherst: http://www.umass.edu This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail. It's just a bit shorter than Mt. Everest As the spacecraft completes its final flyby of Saturn's moon Dione, TIME reflects on the most spectacular images from the mission thus far Satellites that are manufactured and assembled in orbit could let you launch your own armchair science project or just experience the effect of seeing Earth from above Two of the four NASA space shuttles on display in US museums have had their water tanks removed for possible use in a storage system for the ISS After three botched missions to resupply the International Space Center since October, an unmanned cargo ship blasted off from southern Japan on Wednesday with food, water and gear needed to keep the research station and its crew functioning. The close encounter may be scientists' last chance to identify ice volcanoes and learn about the moon's inner structure Astronaut Scott Kelly, spending a year in space, hopes NASA will get "support we need" to develop commercial U.S. crew ships Comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko, shadowed by the Rosetta spacecraft, will make its closest approach to the sun at 3.03 am BST on Thursday morning Instead of seeking living aliens, ET hunters suggest looking for alien civilisations that have wiped themselves out through technology This year's event should benefit from the presence of a new moon, which offers the ideal dark conditions for viewing the show
More than two months after hurricanes Irma and Harvey battered the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, the U.S. continues to struggle with remediating the destruction. At times like this, the world relies heavily on scientists and engineers for the brainpower and expertise needed to address the huge problems that result. The scientific community is already credited for reducing the toll on human lives by accurately predicting where and when the storms would occur, allowing many to evacuate or take shelter well before dangerous weather arrived. Since the damage has been done, scientists and engineers have gone right back to work trying to repair the damage and learn how similar disasters can be better addressed in the future. The world's traditional hurricane season ended Nov. 30. Brewer Science was able to make a difference early in November by donating funds to Texas' Aransas Pass Independent School District to replace science lab equipment damaged by the storm. BSI Scientific Computing Manager Amanda Riojas learned of the opportunity to help through contacts at the Central Texas Local Section of the American Chemical Society. "For millions from Houston to St. Johns, the off season will be spent rebuilding and attempting to get their lives back to normalcy," notes Andrew Freeman on Mashable. "Meanwhile, hurricane forecasters will work to improve their techniques and computer models in time for next year." A sampling of other news stories describing how the scientific community took action following the storms: - Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, created a supercomputer-powered simulation that uses advanced physics and a state-of-the-art climate algorithm to recreate how air currents swept aerosols around the planet during hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria. - A new weather satellite developed by NASA will help forecasters broadcast earlier warnings about severe weather. Previous satellites could only detect lightning from low Earth orbit for short bursts of time, but the satellite known as GOES-16’s GLM can map lightning over the entire Western Hemisphere. - In Texas, state-of-the-art drones were able to aid scientists by mapping damage of large flooded sites far before floodwaters receded. The state-of-the-art technology used high-resolution photographs to create detailed maps and three-dimensional models of damaged areas. - Meteorologists collected data at the eye of the storms to understand where the most extreme winds materialize during hurricanes, and they're now studying how the shifting temperatures, salinity and composition of the floodwaters have affected plant communities. - Conservationists are studying how the storms and the release of toxic chemicals in some areas have affected animal populations. For example, they’ve already noted the loss of multiple flamingos in Cuba and oyster beds near Galveston Bay, and are concerned about more than 1,500 rhesus macaques that lived on a Puerto Rican island, many of which have been helpful in autism research. - Finally, a team of multinational scientists is now exploring the possibility of injecting sulfate into the atmosphere to cool the earth and theoretically reduce the world’s hurricane generation by half over the next 50 years, reports NBC News. Since more extreme weather seems a certainty in the future, much could depend on the ability of scientists to anticipate and possibly avert its worst effects. And that's true of both global warming and the threat of severe storms. "As more companies, governments and researchers devote themselves to the problem, the chances of big technological advances are improving," writes Justin Gillis in the New York Times. "But even many experts who are optimistic about technological solutions warn that current efforts are not enough. People like Bill Gates have argued that crossing our fingers and hoping for technological miracles is not a strategy — we have to spend the money that would make these things more likely to happen."
We strive to cultivate a child’s natural desire to learn and allow the child to be motivated by a natural curiosity and love for knowledge. Our students develop independence, self-confidence and pride in learning. The Prepared Environment To assist children in their natural development, our preschool and kindergarten programs offer well maintained, orderly “prepared environments” which invite them to move and investigate. Each child has free choice in the selection and length of tasks which are structured for independent and successful activity. The Montessori materials are designed to isolate a single new concept to be grasped by the child and are self-correcting. They also follow a sequential progression permitting the child to master one task and then proceed to a further challenge. The core of our Montessori Preschool Program is to provide a foundation for learning and inspire our children to discover, learn, and grow. Our children learn “How to Learn” in order to build a long lasting foundation. Our Program includes the following key elements: Reading – Our Reading Program is a phonetic based system teaching good decoding skills and word attack skills. Students leave our Kindergarten Program reading above their typical age reading level. Mathematics – Students learn abstract concepts through concrete materials. As our students learn addition and subtraction, they understand the process that underlies these skills. Students lead activities for counting quantities, developing one-to-one correspondence, recognizing numerical symbols, sequencing, place values, and mathematical operations. They use tools such as the Hundred Board, and Squaring and Cubing chains. Sensorial – Sensorial materials allow our students to learn by refining the senses. Our students learn to classify and organize their environment, giving them the first steps to organizing their intelligence. The sensorial experiences support a foundation for learning and vocabulary development. World Geography and Culture – Our students learn world geography and experience various aspects of different cultures through our materials and enrichment programs. Practical Life – Our students learn and develop their fine motor skills, gaining independence and confidence in their ability to do daily tasks for caring for one’s self, others, and their surroundings. These activities foster independence, concentration, order and, coordination. Prepared Environment – Our classrooms are a carefully planned, stimulating environment in which children discover materials especially designed for their readiness and maturity. The materials in the classroom offer a series of sequential, manipulative, and sensorial activities that bridge the gap between concrete and abstract learning. The Montessori preschool classroom does not separate children by age. Three year olds enter the classroom as the youngest students, needing special guidance and assistance. By the time they are five, in their Kindergarten year, they have gained self-confidence and leadership skills which they practice and hone by taking on ever-increasing responsibilities for their classroom. Working on these skills is an important part of the third year program, and the skills the children acquire will help them throughout their lives. Our classroom provides educational material and equipment that encourages independent learning. This allows students to work on different stages of the same curriculum at different times, assuring that children progress at a pace suited to them. Our children learn on independent learning paths designed for each individual child’s development. This structure builds confidence and inspires children to learn more. Developmentally, young children are curious about everything and need to explore and discover. Our Early Childhood 3-6 learning environment is designed to encourage each child to move, touch, and manipulate. Each child has the freedom to work independently, based on their own initiatives with respectful guidance from their teacher. Country Hills Montessori 3-6 learning environments are inviting, attractive spaces with an intriguing array of learning materials, books, plants, animals, art, music material, and nature activities. The environment contains specially designed, hands-on materials that invite children to engage in learning activities of their own individual choice. Children in a Montessori classroom learn by making discoveries, a process that helps to cultivate concentration, motivation, self-discipline, and a love of learning. Our student develop valuable personal characteristics in our Montessori classroom – among them self-confidence, initiative, sense of order, ability to concentrate, persistence, increased curiosity, and pride in learning. We treat children as competent individuals, and display the same respect to them as we do other the adults. We seek diversity to create a learning environment that includes and values differing perspectives. We respect individuality and balancing individual needs against those of the group. We emphasize a lifelong commitment to learning how to learn. We accept responsibility for our own learning and behavior. We value integrity; our word is important and we use it to accomplish positive goals. Our Students develop valuable personal characteristics in our Montessori classroom – among them self-confidence, initiative, sense of order, ability to concentrate, persistence, increased curiosity, and pride in learning.
View your list of saved words. (You can log in using Facebook.) Any of the series of 15 consecutive chemical elements in the periodic table from actinium to lawrencium (atomic numbers 89–103). All are radioactive heavy metals; and only the first four (actinium, thorium, protactinium, and uranium) occur in nature in appreciable quantities. The other 11 (the transuranium elements) are unstable and are produced only artificially. Actinides are transition elements, so their atoms have similar configurations and similar physical and chemical behaviour; the most usual valences are 3 and 4. This entry comes from Encyclopædia Britannica Concise. For the full entry on actinide, visit Britannica.com.
You expect a lot of motion to result in an object actually moving, but Cubli is a little different. All the spinning and whirring going on inside this little cube keeps it from moving. The spinning reaction wheels inside Cubli keep it stable as it balances on a corner. It can even correct for a little nudge and walk across a surface with a “controlled fall.” The Cubli was designed at ETH Zurich — it’s 15cm on a side and is dominated by three spinning reaction wheels (one along each axis). Each wheel has its own motor and motor controller, which rev up based on data acquired by an array of inertial sensors. These sensors monitor the tilt and angular velocity of the Cubli at multiple points. That data is fed into an on-board processor, which then calculates exactly how fast each reaction wheel needs to spin to get Cubli upright. Watching the contraption raise itself up is fascinating. From a position sitting flat on one of the faces, the Cubli first kicks itself up onto an edge. Next, it jumps up onto a corner by spinning up the reaction wheel perpendicular to the resting edge. If researchers want to make the Cubli “walk,” it basically does the same thing in reverse — reaction wheels cut out at the right time and allow the Cubli to fall in the desired direction. This method of using reaction torque for stability is similar to the process used to keep satellites stable in orbit, the algorithms at work in the Cubli are completely different. There is interest in using robots based on this type of design for planetary exploration, but for the time being, Cubli is just a neat concept.
CD Rocket Engine Car Build this CD Rocket Engine Car and learn how rockets work! This kit includes the supplies you need to build a car with recycled materials and learn about concepts such as Motion and Forces, and understanding the relationship between the two. This project provides opportunities to explore gravity and friction and the effect they have on objects. This kit aligns with Arizona Learning Standards for Grade 5. Out of stock Arizona Learning Standards: Grade: 5, Physical Science Concept 2: Motion and Forces, understand the relationship between force and motion. PO 1. Describe the following forces: Gravity and Friction PO 2. Describe the various effects forces can have on an object (e.g., cause motion, halt motion, change direction of motion. Supplies Needed For this: 1 (5 by 10 inch) used poster board 4 used CDs 1 (9 inch) balloon 4 CD Spider hubs 2 short straws or one 10 inch or longer straw 2 Lollipop sticks 1 Plastic tube Clear shipping tape Blue painters tape (One inch wide) Ruler, scissors, pencil
The main cause of World War II was the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and its subsequent invasion of other countries. The causes can be linked back to World War I. The main effects of WWII include the Cold War, occupation of territories and the widespread destruction in Western Europe. After World War I, Germany fell into a depression, which left the country ripe and ready for a new government regime to come in. The Nazi Party filled that gap and brought the country out of its depression. To do this, they put blame on marginalized groups, such as Jewish and gay citizens. This was the beginning of the Holocaust, and the Nazi Party eventually pushed out of the country into surrounding nations, officially starting the war. There was also worldwide depression, which gave rise to dictators in both Japan and Italy, the two other main antagonists of the war. After the war, the Allies split Germany into different territories for occupation. Other Axis countries were occupied as well, but the German split is the best known. The split between Western Germany, which was occupied by Western European countries and the United States, and Eastern Germany, occupied by Russia, was enforced by the Berlin Wall. This split was also the beginning of the Cold War, during which the United States and Russia rushed to develop weapons and space technology. Western Europe was devastated because of the heavy bombings throughout the war, and this led to a long period of rebuilding. The United States played a large role in helping these countries rebuild.
Switzerland was a loose confederation of German-, French-, and Italian-speaking communities until 1878, when the French, under Napoleon Bonaparte, unified the country as the Helvetic Republic and imposed a constitution, which was enforced by French occupation troops. Bitterly resented by the Swiss people, the French occupation ended in 1803, when Napoleon agreed to a new Swiss-approved constitution and withdrew his troops. The Congress of Vienna in 1815, which would determine Europe’s borders until the outbreak of World War I nearly a century later, recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland. The Swiss considered preserving this neutrality essential to Switzerland’s economic and political development. A new constitution, adopted in 1848, reinforced the neutrality principle by outlawing Swiss service in foreign armies or the acceptance of pensions from foreign governments. Neither the unification of Italy in 1861 nor the birth of the German empire in 1871 shook the loyalty of the nation’s Italian or German population to Switzerland. With industrialization, fueled largely by hydroelectric power, and the construction of an efficient railroad network, Switzerland’s economy continued to grow, spawning a thriving tourism industry by the end of the 19th century. Though Switzerland maintained its neutrality during World War I, with German, French and Italian Swiss standing firm to preserve their country’s solidarity, a costly military mobilization to protect the Swiss borders diverted most of the working population to war-related work and brought economic hardship. After the war ended, membership in the League of Nations—the international organization established at the Versailles peace conference—was narrowly approved by Swiss voters after a federal council opposed it. In February 1920, the League voted to recognize the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland. The League also established its headquarters in the Swiss city of Geneva, a tribute to the country’s neutrality as well as its relative economic and political stability, which has continued to the present day.
It's the one area of space science in which you get to eat the experiment. - By Robert Zimmerman - Air & Space magazine, September 2003 (Page 4 of 5) During previous missions to Mir, U.S. astronauts had refurbished the Svet greenhouse. “We worked with the Bulgarians to get new components built for Svet,” says Gail Bingham, a professor in the Plants, Soil, and Biometerology Department at Utah State University. Bingham’s USU team developed sensors that monitored the amount of moisture reaching the roots as well as the carbon dioxide and oxygen levels surrounding the plants. The team installed light banks and new fans to keep the greenhouse atmosphere circulating and clean of toxins, and replaced Svet’s artificial soil with a set of fabric sheets that were packed with seeds and then folded around perforated stainless steel watering tubes. Both the tubes and fabric were then enclosed in a calcite clay embedded with pellets that released nutrients over time. After four weeks—twice as long as it would take on Earth—the plants were ready to be pollinated. Foale became a human bee, collecting pollen from the one- to two-inch plants and depositing it on their stamens, but his efforts were almost for naught—a Progress resupply vehicle collided with Mir. Damages and emergency maneuvers cut into the station’s power supply. The plants floated in darkness for three days, with no fans to circulate the air around them. Temperatures dropped to near-freezing. But just days after power was restored, several plants developed seed pods. “It was pretty clear that they were full of seeds,” Foale remembers. In between putting Mir back together—shifting batteries about and wiping up globs of water—Foale carefully harvested the pods, reserving half the seeds for return to Earth and preparing the rest for replanting in space. He gently inserted a half-dozen seeds back into Svet’s root modules. For the next month, he helped each seed find light, delicately feeding them a precise amount of water. By September 1997, four of Foale’s six seeds had germinated, growing leaves and pods packed with seeds. After almost three decades of effort by both Soviets and Americans, a second generation of healthy plants had been grown in space. Six seeds were planted on Earth; two of them developed into viable plants, and the vision of self-sufficient space exploration seemed a little closer to reality. Since Foale’s success, work has continued, first on Mir and then on the International Space Station. In 1998 and 1999, Russians on Mir were able to grow two generations of wheat, with the second generation producing healthy offspring back on Earth. In 2001, astronauts on ISS again grew Arabidopsis through an entire life cycle, confirming the work Lebedev had done two decades earlier. In 2002, Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory and the Russian space agency teamed up to build a greenhouse dubbed Lada (after the Russian goddess of spring, with a nod to the boxy Soviet car) and installed it on the Russian side of the ISS. Lada’s aim is to grow edible vegetables instead of crops. “We aren’t ready yet to grow wheat and turn it into bread,” says Bingham. “Instead, we are trying to grow a salad machine.” The costs of Lada’s design, construction, approval, and flight were many times less than they would have been if the greenhouse had been submitted to the complicated and time-consuming bureaucratic process NASA requires to get an experiment into space. Bingham says the U.S. side of the partnership contributed only about $300,000—a figure that owes much to free work done by USU students. There is no estimate of the amount contributed by the Russians. Bingham notes, “If you are really lucky and really well thought of in the NASA community, you might get two or three experiments in your lifetime. In contrast, we’ve already flown 10 experiments on Mir and the Russian side of ISS over 10 years.” The Russian crew members spend their personal time tending Lada’s garden in exchange for the right to eat half their crops; the other half is reserved for analysis. Last November, cosmonauts reaped Lada’s first crop of leafy greens, greedily devouring half a harvest of Brassica rapa. (NASA would not grant permission for U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson to eat any—the greens had not been certified as safe for consumption—though her hand did mysteriously appear in a photograph of cosmonauts munching on their work.) Like their Soviet predecessors, Bingham’s astro-farmers have been so taken by their work that they’re no longer automatically agreeing to do the tests Bingham and the other scientists propose. “They’ve become just as good at farming as we are,” says Bingham of the cosmonauts. “We think we ought to do something to the plants, and they’ll tell us, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ They know what’s best for the plants.”
Carbon is child’s play Carbon is all around us and makes up every living thing. Whether it’s a tree, a bird or a person, it all consists of carbon. When living things grow and change, the natural processes that cause these changes affect the carbon they contain. But carbon doesn’t just reside in living things – it can also affect the weather living things experience. Furthermore, the carbon life-forms themselves can influence how much effect carbon has on the weather! The Carbon is child’s play unit is an ideal way to investigate the basic science of carbon in living things and the weather, and improve the scientific literacy of students in the classroom and in their own worlds. It provides opportunities for students to investigate their understandings of carbon in the context of their everyday experiences and, through hands-on activities and discussion, to make decisions and take actions to live more sustainably with carbon.
Measuring your baby’s height and weight is just one aspect of evaluating his growth – your baby also develops movement and thinking skills, both of which are integral to his overall health and development. According to pediatric occupational therapist Rhoda Erhardt, the way your baby moves or gestures is directly linked to his thoughts and cognitive development. Promote development of motor and cognitive skills in your baby through play and goal-oriented activities. Look at a developmental milestones chart to determine what skills are appropriate and expected for your baby’s age. These charts provide general guidelines for the skills most children acquire by a certain age, but your baby might be ahead or behind the curve. If he's a bit behind, don't worry. But if he doesn't shortly catch up, contact your pediatrician. Choose which skill you want to focus on and play games or provide toys to aid your baby’s learning. For example, a baby at 4 months typically can hold a toy, shake it, and bring his hands to his mouth. Give your baby a brightly-colored toy that makes noise, such as a mini maraca. The noise-making element of these toys encourages your child to shake the instrument. Ensure the toy is sturdy enough that it won't break and release small pieces, creating a choking hazard. Also be sure that all toys that go into your baby's mouth - in other words all toys he plays with - are suitable for his age and child-safe. Use push toys or put your baby’s favorite toy just out of reach to encourage gross motor movements, such as using his legs for crawling or walking. This game is also useful for cognitive development, and most babies around 6 months old get curious about objects and try to get things that are out of reach. Encourage tummy time every day. Playing on his tummy allows your baby to strengthen back, shoulder, arm and hand muscles. Never leave an infant alone on his tummy. To help prevent SIDs, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends back sleeping until the baby is able to roll over on his own and back, usually around 6 months. Give your baby finger foods such as cereal when it is age-appropriate, typically around 7 to 9 months of age. Your baby can practice his pincer grasp, a fine motor skill that involves picking up an object between her thumb and index finger. Only give him foods that he is developmentally ready to digest. And never give a baby a food he could choke on, including the foods the American Academy of Pediatrics says never to give any child under 4 years old: whole grapes, chunks of cheese or meat, hard candy, popcorn, hot dogs, peanut butter, raw vegetables or seeds and nuts. Let your baby play with blocks, stacking rings, balls or puzzles. These toys encourage use of fine motor muscles in the fingers, hands and arms. Play peek-a-boo with your baby. At an early age, your baby might just pay close attention to you, but by around 9 months, your baby might try to pull your hands away from your face to find you. By 9 months, your baby will likely have the cognitive development to look for things you hide. Let your baby play on a blanket with different colors or textures, or try putting him on a brown paper bag you lay flat on the floor. Your baby will explore the colors, the way the fabric feels or the sounds the paper makes, all of which stimulates your baby’s senses. Play cause-and-effect games, such as building a block tower and knocking it down. This activity lets your baby realize his effect on his surroundings. Give your baby a box of toys with various shapes, colors and textures. Not only will he like to explore the various objects with her senses, he will also explore different ways to play with multiple toys, such as banging them together or pulling things out of a container and putting them back in. This is especially fun for babies around 1 year old. You are your baby’s favorite toy, so don’t be shy about playing with your baby. Also don’t be afraid to play games multiple times -- children thrive on repetition. Don’t get too caught up in developmental milestone charts -- they are guidelines rather than hard rules. If your child misses a milestone, talk to the pediatrician at your child’s next doctor visit. Don't ever leave toys, blankets or any other item in the crib with a newborn because at this young age a baby can suffocate on soft, cushy things.
