Vocab v71

RGBD images

"RGBD" (or RGB-D), in which "D" refers to a "depth" or "distance" channel. 3D photography using machine learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrIbQ0pIFOg

"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

/

"There are many reasons why you want to recover a file you just deleted. When you have that moment of panic, where is hits you, where that thing you thought had no value suddenly becomes important. Where you suddenly find a new purpose for it. Maybe there are still things left for me to do." This is from Season 3 episode 8 where Elliot plans on killing himself but by the end of the episode he finds the motivation to keep living.

/

A bug is never just a mistake. It represents something bigger. An error of thinking that makes you who you are.

/

Bioinspired materials, a manufacturing concept inspired by natural nacre, shrimp carapace, or insect cuticles,[42][43][44] has led to development of bioprinting methods to manufacture large scale consumer objects using chitosan.

/

Daemons. They don't stop working. They are always active. They seduce. They manipulate. They own us. And even though you're with me, even though i created you, it makes no difference. We all must deal with them alone. The best we can hope for... The only silver lining in all of this... is that when we break through, we find a few familliar faces waiting on the other side.

/

Do not mistake my generosity for generosity.

/

Filthy Frank is the embodiment of everything a person should not be. He is anti-PC, anti-social, and anti-couth. He behaves and reacts excessively to everything expressly to highlight the ridiculousness of racism, misogyny, legalism, injustice, ignorance and other social blights. He also sets an example to show how easy it is in the social media for any zany material to gain traction/followings by simply sharing unsavoury opinions and joking about topics many find offensive.There is no denying that the show is terribly offensive, but this terrible offensiveness is a deliberate and unapologetic parody of the whole social media machine and a reflection of the human microcosm that social media is.

/

Find a place where time doesn't feel wasted. A place where things feel natural.

/

If a salamander or newt loses its leg, it can just grow another one. Humans aren't so lucky. If you cut off my arm, it won't grow back. (Note: please don't do that.) But back in the 1970s, scientists showed that children can sometimes regrow the tip of an amputated finger, as long as there's a bit of nail leftover and the wound isn't stitched up. Later, we discovered that mice have the same ability. But why is the nail important, and why can't a finger grow back without it?

/

If you want to change things, perhaps you should try from within, because this is what happens from the outside.

/

People are all just people, right? When it gets down to it, everyone's the same. They love something. They want something. They fear something. Specifics help, but specifics don't change the way that everyone is vulnerable. It just changes the way that we access those vulnerabilities.

/

People can now get whatever they want whenever they want.

/

People dying in debt doing things they never even wanted to do.

/

People walk around, act like they know what hate means. Nah, no one does, until you hate yourself. I mean truly hate yourself. That's power.

/

Post workers spreading viruses, bacteria, and spores to non-native regions.

/

The world is a dangerous place, Elliott, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

/

There's a powerful group of people out there that are secretly running the world. I'm talking about the guys no one knows about, the ones that are invisible. The top 1% of the top 1%, the guys that play God without permission.

/

To get to a place where days build on eachother instead of mindless repetition.

/

Urban stormwater runoff is among the most significant sources of trash delivery to waterways, degrading aquatic habitats and contributing to oceanic trash gyres across the globe. Municipal water quality permits that require elimination of trash inputs to stormwater systems employ visual trash assessments on city streets to demonstrate litter reduction progress

/

We live in an age where technology and information have become democratized. The only time you need to rely on someone else is if they are better at sifting through information than you.

/

The user pressed the "Get e-mail" button. What happens next? The mail server is a name, the network talks in numbers. The DNS will a call, and tells the number for the name. The TCP connection gets established, data split into packets encoded into frames turned into electric signals... There be dragons for another raid. Over that TCP connection, a plain text hello is sent. The other side replies with a matching set of algorithms. It sends a certificate and an invitation. The certificate is a blob of data in the DER subformat of ASN.1 - type, size, data, type, size, data. In there hides the public key and the signature. SHA-256 is the hashing algorithm. It takes as many bytes as you have and turns them into a 32 byte string. We compute it over the certificate. We then fetch the public key of the authority which granted it and take the signature to it's Dth power modulo N. The answer is PCKS#1 - a padded SHA256 hash of the certificate. The two match. Good, the server is genuine! Now we send our shared secret to it, taken to the Eth power modulo N of it's public key. The shared secret is a random string. To get the encryption and hashing keys, we mix the words 'master secret' with the set of random numbers exchanged previously in the hello and invitation. Just hash is unsecure, and so HMAC was invented after a battle lost and won decades ago. The mix is the key to HMAC, taken over a recursive set of MD5 and SHA1 hashes to produce a string of bytes. The string is split into two pairs of 20 bytes for the MAC, then 2x16 bytes for the crypto key and 2x16 more bytes of the initial vectors. All the prior messages were saved, with the SHA1 and MD5 hashes being taken over them. Now, we signal the server to begin the coded exchange. As a confirmation we send the hash above, the 'client finished' string fed to the PRF function with the hash as a key, padded in the PCKS#1, and encoded with the keys above by AES. Add the protocol version, or someone will fake us into talking on an older, insecure one. Every weird step have a history. A battle lost or won. The server will reply with the same courtesy, only the 'server finished' line is used. After the niceties are done, in comes the actual data. The application data - blocks of AES containing the whatever apps would say. The signs of ancient battles are seen in them as well - the first block message is just random to confuse potential decoders that figured an in before. The data follows, completed by a hash. The MAC, a SHA256 HMAC of the number of the packets sent, the data, it's size and it's purpose. The end is ceremonially padded, so as not to leave any predictable text that might assist the hackers. The data goes in and out of a buffer, read and written by the layers over them engaging in further ceremonies. Ready, says the POP3. USER itsme +OK i know you. PASS buzzoff +OK You may proceed. Now, for the actual mail. LIST, the client asks, +OK the server responds. RECV, RECV, RECV, RECV, DELE, DELE, DELE, DELE... QUIT +OK bye. The client sends a coded ALERT to make the server know not to wait for it at dinner and breaks the TCP connection. We now have the dumps of data made out of lines with tag: value in them, then the data terminated by two new lines. What do it say? Where did it came from? The mess is indescribable, the standards lax, a guess after guess on standard named fields containing data in a free-for-all format. Americans say Feb 02 2016, the europeans - 02 02 16. Some say +0400, some say PST and EDT. And that's just the date. The subject line can be some text. Can be =?UTF-8?B?SGVsbG8ga2l0dHkhCg==?=, can be something even worse. All this must be decoded. Every language have it's code page, which may not even be provided. We have to guess, to try them all and look for meaning. The message itself, you might expect, is only text? Nope, it's MIME. A set of parts, separated by whatever-i-want lines. In there is a recursive mix of HTML, text versions of it, the files being attached, some signatures, some stuff embedded and some missed never to be seen. BASE64, QP code, "plain" text in myriads of codepages. As this final mess is waded through, the status bar approaches 100%... You've got mail.

/

thinking of the periodic table as a palette

/

how high is pressure on venus?

93 ATMs The atmosphere of Venus is the layer of gases surrounding Venus. It is composed primarily of carbon dioxide and is much denser and hotter than that of Earth. The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (9.3 MPa), roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) underwater on Earth.

Bug bounty program

A bug bounty program is a deal offered by many websites, organizations and software developers by which individuals can receive recognition and compensation[1] for reporting bugs, especially those pertaining to security exploits and vulnerabilities.

Crimes against humanity

A category of legal offenses created at the Nuremberg trials after World War II to encompass genocide and other acts committed by the political and military leaders of the Third Reich (Nazi Germany). Crimes against humanity are certain acts that are purposely committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian or an identifiable part of a civilian population. The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place at the Nuremberg trials.