How shells actually form remains unclear. Yet the key, says Vernon Reinhold, director of the UNH Glycomics Center at the University of New Hampshire, could be sugars. In mollusks, there is a thin pocket of liquid, called extrapillial fluid, between the inner shell surface and the exterior of the animal, which drives the process. Chief amongst its components is a single calcium-binding protein called EPG, a homodimer of 213 amino acids decorated with at least three complex polysaccharides. In that regard, EPG is not unusual. According to Richard Cummings, director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Glycoscience in Boston, many cellular proteins, and most cell-surface and secreted proteins, are modified by glycosylation—a process that alters protein function across a broad range of biological processes. “Transplants, transfusion, cardiovascular biology, infectious diseases, bioengineering, angiogenesis, vascular biology, inflammation—glycans contribute to all of these biological pathways and disorders,” Cummings says. To understand those processes, “we need to understand the relationship between [glycan] structure and function,” Cummings says. “And yet we know so little about that it’s embarrassing.” In part, that’s because glycans are particularly tough nuts to crack. Unlike proteins and nucleic acids, glycans are not built via template—their form is determined by the suite of enzymes a given cell expresses. The sugar chains can be linear or branched, with multiple possible linkages, and each sugar monomer can be chemically modified. And any protein may support multiple possible glycan structures. “So the complexity of what we term the ‘glycome’—that is, the collection of all the glycans in the human body or an animal’s body—is really immense, and not known,” Cummings says. Unlike proteins and nucleic acids, glycans are not built via template—their form is determined by the suite of enzymes a given cell expresses. Tools for simplifying the complexity of the glycome are slowly falling into place, however. One key tool for glycomics research is mass spectrometry. As in proteomics, researchers can harness mass spec to break down complex glycan structures into their component parts. But the process is considerably more complex for sugars than for proteins, says Reinhold. For one thing, many sugar monomers are structural isomers, meaning they have the same mass (and thus the same behavior in a mass spectrometer). And because glycans can be linked in multiple ways, it is not enough to know the order of sugars; researchers must get creative. As in proteomics, researchers can harness mass spec to break down complex glycan structures into their component parts. For Reinhold, the answer is ion trap mass spectrometry, an instrument configuration that enables researchers to perform so-called MS(n) experiments, in which ions are repeatedly weighed, fragmented and reanalyzed to work out the minutiae of their structure. “Knowing the pathway by which [a glycan] fell apart, we can follow that backwards and put it back together again,” he explains. Reinhold and his team used that strategy to meticulously work out, over a period of four years, the precise chemical structure of the EPG glycans —information that could potentially provide insights into other biomineralization processes, including bone deposition, he says. Julian Saba, a senior glycomics specialist at Thermo Fisher Scientific, recommends glycomics researchers opt for a high-resolution mass spectrometer capable of multiple types of fragmentation—such as the company’s Tribrid Orbitrap-based Fusion and Lumos instruments. “In terms of performance, it is quite a leap,” Saba says. The instruments have “a tribrid technology, which allows you to manipulate the ions introduced into the mass spectrometer to really slice and dice your glycans as thoroughly as possible. The multiple fragmentation modes available on the instruments, including collision-induced dissociation (CID), higher-energy collisional dissociation (HCD), electron transfer dissociation (ETD) and a novel combined fragmentation approach called EThcD, enable a researcher to characterize the glycans while they are still attached to the peptide/protein.” Saba recommends ETD or EThcD for peptide sequencing to identify the glycosylation sites of glycopeptides, and HCD or CID for the glycan composition. For researchers looking to get more in-depth glycan information, Saba recommends releasing glycans from peptides/proteins and examining them separately. To compare glycan profiles over time or conditions, Saba recommends using his company’s multiplexing aminoxyTMT reagents, which are carbonyl-reactive and were specifically designed to label glycans. Researchers can combine up to six samples in a single mass spec run using these reagents. In any event, most researchers don’t analyze glycans in their native form, Saba says—they derivatize them first to improve ionization, fragmentations and separation. For instance, permethylation of glycans is a powerful strategy. According to Saba, that treatment improves HPLC separation on C18 reverse-phase columns, as well as ionization and fragmentation. Glycomics reagents also are available. Glycan microarrays are available commercially from RayBiotech, as well as from the Consortium for Functional Glycomics, which sells them at cost. Vector Laboratories offers a selection of lectins (carbohydrate-binding molecules), and a French company called Elicityl sells purified glycan structures. The enzyme PNGase F (available from New England Biolabs and other vendors) specifically frees most N-linked glycans from their protein scaffolds. But there’s no equivalent reagent for O-linked glycans, which must be released chemically. Cummings recently reported a method based on household bleach (sodium hypochlorite), which can liberate both N- and O-linked glycans from animal or plant tissue samples in minutes . He uses that strategy to drive a method he calls “shotgun glycomics,” in which glycans are freed from tissue, purified, separated on columns, printed onto microarrays or beads and then interrogated. Among other applications, he says, that strategy can be used to suss out each individual’s unique anti-carbohydrate antibody signature—information that may help explain people’s differential disease susceptibility. A second paper, published in 2015, provides a method called CORA for amplifying O-glycans in live cells—like a PCR method for sugars. The procedure uses a modified sugar to “prime glycan biosynthesis,” according to the published results , improving the detection of O-linked glycans up to 1,000-fold. Shotgun glycomics, Cummings says, “provides a way of getting at the human glycome without having to use chemical synthesis.” Chemical synthesis of glycans is difficult, he explains. But there’s something of a chicken-and-egg element to the problem, as well: “Unless you know what the human glycome is, you don’t know what to synthesize.” Zhou, H, et al., “Anomalous N‐glycan structures with an internal fucose branched to GlcA and GlcN residues isolated from a mollusk shell-forming fluid,” J Proteome Res, 12:4547-55, 2013. [PMID: 23919883] Song, X, et al., “Oxidative release of natural glycans for functional glycomics,” Nat Methods, doi:10.1038/nmeth.3861, published online May 2, 2016. [PMID: 27135973] Kudelka, MR, et al., “Cellular O-glycome reporter/amplification to explore O-glycans of living cells,” Nat Methods, doi:10.1038/nmeth.3675, published online November 30, 2015. [PMID: 26619014]
When business people examine financial and economic information on which to base decisions, they differ in how they want the information presented. Some prefer spreadsheets, with the data organized into rows and columns of numbers. Others prefer the data presented more visually, such as bar graphs and line charts. The demand schedule and demand curve in economics represent ways of presenting the relationship of price and quantity demanded that satisfy both types of entrepreneurs. The demand schedule and demand curve both illustrate the relationship between the price of a product or service and the level of demand for it. Other factors besides price, such as consumer income and the price of competing goods, influence demand. The demand schedule and demand curve, however, consider only price, assuming no change in these other factors, according to N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard economist and former presidential economics adviser. The demand schedule illustrates the relationship between price and quantity demanded by using a table of figures. The demand schedule generally consists of two columns: one for the price of a product and one for the quantity demanded at that price. The price column displays different price levels, arrayed from lowest to highest, or vice versa, while the quantity demanded column displays the quantity of that good or service demanded at each price level. The demand schedule for most products will show a reduction in quantity demanded as the price increases. The demand curve is a visual form of the demand schedule. Economists depict the demand schedule on a two-dimensional graph, consisting of a vertical axis representing price and a horizontal axis representing quantity demanded. The vertical axis displays different price levels from highest to lowest, while the horizontal axis displays different levels of demand. The apex of the vertical and horizontal axis has a value of zero for both quantity and price. Mankiw notes that the demand curve for most products slopes downward, indicating an increase in demand as the price declines. The demand schedule and demand curve are complementary ways of examining the relationship between price and quantity demanded. The demand schedule helps create the demand curve. The individual rows in the demand schedule, showing specific price points and quantity demanded, provide the coordinates to be plotted on the graph. After plotting the individual coordinates, an analyst or business manager can draw the demand curve that connects the individual points. - Goodshoot/Goodshoot/Getty Images
Rediscovering the past (Greek and Roman) RACES: The Greek and Roman help shape the Renaissance to development classical ideas.Becaues many workers they brought to ltaly were ancient classical writings, as works by Greek thinker.Europeans had thought that these ancient writings were lost forever."They discovered many Latin texts in monasteries, where the monks had preserved works by Roman writers (Holt 305)". This is important because they discovered Latin texts in monasteries and the monks preserved works by the Roman writers.To sum up, as ltalian scholars read the ancient texts they rediscovered the glories of Greece and Rome.As a result they longed for a renewel of classical culture.Scholars seeking to escape the Turks fled to Italy.In their luggage these scholars carried rare precious works of literature. Leonardo Da Vinci Leonardo Da Vinci artwork was taught a wide range areas including metallurgy,plaster casting, carpentray, chemistry, metal working, leather working,no mechancies.He also refined his artistic skills in modeling, sculpting,and paintings.Leonardo was a ture genius who graced world with presence from April 15, 1452 to May 2, 1519. Paper and printing (Johann Gutenburg Renaissance writing (William Shakespeare's) RACES:William shakespeare's did writing reflect and his ideas of humanism Attract such a wide audience.William shakespeares Is greatest writer in English language.Althourgh he is also the greatest wrote Pomes,Shakespeare is most famous person."Many people consider william shakespeare the greatest playwright of all times.his plays are still hugely populated the world shakespeare was such n important writer that he is even Influence the english language"(Holt317).my evIdence is important because he Is still Hugely popular round the world nd he is such n important writer and he influened the english language.many people consider william shakespeare the greatest playwRight of all times and he wrote Romeo & Juliet,and other pomes he wroTe and that how he became famous.In coNculsion William shakespeare did writing reflect and his ideas of humanism attract such a wide audience.
The saccule is a bed of sensory cells situated in the inner ear. The saccule translates head movements into neural impulses which the brain can interpret. The saccule detects linear accelerations and head tilts in the vertical plane. When the head moves vertically, the sensory cells of the saccule are disturbed and the neurons connected to them begin transmitting impulses to the brain. These impulses travel along the vestibular portion of the eighth cranial nerve to the vestibular nuclei in the brainstem. The vestibular system is important in maintaining balance, or equilibrium. The vestibular system includes the saccule, utricle, and the three semicircular canals. The vestibule is the name of the fluid-filled, membranous duct than contains these organs of balance. The vestibule is encased in the temporal bone of the skull. The saccule, or sacculus, is the smaller of the two vestibular sacs. It is globular in form and lies in the recessus sphæricus near the opening of the scala vestibuli of the cochlea. Its cavity does not directly communicate with that of the utricle. The anterior part of the saccule exhibits an oval thickening, the macula acustica sacculi, or macula, to which are distributed the saccular filaments of the vestibular branch of the vestibulocochlear nerve, also known as the acoustic nerve or cranial nerve VIII. Within the macula are hair cells, each having a hair bundle on the apical aspect. The hair bundle is composed of a single kinocilium and many (at least 70) stereocilia. Stereocilia are connected to mechanically-gated ion channels in the hair cell plasma membrane via tip links. Supporting cells interdigitate between hair cells and secrete the otolithic membrane, a thick, gelatinous layer of glycoprotein. Covering the surface of the otolithic membrane are otoliths, which are crystals of calcium carbonate. For this reason, the saccule is sometimes called an "otolithic organ." From the posterior wall of the saccule is given off a canal, the ductus endolymphaticus. This duct is joined by the ductus utriculosaccularis, and then passes along the aquæductus vestibuli and ends in a blind pouch (saccus endolymphaticus) on the posterior surface of the petrous portion of the temporal bone, where it is in contact with the dura mater. Both the utricle and the saccule provide information about acceleration. The difference between them is that the utricle is more sensitive to horizontal acceleration, whereas the saccule is more sensitive to vertical acceleration. The saccule gathers sensory information to orientate the body in space. It primarily gathers information about linear movement in the vertical plane, including the force due to gravity. The saccule, like the utricle, provides information to the brain about head position when it is not moving. The structures that enable the saccule to gather this vestibular information are the hair cells. The 2 by 3 mm patch of hair cells and supporting cells are called a macula. Each hair cell of a macula has 40 to 70 stereocilia and one true cilium called a kinocilium. The stereocilia are oriented by the striola, a curved ridge that runs through the middle of the macula; in the saccule they are oriented away from the striola The tips of the stereocilia and kinocilium are embedded in a gelatinous otolithic membrane. This membrane is weighted with protein-calcium carbonate granules called otoliths, which add to the weight and inertia of the membrane and enhance the sense of gravity and motion. Not much is known of how this organ is used in other species. Research has shown, like songbirds, females in some species of fish show seasonal variation in auditory processing and the sensitivity of the saccule of females peaks during the breeding season. This is due to an increase in the density of saccular hair cells, partly resulting from reduced apoptosis. The increase the hair cells make also increase the sensitivity to male mating calls. An example of this is seen in Porichthys notatus,or plainfin midshipman fish. It is possible to assess saccular function through use of the cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP). The cVEMP response is a middle latency (P1 between 12-20 ms) waveform denoting inhibition of the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle ipsilateral to the stimulus. While not truly a unilateral reflex (response waveforms can be detected in the SCM contralateral to the stimulus in approximately 40% of cases), cVEMPs are more unilateral than the closely related occular vestibular evoked myogenic potential (oVEMP). The most reliable points on the cVEMP waveform are known as P1 and N1. Of all waveform characteristics, P1-N1 amplitude is the most reliable and clinically relevant. cVEMP amplitude is linearly dependent upon stimulus intensity and is most reliably elicited with a loud (generally at or above 95 dB nHL) click or tone burst. The cVEMP can also be said to be low-frequency tuned, with largest amplitudes in response to 500–750 Hz tonebursts. This myogenic potential is felt to assess saccular function, because the response is present in completely deafened ears and because it is routed through the inferior vestibular nerve, which is known to dominantly innervate the saccule. . Evolution of the Ear from Saccule Research suggests in the vertebrate lineage, sensory cells became specialized as gravistatic sensors after they became assembled to form the ear. After this aggregation, growth, including duplication and segregation of existing neurosensory epithelia, gave rise to new epithelia and can be appreciated by comparing sensory epithelia from the inner ears of different vertebrates and their innervation by different neuronal populations. Novel directions of differentiation were apparently further expanded by incorporating unique molecular modules in newly developed sensory epithelia. For example, the saccule gave rise to the auditory epithelium and corresponding neuronal population of tetrapods, starting possibly in an aquatic environment. - How Our Balance System Works American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2013 - Fitzakerly, Janet University of Minnesota Medical School Deluth, February 10, 2013 - Saladin, Kenneth S. Anatomy & Physiology The Unity of Form and Function. 6th Ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2012. 605-609. Print. - Coflfin B. Allison Saccular-Specific Hair Cell Addition Correlates with Reproductive State-Dependent Changes in the Auditory Saccular Sensitivity of a Vocal Fish Journal of Neuroscience, January 25, 2012 - Cushing,& Lynn, S. (2008). "Relationship between sensorineural hearing loss and vestibular and balance function in children." (Master's thesis, University of Toronto, Canada)Retrieved from url: - Duncan S. Jeremy Cochlear neurosensory specification and competence University of Iowa, 2012 \|Look up saccule or sacculus in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.\|
The topic gorge is discussed in the following articles: TITLE: river SECTION: Formation of canyons and gorges The most spectacular valley forms are canyons and gorges that result from accelerated entrenchment prompted by recent tectonic activity, especially vertical uplift. Canyons and gorges are still in the initial phase of valley development. They range in size from narrow slits in resistant bedrock to enormous trenches. Where underlying bedrock is composed of flat-lying sedimentary rocks, regional... ...rock. Such valleys often occur in the upper courses of rivers, where the stream has a strong, swift current that digs its valley relatively rapidly. Smaller valleys of similar appearance are called gorges. The term canyon is taken from the Spanish word cañón, meaning “tube.”
The executive branch of the U.S. government was created to carry out and enforce laws created by the legislative branch. Among its duties is the protection of the homeland, collection of taxes and implementation of foreign policy.Continue Reading The executive branch is one of the three branches of government provided for in the U.S. Constitution that ensures a system of checks and balances, preventing any one branch from becoming too powerful. For instance, the president checks Congress with the power of veto, and Congress checks the president with the power of impeachment or denial of appointees. The Articles of Confederation had not provided for an executive branch. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 agreed that there had to be an executive branch separate from the legislative branch to avoid corruption and paralysis. The executive branch consists of the president, vice president and 15 executive departments run by members of the Cabinet. The president is the head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces and has the authority to appoint ambassadors, Cabinet heads, Supreme Court justices and other federal judges, and the heads of other federal offices and commissions. The vice president replaces the president if he steps down or is incapacitated, presides over the Senate and has the authority to cast a tie-breaking vote if the Senate is deadlocked. The Cabinet is a body of presidential advisers whose agencies execute policy in various areas. Among the agencies are the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Education, Energy, Labor, State and Justice.Learn more about Branches of Government
Middle and High School Math Resources Links verified on 3/19/2012 - CSAP Released Items - \| 2004, Grades 5-10 \| 2003, Grades 5-10 \| 2002, Grades 5-10 \| 2001, 8th grade \| 2001, 10th grade \| - Glencoe Standardized Testing Practice Questions - Standardized Test Practice randomly selects a total of 20 questions from lessons for Chapter 1 through the chapter that you indicate. Choose your chapter from the list. - Glencoe TCAP - interactive quizzes to correspond to their textbooks; can select topics for interactive quizzes. - Glencoe TCAP - Mathematics: Applications and Connections Course 2 2001 interactive quiz - Glencoe TCAP - Mathematics: Applications and Connections Course 3 2001 interactive quiz - Harcourt School Publishers has links to each of the grade levels from K-8. At that site you will find a variety of activities tied to chapters from their textbooks. You might prefer to go to their E-Lab index. There you will find 28 interactive activities for each of the grades from 3-8. - MCAS Rapid Fire Math Review - Quia Game; matching, concentration or flash cards - Patterns - [designed for grade 7] Problems in identifying trends and patterns. - Problem solving - Work through the steps required to solve a word problem. - Puzzling and Perplexing Problems for Middle School Math - Two teachers have designed these pages as ready-made problems for each month of the school year. These problems include holidays, seasons, and sports. Many of them are open-ended so that children can get extra practice for the standardized tests they must take. - Practice Tests for Regents Exam Math A 8th grade Math Testing, courtesy of New York. \| 7th grade Math Tests \| 6th grade Math Tests - Practice Test for Math B - High School Testing, courtesy of New York. - Quia Quizzes - 6th Grade SOL math \| 7th Grade SOL math - Regents Exam Prep Center from Oswego City School District Algebra II and Trig and Geometry - Middle/High School help for preparation of math concepts such as operations, mathematical reasoning, patterns and functions and more. - Released and printable tests - Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) - Verbal Reasoning - Problems in verbal reasoning which challenge you to understand a problem and think through the solution. (7th grade) - Virginia State Standards of Learning in Math, Science And Technology Practices - Choose a year; select Math 8 for middle school or Algebra 1, Algebra II, or Geometry for high school - Word Problems for Kids; Grade 6, Grade 7, Grade site for teachers \| PowerPoint show \| Acrobat document \| Word document \| whiteboard resource \| sound \| video format \| interactive lesson \| a quiz \| lesson plan \| to print
Learning to hear and say numbers in any language is a very important for day-to-day communication in that language. To learn numbers in English, you can break them down into sets and categories that follow similar rules, thereby making them easier to remember.Continue Reading The numbers 1 (one) through 10 (ten) are the basic building blocks of the number system in most languages. By learning 1 through 10, you will have been introduced to every symbol used in the English counting system and the name for when that symbol appears in the "ones" place, which is the right-most digit of a whole number. Learn 1 through 10 before continuing. In some languages, the numbers 11 through 19 do not follow the same rules as many of the other counting numbers. In English 11 (eleven) and 12 (twelve) are the most irregular, but the rest of the numbers between 10 and 20 follow a pattern. They take the ones-digit's name, or part of the name, and add "teen." This might make it easier to remember numbers like 13 (thirteen), 14 (fourteen), 15 (fifteen) and so on. After 19, all two-digit numbers follow the same formula. Most or all of these numbers include the tens-digit name and the suffix "ty," which is followed by the ones-digit name unless that digit is a zero. For example, 20 is written as twenty, 21 is twenty-one, 30 is thirty, 45 is forty-five and 89 is eighty-nine. Three-digit numbers read from left to right, starting with the hundreds digit and then reading the next two digits as they would be read without the hundreds digit. Hundreds digits are always said with that symbol's name followed by the word "hundred." For example, 100 is written as one hundred, 300 is written as three hundred and 425 is written as four hundred twenty-five.
Leukemia Symptoms & Lessons: Is A Solution In Sight? 1. What is Leukemia? A Definition Of Leukemia, The Most Common Blood Cancer Leukemia is a cancer of the blood cells that starts in the bone marrow - the soft center in the middle of bone where blood cells are formed. It affects 10 times more adults than children, more commonly people over the age of 50. Bone marrow makes three types of blood cells: - white blood cells (leukocytes) that fight infection and disease - red blood cells (erythrocytes) that carry oxygen throughout the body - and platelets that form blood clots to help control bleeding. Leukemia is the term used to describe cancers that affect white blood cells. 2. Types Of Leukemia People with leukemia produce abnormal white blood cells that, initially, function normally. However, leukemia cells don't die when they become old or damaged, and because leukemia cells are constantly dividing to make copies of themselves, eventually they build up and crowd out normal blood cells. Levels of normal blood cells get very low making it hard for the body to supply oxygen to tissues, control bleeding or fight infection. The four most common types of leukemia are: - chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) - acute lymphocytic leukemia (also called acute lymphoblastic leukemia) (ALL) - acute myeloid leukemia (AML) - chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) - the most common of all leukemias. Chronic means that the leukemia gets worse over time. Acute means that the leukemia gets worse quickly. CLL, CML, and AML are diagnosed more in adults. ALL is more common in children. 3. Leukemia Symptoms Unfortunately, there are no screening tests that allow for early detection of any of the different types of leukemia. In addition, there are so many different types of leukemia and symptoms vary so much from one person to the next. Unfortunately, there is no one symptom that suggests you have leukemia. Symptoms generally reflect problems related to having a low blood count and may include: - Dizziness or feeling lightheaded - Easy bruising or frequent or severe bleeding from the nose or gums - Loss of appetite - Night sweats - Shortness of breath - Recurring or persistent infections - Tiredness or fatigue - Weight loss. - Abdominal swelling, bone or joint pain - A feeling of fullness soon after eating a meal - Enlarged lymph nodes - Swelling of the thymus. It is important to note that many of theses symptoms are more likely to be caused by something other than leukemia. A blood test is the only way to tell. 4. Research Into The Cause Of Leukemia In order to find an effective treatment for a disease, first you have to try and understand what causes the condition in the first place. Great progress has already been made by scientists with regard to understanding DNA changes that cause the production of leukemic cells. But as they dig deeper, researchers have realized that there are more different types of leukemia than first thought. One of the most common types of DNA change that can lead to leukemia is a translocational change. Our DNA is packaged into 23 pairs of chromosomes. If a part of the DNA from one chromosome breaks off and attaches itself to another chromosome it can affect how certain cells in our body behave. For example, the most common translocation in CML and ALL is the Philadelphia chromosome, representing a swap in DNA between chromosomes 9 and 22. This abnormality occurs in 90-95% of patients with CML and 1 in 4 adults with ALL. For CLL, the most common change is a deletion, or loss, of part of a chromosome. In most patients with CLL, the deletion is found on chromosome 13, but other chromosomes such as 11 and 17 can also be affected. In some patients with CLL, there is an extra chromosome 12. Scientists are still mapping chromosome changes with different types of leukemia. But one thing is certain, not everybody fits into the same square box! 5. Genes And Leukemia: The Philadelphia Chromosome The discovery of the Philadelphia chromosome in 1960 provided the first proof of a genetic link to cancer. Peter C. Nowell and David Hungerford identified the presence of an unusual, small chromosome in cancerous cells of patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Normal leukocytes in these same patients lacked this abnormality. With advances in technology, subsequent research was able to identify that the abnormal chromosome was the result of a reciprocal translocation between the long arms of chromosomes 9 and 22, that resulted in expression of a fusion protein named BCR-ABL in malignant cells. 90-95% of patients with CML are found to have this abnormality; however, it is not specific to CML as it is also found in some patients with ALL and occasionally in AML. Elimination of the Philadelphia chromosome in patients who have Philadelphia-positive leukemia is deemed necessary for a cure. 6. Leukemia Treatment: How The Philadelphia Chromosome Influenced Treatment Treatment for leukemia usually needs to start as soon as possible after diagnosis, because many forms of leukemia progress very quickly. Chemotherapy has always been the main form of treatment. Traditional chemotherapy drugs like cytarabine and daunorubicin kill rapidly dividing cells. Unfortunately, these drugs cannot tell the difference between cancerous and normal cells, resulting in the death of many healthy cells and side effects such as stomach problems (nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea), hair loss, low blood counts, and mouth sores. These type of treatment options are far from perfect, so discoveries such as the Philadelphia chromosome allow for more targeted type treatments. Researchers are unwavering in their aim for a cure for cancer and the more they know about what causes a disease, the better able they are to treat it. Survival rates have dramatically increased for most types of leukemia since the 1960s, although prognosis remains better in younger people compared with seniors. Sixty years ago, only one in ten children survived childhood leukemia. Now, eight in ten do. With adult leukemia, around 50% survive for five years after diagnosis. Scientists believe we can still do better than that. 7. Imatinib: Gleevec Was The First TKI Against CML Imatinib (Gleevec) changed the way leukemia was treated forever. Imatinib belongs to a group of drugs known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), and was first approved by the FDA in 2001 to treat Philadelphia chromosome-positive CML. Imatinib targets a specific type of protein (BCR-ABL) that only exists in cancer cells. As a result, the cancerous cells stop growing and eventually die, while healthy cells remain unaffected. Dasatinib (Sprycel - FDA approved 2006), a second generation TKI, was created to overcome the problem of intolerance or resistance to imatinib. Dasatinib inhibits the BCR-ABL protein at 325 times the potency of imatinib and is effective against almost all mutations of the Philadelphia chromosome, except one (the T315I mutation). Many other TKIs have since been developed including nilotinib (Tasigna [FDA approved 2007]), bosutinib (Bosulif [FDA approved 2012]), and ponatinib (Iclusig [FDA approved 2012]); all improve on imatinib and are recommended to be used with other forms of standard chemotherapy. For example, ponatinib is the only TKI that can work against T315I mutant cells, although several other new TKIs aimed at this mutation are in the pipeline. TKIs are also used to treat several other types of cancers including Philadelphia chromosome-positive Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). 8. Targeting A Specific Mutation: Omacetaxine (Synribo) For CML There is a subgroup of patients with CML that fail to benefit from TKIs. Omacetaxine (Synribo) is a protein synthesis inhibitor and is approved for adults with CML in the chronic or accelerated phase of the disease who have already tried at least two TKIs without success. Omacetaxine inhibits protein synthesis and targets proteins responsible for the proliferation and survival of leukemic cells, causing cell death. Omacetaxine is effective even in patients with the BCR-ABL T315I mutation - this mutation confers resistance to the TKI inhibitors bosutinib, dasatinib, imatinib, and nilotinib. Hematologic side effects (such as thrombocytopenia [low platelets], anemia and neutropenia [low neutrophils]) occur in approximately three quarters of all patients prescribed omacetaxine. Other common side effects include infection, diarrhea, fever, tiredness, lack of energy and nausea. 9. Leukemia Treatment: Combination Treatment And Development Of A Cancer Vaccine For CML, the combination of imatinib with other chemotherapeutic agents and drugs that target the BCR-ABL protein has proven very effective; however, not everyone experiences the same response. Researchers are now looking at whether certain combinations of medicines are better than others, and the effect of new cancer vaccines currently in development. Several new drugs for leukemia are currently undergoing phase 2 or 3 testing and there is hope that these will improve future treatment outcomes. 10. Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Treatment Treatments for adult acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) include chemotherapy, targeted therapy and stem cell transplantation. Since ALL is technically a group of related diseases and not a single disease, treatment varies depending on the different subtype, response to treatment and outlook. Treatment typically lasts for 2 years, with the first few months involving more intensive type treatment. Experts are also looking at different combinations of treatments in an effort to improve response and reduce side effects. Agents such as clofarabine (Clolar) appear more effective at treating childhood ALL, although trials are currently looking at their effectiveness in adults. The optimal length of therapy is also a subject of debate in people with a good prognosis. Experts are also not sure if more intensive chemotherapy benefits those with a worse initial outlook. As with CML, the effectiveness of chemotherapy can sometimes be limited because leukemia cells become resistant to it. Finding ways to prevent or reverse this resistance is also high on the agenda. 11. Marqibo For ALL: Transforming Vincristine Vincristine has been used to treat cancer for almost 50 years. However, it can be tricky to use and can cause nerve toxicity which limits its dosage and how long it can be given for. Marqibo is a specially-formulated type of vincristine that was approved for patients with Philadelphia chromosome-negative ALL in 2012. Marqibo uses liposome technology to transport vincristine to where it is needed most, overcoming any problems with absorption of the drug and restricting its spread to other parts of the body. 12. The March Of The Monoclonal Antibodies Against ALL Several drugs that stimulate the immune system rather than directly kill cancer cells have recently become available, or soon will be marketed, as a treatment for ALL. Examples include the monoclonal antibody, blinatumomab (Blincyto). Blincyto directs immune T-cells to bind to specific proteins (such as CD19) on the surface of leukemic cells and is approved for a specific type of ALL known as Philadelphia chromosome-negative B-precursor ALL. This medicine is given after other cancer treatments have failed. 13. Chimeric Antigen Receptor Therapy: A New Stage Is Set Scientists made a breakthrough when they discovered it was possible to individually re-engineer immune system T-cells to recognize specific proteins on cancer cells. The re-engineered T-cells are known as Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cells, and once multiplied and infused directly back into a patient, they have the ability to recognize, attack and kill cancerous cells containing that specific protein on their surface. Two CAR T-cell products are approaching market. Novartis is trialing CTL019 (currently named tisagenlecleucel-T), for relapsed and refractory ALL in pediatric patients, with impressive results an 82% complete remission rate in the ELIANA tria). Kite Pharma, Inc., began a rolling submission for FDA approval for their product, called KTE-C19 (axicabtagene ciloleucel) in December, 2016. Their trial results have also been impressive, with some response rates reportedly 6-fold higher than historical outcomes. KTE-C19 received a Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) by the FDA in late 2015 for certain types of lymphoma, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). High complete remission rates in ALL have also been reported. 15. Advances In Testing Detect Even Tiny Amounts Of Residual Leukemic Cells Scientists know that one leukemic cell has the potential to divide into thousands of other leukemic cells, so treatment aims to rid the body of EVERY leukemic cell possible. But routine bone marrow tests are just not sensitive enough to pick up small amounts of leukemia cells. Luckily, the highly sensitive tests used to detect DNA changes in leukemic patients are just as useful for detecting the smallest amount of leukemia left after treatment. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests can detect tiny amounts of leukemia cells left based on their chromosome translocations or rearrangements. This can help doctors decide whether to continue, stop, or add to treatment. 14. Stem Cell Transplants - Refining To Increase Effectiveness Stem Cell transplants still offer the best hope of a disease cure. Stem cells are either collected from the person with leukemia or another source before powerful chemotherapy (and sometimes radiation therapy) is used to kill all cancerous cells in their body. Stem cells are then reintroduced via a vein and make their way to the bone marrow where they grow, multiply, and help make healthy blood cells again. But stem cell transplants are not without their risks and some may be fatal. Experts are keen to improve the effectiveness of stem cell transplants and to reduce the risk of complications. By better identifying patients who are more likely to benefit from stem cell transplants and refining collection techniques, success rates should be improved. Another technique, called donor leukocyte infusion, attempts to reverse symptoms of relapse in a person who has previously had a stem cell transplant with another person's stem cells. White blood cells (leukocytes) are taken from the same person providing the stem cells and infused into the patient in an effort to boost their immune system. Early results have been promising. 16. AML - One Type Of Treatment Definitely Does Not Suit All As with most other leukemias, AML is not a single disease, but rather a group of related diseases. Treatment may consist of leukapheresis (the removal of high numbers of leukemic cells from the blood), chemotherapy, stem cell transplantation, or other drugs depending on the subtype or patient's prognosis. Because the disease can progress rapidly, treatment needs to be started immediately. A specific subtype of AML called acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL or AML M3) needs extra careful management. If regular chemotherapy drugs are used in patients with APL, blood may clot in an out-of-control way. Before this was known, patients sometimes died from treatment. 17. AML Treatment: Tailored To The Patient Before deciding on the best treatment for AML, doctors take into consideration the age and health of the patient. Patients under the age of 60 are usually given more intensive treatment. Induction usually involves cytarabine and an anthracycline such as daunorubicin or idarubicin. Sometimes cladribine is given as well. This chemotherapy regimen is usually given in hospital over the course of a week. Midostaurin (Rydapt) may be considered in people with AML whose leukemic cells have an FLT3 gene mutation. Rydapt is an oral, multi-targeted kinase inhibitor that is taken twice daily and was FDA approved in 2017. 18. Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Treatment CLL is a bone marrow disease that usually gets worse SLOWLY. Because of this, treatment options include watchful waiting, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, surgery, and targeted therapy. Despite improvements in treatment over the last 15 years, significant improvements in the survival of patients with CLL have not been confirmed. Dozens of new drugs are currently being investigated for CLL, including new targeted treatments, monoclonal antibodies, biologics, immunotoxins, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. Several other agents, already in use fighting other forms of cancer, are undergoing testing for effectiveness for CLL. Ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and venetoclax (Venclexta) were both approved in 2016 for CLL treatment, being particularly effective in patients with the 17p chromosome deletion. 19.Immune System Boosting: Biologics The treatment of cancer has been enhanced by biologics, such as monoclonal antibodies (MABS), that teach our body to fight it's own war against cancerous cells. MABS are also used to reduce some of the side effects associated with cancer treatments. Types of MABS used in the treatment of CLL include rituximab (Rituxan) and alemtuzumab (Campath). These MABS recognize the leukemic cell and coat its surface, triggering destruction by the immune system. Ofatumumab (Arzerra) is a different type of MAB that works by targeting the CD20 protein found on the surface of CLL cells. This allows the immune system to recognize the marked cells and destroy them. Obinutuzumab (Gazyva) works in a similar way and is used in combination with chlorambucil. Side effects experienced with MABS are relatively mild and include flu-like symptoms, nausea, headache, fatigue, and sometimes wheezing. Side effects generally last for no more than a few hours post treatment, although some patients may develop an allergic type reaction that can be treated with antihistamines. 20. New Cancer Treatments On The Horizon Advances in technology and genetic profiling have opened up several new avenues for treatment. Many new drugs in development or at advanced stages of testing aim to beat leukemia in a totally unique way. Examples include: - Sapacitabine: directly targets DNA synthesis and introduces breaks in the DNA helix, halting replication - Laromustine: affects the protein guanine on the DNA strand, producing cross-links that lead to cell death - Tipifarnib and lonafarnib: inhibit protein modification. Another drug worth mentioning is inotuzumab ozogamicin. Inotuzumab ozogamicin is an investigational therapy that was granted breakthrough status in 2015 for ALL. It consists of an antibody/cytotoxic conjugate that targets an antigen present on 90% of B-cell malignancies. Once bound, the complex releases the cytotoxic agent, calicheamicin. 21. Finding A Cancer Cure: Where To From Here? In the past, you could say that, in order to understand things better, we have oversimplified many medical conditions. Unfortunately, diseases are never that simple, and in fact, many cancers that we have lumped together are more than likely different types of cancers with similar symptoms. Luckily, technology has advanced so much it is now possible for scientists to interpret very complicated data. Gene expression profiling is a new laboratory technique that looks at the patterns of many different genes in cancer cells at the same time. Eventually, this technique may allow for much more personalized treatment by matching gene cluster abnormalities with specific chemotherapy treatments, improving effectiveness. Technology such as this also helps guide future research as it identifies specific targets for therapy, aiding in the development of new drugs. One day we may have our cancer cure. Finished: Leukemia Symptoms And Lessons: Is A Solution In Sight? - Leukemia. Medline Plus. Updated Feb 2017 https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/leukemia.html - What you need to know about leukemia. National Cancer Institute. US Department of health and Human Services. http://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/leukemia.pdf - What’s New In Leukemia – Acute Myeloid (AML) Research Topics. American Cancer Society. Revised 02/2016 https://www.cancer.org/cancer/acute-myeloid-leukemia/about/new-research.html - Koretzky GA. The legacy of the Philadelphia chromosome. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2007;117(8):2030-2032. doi:10.1172/JCI33032. - Mathisen MS, O’Brien S, Thomas D, Cortes J, Kantarjian H, Ravandi F. Role of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors in the Management of Philadelphia Chromosome–Positive Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Current hematologic malignancy reports. 2011;6(3):187-194. doi:10.1007/s11899-011-0093-y http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4201047/ - Nicolini FE, Khoury HJ, Akard L, et al. Omacetaxine mepesuccinate for patients with accelerated phase chronic myeloid leukemia with resistance or intolerance to two or more tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Haematologica. 2013;98(7):e78-e79. doi:10.3324/haematol.2012.083006 - What`s new in chronic myeloid leukemia research and treatment? American Cancer Society. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/chronic-myeloid-leukemia/about/new-research.html - How is acute lymphocytic leukemia treated? American Cancer Society https://www.cancer.org/cancer/acute-lymphocytic-leukemia/treating.html - Silverman JA, Deitcher SR. Marqibo® (vincristine sulfate liposome injection) improves the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of vincristine. Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology. 2013;71(3):555-564. doi:10.1007/s00280-012-2042-4. - Dahl J, Mace M, Kantarjian H, Jabbour E. Blinatumomab for the treatment of adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Drugs Today (Barc). 2015 Apr;51(4):231-41. doi: 10.1358/dot.2015.51.4.2291051. - Barrett DM, Singh N, Porter DL, Grupp SA, June CH. Chimeric Antigen Receptor Therapy for Cancer. Annual review of medicine. 2014;65:333-347. doi:10.1146/annurev-med-060512-150254. - Novartis Highlights New CTL019 Clinical Data Showing Complete Remissions in Relapsed/Refractory Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia https://www.drugs.com/clinical_trials/novartis-highlights-new-ctl019-clinical-data-showing-complete-remissions-relapsed-refractory-acute-16700.html - What is a Stem Cell Transplant (Bone Marrow Transplant)? Cancer.Net. http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/how-cancer-treated/bone-marrowstem-cell-transplantation/what-stem-cell-transplant-bone-marrow-transplant - Leukemia--Acute Myeloid (Myelogenous) American Cancer Society https://www.cancer.org/cancer/acute-myeloid-leukemia/about/new-research.html - What`s new in chronic lymphocytic leukemia research and treatment? American Cancer Society https://www.cancer.org/cancer/chronic-lymphocytic-leukemia/about/new-research.html - Biological therapy for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). Cancer Research UK. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/chronic-lymphocytic-leukaemia-cll/treatment/biological-therapy - Christian BA, Lin TS. Antibody Therapy for CLL. Seminars in hematology. 2008;45(2):95-103. doi:10.1053/j.seminhematol.2008.02.001. - Obinutuzumab [package insert] Drugs.com https://www.drugs.com/mtm/obinutuzumab.html - Sapacitabine (CYC682) Cyclacel http://www.cyclacel.com/research_programs_oncology_cyc682.shtml - Rizzieri D, LoRusso S, Tse W, et al. Phase I Study of Temozolomide and Laromustine (VNP40101M) in Patients With Relapsed or Refractory Leukemia. Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma & Leukemia, Vol. 10, No. 3, 211-216, 2010; DOI: 10.3816/CLML.2010.n.033 - Schiller G, O'Brien S, Pigneux A, et al. Single-Agent Laromustine, A Novel Alkylating Agent, Has Significant Activity in Older Patients With Previously Untreated Poor-Risk Acute Myeloid Leukemia JCO February 10, 2010 vol. 28 no. 5 815-821 http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/28/5/815.long - Thomas X, Elhamri M. Tipifarnib in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia. Biologics : Targets & Therapy. 2007;1(4):415-424. - Typical Treatment of Most Types of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (Except Acute Promyelocytic M3). May 2017. American Cancer Society. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/acute-myeloid-leukemia/treating/typical-treatment-of-aml.html - What’s new in acute lymphocytic leukemia research and treatment? American Cancer Society https://www.cancer.org/cancer/acute-lymphocytic-leukemia/about/new-research.html - Pfizer’s Inotuzumab Ozogamicin Receives FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation For Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Pfizer http://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer_s_inotuzumab_ozogamicin_receives_fda_breakthrough_therapy_designation_for_acute_lymphoblastic_leukemia_all - Kite Pharma Inc (KITE) Announces Submission of Biologics License Application to FDA for Axicabtagene Ciloleucel. Smarter Analyst. https://www.smarteranalyst.com/2017/03/31/kite-pharma-inc-kite-announces-submission-biologics-license-application-fda-axicabtagene-ciloleucel/
Because microphone elements are very small, the electric signal generated is very small in comparison with line level devices such as instruments and mixing consoles. Because of this microphones require preamplifiers to boost its output signal to line level. A preamp is usually found in the mixer or recorder the microphone is plugged into. Note: Impedance converters inside condenser microphones should not be confused with a preamp, a preamp is still required for a condenser microphone. A microphone’s output level is always related to a specific input sound pressure level and frequency, usually at 1000Hz. This is an indicator of the input sensitivity of the microphone, and a more sensitive microphone will have higher output at a given sound pressure level. To make this easy, let’s say you have a microphone with in input sensitivity of 1, and an output of 2, and another microphone with an input sensitivity of 2, and an output of 4 (these numbers don’t relate to anything, they are just used for example). So the more sensitive the microphone is, the higher output it will have (most of the time). For technical terms, I will refer you to the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook, Page 126: Two reference SPL levels are commonly used for microphone ouput level specifications. These are 74 dB SPL (which is the level of an average speaking voice at a distance of 3 feet) and 94 dB SPL (corresponding to a relatively loud speaking voice at 1 foot). These levels may also be expressed as: 74 dB SPL == 1 microbar or 1 dyne/cm/ 94 dB SPL == 10 microbar or 10 dyne/cmf Microbars and dynes-per-squarecentimeter are both units of pressure. The microphone output signal level is given in dB, with either of two different references: dBV (dB re 1 volt) and dBm (dB re 1 milliwatt). The first is a voltage reference and the second is a power reference, so the two units are not directly comparable without knowing the specific load impedance (see Sections 13 and 14). A typical microphone sensitivity specification, then, might read: -74 dBm re ImW/microbar Translated, this means that the microphone will deliver a signal at 1 microbar whose power is 74 dB below one milliwatt. To determine the signal voltage that this power level corresponds to, we need to know the load A more useful form of sensitivity specification is: Output level of -47 dBVat This specification needs no translation, and allows direct and simple calculation of the output signal voltage at various sound pressure levels. -By John Redick
A tooth abscess is a pocket of pus that's caused by a bacterial infection. The abscess can occur at different regions of the tooth for different reasons. A periapical (per-e-AP-ih-kul) abscess occurs at the tip of the root, whereas a periodontal (per-e-o-DON-tul) abscess occurs in the gums next to a tooth root. The information here refers specifically to periapical abscesses. A periapical tooth abscess usually occurs as a result of an untreated dental cavity, injury or prior dental work. The only person who can effectively treat a dental abscess is a dentist. Treatment may involve typical dental procedures, and in some occasional surgery. There are 3 type of surgeries: Incision, Treating a periapical abscess, Treating a periodontal abscess. After reviewing national patient data from 2000 to 2008, researchers in Boston found that the people hospitalized for dental abscesses increased by more than 40 percent, to 8,141 in 2008 from 5,757 in 2000. Some 66 patients died after they were hospitalized, according to the new analysis. Treatment may involve typical dental procedures, and in some occasional surgery. There are 3 type of surgeries: Incision, Treating a periapical abscess, Treating a periodontal abscess. Future research deals with determination of various host and environmental factors that put an individual at risk for development of dental abscess. Increased reliance on novel molecular techniques has enriched our knowledge of the diverse polymicrobial collection that constitutes a dental abscess. Antimicrobials should be reserved for patients with evidence of cellulitis and signs of sepsis. Most of the evidence pointing toward a key role for prompts surgical intervention and timely review.