MERV Rating

A measurement scale designed to rate the effectiveness of air filters. MERV values vary from 1 to 16.

prokaryotic organelles

A prokaryote is a unicellular organism that lacks a membrane-bound nucleus, mitochondria, or any other eukaryotic membrane-bound organelle. In prokaryotes, all of the intracellular water-soluble components - proteins, DNA and metabolites - are located in the cytoplasm enclosed by the cell membrane, rather than in separate cellular compartments. Bacteria, however, do possess protein-based microcompartments, which are thought to act as primitive organelles enclosed in protein shells.[5][6] Some prokaryotes, such as cyanobacteria, may form large colonies. Others, such as myxobacteria, have multicellular stages in their life cycles.[7]

Bioplastic

Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, etc. e.g. Chitosan based plastic Five different types of Chitin nanomaterials were extracted and synthesized by the 'Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology' to verify strong personality and antibacterial effects. When buried underground, 100% biodegradation was possible within 6 months.[88]

Chitosan

Chitosan is produced commercially by deacetylation of chitin, which is the structural element in the exoskeleton of crustaceans (such as crabs and shrimp) and cell walls of fungi. Chitin and chitosan are obtained from the shells of crustaceans such as crabs, prawns, lobsters and shrimps, the exoskeletons of insects, and the cell walls of fungi such as aspergillus and mucor. Crab and shrimp shell wastes are currently utilized as the major industrial source of biomass for the large-scale production of chitin and chitosan. Processing biowastes from marine food factories help recycle the wastes and make the derivatives or by-products useful in other fields. These crustacean shell wastes are composed of protein, inorganic salts, chitin and lipids as main structural components. In the first stage, chitin production is associated with food industries such as shrimp canning. In the second stage, the production of chitosan is associated with fermentation processes, similar to those for the production of citric acid from aspergillus niger, mucor rouxii, and streptomyces, which involved alkali treatment yielding chitosan. Briefly, shells are ground to smaller sizes and minerals, mainly calcium carbonate, are removed by extraction (demineralization, decalcification) with dilute hydrochloric acid followed by stirring at ambient temperature. Chitin a naturally abundant mucopolysaccharide is white, hard, inelastic, and nitrogenous compound that is a byproduct of the fishery industry and is considered as a regenerating raw material which is only second to cellulose in terms of abundance. Its natural abundance amounts to more than 1000 tons per year and about 70% of which comes from marine species. Chitins is the main component in the shells of crustaceans such as shrimp, crab and lobster, and is also be found in exoskeletons of mollusks and insects as well as in the cell walls of some fungi [1, 2]. It is mainly produced commercially by deacetylation or removing acetyl groups from the chitin polymer by treatment with alkali [3]. The main driving force for the development of wider applications of chitin and chitosan lies in the fact that these polysaccharides are not only naturally abundant but also nontoxic and biodegradable. It was demonstrated by many researchers that chitosan had a great potential for a wide range of uses due to its versatile biological, chemical and physical properties [2]. The chemical structure of chitin and chitosan is very similar to that of cellulose which consists of several hundreds to more than thousand b-(1-4) linked D-glucose units [7] (Fig. 1). In chitin and chitosan structure hydroxyl at position C-2 of cellulose has replaced by an acetamide group. Chitosan, b-(1-4) linked 2-amino-2-deoxy-b-D-glucopyranose, is an N-deacetylated derivative of chitin obtained by transforming the acetamide groups into primary amino groups [8]. Chitosan has a number of commercial and possible biomedical uses. It can be used in agriculture as a seed treatment and biopesticide, helping plants to fight off fungal infections. In winemaking, it can be used as a fining agent, also helping to prevent spoilage. In industry, it can be used in a self-healing polyurethane paint coating. In medicine, it is useful in bandages to reduce bleeding and as an antibacterial agent; it can also be used to help deliver drugs through the skin. y. A body of recent studies suggests that chitosan and its derivatives are promising candidates for supporting materials in tissue engineering applications. This review article is mainly focused on the contemporary research on chitin and chitosan towards their applications in numerous biomedical fields namely tissue engineering, artificial kidney, skin, bone, cartilage, liver, nerve, tendon, woundhealing, burn treatment and some other useful purposes.

deus ex machina

Deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Deus ex machina is a Latin calque from Greek meaning 'god from the machine'.

ruggedized

Devices designed to withstand much more physical abuse than conventional devices. e.g. underwater motors; computer devices that operate in military environments

Ecumenopolis

Ecumenopolis is the hypothetical concept of a planetwide city.

Hummus

Hummus is a dip, spread, or savory dish made from cooked, mashed chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic.

Firmware

In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. A television remote control is an example of an engineered product that contains firmware. The firmware monitors the buttons, controls the LEDs, and processes the button presses to send the data in a format the receiving device, in this case, a television set, can understand and process. In fact, the television's motherboard has complex firmware too.

Spin glass

In condensed matter physics, a spin glass is a model of a certain type of magnet. Magnetic spins are, roughly speaking, the orientation of the north and south magnetic poles in three-dimensional space. In ferromagnetic solids, component atoms' magnetic spins all align in the same direction. Spin glasses are contrasted with ferromagnets as "disordered" magnets in which their atoms' spins are not aligned in a regular pattern. The term "glass" comes from an analogy between the magnetic disorder in a spin glass and the positional disorder of a conventional, chemical glass, e.g., a window glass. In window glass or any amorphous solid the atomic bond structure is highly irregular; in contrast, a crystal has a uniform pattern of atomic bonds. In ferromagnetic solids, magnetic spins all align in the same direction; this is analogous to a crystal's lattice-based structure.

Rubber-hose cryptanalysis

In cryptography, rubber-hose cryptanalysis is a euphemism for the extraction of cryptographic secrets (e.g. the password to an encrypted file) from a person by coercion or torture—such as beating that person with a rubber hose, hence the name—in contrast to a mathematical or technical cryptanalytic attack.

Comparator

In electronics, a comparator is a device that compares two voltages or currents and outputs a digital signal indicating which is larger. A comparator consists of a specialized high-gain differential amplifier. They are commonly used in devices that measure and digitize analog signals, such as analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), as well as relaxation oscillators.

Drag coefficient

In fluid dynamics, the drag coefficient is a dimensionless quantity that is used to quantify the drag or resistance of an object in a fluid environment, such as air or water. It is used in the drag equation in which a lower drag coefficient indicates the object will have less aerodynamic or hydrodynamic drag.

Antiferromagnetism

In materials that exhibit antiferromagnetism, the magnetic moments of atoms or molecules, usually related to the spins of electrons, align in a regular pattern with neighboring spins (on different sublattices) pointing in opposite directions. This is, like ferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism, a manifestation of ordered magnetism. When no external field is applied, the antiferromagnetic structure corresponds to a vanishing total magnetization. In an external magnetic field, a kind of ferrimagnetic behavior may be displayed in the antiferromagnetic phase, with the absolute value of one of the sublattice magnetizations differing from that of the other sublattice, resulting in a nonzero net magnetization. Although the net magnetization should be zero at a temperature of absolute zero, the effect of spin canting often causes a small net magnetization to develop, as seen for example in hematite.

Caliphate

Islamic empire ruled by those believed to be the successors to the Prophet Muhammad. the chief Muslim civil and religious ruler, regarded as the successor of Muhammad.

Unix time

It is the number of seconds that have elapsed since the Unix epoch, minus leap seconds; the Unix epoch is 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970. Leap seconds are ignored,[4] with a leap second having the same Unix time as the second before it, and every day is treated as if it contains exactly 86400 seconds. Date/Time: 2004-09-16T23:59:59.75 Unix Equivalent: 1,095,379,199.75 The number of seconds since 1/1/1970. Big number.