Vector Worksheet (pdf) Resultant Vectors Sheet with Key This is a 6 part worksheet that includes several model problems plus an answer key - Part I. Model Problems - Part II. Vector Basics - Part III. Addition of Vectors - Part IV. Find the magnitude of the resultant vector when two forces are applied to an object. - Part V. Find the angle measurements between the resultant vector and force vector when two forces are applied to an object. - Part VI. Answer Key
Students from the American university of Minnesota developed a method of control over In experiment participated five people each of which learned to operate successfully the helicopter without hands. For force of thought it was used an electroencephalograph. On it arrive impulses from 64 electrodes on the special hat, fixing electric activity of the head skin, connected with various zones of a brain. Testers looked at the image from the camera installed on a helicopter, and for management of it imagined the right, left hand or both together that forced the device to turn to the right, on the left or to go down. Electrodes registered signals of a brain and transferred them on the helicopter on Wi-Fi. Speed of flight made 0,69 meters per second. After several months of training students had to carry out a helicopter through rings from the balloons, suspended in a gym. There was estimated the number of attempts, collisions with rings and an exit for platform borders. Examinees successfully coped with tasks in 90,5% of cases. In check experiment the helicopter coped from the panel, and the result in this case was higher — it was possible to achieve total absence of a signal, so, the helicopter didn’t twitch in the parties when it was necessary to fly directly.
Knowledge about the physical science of climate is growing, but there’s an emerging missing link: What are the economic and social consequences of changes in the climate and efforts to control emissions of greenhouse gases? A team led by Stanford University professors Charles Kolstad and Marshall Burke argues that relatively low funding for social science research has contributed to a knowledge gap about what climate change means for human society. This knowledge gap, they argue, renders the large advances in natural science less useful than they could be for policymakers. Their paper appears in Science. 3 research questions that could close the gap 1. What is the true cost of carbon emissions? The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a dollar value estimate of future social and economic damages caused by each present-day metric ton of carbon emissions. It can also be thought of as the amount of money society saves, in terms of damage avoided, by not emitting an additional metric ton of carbon. “The SCC is a key policy measurement that’s already being used in US government regulations. But existing estimates have shortcomings and these need fixing if we are going to make the correct policy decisions around climate change,” says Burke, an assistant professor at Stanford School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, a center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a faculty fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Current SCC calculations leave out several important factors. For example, what is the economic cost of extreme climate events such as floods and droughts? How should economists estimate “non-market” damages that are exacerbated by climate change, such as armed conflict, disease epidemics, and deforestation? In what parts of the world does climate change slow or accelerate economic growth? Can farmers avoid lost income from climate change by adapting their crop choices and planting schedules? “Getting the social cost of carbon right is most pressing, given its importance to policy,” says Kolstad, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and at the Precourt Institute for Energy. “It’s also an area where rapid research progress should be possible.” 2. What emissions mitigation policies are best? Once researchers agree on the true cost of carbon, there are many policy options for reducing emissions. Industry regulations and subsidies for renewable energy are popular policy choices for governments all over the world, but they may be weaker at cutting emissions than less politically popular options like carbon pricing or tradeable carbon emission permits. “Until we understand more about the benefits and tradeoffs of different carbon pricing options, governments are almost flying blind on climate mitigation policy,” Kolstad says. “When we can make a clear economic case for one policy over the other, we can better align decisions about carbon pricing systems with their actual costs and benefits and, as a result, strengthen political support for action.” 3. What role do developing countries play? Most of the existing research on climate economics tends to focus on wealthy countries, even though developing countries now contribute more total greenhouse gas emissions. Poorer countries also often face a different policy environment than richer countries and are potentially more economically vulnerable to changes in climate. “We need better evidence on how impacts of climate change might differ in developing countries, as well as a deeper understanding of the climate policy choices faced by developing country governments,” Burke says. Twenty-eight leading economists contributed to the paper, a fact that Burke points to as evidence of broad consensus on the need for more economic research on climate change. The biggest roadblock, the authors agree, is funding. “The research problems are tough for both natural scientists and economists, but research support has been much more modest in economics, so far fewer people are working in the area and progress has been slower,” Kolstad says. “Dozens of teams of physical scientists around the world work with the exact same climate simulations and compare results to estimate future climate change,” Burke says. “Economists are just starting to do something similar, and as this collaboration develops I think it will immensely valuable. There’s a strong argument for spending research dollars on understanding the economic and social implications of that physical science. Social science is relatively cheap, so extra funding can go a long way.” Kolstad encourages young researchers to pursue the “many interesting, socially relevant questions in this field” and advises governments to work together to strengthen long-term research funding and support for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. “Otherwise,” he says, “the large sums spent on natural science will be poorly targeted.” Source: Stanford University
What is a language? Language is the ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so. The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Questions concerning the philosophy of language, such as whether words can represent experience, have been debated since ancient times. Some thinkers have argued that language originated from emotions while others have held that it originated from rational and logical thought. Estimates of the number of languages in the world vary between 5,000 and 7,000. Why every language is Important? Language defines a culture, through the people who speak it. Words that describe a cultural practice or idea may not translate precisely into another language. Many endangered languages have rich oral cultures, but no written forms.
- views of 3D objects - using views to draw a 3D object - making nets for 3D objects - using nets to find surface area - using formulas to find the surface area of 3D objects 3D objects studied are: *note that Circumference and Hypotenuse calculations may be needed to find some of these surface areas. Review questions can be found at the end of Chapter 5. PROJECTS - Due April 10th.
Lick Run Tributary Acid Mine Drainage Most of the Peters Creek watershed is underlain with high-quality, easily-mined coal deposits that outcrop on the slopes of many of the stream valleys. The close proximity of these valuable deposits to the many Pittsburgh area coke ovens and steel mills has led to extensive mining throughout the watershed. The Pittsburgh coal bed has been mined since the early 1900ís by underground methods and has resulted in many parts of the watershed being prone to surface subsidence. This is currently a major issue in the Pleasant Hills area. The Redstone coal bed, which overlies the Pittsburgh coal bed, was mined subsequently by surface methods before environmental laws were enacted requiring reclamation of mined lands. The resulting spoil piles have remained largely un-reclaimed and are scattered throughout the watershed. Today, the watershed continues to suffer from its coalmining legacy. Many of the abandoned mine workings have partially flooded with water. Pyrite (FeS2) is a common mineral that is often found in association with coal seams. When the pyrite in these mine voids comes into contact with water and oxygen; acidic mine water often results. This acidic water has a great capacity to dissolve other minerals such as aluminum and phosphorus. These acidic, mineral-laden waters often find their way into the streams of the watershed and degrade them. The same process occurs when rainwater percolates through pyrite-laden, unreclaimed overburden piles from stripmining activity.
Christmas Edition First Grade Common Core Math 1 NBT.3 Compare Two Two-Digit Numbers 1.NBT.3 Practice provides two ways for students to practice and show mastery of comparing two two-digit numbers. Problems are unique from other sets I offer! It includes 20 distinct problems in two sets (65 slides in all!), with and without following answer slides. The PowerPoint file can be used on computers, or Promethean Activboard and Smart boards. Take a look at the preview file and buy today for your students benefit! Standard 1.NBT.3 Understand Place Value 3. Compare two two-digit numbers based on meanings of the tens and ones digits, recording the results of comparisons with the symbols >, =, and <.
The ragweed plant is a common name for the genus ambrosia, which is a member of the extensive asteraceae family and asteroideae subfamily. These plants are made up of both perennials and annuals, shrubs and subshrubs, and are mostly native to North America. The foliage of this plant is lobed, bipinnate, winged, and silvery green. Ragweeds are monoecious, and bear both male and female blossoms. The male flowers consist of inflorescences of ten to twenty florets that bear five stamens, which are all grouped together by a cupule of fifty to one hundred bracts, and are of a green-yellow hue. The female flowers, unlike their male counterparts, are produced singly, and are tiny, white and inconspicuous. Once mature, the female blossoms become small round burrs that help to distribute the arrowhead-like seeds. The ragweed plant is considered a nightmare to allergy sufferers. These shrubs, which bear thousands of male flowers, are thought to release roughly one billion grains of pollen during a single season; this large dose of pollen can stimulate an allergic reaction, and cause severe cases of hey fever. The ragweed’s scientific name, ambrosia, may seem like an unusual choice for such a seemingly deleterious plant, but some speculate that this odd choice – which refers not only to the food of the gods, but to something that simply tastes good – likely came about because of earlier species of ragweed which had a fine flavor. Although the pollen of the ragweed plant has an adverse effect on the health of many people, these shrubs were once considered an important medicinal staple. One of its more interesting uses was as an immunity booster. Early herbalists thought that supplying small doses that gradually increased over time would cause the patient to build immunity to the plant; this theory holds true today, as modern doctors frequently dispense shots that serve the same purpose. Many Native American tribes created ragweed teas and poultices as a laxative, to help sooth stomach cramps, cure the sting of poison ivy, and to aid in the prevention of blood poisoning. In general, the ragweed plant is thought to be a symbol of courage. Although these plants do have a lovely appearance, it is not recommended that they ever be given as gifts. Though the recipient may not have an allergic reaction to them, others in their home might.
Amelia Earhart was a renowned American aviation pioneer and author. Born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas, she is best known for her groundbreaking achievements in aviation and for her mysterious disappearance during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe in 1937. Earhart's career began as a nurse's aid during World War I, where she developed an interest in aviation. She set numerous records and earned several aviation firsts, including being the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. With her daring accomplishments, Earhart quickly became an icon for women in aviation and a symbol of bravery and determination. As an author, Earhart used her experiences and expertise to write books, articles, and essays, discussing her perspectives on flying, women's rights, and encouraging others to pursue their dreams. She was a prominent advocate for equal opportunities for women, making significant contributions to the advancement of gender equality in various industries. Amelia Earhart's life and career ended abruptly when she disappeared without a trace over the Pacific Ocean during her attempt to complete a circumnavigation flight. The circumstances surrounding her disappearance remain a mystery to this day and have sparked numerous theories and investigations. Amelia Earhart's name is forever etched in history as an aviation pioneer and an inspiration to countless individuals, particularly women, who aspire to break barriers and achieve greatness. The word Amelia Earhart is actually a proper noun referring to an American aviator and feminist icon. It does not have an etymology in the traditional sense since it is a name. However, the name Amelia is derived from the Germanic name Amalburga which means work or industrious. Earhart is a surname of German origin derived from Ehrhardt, meaning honorable strength or bravery.
Vitamin is an essential micronutrient which means that the body cannot produce it and it must be obtained from the diet. There are many different types of vitamins, each with their own specific function in the body. For example, vitamin A is important for vision, vitamin B12 is important for the formation of red blood cells, and vitamin C is important for the immune system. The recommended daily intake (RDI) of vitamins varies depending on age, gender, and other factors such as pregnancy. The best way to ensure that you are getting enough vitamins is to eat a varied and balanced diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables. However, some people may not be able to get all the vitamins they need from diet alone and may require supplements. Vitamins are usually classified into two groups: water-soluble and fat-soluble. Water-soluble vitamins are not stored in the body and need to be consumed daily. Fat-soluble vitamins are stored in the body and can be used when needed. Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that is stored in the liver. It is important for vision, immune function, and reproduction. Vitamin A can be found in animal products such as milk, eggs, and liver. It can also be found in plant foods such as carrots, sweet potatoes, and spinach. The RDI for vitamin A is 900 micrograms (mcg) for men and 700 mcg for women. Vitamin B12 is a water-soluble vitamin that is found in animal products such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and milk. It is important for the formation of red blood cells and the maintenance of the nervous system. Vitamin B12 supplements are often recommended for people who don’t eat animal products or who have trouble absorbing this vitamin from food. The RDI for vitamin B12 is 2.4 micrograms (mcg). Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin that is found in citrus fruits, tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. It is important for the immune system and the healing of wounds. The RDI for vitamin C is 90 mg for men and 75 mg for women. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is found in fatty fish such as salmon and tuna, eggs, and fortified milk. It is important for bone health and calcium absorption. The RDI for vitamin D is 600 IU (international units) for men and women aged 19-70 years old, and 800 IU for people over 70 years old. Vitamin D supplements are often recommended for people who don’t get enough sunlight or who don’t eat enough foods that contain this vitamin. Vitamin E is a fat-soluble vitamin that is found in vegetable oils, nuts, seeds, wheat germ, and leafy green vegetables. It is an antioxidant that protects cells from damage. The RDI for vitamin E is 15 mg for men and women aged 19 years old and older.
Ringing in the ears can be distressing but how we react can lessen the impact Tinnitus means ringing in the ears – hissing, whistling, buzzing, humming, music, or any sounds that come from inside our bodies. And while there’s rarely a serious cause, it can seriously affect our health. We all get it occasionally, for example after exposure to very loud noise, but around one in 10 of us has it regularly, and it severely affects everyday life for around 600,000 people. Sound waves stimulate tiny hairs wafting in the fluid inside our inner ear (cochlea); these send electrical signals to the brain along the auditory nerve. Ageing changes (or noise damage) can gradually or suddenly create false signals/sounds that may be permanent or come and go. Tinnitus can also be caused by earwax, noise/physical damage to the eardrum, middle ear fluid, infections, Ménière’s disease (recurrent attacks, often with vertigo), some medicines (including aspirin and stronger antibiotics) and, rarely, a nerve tumour (acoustic neuroma). Anaemia, high blood pressure, diabetes and thyroid disease can trigger it. Pulsatile (throbbing) tinnitus, which can be heard by others, may be due to blood vessel abnormalities. Head injuries and damage to tiny ear bones (otosclerosis) or the skull (Paget’s disease) can cause it, too. Symptoms and tests Noises may be continuous or intermittent, or worse when there’s no background noise or at night; up to 70% of people attending tinnitus clinics report sleep disturbance. Some forms may ‘sound’ more annoying or distressing than others. There may also be linked symptoms, such as hearing loss, dizziness/vertigo/room-spinning, nausea, earache or a discharge. Your GP can identify and treat wax, middle ear fluid and raised blood pressure, and arrange relevant blood tests. But you may also need hearing tests, telescope examinations of your nose and throat, X-rays and/or CT/MRI scans of your ears, auditory nerve and brain. Treating underlying conditions may help; Ménière’s may improve with medication and hearing loss can be helped by a hearing aid or cochlear implant. But tinnitus itself can’t be cured or silenced, although we can help ourselves. Tinnitus can be stressful, and stress can make tinnitus harder to tolerate, so socialising, absorbing hobbies or learning relaxation techniques may help. Counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can help us understand the condition and its effects on our thoughts and behaviour, so we can change the way that we react and cope. Sound therapy works by distracting your brain with real sound – try listening to music or the radio in quiet environments, or attach them to headphones or a pillow speaker to avoid disturbing others. You could also try a sound generator. This can produce ‘white’ noise (like radio interference) or play soothing sounds, such as rainfall or waves. Tinnitus retraining therapy can help you to ‘tune it out’ with a combination of sound training, stress reduction and talking treatment. 5 ways to protect your ears 1. Don’t poke anything down them – you could perforate your eardrum. 2. Keep the noise down – if it drowns someone talking two metres away, it’s too loud. 3. You should be given ear defenders and regular hearing tests at work if noise levels often reach 85 decibels (shouting is 80 decibels). 4. At concerts, don’t stand next to speakers, and wear earplugs if the noise hurts your ears or your hearing is reduced by the interval. 5. If listening to music through headphones, turn it down if it’s uncomfortable or you can’t hear someone speaking, and don’t listen for long periods.