Monarch migration to mexico

Monarchs have been bred on the International Space Station. As part of their migration cycle, monarch butterflies fly around 2,800 miles from Canada and the United States to spend the coldest months of the year in warmer lands. This year, it's expected that around 200 million butterflies will arrive to the protected areas of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, which was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2008. During the 4 to 5 months that the butterflies stay in Mexico, the forests become an orange wonderland. Pine, oak, and oyamel trees are completely covered with butterflies that tend to stay very close together. When the temperatures are too cold - especially early in the morning - they sleep in clusters and close their wings, so at first sight they might seem like dry leaves on the trees. When it gets a little bit warmer, they open their colorful wings wide and fly around the forest as their mating ritual, creating a magical scene. One variation, the "white monarch", observed in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and the United States, is called "nivosus" by lepidopterists. It is grayish white in all areas of its wings that are normally orange and is only about 1% or less of all monarchs, but populations as high as 10% exist on Oahu in Hawaii.[18] The monarch has six legs like all insects, but uses only its middle legs and hindlegs as the forelegs are vestigial, as in all Nymphalidae, and held against its body.[30] Though each egg is ​1⁄1000 the mass of the female, she may lay up to her own mass in eggs. Females lay smaller eggs as they age. Larger females lay larger eggs.[48] The number of eggs laid by a female, who may mate several times, ranges from 290 to 1180. Larvae The caterpillar goes through five major distinct stages of growth, and after each one it molts. Each caterpillar, or instar, is larger than the previous after molting, as it eats and stores energy in the form of fat and nutrients to carry it through the nonfeeding pupal stage. Each instar lasts about 3 to 5 days, depending on various factors such as temperature and food availability.[4] The first instar caterpillar that emerges out of the egg is pale green and translucent. It lacks banding coloration or tentacles. The larvae or caterpillar eats its egg case and begins to feed on milkweed. It is during this stage of growth that the caterpillar begins to sequester cardenolides. The circular motion a caterpillar uses while eating milkweed prevents the flow of latex that could entrap it. The first instar is usually between 2 and 6 mm long. The second instar larva develops a characteristic pattern of white, yellow and black transverse bands. It is no longer translucent but is covered in short setae. Pairs of black tentacles begin to grow, one pair on the thorax and another pair on the abdomen. Like the first instar, second instar larvae usually eat holes in the middle of the leaf, rather than at the edges. The second instar is usually between 6 mm and 1 cm long. The fourth instar has a different banding pattern. It develops white spots on the prolegs near the back of the caterpillar. It is usually between 1.5 and 2.5 cm long. The fifth instar larva has a more complex banding pattern and white dots on the prolegs, with front legs that are small and very close to the head. A caterpillar at this stage has an enormous appetite, being able to consume a large milkweed leaf in a day. Its length ranges from 2.5 to 4.5 cm.[4] As the caterpillar completes its growth, it is 4.5 cm long (large specimens can reach 5 cm) and 7 to 8 mm wide, and weighs about 1.5 grams, compared to the first instar, which was 2 to 6 mm long and 0.5 to 1.5 mm wide. Fifth-instar larvae increase in weight 2000 times from first instars. Fifth-stage instar larva can chew through the petiole or midrib of milkweed leaves and stop the flow of latex. After this, they eat more leaf tissue. Before pupation, larvae must consume milkweed to increase their mass, after which they stop feeding and search for a pupation site. An adult butterfly emerges after about two weeks as a chrysalis, and hangs upside down for a few hours until its wings are dry. Fluids are pumped into the wings, which expand, dry, and stiffen. The monarch extends and retracts its wings, and once conditions allow, flies and feeds on a variety of nectar plants. During the breeding season, adults reach sexual maturity in four or five days. However, the migrating generation does not reach maturity until overwintering is complete. During the development, both larvae and their milkweed hosts are vulnerable to weather extremes, predators, parasites and diseases; commonly fewer than 10% of monarch eggs and caterpillars survive. Females and males typically mate more than once. Females that mate several times lay more eggs. In North America, monarchs migrate both north and south on an annual basis, in a long-distance journey that is fraught with risks.[4] The population east of the Rocky Mountains attempts to migrate to the sanctuaries of the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve in Mexico and parts of Florida. The western population tries to reach overwintering destinations in various coastal sites in central and southern California. The overwintered population of those east of the Rockies may reach as far north as Texas and Oklahoma during the spring migration. The second, third and fourth generations return to their northern locations in the United States and Canada in the spring.[73] Captive-raised monarchs appear capable of migrating to overwintering sites in Mexico,[74] though they have a much lower migratory success rate than wild monarchs do. Vision Physiological experiments suggest that monarch butterflies view the world through a tetrachromatic system.[78] Like humans, their retina contain three types of opsin proteins, expressed in distinct photoreceptor cells, each of which absorbs light at a different wavelength. Unlike humans, one of those types of photoreceptor cells corresponds to a wavelength in the ultraviolet range; the other two correspond to blue and green. In addition to these three photoreceptors cells in the main retina, monarch butterfly eyes contain orange filtering pigments that filter the light reaching some but not all green-absorbing opsins, thereby making a fourth photoreceptor cell sensitive to longer wavelength light.[78] The combination of filtered and unfiltered green opsins permits the butterflies to distinguish yellow from orange colors. The ultraviolet opsin protein has also been detected in the dorsal rim region of monarch eyes. One study suggests that this allows the butterflies the ability to detect ultraviolet polarized skylight in order to orient themselves with the sun for their long migratory flight. These butterflies are capable of distinguishing colors based on their wavelength only, and not based on intensity; this phenomenon is termed "true color vision". This is important for many butterfly behaviors, including seeking nectar for nourishment, choosing a mate, and finding milkweed to lay eggs on. One study found that floral color is more easily recognized at a distance by butterflies searching for nectar than floral shape. This is may be because flowers have highly contrasting colors to the green background of a vegetative landscape. Beyond the perception of color, the ability to remember certain colors is essential in the life of monarch butterflies. Researchers have found that these insects can easily learn to associate color and, to a lesser extent shape, with sugary food rewards. When searching for nectar, color is the first cue that draws the insect's attention toward a potential food source, and shape is a secondary characteristic that promotes the process. When searching for a place to lay one's eggs, the roles of color and shape are switched. There may also be a difference between male and female butterflies from other species in terms of the ability to learn certain colors; however, there is no differences between the sexes for monarch butterflies.[81] Defense In both caterpillar and butterfly form, monarchs are aposematic—warding off predators with a bright display of contrasting colors to warn potential predators of their undesirable taste and poisonous characteristics. Large larvae are able to avoid wasp predation by dropping from the plant or by jerking their bodies.[82] Monarchs are foul tasting and poisonous due to the presence of cardenolides in their bodies, which the caterpillars ingest as they feed on milkweed.[57] Monarchs and other cardenolide resistant insects rely on a resistant form of the Na+/ K+-ATPase enzyme to tolerate significantly higher concentrations of cardenolides than nonresistant species.[83] By ingesting a large amount of plants in the genus Asclepias, primarily milkweed, monarch caterpillars are able to sequester cardiac glycosides, or more specifically cardenolides, which are steroids that act in heart-arresting ways similar to digitalis.[84] It has been found that monarchs are able to sequester cardenolides most effectively from plants of intermediate cardenolide content rather than those of high or low content.[85] Additional studies have shown that different species of milkweed have different effects on growth, virulence, and transmission of parasites.[86] One species, Asclepias curassavica, appears to reduce the symptoms of Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) infection. There are two possible explanations for this: that it promotes overall monarch health to boost the monarch's immune system; or that chemicals from the plant have a direct negative effect on the OE parasites.[86] A. curassavica does not cure or prevent the infection with OE, it merely allows infected monarchs to live longer, and this would allow infected monarchs to spread the OE spores for longer periods. After the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, the toxins shift to different parts of the body. Since many birds attack the wings of the butterfly, having three times the cardiac glycosides in the wings leaves predators with a very foul taste and may prevent them from ever ingesting the body of the butterfly.[84] In order to combat predators that remove the wings only to ingest the abdomen, monarchs keep the most potent cardiac glycosides in their abdomens.[88] There is increasing concern related to the ongoing decline of monarchs at their overwintering sites; based on a 2014 twenty-year comparison, the overwintering numbers west of the Rocky Mountains have dropped more than 50 percent since 1997 and the overwintering numbers east of the Rockies have declined by more than 90 percent since 1995.[10] In February 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provided a statistic showing that nearly a billion monarchs have vanished from the overwintering sites since 1990. At that time, one of the main reasons cited was the herbicides used by farmers and homeowners on milkweed, a plant used as a food source, a home and a nursery by the monarchs. might need to go into conservation..

Paleomagnetism

Paleomagnetism is the study of the record of the Earth's magnetic field in rocks, sediment, or archeological materials. Magnetic minerals in rocks can lock-in a record of the direction and intensity of the magnetic field when they form. This record provides information on the past behavior of Earth's magnetic field and the past location of tectonic plates. The record of geomagnetic reversals preserved in volcanic and sedimentary rock sequences (magnetostratigraphy) provides a time-scale that is used as a geochronologic tool. Geophysicists who specialize in paleomagnetism are called paleomagnetists. The study of paleomagnetism is possible because iron-bearing minerals such as magnetite may record past directions of the Earth's magnetic field. Magnetic signatures in rocks can be recorded by several different mechanisms. Iron-titanium oxide minerals in basalt and other igneous rocks may preserve the direction of the Earth's magnetic field when the rocks cool through the Curie temperatures of those minerals. The Curie temperature of magnetite, a spinel-group iron oxide, is about 580 °C, whereas most basalt and gabbro are completely crystallized at temperatures below 900 °C. Hence, the mineral grains are not rotated physically to align with the Earth's field, but rather they may record the orientation of that field. The record so preserved is called a thermoremanent magnetization (TRM). Because complex oxidation reactions may occur as igneous rocks cool after crystallization, the orientations of the Earth's magnetic field are not always accurately recorded, nor is the record necessarily maintained. Nonetheless, the record has been preserved well enough in basalts of the ocean crust to have been critical in the development of theories of sea floor spreading related to plate tectonics. TRM can also be recorded in pottery kilns, hearths, and burned adobe buildings. The discipline based on the study of thermoremanent magnetisation in archaeological materials is called archaeomagnetic dating.[7] Paleomagnetists led the revival of the continental drift hypothesis and its transformation into plate tectonics. Apparent polar wander paths provided the first clear geophysical evidence for continental drift, while marine magnetic anomalies did the same for seafloor spreading. Paleomagnetic data continues to extend the history of plate tectonics back in time as it can be used to constrain the ancient position and movement of continents and continental fragments (terranes). Paleomagnetism relied heavily on new developments in rock magnetism, which in turn has provided the foundation for new applications of magnetism. These include biomagnetism, magnetic fabrics (used as strain indicators in rocks and soils), and environmental magnetism. Secular variation studies look at small-scale changes in the direction and intensity of the Earth's magnetic field. The magnetic north pole is constantly shifting relative to the axis of rotation of the Earth. Magnetism is a vector and so magnetic field variation is made up of palaeodirectional measurements of magnetic declination and magnetic inclination and palaeointensity measurements. Magnetostratigraphy uses the polarity reversal history of the Earth's magnetic field recorded in rocks to determine the age of those rocks. Reversals have occurred at irregular intervals throughout Earth history. The age and pattern of these reversals is known from the study of sea floor spreading zones and the dating of volcanic rocks.

reification

Reification is when you think of or treat something abstract as a physical thing. Reification is a complex idea for when you treat something immaterial — like happiness, fear, or evil — as a material thing.

Relaxor ferroelectric

Relaxor ferroelectrics are ferroelectric materials that exhibit high electrostriction. As of 2015, although they have been studied for over fifty years,[1] the mechanism for this effect is still not completely understood, and is the subject of continuing research.

how many cows are in a single hamburger?

The beef scraps that become hamburger meat are mixed communally during processing, and according to a study done in 1998, the average fast-food burger contains meat from 55 different cows, but that number can increase dramatically

Transatlantic telegraph cable

The first communications occurred August 16, 1858, reducing the communication time between North America and Europe from ten days—the time it took to deliver a message by ship—to a matter of minutes. Transatlantic telegraph cables have been replaced by transatlantic telecommunications cables. Cyrus West Field and the Atlantic Telegraph Company were behind the construction of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.[1] The project began in 1854 and was completed in 1858. The cable functioned for only three weeks, but it was the first such project to yield practical results. The cable was destroyed the following month when Wildman Whitehouse applied excessive voltage to it while trying to achieve faster operation. The cable's rapid failure undermined public and investor confidence and delayed efforts to restore a connection. A second attempt was undertaken in 1865 with much-improved material and, following some setbacks, a connection was completed and put into service on July 28, 1866. The cable consisted of seven copper wires, each weighing 26 kg/km (107 pounds per nautical mile), covered with three coats of gutta-percha (as suggested by Jonathan Nash Hearder[15]), weighing 64 kg/km (261 pounds per nautical mile), and wound with tarred hemp, over which a sheath of 18 strands, each of seven iron wires, was laid in a close helix. It weighed nearly 550 kg/km (1.1 tons per nautical mile), was relatively flexible and was able to withstand a pull of several tens of kilonewtons (several tons). The first official message was sent via the cable: "Directors of Atlantic Telegraph Company, Great Britain, to Directors in America:—Europe and America are united by telegraph. Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, good will towards men."[29][30][31] Next was the text of a telegram of congratulation from Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan at his summer residence in the Bedford Springs Hotel in Pennsylvania which expressed a hope that it would prove "an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded on their common interest and reciprocal esteem." The President responded that, "it is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle. May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world." The messages were hard to decipher - Queen Victoria's message of 98 words took sixteen hours to send. These messages engendered an outburst of enthusiasm. The next morning a grand salute of 100 guns resounded in New York City, the streets were decorated with flags, the bells of the churches were rung, and at night the city was illuminated

Oligodynamic effect

The oligodynamic effect (from Greek oligos "few", and dynamis "force") is a biocidal effect of metals, especially heavy metals, that occurs even in low concentrations. The oligodynamic effect was discovered in 1893 as a toxic effect of metal ions on living cells, algae, molds, spores, fungi, viruses, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic microorganisms, even in relatively low concentrations.[5] This antimicrobial effect is shown by ions of copper as well as mercury, silver, iron, lead, zinc, bismuth, gold, and aluminium. The metals react with thiol (-SH) or amine (-NH(1,2,3)) groups of proteins, a mode of action to which microorganisms may develop resistance. Such resistance may be transmitted by plasmids. Recent studies have shown that copper alloy surfaces kill E. coli O157:H7. More than 99.9% of E. coli microbes are killed after just 1-2 hours on copper. On stainless steel surfaces, the microbes can survive for weeks.

Materials besides water where solid is less dense than liquid

There are elements which are less dense in their solid state then their liquid state elements like Silica, Germanium, Bismuth, antimony, Mercury, plutonium.

Thermogravimetric analysis

Thermogravimetric analysis or thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) is a method of thermal analysis in which the mass of a sample is measured over time as the temperature changes. This measurement provides information about physical phenomena, such as phase transitions, absorption, adsorption and desorption; as well as chemical phenomena including chemisorptions, thermal decomposition, and solid-gas reactions (e.g., oxidation or reduction).[1]

largest beaver to ever exist

This creature's scientific name is Castoroides ohioensis. This creature is also known as the giant beaver. It was the largest beaver that ever lived. It grew up to eight feet long and weighed nearly 500 pounds.

How do water purification tablets work?

Water purification tablets are effective at eliminating bacteria such as e. coli and salmonella, viruses such as norovirus and Hep A, and some protozoa. Water purification tablets purify water by using active chemicals to dissolve the cellular makeup of pathogens. The three most popular and most widely used types of purification tablets contain either iodine, chlorine, or chlorine dioxide. Any one of these chemicals in its purest form can purify water if done correctly - manufacturers invented the tablet form of these chemicals for user convenience and dosage purposes. Most water purification tablets work the same way: drop a tablet in to the water source, wait a while, then drink. While iodine, chlorine, and chlorine dioxide are all capable of purifying water for drinking, they each have their own set of factors that should be considered. Iodine can take the form of liquid solution, crystal, or tablet and will kill bacteria and viruses in water within 30 minutes of contact. They are partially effective at killing the protozoa Giardia if allowed to sit for at least 50 minutes. Iodine is ineffective against Cryptosporidium due to its protective coating. Iodine typically has a shelf life of about 6 years. Pregnant women and those with thyroid conditions should avoid using Iodine. Iodine-based purification tablets can leave a metallic taste in the water after purification. Chlorine works by dissolving the cell membrane of the pathogens it comes into contact with. Like Iodine, it kills bacteria and viruses within 30 minutes of contact. It is also partially effective against Giardia and requires a 45-minute wait time. It is ineffective against Cryptosporidium. Chlorine can also leave an aftertaste in the treated water. Chlorine Dioxide works similarly to Chlorine and Iodine in that it kills bacteria, viruses, and Giardia within 30-50 minutes of contact, but it is effective against Cryptosporidium if allowed to sit for 4 hours. Chlorine Dioxide does not leave an aftertaste. ________________________ Chemical disinfection with halogens, chiefly chlorine and iodine, results from oxidation of essential cellular structures and enzymes. The primary factors that determine the rate and proportion of microorganisms killed are the residual or available halogen concentration and the exposure time.[13] Secondary factors are pathogen species, water temperature, pH, and organic contaminants. In field-water disinfection, use of concentrations of 1-16 mg/L for 10-60 min is generally effective. Of note, Cryptosporidium oocysts, likely Cyclospora species, Ascaris eggs are extremely resistant to halogens and field inactivation may not be practical with bleach and iodine. Iodine used for water purification is commonly added to water as a solution, in crystallized form, or in tablets containing tetraglycine hydroperiodide that release 8 mg of iodine per tablet. The iodine kills many, but not all, of the most common pathogens present in natural fresh water sources. Carrying iodine for water purification is an imperfect but lightweight solution for those in need of field purification of drinking water. Kits are available in camping stores that include an iodine pill and a second pill (vitamin C or ascorbic acid) that will remove the iodine taste from the water after it has been disinfected. The addition of vitamin C, in the form of a pill or in flavored drink powders, precipitates much of the iodine out of the solution, so it should not be added until the iodine has had sufficient time to work. This time is 30 minutes in relatively clear, warm water, but is considerably longer if the water is turbid or cold. Water treated with tablets containing tetraglycine hydroperiodide also reduces the uptake of radioactive iodine in human subjects to only 2% of the value it would otherwise be, although the amount of iodine in a single tablet is not sufficient to block uptake.[14] If the iodine has precipitated out of the solution, then the drinking water has less available iodine in the solution. Also. Tetraglycine hydroperiodide maintains its effectiveness indefinitely before the container is opened; although some manufacturers suggest not using the tablets more than three months after the container has initially been opened, the shelf life is in fact very long provided that the container is resealed immediately after each time it is opened.

why some bees die after stinging?