Eczema, a skin condition thought to affect around six million people in the UK, causes patches of skin become dry, inflamed and itchy. Causes of eczema are complex and very much down to the individual, but it is thought to be caused by the immune system's reaction to an irritant. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Sheffield and King's College London have found that hard water could compromise the skin's protective barrier and, as such, contribute to the risk of developing eczema. The researchers discovered that hard water damages the skin's barrier and increases sensitivity to irritants in everyday products, such as detergents or soaps. Hard water contains large amounts of magnesium and calcium ions that bind to compounds in detergents, making them insoluble, so they deposit on to the skin. Hard water (highly alkaline) also raises the surface pH of skin (usually acidic) - this shift to alkaline affects the protective surface barrier of skin and increases its exposure to pathogens. According to the Nursing Times, Dr Simon Danby from Sheffield University explained: "By damaging the skin barrier, washing with hard water may contribute to the development of eczema... Patients with eczema are much more sensitive to the effects of hard water than people with healthy skin." He says this increase in sensitivity is associated with a genetic predisposition to a skin barrier defect brought about by mutations in the gene encoding filaggrin - a structural protein important for the formation of our skin's barrier to the outside environment. "Up to half of all people with eczema carry a filaggrin gene," he says. Dr Danby added: "This new study reveals the mechanism by which calcium and magnesium ions in hard water, surfactants, and filaggrin interact to damage the skin barrier unlocking new information about how exposure to hard water could potentially contribute to the development of eczema." The team softened the water and found it has the potential to reduce a person's risk of eczema. "It is during the first few days and months of life that our skin is most susceptible to damage and most at risk of developing eczema," advises Co-senior study author Dr Carsten Flohr from King's College London. They are now "looking in to a trial pilot trial (Softened Water for Eczema Prevention (SOFTER) to investigate whether installation of a domestic water softener around the time of birth can prevent skin barrier breakdown and eczema in those living in hard water areas." The findings were published in Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
At a time in history when we need to feed more people than ever, reducing the size of our food-producing plants may seem counter-intuitive. This means agriculturalists want to develop crop varieties specifically adapted to grow in certain regions, explains Professor Prem Bhalla from the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences. “It’s all about ensuring food security,” Professor Bhalla says. A successful crop yield is based on how a plant grows – including its size and ability to produce seed or fruit among other factors – so Professor Bhalla and her team have gone back to the genetic blueprint of plants to understand how these stages are controlled by the plant’s DNA. Large plants do not necessarily mean high yield. In fact, the development of semi-dwarf varieties of our staple crops – like wheat and rice – have led to dramatic increase in yield. Their latest study is focussed on soybeans, a major global crop, with increasing production in Australia. The beans themselves are harvested as a food source for humans and animals, and soybean oil is used for cooking and animal feed. The soybeans we eat are the seeds that usually grow in groups of two or three inside a pod where the green, immature beans are known as edamame. “We know from growers that large soybean plants are actually a problem during harvest,” Professor Bhalla says. They can grow up to an average of one to 1.5 metres tall and then bend or fall, making it hard to gain access to the beans for efficient harvesting. Also, tall plants use most of their resources for excessive vegetative growth – that is, producing more leaves – that then reduces the energy available for seed yield. Compact plants can be grown more densely in the field, leading to potentially enhanced yield per acre of agricultural land. Along with Professor Mohan Singh and graduate researcher Hina Arya, also from the University of Melbourne, they investigated soybean PIF4, a gene that interprets light and temperature signals from its environment, triggering plant growth. “Because seed yield is based on how and when a plant flowers, our theory was that by affecting flowering time, the gene could have a knock-on effect on seed production which in this case is the soybean.” The researchers used genetic tools to make PIF4 more active in the soybean plant, a technique known as over-expression, so that its function would become more obvious. By choosing a commercially grown crop variety, known as Bragg, they hoped to provide valuable information to breeders. Their study showed that overactivity of the gene resulted in a semi-dwarf soybean plant, with a reduced height of around 50 per cent. Despite their reduced size, the soybean plants with higher activity of the PIF4 gene still produced the same yield. Other results showed that as well as a reduced height, the plants also had a smaller leaf area and a faster transition from flowering stage to full maturity and seed production. “We think that by increasing the activity of the gene, the soybean grew smaller, meaning more energy could be transferred into seed production,” Professor Bhalla says. “We were amazed that the effects were so widespread in the soybean plant.” These dramatic effects suggest that – as predicted in laboratory studies in the Arabidopsis plant – PIF4 also acts in soybean as a regulator of many other genes, including those responsible for plant architecture and the production of growth hormones. “Its effects on plant morphology and reproductive stages in soybean suggest the gene could be a target for soybean improvement programs to ensure food security,” says Professor Bhalla. In what could be a helpful aid for breeding future crops, the study also found that when the PIF4 gene is overactive, the plant produced darker seed pods, making them easier to identify and useful as a ‘breeding marker’. The next stage of their research is to understand if these plants also use less water and fertiliser to produce same yield, and how tolerant they could be to drier conditions. According to Professor Bhalla, this new study paves the way to breed crops for specific growth conditions. “And if the plants produce the same yield, we have the potential to gain more food from a smaller area of our increasingly precious cropland.” Banner: Getty Images
How successfully did Elizabeth deal with the problems of her reign? In this exercise, students will reach a final judgement about Elizabeth I by writing an essay. In this way, they will: Develop their ability to see the ‘big picture’ and to connect factors together Consider how Elizabeth’s rule has affected such things as: - The perception of women as the equals of men - England’s unique religious culture and its impact on places like the USA - England’s long-term relations with Scotland and Ireland - England’s long-term relations with Spain Part of the Elizabeth I unit at ActiveHistory
Technology is the study of technical devices, equipment, and software. Technonologists are considered experts in technology. They are well versed with the latest developments and have an in depth knowledge of their niche areas. Technonologists use technical terms to communicate information effectively. They understand how to use technical devices and equipment for various purposes such as communication, management, operation, control, and other systems. For example, a technologist might be used to communicate instructions from one location to another. They are the ones that understand the various components of a computer and how they work together to communicate information. This field is based on the theory of technology. Technonologists are concerned with the study of technological systems, equipment, software, and methods. The term has many meanings and includes a large number of different scientific fields. Technonology has its roots in science, and is a study of technology, but it is not restricted to technology. In fact, it covers a wide range of disciplines, including engineering, medicine, biology, physics, electrical engineering, aerospace, mathematics, and computer science. It is a growing field, and its importance is increasing because it encompasses a variety of topics that are not easily covered by traditional science, such as chemistry, ecology, and mathematics. Technology is a constantly changing field; therefore, a person’s knowledge of certain technical terms is bound to change over time. Technonology is continually evolving. Because of this, new techniques, theories, and models are constantly being developed. Therefore, there are many changes in the field of technology. Technonologists are continuously exploring and learning new technologies and theories. Technology can be defined as the application of science and knowledge to solve problems and make things easier and more efficient. Technonologists are experts in the field of technology. Technonologists are trained to know the different types of technologies and the various uses of each type of technology. They also learn how to implement the different types of technologies into a business setting and how to use them effectively. Some technologists specialize in certain types of technology. These technologists are called technologists, technicians, engineers, and consultants. Technonology is a highly specialized and detailed scientific research field and it requires a very specialized skill set. It requires a student to understand and be knowledgeable about the latest technology. And what it is capable of doing. Technonologists have to be skilled in handling various forms of technology and the various ways to properly implement each type. And properly utilize it to solve a problem.
George Mason University South East Regional Network of Expertise and Collections (SERNEC). National Science Foundation #EF-1410086, “Digitization TCN: Collaborative Research: The Key to the Cabinets: Building and sustaining a research database for a global biodiversity hotspot.” and the Virginia Native Plant Society. Ants are essential to the life of over 11,000 plant species worldwide. Help us learn more about this remarkable partnership in Virginia. The forests of eastern North America are a global hotspot for a remarkable ecological interaction: myrmecochory or ant-based seed dispersal. Over thirty genera of plants native to this region rely on ants to distribute their seeds. These plants produce a specialized food reward on their seeds, called an elaiosome, that is consumed by ants once they return to their nest with the harvested seeds (see photo inset – elaiosome-bearing seed of bloodroot; credit, Alex Wild). Afterwards, ants discard the undamaged seeds in underground waste-pits or by their nest’s entrance, where germination conditions are ideal. Consequently, distributions of many native plant species, including some of Virginia’s most recognizable wildflowers such as bloodroot, trout lily and spring beauty, are governed by ants. Help us learn more about the diversity and distribution of this remarkable ecological interaction while expanding your knowledge of the many ant-plants that call Virginia home. The Commonwealth of Virginia, USA 1880's to present
Hey kids, when most people hear the word “chemistry”, they think of creepy laboratories with bubbling beakers of toxic goo. But chemistry can happen any time two different things react together to make something new, and there are fun science experiments that you can do right in your kitchen! Experiment 1: Magic Mud All you Hey kids, when most people hear the word “chemistry”, they think of creepy laboratories with bubbling beakers of toxic goo. But chemistry can happen any time two different things react together to make something new, and there are fun science experiments that you can do right in your kitchen! Experiment 1: Magic Mud All you need for this experiment is some cornstarch, water, and a little bit of food colouring to show it off. - Add 5 tablespoons of cornstarch to a bowl. Make sure you use something to scrape off the extra starch so you have a nice level spoonful. - Add 3 tablespoons of water to the bowl. - Add 3 drops of food colouring. - Stir the mixture. This mixture should be hard to stir unless you stir very, very slowly. If it seems runny, add a few pinches more cornstarch. If it seems really dry, add a bit more water. Now try squeezing a little bit of your magic mud between your fingers and rolling it into a ball. Then open your hand and watch what happens. Poke the top of your magic mud quickly, and your finger will bounce off. But if you sink your finger in slowly, the mud will swallow it up! It acts like a liquid and a solid! For a real adventure, try using the same measurements (5 parts cornstarch, 3 parts water) to make up a really big batch in a large pan, or even a kids’ swimming pool! If you run fast enough, you can actually run across the top of the magic mud. Just don’t slow down, or you’ll find yourself sinking into the goo! Experiment 2: The Incredible Giant Hand For this experiment, you will need baking soda, vinegar, and a rubber glove. If you don’t have one, you could use a balloon to make The Incredible Giant Head. - Use a marker to draw hair on the rubber glove (or a face on the balloon). - Carefully add a few spoonfulls of baking soda to the glove. - Pour some vinegar into the glove. - Tie the glove closed, like you would a balloon. Shake it around a bit. Now watch what happens. The hand (or head) will grow! When the solid baking soda and the liquid vinegar meet, they react to form a gas called carbon dioxide. They make so much of it that it will blow up your balloon for you. Experiment 3: Acid or Alkali For this experiment, you need some beetroot or red cabbage. It also provides you with a tasty snack. - Have an adult help you boil the cabbage or beetroot until the water changes colour. - Collect some of the coloured water. Scientists use something called pH indicator to measure how acid or alkali something is. Different acids and alkalis will make the indicator change different colours. You’ve just made pH indicator. Have an adult help you test small amounts of your coloured water with acids and alkalis around the house. Vinegar, juice, household cleaners, antacid tablets, and baking soda are good places to start. The more acidic something is, the lower the pH number. See if you can figure out the pH of your test subjects: 2 red (very acidic) 12 yellow-green (very alkali) And the best part about this experiment is that you can eat the vegetables you cooked! Now that’s fun science! Post by Sarah
Coccidiosis is a disease caused by protozoan parasites, mainly from the Eimeria genus, generally located in the intestine. With the risk of becoming rapidly resistant to certain molecules, these parasites are transmitted by a highly infectious process (essentially via oral-fecal route). Present in all farming systems, coccidiosis is particularly harmful for young monogastric animals (poultry, young ruminants, piglets and rabbits) for which health consequences can be significant: loss of appetite, reduction of feed intake, enteritis, hemorrhagic diarrhea… In the poultry industry, 98% of the farms use an anticoccidial solution, for an overall cost estimated at 800 million dollars in preventive treatments (Graff et al.; 1999; Williams, 1998). Coccidiosis represents a loss of 3 billion $/year for the poultry industry (thepoultrysite.com, 2013). The disease control is principally made through the use of synthetic coccidiostats of which a long-term and large scale use causes antimicrobial resistance (Long, 1982; Stephan et al., 1997; Yadav and Gupta, 2001; Arabkhazaeli et al. 2013). Plant-based feed additives represent interesting alternatives for all species.
The amount of solar energy falling to the Earth far exceeds current human consumption. Assuming 300 W/m2 irradiation for 12 hours a day, which is average for the Southwest United States, about 100 quadrillions BTU (~10^20 J) – the amount of energy consumed annually in the U.S. – can be collected from an approximately 100 x 100 mile square. The problem with utilizing renewable energy, however, is its highly dispersed nature. Solar and wind energy is distributed over large areas at a relatively low density. With the above irradiation assumptions, collecting 30 kW power to move a small car would require an area of 10×10 meters. Unlike oil and gas where only a small wellhead installation on the surface enables extraction of large amounts of energy, wind and solar necessarily have to be collected over large swaths of land. To be economically viable this should be low utilization land such as deserts or mountains, generally far removed from populated areas where the energy is ultimately consumed. The clean energy challenge, therefore, is not in finding energy – wind and solar alone far exceed human needs – the challenge is in converting the energy into a form suitable for consumption, accumulating it and delivering it to the consumer on demand and at competitive cost. Present day energy carriers Figure 1 shows the energy flow diagram for the United States. Currently, solar and wind energy are utilized almost exclusively as electricity, and other than via electrified transportation do not make inroads into the transportation fuel market. Yet electricity accounts for only about 18% of energy delivered to consumers (12.71 out of total of 72.86 quads consumed by all sectors combined). While large investments directed in increasing the use of electricity in the industrial and transportation sectors have been made, complete replacement of natural gas and petroleum carriers by electricity (even if technologically feasible) would require nearly 5-fold increase in the electrical grid capacity, an extremely large and costly undertaking. Figure 1. 2015 U.S. energy flowchart. Figures 2 and 3 show distribution of solar and wind resources in the United States. Renewable resources are concentrated in the Southwest and Great Planes regions, but population is highest on the coasts and there energy is ultimately consumed. Figure 4 maps locations of electric generating facilities throughout the U.S. It shows that today electricity is generated in close proximity to consumers to avoid long distance transmission of electricity on a large scale. Coal and natural gas, for the most part, are used to bring energy to the population centers where it is converted to electricity. Figure 2. U.S. Photovoltaic Solar Resource Map Figure 3. U.S. Wind Resource Map Figure 4. Operable Utility-scale generating units as of Sept. 2015. Transmission of energy through electric wires is much more expensive than transportation of fossil fuels. The direct cost of building a two circuit 500 kV 3-phase AC transmission line with peak capacity of 3000 MW through a rural area is estimated at about $5 million per mile. For transmission distance of about 1000 miles the cost of transmission is estimated at about $76/MWh. Furthermore average transmission losses in power lines are about 6% and at peak power (peak current loads) can increase to as high as 20%. For oil transportation in railroad cars the average cost is about $10-15 per barrel for distance of about 1000 miles. This translates to about $6.3-9.4/MWh. Oil transportation through pipelines is even less expensive. While the cost of both electricity and oil transportation may vary widely depending on local conditions, on average energy transportation over long distances in the form of liquid fuel is about an order of magnitude less expensive than in the form of electric current. To compete with established fuels renewable energy carriers must have comparable energy density and cost. A comparison of several common liquid and gaseous chemicals that are used or often considered as energy carrier options is shown in Table 1. The energy density was calculated by normalizing the lower heating value (LHV) of a chemical to the volumetric density under specified conditions (propane and ammonia are shown as liquids under saturation pressure, which is less than 20 bar for temperatures <50oC). The price range was estimated by normalizing wholesale commodity market prices to the LHV of the fuel. For hydrogen the commodity market is not as established as for other chemicals, so the US Department of Energy (DOE) target for hydrogen fuel at $4/kg (~10/MSCF) was used for the lower range and $20/MSCF (~$8/kg), which is the approximate contract price for cryogenic H2 delivery was used for the higher range. Not surprisingly, diesel and gasoline have the highest power density. This was one of the important factors that helped internal combustion powered cars win domination over alternative technologies in the early 20th century. Natural gas is by far the least expensive fuel option, but it has much lower energy density even at high pressure. Low price makes natural gas very attractive for electricity generation and industrial use, where it can be delivered through established pipelines, but low power density hampers its broad scale use as vehicular fuel. Table 1. Common fuels and chemicals power density and price range. \|Fuel\|\|Conditions\|\|Energy density kWh/liter\|\|Market price range\|\|Units\|\|Normalized price range $/MWh\| \|Diesel\|\|ambient\|\|9.9\|\|1.5 – 3\|\|$/gal\|\|40 – 80\| \|Gasoline\|\|ambient\|\|9.7\|\|1.5 – 3\|\|$/gal\|\|40 – 80\| \|Ethanol\|\|ambient\|\|5.9\|\|1.5 – 3\|\|$/gal\|\|70 – 140\| \|Methanol\|\|ambient\|\|4.4\|\|1 – 2\|\|$/gal\|\|60 – 120\| \|Propane / LPG\|\|~ 20 bar\|\|6.6\|\|1 – 2\|\|$/gal\|\|40 – 80\| \|Ammonia\|\|~ 20 bar\|\|3.5\|\|300 – 600\|\|$/MT\|\|60 – 120\| \|Natural gas\|\|250 bar gas\|\|2.7\|\|3 – 6\|\|$/MSCF\|\|10 – 20\| \|H2 (gas)\|\|700 bar gas\|\|1.3\|\|4 – 8\|\|$/kg\|\|120 -240\| \|H2 (cryogenic)\|\|-253 oC\|\|2.4\|\|10 – 20\|\|$/MSCF\|\|125 – 250\| Ethanol and methanol can be made from renewable energy sources and are liquid under a normal range of ambient conditions. Their energy density is respectively about two thirds and half of that of petroleum fuels. Ethanol is produced in large quantities in bio-refineries from grains, and more recently also produced from cellulosic biomass, and is used as additive to gasoline in E10, E15 and E85 fuels. Over the last decades hydrogen has attracted much attention as a possible clean energy carrier, particularly in the transportation sector. Hydrogen fuel would likely be produced locally from natural gas, grid electricity or from renewable fuels in a same way as electricity is generated in close proximity to the consumers, as low energy density of hydrogen even at very high pressure makes it an unlikely choice for a large-scale energy carrier over long distances. Renewable liquid fuel option While the physical properties of hydrogen gas make it a poor choice of energy carrier, chemical properties of hydrogen make it a unique energy intermediate. Electrical or solar energy can be directly and efficiently converted into chemical energy by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, storing about 40 kWh of energy per kilogram of separated hydrogen. Water electrolysis is a well-established technology with commercial multi-MW scale units producing hydrogen at a rate of tons per day. A range of other technologies for advanced water splitting directly by sunlight are being investigated. With more efficient and lower cost electrolysis technologies, electrolyzer units may be directly coupled with remote wind turbines and solar panels to produce hydrogen from these renewable energy sources. The high chemical activity of hydrogen allows it to easily react with other substances to create liquid fuels. In fact, the vast majority of hydrogen produced today is utilized in oil refineries, ammonia production and methanol synthesis. The same chemical reactions can be used to convert hydrogen produced from renewable energy into liquid energy carriers that can be easily stored, transported and distributed to energy consumers. Ammonia, which is liquid under pressures above ~20 bar, can be produced by combining hydrogen with nitrogen in a Haber–Bosch process, which has been in the core of fertilizers and chemicals production for more than a century. The nitrogen required for the process is separated from air, a well-established energy intensive industrial process. The high strength of the N-N bond requires high temperatures to activate the reaction, which in turn requires the process to operate at high pressure to overcome thermodynamic constrains. Haber-Bosch reactors generally operate at temperatures about 450-500oC and pressures up to 300 bar. One disadvantage of ammonia as an energy carrier, outside the need for elevated pressure to keep it in liquid form, is that its use as fuel would require building essentially new infrastructure. Still, distributed production of ammonia utilizing renewable hydrogen to replace ammonia produced from natural gas in fertilizer production, particularly for local agricultural use, may be very attractive. Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis is another industrial process utilizing hydrogen to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels directly compatible with the existing gasoline and diesel infrastructure. Currently F-T plants utilize natural gas which is reformed into a mixture of CO and H2 (syngas) and then to synthetic hydrocarbons, hence this technology is often referred to as Gas-to-Liquid (GTL). Several large GTL projects with tens of thousands of barrels per day capacity have been deployed around the world. F-T reactors generally operate at lower temperature and pressure than that required in ammonia synthesis at T~230-240oC and P~25-40 bar. In order to utilize renewable hydrogen instead of NG in F-T synthesis, the CO required for the process can be produced from captured CO2 (discussed below) in a Reverse Water-Gas-Shift reaction, which is also a well-developed industrial process. Methanol can be produced by directly reacting hydrogen and CO2. Methanol production is also an established industrial process with several large scale plants producing methanol from natural gas or coal at million tons per year capacity. Methanol synthesis reactors operate at P~40-100 bar and T~220-280oC. Methanol is also commercially produced by variety of small plants having capacity as low as several tons per day. These smaller plants can be adopted to utilize renewable hydrogen produced by 10-20 MW electrolyzers, and be directly integrated with wind or solar farms. Methanol is liquid under ambient conditions and can be blended with gasoline in the same way as ethanol. With minor engine modifications methanol and its derivatives can be used directly as internal combustion fuel. It also can be converted into gasoline or other common fuel grades through the MTG process demonstrated by ExxonMobil. Alternatively, it can be easily converted back to hydrogen at the point of use. Methanol is the simplest alcohol molecule and is bio-degradable by bacteria naturally present in soil and ground water. This is an attractive property for a fuel as any spills would be naturally disappearing within about two weeks. Converting renewable hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons through Fischer-Tropsch or methanol synthesis requires adding CO2 to the process. This CO2 can be captured from stacks of power plants and industrial furnaces. Several large carbon capture projects with capacity up to 1 million tons CO2 per year have been put in operation in the USA in recent years. In these projects CO2 is separated to high purity, compressed to supercritical fluid pressure of about 100 bar, transported over hundreds of miles by pipelines, and injected deep underground for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in oil fields or for permanent storage in geological formations. Technologies for transporting CO2 are also well developed. A network of CO2 pipelines exists to move CO2 from capture sites to oil fields where it is used for EOR. On a smaller scale CO2 is transported by tanker trailers as refrigerated liquid at about -30oC and 5-10 bar pressure (CO2 converts to solid “dry ice” if cooled at ambient pressure). Eventually the demand for CO2 for renewable fuel production would likely lead to development of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies collecting CO2 from ambient air, which will eliminate the need for CO2 transportation. DAC systems would be co-located and integrated with the rest of the renewable fuel system. It is often argued that DAC would not be feasible because very low concentration of CO2 in the ambient air would require excessive energy for separation. The thermodynamic minimum work required for CO2 separation from air at ambient temperature of 300K and CO2 concentration at 400 ppm is about 19.5 kJ/mole_CO2. When CO2 is utilized in synthesis of liquid fuel this separation energy should be compared with the energy required for the production of hydrogen. Thermodynamic energy for splitting water is 285.6 kJ/mole_H2 and three moles of H2 are needed per mole of CO2, so that production of hydrogen requires about 40 times more energy than separation of CO2 from air. Developing DAC processes therefore, has engineering rather than thermodynamic restrictions, which can be successfully overcome if there is sufficient market drive. Recent review of DAC suggests that cost of these technologies is currently too high and would need to be significantly reduced before practical applications are possible. Still several companies are developing DAC technologies in an effort to bring the cost down. Integrating DAC with liquid fuel synthesis would allow positioning the renewable fuel systems in remote locations where land is inexpensive and steady and consistent wind or solar power is available, irrespective to proximity of CO2 sources. Cost estimate for Wind-to-Fuel production An estimate for the cost of methanol production from renewable hydrogen and captured CO2 based on the results of independent studies on the cost of renewable electricity, water electrolysis, CO2 capture and methanol production from natural gas is shown in Table 2. Table 2. Cost estimates for methanol production from H2 and CO2. \|Cost of H2 production by PEM electrolysis at 1500 kg/day scale\|\|$4.23 /kg_H2\| \|Electricity component in electrolysis H2 cost @ $0.0688 /kWh\|\|$3.46 /kg_H2\| \|Levelized PPA for onshore wind power\|\|$0.0235 /kWh\| \|Cost of H2 production by PEM electrolysis @ $0.0235 /kWh\|\|$1.95 /kg_H2\| \|H2 in MeOH (kg H2 per kg MeOH)\|\|0.19 kg/kg\| \|Cost of H2 in MeOH\|\|$1.10 /gal MeOH\| \|Assumed cost of CO2 capture\|\|$40 /tonne_CO2\| \|CO2 in MeOH (kg CO2 per kg MeOH)\|\|1.38 kg/kg\| \|Cost of CO2 in MeOH\|\|$0.17 /gal MeOH\| \|Capital and O&M cost in MeOH synthesis\|\|$0.5 /gal MeOH\| \|Cost of MeOH produced from H2 and CO2\|\|$1.77 /gal\| The cost of renewable hydrogen production by an electrolyzer coupled with a wind turbine is based on the cost analysis of a 1500 kg/day PEM water electrolysis system.1 For renewable hydrogen production the electricity cost component was reduced proportionally from the grid electricity price of $0.0688/kWh assumed in 1 to the estimated wind electricity PPA cost of $0.0235 /kWh.2 This resulted in hydrogen cost of $1.95/kg, which is consistent with current DOE estimate for the cost of hydrogen production. Note, that when an electrolyzer is integrated directly with a wind turbine, the electricity cost may be even lower than the PPA assumed in 2 as the costs for power conditioning and transmission would be excluded. Also when an electrolyzer is co-located and integrated with a methanol synthesis plant the costs for hydrogen compression and transportation will be eliminated, as the pressure required for methanol synthesis will be produced directly by the electrolyzer cell. For the cost of CO2 the DOE carbon capture cost target of $40 per metric ton CO2 was assumed in this estimate, as the exact cost of CO2 capture and storage in the existing large-scale CCS projects remains commercial confidential information. The amount and cost of H2 and CO2 in methanol production is calculated based on stoichiometry of methanol synthesis. This assumes 100% conversion of H2 and CO2 into methanol. While this is a somewhat optimistic assumption, nearly complete conversion can be achieved by recycling unconverted reactants after removing product methanol and water, which is a common design for methanol synthesis plants. Methanol synthesis is an exothermic process with about 1.55 MJ of heat released per kilogram of produced methanol. This heat is usually removed into boiling water and can be utilized in other parts of the plant, e.g. in a separation column, so that less or no extra energy is required. Any additional power for the operation of the balance of plant components would be supplied by the primary wind or solar source. Capital and O&M costs for methanol synthesis was adopted from 2014 NETL study of the cost of methanol production from coal and natural gas (NOTE: the NETL numbers include the cost of CO2 capture).3 Note that this O&M costs assumption is likely to be an overestimate as the expensive high-temperature steam methane reforming or coal gasification section of the methanol plant will be eliminated when starting the process with H2 and CO2 feed instead of natural gas or coal. With this set of assumptions the cost of methanol produced from renewable H2 and captured CO2 is estimated at about $1.8 per gallon (~$590/MT or ~$106/MWh). For comparison the NETL study estimates the cost of methanol production from natural gas including CO2 capture at ~$0.8 per gallon at natural gas price of $3/MMBtu and the cost of methanol production from coal including CO2 capture at ~$1.6 per gallon at coal price of $2/MMBtu. The estimated cost for renewable methanol production falls into the range of historic wholesale methanol market price variation shown in Figure 5. Figure 5. Historic wholesale market price for methanol, $/gal. Source: Methanex. Two recent papers report on technoeconomic analysis of methanol production from captured CO2 and renewable H2. A.Tremel et.al estimated the cost of methanol production at €0.175 /kWh (~€2.9 /gal).4 The analysis compares several renewable fuel options and mainly based on applying scaling factors between the existing large-scale processes and renewable systems and does not consider modifications of the processes necessary for integration with renewable energy supply. M.Pérez-Fortes et.al conducted modeling study of a renewable methanol plant operating with captured CO2 and hydrogen produced by water electrolysis.5 They estimate breakeven price of methanol at €723.6 /MT (~€2.2 /gal). Their model, though, considers CO2 capture and H2 production to be outside the system boundary and does not account for their integration. For example, their model provides for a multi-stage compression of H2 feed, which is estimated to constitute 45% of the total plant cost, while high-pressure hydrogen can be produced directly by an advanced water electrolysis unit. For an accurate cost analysis it is critically important to consider integration of the whole system and consider possible cost reducing alterations, such as avoiding DC/AC and AC/DC conversion, hydrogen drying and compression, utilizing heat released in methanol synthesis, etc. The cost estimate suggests that the cost of renewable methanol needs to be further reduced to be competitive with the methanol produced from natural gas, especially at current low natural gas prices in the US. Yet even at the existing level of technology development the renewable methanol may be competitive with the coal based methanol, which constitutes a large fraction of global methanol production, particularly in China. Increasing use of methanol produced from natural gas as vehicular fuel and in other energy applications in the near term may become a gateway for gradual conversion to renewable methanol as the cost of production decreases. While the cost analysis provided here is only a rough estimate, it indicates the critical issues that need to be addressed to reduce the system cost and produce cost competitive renewable fuels. The cost analysis indicates that renewable hydrogen constitutes more than 60% of the cost of renewable methanol, while the cost of CO2 makes a relatively small fraction of it. Lowering the cost of renewable hydrogen therefore, is the key to producing cost competitive renewable synthetic liquid fuels. This favors placing the fuel production systems in locations where abundant and reliable wind or solar resources are available, land is inexpensive and the cost of renewable energy is low, while the cost of transporting CO2 to these remote sites should not significantly increase the overall cost of fuel production. With the low cost of the primary renewable energy sources (essentially the cost of land under the renewable fuel system installation) the system components, individual technologies, design tradeoffs, and operating parameters should be selected to minimize the system capital cost even at possible expense of lower efficiency. Table 3 shows an estimate for methanol production rate for a renewable fuel system integrated with a 10 MW power source. This amount of power, which can be produced by several wind turbines or a solar farm was selected to approximately match the size of the electrolyzer analysis in 3 and the production size of small methanol plants. The analysis assumes 100% system utilization and results in process efficiency estimate of 57% (assuming LHV of produced methanol). Detailed design of the system integration and assessment of power loads of the balance of plant components are required for a more accurate estimate of the process output and efficiency. Table 3. Estimate of methanol production rate. \|Wind or solar power supply assumption\|\|10 MW\| \|H2 production assuming @ 54.6 kWh/kg_H2\|\|4400 kg H2/day\| \|CO2 demand\|\|32 metric ton/day\| \|Methanol production\|\|23 metric ton/day\| \|186 barrel/ day\| At least two pilot plants producing renewable methanol have already been demonstrated. Since 2012 Carbon Recycling International is operating a George Olah 4000 metric ton per year renewable methanol plant at Svartsengi, Iceland producing methanol from hydrogen generated from water electrolysis utilizing Iceland’s geothermal and hydro power and from CO2 captured from geothermal power plants. In Japan Mitsui Chemicals has demonstrated operation of a 100 metric ton per year renewable methanol pilot plant. The plant was utilizing CO2 captured from local industrial emitters and hydrogen produced by photocatalytic splitting of water. Converting wind and solar energy into common liquid fuels at costs competitive with the fuels produced from oil or natural gas will open ways for renewable energy penetration into the existing fuels infrastructure. Renewable energy in the form of liquid fuels can be utilized in all sectors of the economy currently served by petroleum products and not be limited to electricity grid applications. Development of the renewable liquid fuels technologies would remove several barriers currently impeding expansion of renewable energy use. Converting wind and solar electricity into easily transportable liquid fuels would divorce wind and solar projects from the electricity grid and enable their spread into remote, scarcely populated areas having ample and reliable wind and solar resources which are currently not accessible because of the high cost of electricity transmission. It will also provide a nearly infinite storage capacity for renewable energy and thus help avoid the “curtailment” problem that restrains intermittent renewable energy penetration into the electrical grid. Implementing technologies for converting renewable energy into hydrocarbon fuels would create demand for CO2 and thus establish a market for CO2 capture. Initially CO2 is likely to be captured from concentrated point emission sources, such as coal fired power plants, cement plants, etc. Developing the market for CO2 will lead to lowering the costs for CO2 capture and to propagating the technology to more dispersed and difficult to capture sources. Eventually the cost of direct air capture may be sufficiently reduced so that DAC can be integrated with renewable fuel production on large scale. This will provide additional freedom to install the fuel production plants in remote locations. Combining DAC with liquid fuel synthesis from wind and solar energy will essentially create an artificial “photosynthesis” process and carbon cycle akin to the artificial nitrogen fixation process developed by chemical engineers in the beginning of the 20th century. The cost analysis in this paper suggests that renewable hydrogen constitutes the most significant fraction in the renewable liquid fuel production cost. Reducing costs of advanced water splitting technologies, therefore, is the key to renewable energy utilization. While water electrolysis is a well-established commercial technology its broad adoption is currently hindered by the high cost of grid electricity and by competition from hydrogen produced from natural gas in industrial scale steam reforming plants. There is room for technology optimization and dramatic cost reduction from the current levels, and this would likely be sparked by the increased demand brought about by expanded renewable liquid fuel production. Development and deployment of low-temperature and high-temperature electrolysis as well as alternative technologies for direct hydrogen production by sunlight such as photoelectrochemical (PEC) and solar thermochemical (STCH) water splitting which provide potential to dramatically reduce the cost of renewable hydrogen are being pursued as part of H2@Scale DOE initiative. Synthetic liquid fuel production systems will be utilizing highly dispersed wind or solar primary energy sources. This would necessitate that each individual project be relatively small, comparable in size and cost with a wind turbine or a utility solar farm installation. Economy of scale would be achieved by replicating identical plants in multiple locations over vast swaths of scarcely populated areas. As the feeds to the process, namely wind, sunlight, water and CO2 will be the same at every location no modifications to the systems would be required. Because of the relatively small size of each system the financial risk of developing the initial demonstration projects would not be very high. There is economic opportunity in funneling solar and wind energy into the transportation fuel market by utilizing these resources to make synthetic liquid energy carriers compatible with present infrastructure. Methanol may be an attractive choice for such an energy carrier as it can be readily produced from hydrogen obtained with renewable wind and solar energy and from captured CO2 and be utilized in a wide range of existing and developing energy applications. The cost of renewable hydrogen constitutes about 60% of the total cost of renewable methanol production, therefore, lowering the cost of water splitting technologies is the key to developing low cost synthetic renewable liquid fuels. Maxim Lyubovsky, ORISE Fellow at Fuel Cell Technologies Office, US Department of Energy. He can be reached at email@example.com This research was supported in part by an award from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Science and Technology Policy Fellowships administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) for the DOE. ORISE is managed by ORAU under DOE contract number DE-AC05-06OR23100. All opinions expressed in this paper are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of DOE, ORAU, or ORISE.
When first remembering childhood abuse, many survivors mourn the loss of a “normal” past. Mainstream media sells us a vision of what our lives should be, and convinces us we are less-than if our lives are different. Even if we live in a home that embraces difference, we may feel shame when we venture outside. At the same time, survivors may accept violence as a “normal” part of family life, never having known anything else. Violence is common Survivors of violence feel alienated, cut off from normal experience. In part, that comes from dissociation, feeling separate from the physical experience of being alive. In part, it comes from society’s myth that experiencing violence is rare and abnormal. Abuse is heartbreakingly common. In the United States, at least 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually assaulted by age 18.1 Intimate partner violence is endemic.2 The same mainstream media that idolizes childhood innocence is full of overt violence. We send soldiers into war zones to both commit and suffer atrocities, and then tell them their experiences are “inhuman” when they return. The experiences may be inhumane, but humans clearly commit and experience violence at high rates. Normal is relative The dictionary defines normal as “usual, ordinary”.3 Each of us defines “usual” and “ordinary” based on our viewpoint and environment. Small children stare, point, and comment when they encounter something new to them, such as a person using a wheelchair. The wiktionary entry also notes: “Warning: normal, when used to describe a majority group of people, can be considered offensive to those who don’t consider membership of their own minority to be unusual. Care should be taken when juxtaposing normal, particularly with stereotypical labels, to avoid undue insult.” “Normal” when applied to a majority group supports the privilege of being the expected, accommodated default, while everyone else has to fit in around the edges. Ideally, responsible adults teach children that “normal” is relative, and that it is good manners to hide their surprise as they learn about what is normal for someone else. Sadly, many adults never learned this lesson themselves, moving through the world as if they are entitled to make others uncomfortable with their prying questions. Avoid prying questions When we ask questions to satisfy our curiosity, rather than to connect with someone, we are labeling them as Other, and demanding their time to educate us. When we feel curious, we can pause to acknowledge that each person is normal to themselves before entering into conversation. We can also pay attention to people’s responses, and stop asking if they seem uncomfortable. Disability of any sort seems to elicit the same rude questions over and over. Somehow US culture encourages us to think we are entitled to intimate health details about anyone who seems different. Strangers are visibly taken aback when I decline to discuss the details of my sensitivities with them. As the person being asked, we can say, “I’m not interested in discussing that further,” or, “Nice weather we’re having!” or calmly wait for them to find another topic. When we realize that we have treated someone as Other, we might feel intense shame. We can apologize to the person and process our reaction elsewhere. We are all learning to be more aware and respectful of people who differ from what we assume is normal. Your body is normal Human bodies vary widely in size, shape, and other physical characteristics. Each body is normal in relation to itself, despite the myths we persist in believing against all evidence. - Myth: “Normal” weight is healthiest. Fact: “Overweight” people have a lower risk of mortality than people of “normal” weight.4 - Myth: Human races are genetically different from each other. Fact: Differences within races are larger than among races.5 - Myth: The differences between men and women make them easy to distinguish from each other. Fact: Differences within genders are larger than among genders.6 In the US, whiteness and maleness are the default against which others are measured. The social costs of being considered less than “normal” account for a lot of the differences between people of varying body sizes, skin colors, and genders. PTSD is sensible The dictionary also defines normal as “healthy; not sick or ill”. As if the pain of trauma were not enough, survivors with PTSD feel additional pain at being considered abnormal. PTSD is the body’s normal, sensible response to overwhelming trauma. Normal for you In what ways do you see yourself as normal? In what ways do you see yourself as less than (or more than) normal? Spend some time with your answers, with as much kindness and compassion as you can. Carry the questions inside as you interact with others who have their own sense of normalcy. Do your answers shift over time? 1. National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (NAASCA) – What are the statistics of the abused?.↩ 2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.↩ 3. Wiktionary – normal.↩ 4. Time Magazine – Being Overweight Is Linked to Lower Risk of Mortality.↩ 5. PBS – RACE The Power of an Illusion background reading.↩ 6. American Psychological Association (APA) – Men and Women: No Big Difference.↩ “The Price of Blackness” by Lanre Akinsiku describes one of the ongoing costs of being seen as Other.