When a female honey bee stings a person, it cannot pull the barbed stinger back out, but rather leaves behind not only the stinger, but also part of its abdomen and digestive tract, plus muscles and nerves. This massive abdominal rupture kills the honey bee. Honey bees are the only bees to die after stinging.

Thermoremanent magnetization (TRM)

When an igneous rock cools, it acquires a thermoremanent magnetization (TRM) from the Earth's field. TRM can be much larger than it would be if exposed to the same field at room temperature (see isothermal remanence). This remanence can also be very stable, lasting without significant change for millions of years. TRM is the main reason that paleomagnetists are able to deduce the direction and magnitude of the ancient Earth's field.

cf.

compare with The abbreviation cf. (short for the Latin: confer/conferatur, both meaning "compare") is used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed. Electrostriction (cf. magnetostriction)

banality

ordinariness; dullness a trite or obvious remark the fact or condition of being banal; unoriginality.

Sterling silver

silver and copper

Oersted (Oe)

unit of magnetic field strength

the illusion of choice

when you perceive that you have the option to choose, but in reality your choice makes no difference. e.g. picking health insurance what really is the difference between blue cross and blue shield

stonewalling

withdrawing from a conversation delay or block (a request, process, or person) by refusing to answer questions or by giving evasive replies, especially in politics.

Flocculation

In colloid chemistry, flocculation refers to the process by which fine particulates are caused to clump together into a floc. The floc may then float to the top of the liquid (creaming), settle to the bottom of the liquid (sedimentation), or be readily filtered from the liquid.

Tamahagane

Tamahagane is used to make Japanese swords, knives, and other kinds of tools. Tamahagane is made of a very pure iron sand (satetsu), which is found in Shimane, Japan.[4] There are 2 main types of iron sands: akame satetsu (赤目砂鉄) and masa satetsu (真砂砂鉄). Akame is of lower quality and masa is of better quality. The person who decides the amount of the mixing parts is called the murage. Depending on the desired result, the murage mixes one or more types of sands.

paranoia

an irrational suspiciousness or distrust of others; anxiety

dermatitis

inflammation of the skin

Magnetoplasmadynamic Thrusters

he magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster is currently the most powerful form of electromagnetic propulsion. The MPD's ability to efficiently convert megawatts of electric power into thrust makes this technology a prime candidate for economical delivery of lunar and Mars cargo, outer planet rendezvous, and sample return, and for enabling other bold new ventures in deep space robotic and piloted planetary exploration. With its high exhaust velocities, MPD propulsion offers distinct advantages over conventional types of propulsion for each of these mission applications. MPDs expel plasma to create propulsion. MPDs can process more power and create more thrust than any other type of electric propulsion currently available, while maintaining the high exhaust velocities associated with ion propulsion. In its basic form, the MPD thruster has two metal electrodes: a central rod-shaped cathode, and a cylindrical anode that surrounds the cathode. Just as in an arc welder, a high-current electric arc is struck between the anode and cathode. As the cathode heats up, it emits electrons, which collide with and ionize a propellant gas to create plasma. A magnetic field is created by the electric current returning to the power supply through the cathode, just like the magnetic field that is created when electrical current travels through a wire. This self-induced magnetic field interacts with the electric current flowing from the anode to the cathode (through the plasma) to produce an electromagnetic (Lorentz) force that pushes the plasma out of the engine, creating thrust. An external magnet coil may also be used to provide additional magnetic fields to help stabilize and accelerate the plasma discharge. A variety of thruster geometries have been investigated using different types of gas propellants, with lithium vapor propellant providing the most efficient performance to date. Lithium-fed MPD thrusters developed in Russia have operated at power levels of 100 kilowatts, with efficiencies of up to 45 percent and plasma exhaust velocities approaching 50,000 meters per second (over 100,000 miles per hour (mph)). NASA is currently researching both pulsed and continuous forms of MPDs with hydrogen or lithium as a propellant. While attractive from an efficiency standpoint, lithium is a condensable propellant and may coat spacecraft surfaces and power arrays. MPD thrusters using noncondensable hydrogen propellant will eliminate these concerns and provide higher exhaust velocities than lithium-fueled thrusters.

artisanal

made in a traditional or non-mechanized way relating to or characteristic of an artisan. artisanal miners

Digital stuff does not age, they say... And yet, i start to notice the aging. Most of my software is getting old, and does so faster and faster. I have so many projects that these days it takes years to go full circle in the hopping rotation between them, and often the thing i hop to is out of date, out of it's time, not compatible with the current interfaces, look out of place and so on.

/

Just like processed food is dangerous so is processed information.

/

Silphium

Ancient spice that went extinct Silphium (also known as silphion, laserwort, or laser) was a plant that was used in classical antiquity as a seasoning, perfume, as an aphrodisiac, or as a medicine.[1][2] It also was used as a contraceptive by ancient Greeks and Romans.[3] It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant. The exact identity of silphium is unclear. It is commonly believed to be a now-extinct plant of the genus Ferula,[1] perhaps a variety of "giant fennel". The still-extant plants Margotia gummifera [pt][5] and Ferula tingitana[6] have been suggested as other possibilities.

Atomic gardening

Atomic gardening is a form of mutation breeding where plants are exposed to radioactive sources, typically cobalt-60, in order to generate mutations, some of which have turned out to be useful. The practice of plant irradiation has resulted in the development of over 2000 new varieties of plants, most of which are now used in agricultural production.[2] One example is the resistance to verticillium wilt of the "Todd's Mitcham" cultivar of peppermint which was produced from a breeding and test program at Brookhaven National Laboratory from the mid-1950s. Additionally, the Rio Star Grapefruit, developed at the Texas A&M Citrus Center in the 1970s, now accounts for over three quarters of the grapefruit produced in Texas.

would plants exist without bees?

Bees perform a task that is vital to the survival of agriculture: pollination. In fact, one third of our global food supply is pollinated by bees. Simply put, bees keep plants and crops alive. Without bees, these crops would cease to exist.

Villari effect

It is the change of the magnetic susceptibility of a material when subjected to a mechanical stress.

when were mirrors invented?

The silvered-glass mirrors found throughout the world today first got their start in Germany almost 200 years ago. In 1835, German chemist Justus von Liebig developed a process for applying a thin layer of metallic silver to one side of a pane of clear glass.

A coward who cannot face the truth when it staring him right in the face.

/

Almost all life is just polymers that are really smart.

/

But the clean meat industry has a messy problem. None of the major players have managed to grow meat without using animal serum - a blend of growth-inducing proteins usually made from the blood of animals. The most popular is foetal bovine serum (FBS), a mixture harvested from the blood of foetuses excised from pregnant cows slaughtered in the dairy or meat industries. FBS contains a cocktail of proteins that make it ideally-suited for helping all kinds of animal cells grow and duplicate. "That's why it's a miracle juice, it's got a protein for everyone," says Michael Selden, CEO of lab-grown fish startup Finless Foods. Other animal serums work for one or two cell types, but FBS is a natural all-rounder.

/

In mines, mercury is used to recover minute pieces of gold that is mixed in soil and sediments. Mercury and gold settle and combine together to form an amalgam. Gold is then extracted by vaporizing the mercury.

/

All birds are tetrachromats. This means they have 4 (RGB and one for UV) different cone photoreceptors where we humans only have 3 (RGB). So a bird is able to see ultraviolet "colors" in another bird's plumage that humans cannot. Because knowing what an animal really sees is a crucial first step toward understanding its behavior, many behavioral and ecological studies are now taking into account differences between avian and human vision. Sexual signaling among mates and rivals is a prime area of research in this revisionist endeavor, but vision and reflectance in the ultraviolet play roles in a variety of ecological interactions. Some hawks detect trails of rodents whose urine leaves traces visible in the UV. Many fruits and seeds seem to advertise themselves to seed-dispersing birds with UV reflectance. And conspicuousness and crypsis of insects in the UV may play an unappreciated role in avian foraging. All animals sense with their eyes only a portion of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation bathing the earth's surface, but which portion they perceive varies among species. Humans see light from wavelengths of roughly 400 nanometers (violet) to 700 nm (red), but fail to perceive the longer (infrared) wavelengths or the shorter (ultraviolet) wavelengths beyond these limits. We detect light with three types of retinal cone photoreceptors, for red, green, and blue light (long, medium, and short wavelengths, respectively). Our vision is thus "trichromatic." Although our blue photoreceptor can perceive some UV wavelengths, the eye's lens and cornea filter out these wavelengths before they reach the retina, presumably to protect against damage. Birds' vision is tetrachromatic: Most have long-, medium-, and short-wavelength cones similar to those of humans, but in addition have a cone type enabling them to detect wavelengths in the near ultraviolet range (300-400 nm). Birds also possess a "double cone" whose function is not clearly understood, and retinal oil droplets containing carotenoid pigments that help screen out extraneous wavelengths. The avian lens lets through UV light, but potential for damage from excess UV is limited by the oil droplets. It is difficult to conceive what it would be like to have four-dimensional color vision. Birds "have this depth of richness that we can't begin to imagine," says Richard Prum, of the University of Kansas. "When my ornithology students ask 'What does this color look like to a bird?' I have to answer, 'You will never know, you cannot know.' Birds, however, are not alone in their visual abilities; in fact, most animals can perceive UV light (see box this page). Ultraviolet vision has been well-studied in insects, particularly bees and butterflies, and is being increasingly appreciated in the study of certain vertebrates such as fish, lizards, and rodents. Why this is just being discovered: But there is another reason for the traditional lack of attention to ultraviolet vision and reflectance in birds, most researchers agree: Because vision is such a fundamental part of our lives, it is difficult to imagine another vertebrate perceiving the world in a different way. Perhaps work on insects preceded and far outpaced that on birds because insects seem different enough from us that biologists expected their vision to differ from ours, whereas to expect a bird's to differ seemed more of a stretch. Birds' sensitivity to UV light was first demonstrated in the 1970s, with pigeons and hummingbirds, by Yale University's Timothy Goldsmith, among others. Hummingbirds seemed an appropriate target to investigate because they pollinate flowers, and evidence from insect research showed that UV-reflectant markings on flowers served to guide pollinating insects into the blooms. The team began research in the mid-1990s with zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) and European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). In studies of starlings, they found that the sexes—which look virtually identical to the human eye—appeared different when UV reflectance was measured. The researchers found that females used UV cues (among others) to choose males as mates, suggesting that this sex difference results from sexual selection. When females in lab experiments were presented with males in human-visible light but in the absence of UV wavelengths, they ranked males in one order; when shown males under UV together with human-visible light, they ranked them differently. Surprisingly, females preferred males with low levels of UV plumage reflectance. Fruit-eating birds may use UV cues in foraging. Many fruits whose seeds are dispersed by birds are covered with a waxy substance that reflects UV light. Although some studies have found no preference among birds for such berries, one recent study showed that Redwings (Turdus iliacus) preferred UV-reflecting bilberries under UV light but not under UV-deprived conditions. This preference was apparent only in older birds, suggesting that it is learned and that fruit reflectance may indicate ripeness. Bird-insect interactions may be widely influenced by UV, but few studies have addressed this. Many insects, such as butterflies, are UV-reflectant and could catch the attention of avian predators if seen against a nonreflectant background. Take the peppered moth (Biston betularia)—that textbook case of natural selection in which dark moths became more abundant than light moths as trees in industrial England lost their light-colored lichens and became covered in soot, enabling the dark moths to escape bird predation. Consideration of UV reflectance throws a monkey wrench into the classic story, Michael Majerus, of the University of Cambridge, and his colleagues have found. One type of lichen absorbs UV light, as do dark moths, whereas light moths reflect UV and are conspicuous against this lichen. (However, the two morphs' tendencies to alight on different parts of trees where different lichen species grow helps compensate for the UV complication.) Most caterpillars match their leaf or twig backgrounds cryptically in the UV as well as in visible spectra, Stuart Church, of the University of Bristol group has found. Church has come across one species, however, that stands out conspicuously against its host plant, and he speculates this may be a case of ultraviolet warning coloration.

/

Lichens are still used today in the manufacture of various perfumes and there is a long history of lichen use in perfumes or cosmetics. Today the major perfume lichens are Evernia prunastri (often called Oakmoss), which grows on oak trees, and Pseudevernia furfuracea (often called Treemoss), which grows on conifers. Lichen extracts act as fixatives and also give the so-called 'bass notes' (or base notes) in a perfume, with floral essences supplying the 'top notes'. In perfumery the bass notes are less volatile, evaporate slowly and so are not perceived until some time after application, perhaps not until a half hour or longer after application. Today it is in perfumes that lichens have their greatest commercial value. It is known that a variety of lichens can cause contact dermatitis reactions in some people and some perfumes containing lichen extracts have caused similar reactions. In Ancient Egypt, during the New Kingdom (1549-1069 BC) and the Third Intermediate Period (1069-656 BC), lichens were used in mummification and a number of mummies, their body cavities stuffed with Pseudevernia furfuracea, have been found. The source of the lichen is unknown.

/

My father picked me up from school one day and we played hookey and went to the beach. It was too cold to go in the water so we sat on a blanket and ate pizza. When I got home my sneakers were full of sand and I dumped it on my bedroom floor. I didn't know the difference, I was six. My mother screamed at me for the mess but he wasn't mad. He said that billions of years ago the world 's shifting and ocean moving brought that sand to that spot on the beach and then I took it away. Every day he said we change the world. Which is a nice thought until I think about how many days and lifetimes I would need to bring a shoe full of sand home until there is no beach. Until it made a difference to anyone. Every day we change the world. But to change the world in a way that means anything that takes more time than most people have. it never happens all at once. Its slow. Its methodical. Its exhausting. We don't all have the stomach for it.

/

Oh, I don't know. Is it that we collectively thought Steve Jobs was a great man, even when we knew he made billions off the backs of children? Or maybe it's that it feels like all our heroes are counterfeit? The world itself's just one big hoax. Spamming each other with our running commentary of bullshit, masquerading as insight, our social media faking as intimacy. Or is it that we voted for this? Not with our rigged elections, but with our things, our property, our money. I'm not saying anything new. We all know why we do this, not because Hunger Games books makes us happy, but because we wanna be sedated. Because it's painful not to pretend, because we're cowards. F*** society.

/

Sanitary landfills are intended as biological reactors (bioreactors) in which microbes will break down complex organic waste into simpler, less toxic compounds over time. Usually, aerobic decomposition is the first stage by which wastes are broken down in a landfill. These are followed by four stages of anaerobic degradation.

/

The concept of waiting bewilders me. There are always deadlines. There are always ticking clocks.

/

The concept of waiting bewilders me. There are always deadlines. There are always ticking clocks. That's why you must manage your time.

/

Mosquitoes (alternate spelling mosquitos) comprise a group of about 3,500 species of small insects that are flies (order Diptera). Typically, both male and female mosquitoes feed on nectar, aphid honeydew, and plant juices, but in many species the mouthparts of the females are adapted for piercing the skin of animal hosts and sucking their blood as ectoparasites. Yes, mosquitoes pollinate flowers. Male mosquitoes never bite, and the females need the protein in blood only to produce eggs, so the normal food of adult mosquitoes is actually nectar from plants. The mosquito life cycle consists of egg, larva, pupa, and adult stages. Eggs are laid on the water surface; they hatch into motile larvae that feed on aquatic algae and organic material. The adult females of most species have tube-like mouthparts (called a proboscis) that can pierce the skin of a host and feed on blood, which contains protein and iron needed to produce eggs. Thousands of mosquito species feed on the blood of various hosts ⁠— vertebrates, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and some fish; along with some invertebrates, primarily other arthropods. This loss of blood is seldom of any importance to the host. The mosquito's saliva is transferred to the host during the bite, and can cause an itchy rash. In addition, many species can ingest pathogens while biting, and transmit them to future hosts. In this way, mosquitoes are important vectors of diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, Chikungunya, West Nile, dengue fever, filariasis, Zika and other arboviruses. By transmitting diseases, mosquitoes cause the deaths of more people than any other animal taxon: over 700,000 each year[4][5]. It has been claimed that almost half of the people who have ever lived have died of mosquito-vectored disease (e.g.,[6]), but this claim is disputed, with more conservative estimates placing the death toll closer to 5% of all humans. The oldest known mosquito with an anatomy similar to modern species was found in 79-million-year-old Canadian amber from the Cretaceous.[8] An older sister species with more primitive features was found in Burmese amber that is 90 to 100 million years old. Like all flies, mosquitoes go through four stages in their life cycles: egg, larva, pupa, and adult or imago. The first three stages—egg, larva, and pupa—are largely aquatic. Each of the stages typically lasts 5 to 14 days, depending on the species and the ambient temperature, but there are important exceptions.[21] Mosquitoes living in regions where some seasons are freezing or waterless spend part of the year in diapause; they delay their development, typically for months, and carry on with life only when there is enough water or warmth for their needs. For instance, Wyeomyia larvae typically get frozen into solid lumps of ice during winter and only complete their development in spring. The eggs of some species of Aedes remain unharmed in diapause if they dry out, and hatch later when they are covered by water.