This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows planetary nebula NGC 7026. Located just beyond the tip of the tail of the constellation of Cygnus (The Swan), this butterfly-shaped cloud of glowing gas and dust is the wreckage of a star similar to the sun. Planetary nebulae, despite their name, have nothing to do with planets. They are, in fact, a relatively short-lived phenomenon that occurs at the end of the life of mid-sized stars. As a star's nuclear fuel runs out, its outer layers are puffed out, leaving only the hot core of the star behind. As the gaseous envelope heats up, the atoms in it are excited, and it lights up like a fluorescent sign. Fluorescent lights on Earth get their bright colors from the gases with which they are filled. Neon signs, famously, produce a bright red color, while ultraviolet lights (black lights) typically contain mercury. The same is true for nebulae: their vivid colors are produced by the mix of gases present in them. This image was produced by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. A version of it was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Competition by contestant Linda Morgan-O'Connor. Hidden Treasures is an initiative to invite astronomy enthusiasts to search the Hubble archive for stunning images that have never been seen by the general public.
In 1902, Australian women were amongst the first in the world to be extended the right to vote in federal elections, although indigenous women had to wait another 60 years. In 1943, Dame Enid Lyons and Dorothy Tangney were the first two women in the federal parliament. Despite the increase in number of female parliamentarians, women are still underrepresented in our political system. ‘Sexism should always be unacceptable.’ Prime Minister Julia Gillard, 2012 In the decades since, the rights of Australian women have been debated, won and lost in the federal parliament. Issues recorded in Hansard include childcare, abortion, sex discrimination, affirmative action, sex work, pornography, and the perceived misogyny of political opponents.
Layers of Atmosphere: The atmosphere consists of four spheres (layers) extending from the surface of the earth upwards. The concentration of the components gases decreases gradually upwards, which results in a gradual decrease in pressure. But the temperature of the atmosphere does not change in a gradual way. It varies in a complex way. Depending upon the temperature variation, the atmosphere is divided into four regions. Temperature decreases from 170C to -580C regularly in the lowest layer extending up to 12 km. this layer of the atmosphere is called the troposphere. Above this layer lies the stratosphere that extends up to 50 km. in this layer, the temperature rises up to 20C. Beyond the stratosphere lies the mesosphere, covering up to 85 km. in this region again temperature decreases down to -930C. Beyond 85 km lies the thermosphere, in which temperature goes on increasing upwards. Characteristics of four regions of atmospheric regions: \|Name of regions\|\|Height above the earth’s surface\|\|Temperature range and trend\| \|Troposphere\|\|0 —– 12 km\|\|170C —– -580C (decreases)\| \|Stratosphere\|\|12 —– 50 km\|\|-580C —- 20C (increases)\| \|Mesosphere\|\|50 —– 85 km\|\|20C —– -930C (decreases)\| \|Thermosphere\|\|85 —– 120 km\|\|˃ -930C (increases)\| Reasons for variations of temperature and other phenomena in troposphere and stratosphere: The major constituents of the troposphere are nitrogen and oxygen gases. These two gases comprise 99% of the volume of the earth’s atmosphere. Although the concentration of carbon dioxide and water vapors is negligible in the atmosphere, yet they play a significant role in maintaining the temperature of the atmosphere. Both of these gases allow visible light to pass through but absorbs infrared radiations emitted by the earth’s surface. Therefore, these gases absorb much of the outgoing radiation and warm the atmosphere. As the concentration of gases decreases gradually with the increase of altitude, correspondingly temperature also decreases at the rate of 60C per kilometer. This is the region where all whether occur. Almost all aircraft fly in this region. This region is next to the troposphere and extends up to 50 km. in this region, the temperature rises gradually up to 20C. The presence of ozone (due to absorption of radiation) in this region is responsible for the rise of temperature in the stratosphere. Within this region, temperature increases as altitude increases, such as lower layer temperature are about -580C and the upper layer are about 20C. Thus, the upper layer absorbs high energy ultraviolet radiations from the sun, it breaks down into monoatomic (O) and diatomic oxygen (O2). O3 → O2(g) + O(g) You May Also Like: - Difference between biotic and abiotic factors - Difference between Environment and Ecosystem - What is the Importance of Bioenergetics?
When the Spanish began there journey through America their influence both on the native Americans and the environment were awesome. The prime goal of the Spaniards were to transform the native Americans into tax-paying Christians. This was in contrast to the idea that their goal was to eliminate the Indians form of the Americas. Unfortunately the Spaniards took many Indians so that they may plant their Christian religion in the Indians and to use them as labor. This led many Indians to learn the customs, environment and language of the Spaniards so that they could to be able to live in the Spanish culture. Some Natives acquired the Spanish language which was the main source of their Hispanicization. This was the realization of the Indians becoming encompassed by the Spanish society. They now began to live in a Spanish ways and blend into the bottom of the Spanish totem pole. Spanish goals and plans were to involve the Indians so that they may live in their society even if at the lower end of it’s ladder. Spanish influence was not only through the Native Americans, the southwest region of America had also had its affect. The Spaniards bringing of animals and use of land changed their habitat. Live stock brought over by the Spanish extended well across northern New Spain. As a result, these grazing animals flattened grassy areas and packed down soils, which broke down the lands. Through these worn down paths of grazing, water was able to ensue. The grasslands and wildlife disappeared with these new accustoms which led some turning into deserts. The Indians influence in the Spaniards came in many monetarily ways. With many different foods and clothing that the Spanish had never encountered. With new foods came new crops and livestock for the Spanish. The Indians clothing consisted of many animal wools and warmth based attire. Racial purity was a requirement for high status in Spain and its American colonies. In the urbanized New Spain, ethic origins greatly influenced the social status. For example, “Peninsulares,” those people originally from Spain held the highest rung on the societal ladder. While on the opposite end, both free and enslaved blacks comprised the lower rung. However, on the frontier, Indians, blacks, and persons of mixed color such as mestizos (a person with Indian and Spanish blood) began to make up more of the population. And as they become more adapted to Spanish culture, Indians began to feel “whiter” and mestizos too began to describe themselves an espanoles. Gradually, wealth, prestige, and occupation equally determined social status as did ethnicity and skin color. Through such cultural and environmental changes in New Spain, the Spanish culture was presumed as the most dominant model on the frontier. Both marriage and sexual practices reflected those as in Spain and its empire. For example, the Spanish used strategies to marry themselves or their children into a better social status. While Hispanics tried to mix Indian and Spanish culture, both sides were not congruent. The Spanish culture was more dominant than the Native American cultures. Although Spaniards ate Indian food, wore their clothes, and learned their culture, it was the Indian cultures that became influenced by the Spanish. Such dominance and profound environmental changes stated earlier accounted for the Spaniards incredible influence on Southwest America.
- 1 What are examples of tone in literature? - 2 What are the 3 types of tones? - 3 What are examples of author’s tone? - 4 What is tone in writing? - 5 What are examples of tone of voice? - 6 What is tone of voice? - 7 What three 3 things make up your tone of voice? - 8 What are some tone words? - 9 What is a formal tone? - 10 How do you describe an author’s tone? - 11 How do you set the tone in writing? - 12 What is an example of tone? - 13 What is voice and tone in writing? - 14 What is tone and mood? - 15 How do you express feelings in writing examples? What are examples of tone in literature? The tone in a story indicates a particular feeling. It can be joyful, serious, humorous, sad, threatening, formal, informal, pessimistic, and optimistic. Your tone in writing will be reflective of your mood as you are writing. What are the 3 types of tones? Today we went over the 3 types of tone. Nonassertive, aggressive, and assertive. Often an author’s tone is described by adjectives, such as: cynical, depressed, sympathetic, cheerful, outraged, positive, angry, sarcastic, prayerful, ironic, solemn, vindictive, intense, excited. What is tone in writing? ” Tone in writing refers to the writer’s attitude toward the reader and the subject of the message. What are examples of tone of voice? List of Detailed Tone Descriptors Authoritative. Caring. Cheerful. Coarse. Conservative. Conversational. Casual. Dry. What is tone of voice? Introduction. A tone of voice is not what you say, but how you say it. This encompasses not only the words you choose, but their order, rhythm and pace. Rather confusingly, when seen in the world of business and marketing, the phrase ‘ tone of voice ‘ refers to written – rather than spoken – words. What three 3 things make up your tone of voice? Despite its name, tone of voice isn’t just about how you speak. It includes all the words you use in your business content, including on your website, in sales emails, product brochures, call-center scripts, and client presentations, to name just a few examples. What are some tone words? 155 Words To Describe An Author’s Tone \|Accusatory\|\|suggesting someone has done something wrong, complaining\| \|Acerbic\|\|sharp; forthright; biting; hurtful; abrasive; severe\| \|Admiring\|\|approving; think highly of; respectful; praising\| \|Aggressive\|\|hostile; determined; forceful; argumentative\| What is a formal tone? A formal tone helps establish the writer’s respect for the audience and suggests that the writer is serious about his or her topic. It is the kind of tone that educated people use when communicating with other educated people. Most academic writing uses a formal tone. Tone is the author’s attitude toward the topic. The author’s attitude is expressed through the words and details he or she selects. For example, textbooks are usually written with an objective tone which includes facts and reasonable explanations. How do you set the tone in writing? Let’s look at a few of the easiest and most effective ways to improve the tone of your writing. Avoid a Predictable Treatment of Your Subject. Keep Tone Consistent From Start to Finish. Cut Ruthlessly. Let Tension Sustain Tone. Use Your Voice. Convey Tone Through Details and Descriptions. What is an example of tone? Some other examples of literary tone are: airy, comic, condescending, facetious, funny, heavy, intimate, ironic, light, modest, playful, sad, serious, sinister, solemn, somber, and threatening. What is voice and tone in writing? Voice and tone reflect your attitude about your subject and your readers. Voice is who the readers hear talking in your paper, and tone is the way in which you are doing the writing. Voice can be institutional, or academic—that is, objective and formal. What is tone and mood? Tone \| (n.) The attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience conveyed through word choice and the style of the writing. Mood \| (n.) The overall feeling, or atmosphere, of a text often created by the author’s use of imagery and word choice. How do you express feelings in writing examples? Use “I” statements to express your emotions. For example, you could write to your partner, “I feel like you interrupt me whenever I try to talk to you about our relationship.” If you’re writing to your boss, you could say, “I feel like I deserve the opportunity to take on more responsibility.”
REVISION QUESTIONS – METALS AND ALLOYS 1. Place the following metals in order of reactivity. COPPER MAGNESIUM GOLD ALUMINIUM 2. Which ion gives a pink colour with ferroxyl indicator? A. OHB. Fe2+ C. Fe3+ D.Cu2+ 3. Which ion gives a blue colour with ferroxyl indicator? A. OHB. Fe2+ C. Fe3+ D.Cu2+ 4. Which of the following methods can give physical and sacrificial protection to iron? A. Painting B. Greasing C. Tin-plating D. Galvanising 5. Which of the following metals is found uncombined in the Earth’s Crust? A. Aluminium B. Iron C. Lead D. Silver 6. Hydrogen gas A. Burns with a pop B. Turns limewater milky C. Relights a glowing splint D. Turns pH paper red 7. Which two substances are required for the corrosion of iron? A. Water and nitrogen B. Water and oxygen C. Water and carbon dioxide D. Oxygen and nitrogen 8. Which metal will not react with dilute hydrochloric acid? A. Iron B. Magnesium C. Silver D. Zinc IRON 9. Which metal reacts vigorously with cold water? A. Aluminium B. Sodium C. Silver D. Tin 10. Magnesium is a reactive metal. It is extracted from its ore using A. Heat alone B. Electrolysis C. Heat and carbon D. A blast furnace 11. Which metal could be used as electrode X to produce the highest voltage? A. Copper B. Iron C. Lead D. Tin 12. Which of the following metals is an alloy? A. Brass B. Sodium C. Copper D. Iron 13. What is meant by a displacement reaction? 14. Explain why an ion bridge is necessary in a simple cell? 15. Why do batteries stop working? 16. Describe the reaction of Li, Mg, Cu, and Ag with oxygen, water and dilute acid. 17. Write the three equations that describe what is happening in the blast furnace. 18. Explain what would happen to the rate of rusting if a tin-plated iron can was scratched. 19. Explain what would happen if a galvanised steel bin was scratched.
As well as exposure to air, technical processes can leave a surface tainted with oils, release agents, compounding ingredients, monomers and exuded low molecular weight species. This fine soiling of both organic, inorganic, dust and microbial contaminants will typically have low wettability, leading to incomplete surface covering when applying an adhesive, which can further reduce bonding strength. To improve wettability and increase bonding strength, engineers may want to consider trialling plasma cleaning. During the process, plasma — partially ionized gas — initiates a multitude of physical and chemical processes that treat the surface, removing contaminants without the use of additional chemicals. The electrons and ions in plasma can accelerate to very high energies and collide with gas molecules to produce short-lived, chemically active species, such as atomic hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen species, hydroxyl radicals, nitric oxide radicals as well as ozone, nitrous and nitric acids. These species can disinfect, clean, modify and functionalise a range of surfaces to prepare them for adhesive bonding, varnishing or printing. Electric arcs, dielectric barrier, corona and piezoelectric direct discharges can ionize gases to create plasma at atmospheric pressure. During the process, a small fraction of gas molecules are turned into energetic electrons and ions, while the rest remain neutral and cold. The temperature reaches only 50 ⁰C in the piezoelectric direct discharge and 250-450 ⁰C in the case of arc discharge.
Voltage Comparator circuit:- A fixed reference voltage Vref is applied to the (-) input, and the other time – varying signal voltage Vin is applied to the (+) input; Because of this arrangement, the circuit is called the non-inverting comparator. Depending upon the levels of Vin and Vref, the circuit produces output. In short, the comparator is a type of analog-to-digital converter. At any given time the output waveform shows whether Vin is greater or less than Vref. The comparator is sometimes also called a voltage-level detector because, for a desired value of Vref, the voltage level of the input Vin can be detected. - A fixed reference voltage Vref is applied to the (-) input, and to the other input a varying voltage Vin. - Vary the input voltage above and below the Vref and note down the output at pin 6 of 741 IC. - Observe that, when Vin less than Vref, the output voltage is -Vsat ( @ – VEE) - when Vin is greater than Vref, the output voltage is +Vsat (@+VCC). - If Vin < Vref, Vo = -Vsat @ – VEE - Vin > Vref, Vo = +Vsat = +VCC. \|\|V = o/p
Problems of definition \| Continuity or creation? \| WIKS, BURHS, AND PORTS Planned/planted towns \| Growth of self-government \| Urban economy \| Urban society Sources of our knowledge \| further reading \|Origins: wiks, burhs, and ports\| Until the important studies of James Tait, the conventional view was that urbanization was one of the Norman introductions, or at best an initiative begun by King Alfred and his successors. Certainly it is true that evidence of urban entities in the earlier period is sparse, but archaeology in particular has helped show that the process was more ancient and more gradual. In the Early Saxon period, international trade that is, largely, the trade in "luxury" goods had, if not disappeared, then declined and most people's basic needs could be met through local or regional production. This economic environment could not have been conducive to more than very modest urbanization, and that centering around markets redistributing regional products and some growth in industries such as pottery-making whose goods gradually reached wider markets both inside and outside England. The situation gradually improved during the eighth and ninth centuries, as the consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms brought a measure of peace that encouraged some revival of long-distance trade, particularly to the closer markets of the Frankish kingdom, the Low Countries and Germany. This trend became particularly marked in the eleventh century, whose evidence of widespread revival of international commerce led Henri Pirenne to portray a comparable resurgence of urbanization, dismissing earlier post-Roman towns as mere fortresses and administrative bases. Although his theory, influential for half a century, is now largely discredited, he at least set historians thinking more about economic characteristics as defining towns. International commerce in earlier centuries had not so much disappeared as been redirected away from the embattled Mediterranean to northern Europe, while regional and local trade were still a factor in the economic fabric. By the tenth century in England new invaders, the Danes, had made their mark in northern and eastern England, establishing new settlements alongside existing ones and breathing new life into some towns (York and Lincoln being notable examples). Although the Viking raiders had initially disrupted long-distance trade, Danish settlement gave an impetus to agriculture, commerce and industry alike. At the same time, or even earlier, kings of many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had been fostering urban development to some degree. One key indicator is the appearance of settlements with names ending in "-wich", one derivation of which is from the Scandinavian term vik applied to numerous locations around the North Sea and meaning originally "bay" or "inlet" but becoming applied particularly to landing-places where travelling merchants would disembark from their vessels to conduct trade these were not necessarily permanent marketplaces but were likely the locations of locally-based industries (similar to the situation which gave rise to Lynn). In time, some of these trading destinations became more permanent, perhaps with encouragement from the Anglo-Saxon kings. In fact, the wik phenomenon predated the Danish arrival and can be traced back to at least the beginning of the eighth century. It is notable that of the settlements incorporating wik in their names including Lundenwic (the site of the Saxon settlement at London being remembered later as Aldwych, the old wik), Fordwich (the outport for Canterbury), Swanawic (Swanage), Eoforwic, Gippeswyc, Westwyk, Nordwic, Sandwich, Hamwic (Southampton, the outport for Winchester) several were the principal leading estuarine-based settlements and/or sites of royal administration in one or other of the royal kingdoms; every kingdom had at least one such trading centre associated with a place that later became one of the country's leading towns. To what extent these types of settlement, with market functions, can be considered towns is still debated, although some have tried to skirt the issue by suggesting a category of "proto-urban" that is, settlements either having the potential to develop into towns, or already a good part of the way along the process of developing the urban character they would later unquestionably have; this, of course, incorrectly assumes we are agreed upon a precise and clear set of qualifications for "town" status. Whether urban or not in intent, it is nonetheless becoming clear that the wiks were an important innovation as foci for commerce, rather different from rural settlements or administrative centres; Hamwic, or Hamtun, with two to three thousand inhabitants, was important enough to give its name to the larger administrative unit of Hamp[ton]shire, before Viking raids prompted its inhabitants to relocate into a fortified area at Southampton. In fact, the Norse invasions seem to have disrupted the wik trading network generally. Of course, we cannot look to coastal- or estuarine-based settlements alone for examples of settlements with some urban attributes. Others with -wic terminations are also found inland and may well have been so designated because one of their aspects was as trading centres, if only for the surrounding region. Examples are found in the salt wiches of Cheshire and Worcestershire. However, to complicate matters, "-wich" in some instances may derive from the Latin vicus, which was used broadly for dwellings, farms, hamlets, or subsidiary settlements. An alternative origin for town-like settlements lies in the response to the Danish invasion from the kings of Wessex. Alfred initiated a fortification programme within Wessex, involving both new forts and the addition of defences to existing settlements; his son Edward the Elder did the same in the early tenth century as he gradually took the Danelaw away from the Danes beginning with East Anglia (e.g. Maldon) and then the Midlands and the north while the related rulers of West Mercia were doing likewise there at places such as Hereford and Shrewsbury. These fortified places, perhaps inspired by earlier examples of planned fortified settlements in Mercia, the Danelaw, and Wessex itself (Hamwic, unfortified), were called burhs. From that term derives our "borough", although burh originally applied to any fortified place (notably royal residences) endowed with a royal guarantee of enforcement of law and the peace there. It was natural enough that burhs, which were often located on water transportation routes (for strategic reasons) would attract settlers. Rivers by themselves were attractors of settlement, particularly in the Early Middle Ages, when road transportation was less easy and much of the country still forested; they were trade routes, provided for domestic and industrial needs, and were natural defences. This is not to say land transportation routes were not important. Oxford provides an example of a town that originated as a small settlement that arose outside the gates of a monastery, itself lying beside a road linking Mercia and Wessex (and crossing the Thames by a ford there); it was an important enough place by the time of Edward the Elder to warrant him making Oxford a burh. The protective environment of the burhs was incentive to the location of markets within or nearby, if they were not already present (as is probable) in those existing settlements converted into burhs. This added a purely commercial dimension to the burh, planned or unplanned, which was distinguished by another name: port (a late example is seen at Norwich, a composite settlement with two wics, later burh defences, and still later a Newport added with a strong commercial character). We should not think of 'port' in its modern usage of a coastal settlement with harbour facilities. In the Early Middle Ages the term could be used for a range of settlements, often but not necessarily with some access by water, but typically with regular trading activities. Not all burhs developed into towns, nor were all towns burhs at some point in their life. Similarly, not all ports were burhs. But, just as the burh benefited from special royal protection, so ports were privileged by the restriction of minting and major commercial transactions to such places (the latter restriction apparently proving impossible to enforce). Portmen was a name by which townsmen, or burgesses, were occasionally known in later centuries, as at Canterbury and Ipswich. As a generalization only, it can be suggested that the earlier of the burh foundations outside of the Danelaw were particularly likely to develop into towns, since they had more time take advantage of economic circumstances by adding market aspects; the later burhs there were more likely to remain no more than forts. The burhs established within the Danelaw, after reconquest, were typically within settlements already fostered by the Danes into commercial centres and so also tended to become important towns later in the Middle Ages. If burhs were not guaranteed to develop into towns, it is in part because other factors were at play. After the unification of England under the Wessex dynasty, the country entered a period of considerable population growth and corresponding economic growth, as more land was put under cultivation, heavier farming and improved techniques produced a surplus of foodstuffs for trade, and market centres were able to benefit from this and from expanded international trade in luxury goods. Some centres prospered faster, and at the expense of others; as they grew, they in turn provided a population of consumers for agricultural produce. Improved records give us a clearer picture of the urbanization process, which was in full swing, particularly in eastern England where there was room for expansion (not least due to the reclamation of marshland), rich farmland and only a handful of large settlements to compete for the role of regional trade centres. The Domesday Book identifies 112 places as boroughs, most of them with mints and features that do seem truly urban; yet we know this was not a complete list of English towns at that time. England's prosperity by mid-eleventh century was surely a factor in persuading William of Normandy to pursue his claims to dominion there, which in turn resulted in the introduction of a new aristocracy with its own interests in fostering the luxury trade and creating new market centres.