/

Bioreactor

A bioreactor refers to any manufactured device or system that supports a biologically active environment.[1] In one case, a bioreactor is a vessel in which a chemical process is carried out which involves organisms or biochemically active substances derived from such organisms. This process can either be aerobic or anaerobic. These bioreactors are commonly cylindrical, ranging in size from litres to cubic metres, and are often made of stainless steel. It may also refer to a device or system designed to grow cells or tissues in the context of cell culture. These devices are being developed for use in tissue engineering or biochemical/bioprocess engineering. A photobioreactor (PBR) is a bioreactor which incorporates some type of light source (that may be natural sunlight or artificial illumination). Virtually any translucent container could be called a PBR, however the term is more commonly used to define a closed system, as opposed to an open storage tank or pond. Photobioreactors are used to grow small phototrophic organisms such as cyanobacteria, algae, or moss plants.[5] These organisms use light through photosynthesis as their energy source and do not require sugars or lipids as energy source. Consequently, risk of contamination with other organisms like bacteria or fungi is lower in photobioreactors when compared to bioreactors for heterotroph organisms.

Fiducial marker

A fiducial marker or fiducial is an object placed in the field of view of an imaging system which appears in the image produced, for use as a point of reference or a measure. It may be either something placed into or on the imaging subject, or a mark or set of marks in the reticle of an optical instrument. please include a banana for scale

Leachate

A leachate is any liquid that, in the course of passing through matter, extracts soluble or suspended solids, or any other component of the material through which it has passed. When precipitation falls on open landfills, water percolates through the garbage and becomes contaminated with suspended and dissolved material, forming leachate. If this is not contained it can contaminate groundwater.[1] All modern landfill sites use a combination of impermeable liners several metres thick, geologically stable sites and collection systems to contain and capture this leachate. It can then be treated and evaporated. Once a landfill site is full, it is sealed off to prevent precipitation ingress and new leachate formation. However, liners must have a lifespan, be it several hundred years or more. Eventually, any landfill liner could leak,[8] so the ground around landfills must be tested for leachate to prevent pollutants from contaminating groundwater.

Linear motor

A linear motor is an electric motor that has had its stator and rotor "unrolled" thus instead of producing a torque (rotation) it produces a linear force along its length. However, linear motors are not necessarily straight. Characteristically, a linear motor's active section has ends, whereas more conventional motors are arranged as a continuous loop. Low-acceleration linear motors are suitable for maglev trains and other ground-based transportation applications. High-acceleration linear motors are normally rather short, and are designed to accelerate an object to a very high speed, for example see the coilgun.

Magnetohydrodynamic drive

A magnetohydrodynamic drive or MHD accelerator is a method for propelling vehicles using only electric and magnetic fields with no moving parts, accelerating an electrically conductive propellant (liquid or gas) with magnetohydrodynamics. The fluid is directed to the rear and as a reaction, the vehicle accelerates forward. Few large-scale working prototypes have been built, as marine MHD propulsion remains impractical due to its low efficiency, limited by the low electrical conductivity of seawater. Increasing current density is limited by Joule heating and water electrolysis in the vicinity of electrodes, and increasing the magnetic field strength is limited by the cost, size and weight (as well as technological limitations) of electromagnets and the power available to feed them. The working principle involves the acceleration of an electrically conductive fluid (which can be a liquid or an ionized gas called a plasma) by the Lorentz force, resulting from the cross product of an electric current (motion of charge carriers accelerated by an electric field applied between two electrodes) with a perpendicular magnetic field. The Lorentz force accelerates all charged particles (positive and negative species) in the same direction whatever their sign, and the whole fluid is dragged through collisions[citation needed]. As a reaction, the vehicle is put in motion in the opposite direction.

Plasma propulsion engine

A plasma propulsion engine is a type of electric propulsion that generates thrust from a quasi-neutral plasma. This is in contrast with ion thruster engines, which generate thrust through extracting an ion current from the plasma source, which is then accelerated to high velocities using grids/anodes. These exist in many forms (see electric propulsion). Plasma thrusters do not typically use high voltage grids or anodes/cathodes to accelerate the charged particles in the plasma, but rather use currents and potentials which are generated internally in the plasma to accelerate the plasma ions. While this results in a lower exhaust velocity by virtue of the lack of high accelerating voltages, this type of thruster has a number of advantages. The lack of high voltage grids of anodes removes a possible limiting element as a result of grid ion erosion. The plasma exhaust is 'quasi-neutral', which means that ions and electrons exist in equal number, which allows simple ion-electron recombination in the exhaust to neutralize the exhaust plume, removing the need for an electron gun (hollow cathode). This type of thruster often generates the source plasma using radiofrequency or microwave energy, using an external antenna. This fact, combined with the absence of hollow cathodes (which are very sensitive to all but the few noble gases) allows the intriguing possibility of being able to use this type of thruster on a huge range of propellants, from argon, to carbon dioxide, air mixtures, to astronaut urine. Plasma engines have a much higher specific impulse (Isp) value than most other types of rocket technology. The VASIMR thruster can be throttled for an impulse greater than 12000 s, and hall thrusters have attained about 2000 s. This is a significant improvement over the bipropellant fuels of conventional chemical rockets, with specific impulses in the range of 450 s.[5] With high impulse, plasma thrusters are capable of reaching relatively high speeds over extended periods of acceleration. Ex-astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz claims the VASIMR thruster could send a payload to Mars in as little as 39 days, while reaching a max velocity of 34 miles per second.[6] Possibly the most significant challenge to the viability of plasma thrusters is the energy requirement.[4] The VX-200 engine, for example, requires 200 kW electrical power to produce 5 N of thrust, or 40 kW/N. This power requirement may be met by fission reactors, but the reactor mass (including heat rejection systems) may prove prohibitive.[8][9] While most plasma engines are still confined to the laboratory, some have seen active flight time and use on missions. As of 2011, NASA, partnered with the aerospace company Busek, and launched the first hall effect thruster aboard the Tacsat-2 satellite. The thruster was the satellite's main propulsion system. Since then, the company has launched another hall effect thruster in 2011.[11] More plasma thrusters are likely to see flight time as the technologies mature.

Why does the power go out during thunderstorms?

As well as damage caused by high winds, when lightning strikes over or in the near proximity of an electrical conductor including street wires, it induces a charge in that conductor which could amount to many thousands of volts. The immediate effect (apart from blowing all of your electrical and electronic equipment) is to trip all of the substation circuit breakers resulting in blackouts. Similarly, it can induce very high voltages in overhead telephone wires. If you're using the telephone during a storm you could be killed. Almost immediately I heard the thunder - which means the lightning was very close to home. At that moment, I saw a ball of blue fire about the size of a ping-pong ball taking off from the metal handle of my refrigerator and sailing around the kitchen/dining area and eventually hitting my shoulder! All this happened in a matter of 4 to 5 seconds! Of course, I did not feel anything! I happen to know that it was a luminous plasma created by a corona discharge in the strong electric field created by the lightning that was very close to home. It was sailing in the air, looking for a point to ground, and as I was barefoot, probably my shoulder was a good point. Such discharges carry hardly any current, but still - at that time it was rather scary!!

Bioelectrochemistry

Bioelectrochemistry is a branch of electrochemistry and biophysical chemistry concerned with electrophysiological topics like cell electron-proton transport, cell membrane potentials and electrode reactions of redox enzymes.