A Growing Galaxy In the summer of 2016, the Milky Way doubled in size. By which we mean, the number of stars it was previously believed to contain was found to be only about half what it actually contains. It was around that time when the first batch of data from Gaia — a space telescope that’s been scanning the sky since July 2014, capturing images using a one billion pixel camera — was released. “There’s maybe 100, 200, 300 billion stars, near the high end of that range,” says Professor Gerry Gilmore, from Cambridge University, in the UK. “What we know is that there’s maybe twice as many stars as we previously thought, and that’s just in the bit of the Milk Way that Gaia has measured.” Gilmore is head of the team at Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy using the images from Gaia — 120 billion in its first 14 months — to make the most detailed and accurate map of our home galaxy ever. “The fact that Gaia has such high spatial resolution, (it) can tell the difference between two or three stars that are very close together, but nevertheless are separate stars, whereas previously from our images from the ground, blurry sort of things, it merged into what we thought was one star.” By the end of its five year mission, Gaia will have observed each part of the sky 70 times, and measured the exact position of the stars, their distances, and their motions. This will enable the European team that designed and are operating the mission, to create a three-dimensional structural map of at least one billion stars, or about half the Milky Way galaxy.
According to a new research, Chororapithecus abyssinicus, a predecessor of both apes and humans, originated in Africa, not Eurasia, nearly 2 million years earlier than commonly thought. Up until now, researchers believed that the split between human and ape lines took place around five to six million years ago. The new study debunks this belief, thanks to concrete fossil evidence that push back the timeline of human evolution by at least two million years. The Hominidae family is made up of gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, humans and three other currently-extant primate species. Our current knowledge of hominid evolution is based primarily on molecular and genetic science. In recent years, however, the discovery of million-year-old fossils in Ethiopia, like that of C.abyssinicus, has helped enhance our understanding of how and when humans split away from the great ape family. Speaking about the new research, Giday WoldeGabriel, a geologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the study’s leader, said: Our new research supports early divergence: 10 million years ago for the human-gorilla split and 8 million years ago for our split from chimpanzees. That’s at least 2 million years earlier than previous estimates, which were based on genetic science that lacked fossil evidence. With the help of advanced geological and research techniques, the scientists managed to determine the period during which the now-extinct gorilla-like creature, Chororapithecus abyssinicus, existed. Recently published in the Nature journal, the findings were the result of thorough examination of the volcanic ash present in Ethiopia’s Chorora region. According to the team, frequent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes in the area had previously entombed the fossils, which have only recently come to surface due to years of erosion and ground motion. In the 1990s, the same team was responsible for uncovering the fossilized remains of as many as eight hitherto-unknown hominid species, including the 4.4 million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus and its older relative, Ardipithecus kadabba. Both of these species were quite possibly the earliest ancestors of Homo sapiens, after they split from the main ape family tree. As the scientists point out, the individuals of the Ardipithecus genus were bipedal, unlike apes or chimps. They were, however, not as evolved as humans. WoldeGabriel added: Our analysis of C. abyssinicus fossils reveals the ape to be only 8 million years old, younger than previously thought. This is the time period when human and African ape lines were thought to have split, but no fossils from this period had been found until now. Among the fossils recovered from the dig site at Ethiopia were nine teeth fragments belonging to C. abyssinicus. The teeth, according to the researchers, were similar to that of gorilla, and were likely adapted for a fibrous diet. Recent analysis of the remains has revealed that the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees existed much earlier than what genetic science previously indicated. To calculate the age of the fossilized teeth, the scientists took the help of several techniques. For instance, using argon-dating and paleomagnetic methods, the team determined the age of the rocks and soil present around the fossils. Additionally, they studied the patterns of magnetic reversals, comparing it with their knowledge of the era’s magnetic orientation. Finally, the sediments were calibrated using the Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale (GPTS). The research is all the more significant as it provides evidence that our ancestors evolved in Africa and not Eurasia, where hominid fossils were more abundant. The study was the result of a collaboration between scientists from Japan, Ethiopia and the United States. Source: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Bats live noisy lives, often surrounded by sound, but they're not complaining: They're unaffected by the din, according to a new study out of Brown University on bat hearing. The furry fliers use echolocation to make a nocturnal living, emitting high-frequency sounds and using the returned echoes off of objects to both navigate and hunt at night, mapping the world in front of them – whether tasty insects or physical obstacles - with "pictures" created out of sound. That can get pretty loud, if you're a bat. "They are naturally exposed to continuous, intense sound levels from their own and neighboring sonar emissions while foraging, orienting, and emerging from their roosts," wrote the authors of the study, just published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. VIDEO: The Amazing Link Between Bats And Dolphins On their own bats can emit up to 100 decibels, say the scientists, and in foraging groups that noise level can reach 140 decibels – the equivalent for humans of jackhammers or jet engines, respectively, for several hours at a stretch. As anyone who's ever attended a rock concert sans earplugs knows, prolonged exposure to loud sounds can leave hearing diminished once the music stops. The Brown University scientists wanted to know if bats had the same sort of thing happen to them - after, say, a night of foraging among their fellow bats. Bat Has Conveyor Belt Tongue First they caught wild big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) and placed them in a lab, where the animals learned, via food rewards, how to move toward a natural spectrum of bat sounds played through a speaker. Then, the researchers established a baseline sound level – the quietest sound the bats could still hear that would send them toward the speaker for a treat. Baseline levels in hand, the scientists exposed the bats to a long period to the kinds of bat sounds they would hear out in the bat world. Finally, they re-tested the bats' hearing after the noise exposure to see how much sensitivity the creatures had lost. It's National Bat Appreciation Day: Photos It turned out that the bats' sensitivity remained largely the same – barely any hearing loss. Imagine a human going to a Metallica concert, without ear protection, and then leaving the show without a hint of "Huh?? What??" hearing loss and you get the idea. For now, the scientists can only document the bats' ability to dodge deafness. They still don't know how the animals work their magic. "We hypothesize that the bat's inner ear may have some special adaptations that allow it to protect itself from loud noises," said study co-author Andrea Simmons in a statement. The researchers have more than just bat physiology on their minds. They hope a better understanding of the creature's hearing could help in the design of future devices and implants for human ears.
The Water Quality Guidance for the Great Lakes System, also known as the Great Lake Initiative or GLI (40 CFR 132), created a few new types of water quality standards intended to be applied to waters in the Great Lakes basin. A Great Lakes Water Quality Wildlife Criterion (GLWC) is intended to protect avian (bird) and mammalian wildlife populations in the Great Lakes basin from adverse effects resulting from the ingestion of water and aquatic prey taken from surface waters of the Great Lakes. These criteria are based on existing toxicological studies and information about the exposure of wildlife species to the substance (i.e., food and water consumption rates). Since toxicological and exposure data for individual wildlife species are very limited, a GLWC was calculated using a similar methodology to that used to derive noncancer human health criteria. Separate avian and mammalian values are developed using toxicity and exposure data for representative Great Lakes basin wildlife species. Five wildlife species were selected to be representative of bird and animal species living in the Great Lakes basin which are likely to experience the highest exposures to bioaccumulative contaminants through the aquatic food web: - bald eagle, - herring gull, - belted kingfisher, - mink, and - river otter.
South African Journal of Science On-line version ISSN 1996-7489 There are two issues of social importance in relation to nutrient cycling. The first is the depletion of nutrients in croplands and rangelands. The second is the overabundance of nutrients through the enhancement of inputs, particularly in freshwater bodies and coastal systems, which results in loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services through eutrophication. Nutrient cycling encompasses 15 or so elements, each with multiple chemical forms and phases, four media (air, soil, biomass and water) and many transformation and transport processes. It is not cost-effective to monitor them all, even in intensive research sites. The two key elements involved in both fertility loss and eutrophication are nitrogen and phosphorus; thus their changes in nutrient pools and fluxes need to be monitored. Key anthropogenic nitrogen contributions are through atmospheric deposition and liquid waste streams. A sensitive impact indicator is the nitrogen saturation index, which rises abruptly when the absorptive capacity of the landscape is exceeded. Key anthropogenic phosphorus inputs are agriculture and, in certain locations, mining and industry. Monitoring phosphorus fertilizer application rates and local-to-regional nutrient balances is useful because phosphorus is highly conserved in ecosystems. Measurement of nutrients associated with sediment fluxes in rivers is important for both nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as for carbon balance. To place current fluxes and perturbations in perspective, historical records have to be established. Additionally, tools such as isotopic tracers, which can be used unequivocally to differentiate between the natural and anthropogenic components of nutrient cycles, need to be explored.
Largest naval battle in history The title of "largest naval battle in history" is disputed between adherents of criteria which include the numbers of personnel and/or vessels involved in the battle, and the total tonnage of the vessels involved. While battles fought in modern times are comparatively well-documented, the figures from those in pre-Renaissance times are generally believed to be exaggerated by contemporary chroniclers. - Salamis, September (28?) 480 BC. 371 Greek ships defeated 300-600 Persian ships in this decisive battle. Greek triremes had a crew of about 200 while their small penteconters had 50 oarsmen, which would suggest that approximately 200,000 sailors, soldiers and marines took part. - Red Cliffs, winter AD 208. A decisive naval engagement between forces of Cao Cao and the allied forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan resulted in the defeat of Cao Cao and confirmed the separation between southern China and northern China along the Yangtze River Valley. Between 270,000 and 310,000 soldiers participated in the engagement. - Yamen, fought March 19, 1279; saw the fall of the Song empire during the conquest of China by the Yuan Dynasty of Mongolia. - Lepanto, 7 October 1571. 212 Holy League galleys and galleasses against 272 or more Ottoman galleys, galliots etc. (484+ total). The forces of the Holy League inflicted a crushing defeat on the Ottoman fleet. This was the last major naval battle in the Western world to be fought entirely or almost entirely between rowing vessels, and one of the earliest for which there is a reliable count of ships and personnel involved. Around 150,000 personnel took part in the battle. The Turkish fleet lost more than 200 vessels and suffered at least 20,000 casualties. - Cartagena, March 13–May 20, 1741. A British fleet composed of 29 ships of the line, 22 frigates and 135 transport ships carrying between 27,400 and 30,000 men under the command of Admiral Edward Vernon attempted the take of Cartagena de Indias, a city of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, present day Colombia. The Spaniards could only oppose 6 ships and between 3,000 and 4,000 under the command of Blas de Lezo. The city was successfully deffended by the Spaniards causing estimated losses of betweenn 8,000 - 11,000 british soldiers, 7,500 injured men and 50 ships. Spanish casualties amounted to 800 deaths, 1,200 injured and the loss of the 6 ships., - Jutland, May 31–June 1, 1916. The largest battle in terms of tonnage of ships engaged and in terms of the total tonnage of ships involved in a single action. The largest surface action and the largest ship-to-ship action, in terms of the tonnage of the ships engaged. The Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, consisting of 16 dreadnought and 5 pre-dreadnought battleships, 5 battle cruisers, 11 light cruisers, and 61 fleet torpedo boats, was engaged by the numerically superior British Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, composed of 28 battleships, 9 battle cruisers, 8 armoured cruisers, 28 light cruisers and 78 destroyers. Material losses were heavier on the British side, but the High Seas Fleet only narrowly escaped destruction and never again risked a decisive encounter with the Grand Fleet. - Philippine Sea, June 19–20, 1944. The largest aircraft carrier battle in history, the largest single naval battle of World War II, and arguably the largest in history, involving 15 US fleet and light carriers, nine Japanese carriers, 170 other warships and some 1,700 aircraft. The US Fifth Fleet's Task Force 58 is (in terms of tonnage) the largest single naval formation ever to give battle. - Leyte Gulf, October 23–26, 1944. The largest in terms of tonnage of ships in the combined orders of battle, if not necessarily in terms of tonnage of the ships engaged. Also the largest in terms of the tonnage of ships sunk, and in terms of the size of the area within which the component battles took place. The United States 3rd and 7th Fleets, including some Australian warships, comprised 8 large aircraft carriers, 8 light carriers, 18 escort carriers, 12 battleships, 24 cruisers, 141 destroyers and destroyer escorts, many other ships, and around 1,500 aircraft. They won a decisive victory over Japanese forces, which consisted of four aircraft carriers, nine battleships, 19 cruisers, 34 destroyers and several hundred aircraft. The opposing fleets carried a total of about 200,000 men. Leyte Gulf consisted of four major subsidiary battles: Battle of Sibuyan Sea, Battle of Surigao Strait, Battle off Samar and Battle of Cape Engano, along with other actions. These are counted together by virtue of their all being caused by the Japanese operation Sho-Go, which was aimed at destroying the Allied amphibious forces involved in the invasion of Leyte. However, the individual battles were separated by distances as great as two hundred miles. \|This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2012)\| - Fuller, J.F.C. The Decisive Battles of the Western World and their Influence upon History, 3 vols. (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1954-6) - Volume 1: From the earliest times to the battle of Lepanto - Volume 2: From the defeat of the Spanish Armada to the battle of Waterloo - Volume 3: From the American Civil War to the end of the Second World War - A source for entries on Salamis, Actium, Sluys, Lepanto, the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Trafalgar, Midway and Leyte Gulf. - The Battle for Leyte Gulf - Cutler, Thomas (2001). The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23-26 October 1944. Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-243-9. - Hornfischer, James D. (2004). The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. Bantam. ISBN 0-553-80257-7. - Morison, Samuel Eliot (1963 (reissue 2004)). Leyte, June 1944-January 1945, vol. 12 of History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A.: University of Illinois Press; Reprint edition. ISBN 0-252-07063-1. - Sauer, Howard (1999). The Last Big-Gun Naval Battle: The Battle of Surigao Strait. Glencannon Press. ISBN 1-889901-08-3. - Woodward, C. Vann (1947 (reissue 2007)). The Battle for Leyte Gulf. Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 1-60239-194-7.
\|Anatomical terms of neuroanatomy\| The metencephalon is a developmental categorization of portions of the central nervous system. The metencephalon is composed of the pons and the cerebellum; contains a portion of the fourth ventricle; and the trigeminal nerve (CN V), abducens nerve (CN VI), facial nerve (CN VII), and a portion of the vestibulocochlear nerve (CN VIII). The metencephalon develops from the higher/rostral half of the embryonic rhombencephalon, and is differentiated from the myelencephalon in the embryo by approximately 5 weeks of age. By the third month, the metencephalon differentiates into its two main structures, the pons and the cerebellum. The pons regulates breathing through particular nuclei that regulate the breathing center of the medulla oblongata. The cerebellum works to coordinate muscle movements, maintain posture, and integrate sensory information from the inner ear and proprioceptors in the muscles and joints. At the early stages of brain development, the brain vesicles that are formed are imperative. Each brain region is characterized by its own specific architecture. These regions of the brain are determined by a combination of transcription factors and the signals that change their expression. The isthmus is the main organizing center for the tectum and the cerebellum. The tectum is the dorsal part of the metencephalon. The tectum includes the superior and inferior colliculli, which play a part in visual and audio processing. Two of the major genes that affect the metencephalon are Fgf8 and Wnt1, which are both expressed around the isthmus. Fgf8 is also known as Fibroblast Growth Factor 8. It is a protein that is widely thought to be the most important organizing signal. Its main function is to set up and maintain the barrier between the midbrain and hindbrain, specifically between the mesencephalon and metencephalon. It also plays a large role in deciding the structure of the mid- and hindbrain. Wnt1 is a proto-oncogene protein (Wingless-type MMTV integration site family, member 1). This gene was originally thought to play a role in the development of the midbrain and hindbrain, but studies have shown that this may not be the case. Wnt1 is thought to be behind the genetic disorder called Joubert Syndrome, a disorder that affects the cerebellum. Otx1 and Otx2 are genes that play important parts in the development of the brain, and studies have shown that their roles change throughout the brain’s development. It is thought that at the stage of brain development wherein the rostral brain is regionalized into its different parts (telencephalon, diencephalon, metencephalon, and mesencephalon) that Otx2 and Otx1 protect the caudalization of the diencephalon and mesencephalon into metencephalon. - Nakamura, H., and Watanabe, Y. Isthmus organizer and regionalization of the mesencephalon and metencephalon. Int. J. Dev. Biol. 49: 231-235 (2005). doi: 10.1387/ijdb.041964hn. - Matsunaga, E., Katahira, T., and Nakamura, H. "Role of Lmx1b and Wnt1 in mesencephalon and metencephalon development""Development" (2002) - Sakuri, Y., Kurokawa, D., Kiyonari, H., Kajikawa, E., Suda, Y., and Aizawa, S. "Otx2 and Otx1 protect diencephalon and mesencephalon from caudalization into metencephalon during early brain regionalization" "Developmental Biology" (2010).
Astronomers at Harvard are working to digitize over 500,000 historic photographic plates obtained between 1985 and 1993. With about ~8% of the plates scanned they are already offering us a unique glimpse into the variability of the universe on a 100 year time scale. Every 27.1 years, the ε Aurigae system gets dimmer and stays dim for two years. What is causing the dip in brightness? Have Hoard et al. uncovered the invisible monster? In this paper, techniques from helioseismology – using waves to learn about the interior of the Sun – are applied to yet another object: Jupiter. Because Jupiter is largely a fluid, like the Sun, astronomers have expected it to show global seismic behavior since the mid-1970s; the signal was even theorized to be about the same magnitude as solar oscillations. However, attempts to detect Jupiter’s global oscillations in the 80s and 90s were largely unsuccessful.

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