Biomagnetism

Biomagnetism is the phenomenon of magnetic fields produced by living organisms; it is a subset of bioelectromagnetism. In contrast, organisms' use of magnetism in navigation is magnetoception and the study of the magnetic fields' effects on organisms is magnetobiology. (The word biomagnetism has also been used loosely to include magnetobiology, further encompassing almost any combination of the words magnetism, cosmology, and biology, such as "magnetoastrobiology".)

How does SciHub work?

Broadly, it has access to a number of log-ins which can be used to get behind most paywalls. Once a paper is downloaded they keep a copy. So they either have a copy of anything you ask for or they can get it. _________________ On September 5th, 2011, Alexandra Elbakyan, a researcher from Kazakhstan, created Sci-Hub, a website that bypasses journal paywalls, illegally providing access to nearly every scientific paper ever published immediately to anyone who wants it. The website works in two stages, firstly by attempting to download a copy from the LibGen database of pirated content, which opened its doors to academic papers in 2012 and now contains over 48 million scientific papers. The ingenious part of the system is that if LibGen does not already have a copy of the paper, Sci-hub bypasses the journal paywall in real time by using access keys donated by academics lucky enough to study at institutions with an adequate range of subscriptions. This allows Sci-Hub to route the user straight to the paper through publishers such as JSTOR, Springer, Sage, and Elsevier. After delivering the paper to the user within seconds, Sci-Hub donates a copy of the paper to LibGen for good measure, where it will be stored forever, accessible by everyone and anyone.

BET theory

Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) theory aims to explain the physical adsorption of gas molecules on a solid surface and serves as the basis for an important analysis technique for the measurement of the specific surface area of materials. The observations are very often referred to as physical adsorption or physisorption. Nitrogen is the most commonly employed gaseous adsorbate used for surface probing by BET methods. For this reason, standard BET analysis is most often conducted at the boiling temperature of N2 (77 K). Further probing adsorbates are also utilized, albeit with lower frequency, allowing the measurement of surface area at different temperatures and measurement scales. These have included argon, carbon dioxide, and water. Specific surface area is a scale-dependent property, with no single true value of specific surface area definable, and thus quantities of specific surface area determined through BET theory may depend on the adsorbate molecule utilized and its adsorption cross section.[2]

Bryophyte

Bryophytes are an informal group consisting of three divisions of non-vascular land plants (embryophytes): the liverworts, hornworts and mosses.[1] They are characteristically limited in size and prefer moist habitats although they can survive in drier environments.[2] The bryophytes consist of about 20,000 plant species.[3][4] Bryophytes produce enclosed reproductive structures (gametangia and sporangia), but they do not produce flowers or seeds. They reproduce via spores.[5] Bryophytes are usually considered to be a paraphyletic group and not a monophyletic group, although some studies have produced contrary results. Regardless of their status, the name is convenient and remains in use as an informal collective term.

Compost

Compost is organic matter that has been decomposed in a process called composting. This process recycles various organic materials otherwise regarded as waste products and produces a soil conditioner (the compost). Compost is rich in nutrients. It is used, for example, in gardens, landscaping, horticulture, urban agriculture and organic farming. The compost itself is beneficial for the land in many ways, including as a soil conditioner, a fertilizer, addition of vital humus or humic acids, and as a natural pesticide for soil. Compost is useful for erosion control, land and stream reclamation, wetland construction, and as landfill cover. At the simplest level, the process of composting requires making a heap of wet organic matter (also called green waste), such as leaves, grass, and food scraps, and waiting for the materials to break down into humus after a period of months. However, composting can also take place as a multi-step, closely monitored process with measured inputs of water, air, and carbon- and nitrogen-rich materials. The decomposition process is aided by shredding the plant matter, adding water and ensuring proper aeration by regularly turning the mixture when open piles or "windrows" are used. Fungi, earthworms and other detritivores further break up the material. Aerobic bacteria and fungi manage the chemical process by converting the inputs into heat, carbon dioxide, and ammonium. Composting is an aerobic method (meaning that it requires the presence of air) of decomposing organic solid wastes.

largest marsupial to ever exist

Diprotodon, also known as the giant wombat, was the largest marsupial that ever existed. Adult males measured up to 10 feet from head to tail and weighed upward of three tons.

Eutely

Eutelic organisms have a fixed number of somatic cells when they reach maturity, the exact number being constant for any one species. Development proceeds by cell division until maturity; further growth occurs via cell enlargement only. In nematodes the number of nuclei is also constant; there is growth in size of the body but this is due to the growth in the size of the cells (hypertrophy). Most eutelic organisms are microscopic. Examples include the rotifers, ascaris, many species of nematodes (including the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans whose male individuals have 1031 cells[1]), tardigrades, larvacea and dicyemida.

Planarian

Flatworm. They can regenerate all body parts except for their proboscis. Planarians display addictions/dependence upon drugs such as cocaine and other substances. If you slice their head in a certain way, they will regrow multiple heads. A lab in China made one with 7 heads. When they regrow heads their memories stay with them. This was proven with addiction experiments. When the cocaine addicted head was chopped off the new one that regrew was also addicted to cocaine. To eat, the worms extend a tube-like organ, called a proboscis or pharynx, which is located at the center of their body. Their mouth is located at the pharynx's tip, which also acts as an anus. Planaria exhibit an extraordinary ability to regenerate lost body parts. For example, a planarian split lengthwise or crosswise will regenerate into two separate individuals. Some planarian species have two eye-spots (also known as ocelli) that can detect the intensity of light, while others have several eye-spots. The eye-spots act as photoreceptors and are used to move away from light sources. Planaria have three germ layers (ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm), and are acoelomate (they have a very solid body with no body cavity). They have a single-opening digestive tract; in Tricladida planarians this consists of one anterior branch and two posterior branches. Planarians move by beating cilia on the ventral dermis, allowing them to glide along on a film of mucus. Some also may move by undulations of the whole body by the contractions of muscles built into the body membrane.[6]

Coriolis force

For an intuitive explanation of the origin of the Coriolis force, consider an object, constrained to follow the Earth's surface and moving northward in the northern hemisphere. Viewed from outer space, the object does not appear to go due north, but has an eastward motion (it rotates around toward the right along with the surface of the Earth). The further north it travels, the smaller the "diameter of its parallel" (the minimum distance from the surface point to the axis of rotation, which is in a plane orthogonal to the axis), and so the slower the eastward motion of its surface. As the object moves north, to higher latitudes, it has a tendency to maintain the eastward speed it started with (rather than slowing down to match the reduced eastward speed of local objects on the Earth's surface), so it veers east (i.e. to the right of its initial motion). The centrifugal force acts outwards in the radial direction and is proportional to the distance of the body from the axis of the rotating frame. These additional forces are termed inertial forces, fictitious forces or pseudo forces.[3] They "allow" the application of Newton's laws to a rotating system. They are correction factors that do not exist in a non-accelerating or inertial reference frame.[4]

Hornwort

Hornworts are a group of bryophytes (a group of non-vascular plants) constituting the division Anthocerotophyta. The common name refers to the elongated horn-like structure, which is the sporophyte. As in mosses and liverworts, the flattened, green plant body of a hornwort is the gametophyte plant. The total number of species is still uncertain. While there are more than 300 published species names, the actual number could be as low as 100-150 species.[2]

Closed timelike curve

In mathematical physics, a closed timelike curve (CTC) is a world line in a Lorentzian manifold, of a material particle in spacetime that is "closed", returning to its starting point. This possibility was first discovered by Willem Jacob van Stockum in 1937[1] and later confirmed by Kurt Gödel in 1949,[2] who discovered a solution to the equations of general relativity (GR) allowing CTCs known as the Gödel metric; and since then other GR solutions containing CTCs have been found, such as the Tipler cylinder and traversable wormholes. If CTCs exist, their existence would seem to imply at least the theoretical possibility of time travel backwards in time, raising the spectre of the grandfather paradox, although the Novikov self-consistency principle seems to show that such paradoxes could be avoided. Some physicists speculate that the CTCs which appear in certain GR solutions might be ruled out by a future theory of quantum gravity which would replace GR, an idea which Stephen Hawking has labeled the chronology protection conjecture. Others note that if every closed timelike curve in a given space-time passes through an event horizon, a property which can be called chronological censorship, then that space-time with event horizons excised would still be causally well behaved and an observer might not be able to detect the causal violation.[3]

beats headphones have weights in them

It has been discovered that Beats headphones contain metal weights within them to make them feel premium. A teardown of Beats Solo headphones posted on Medium revealed that the gadget contains four metal parts that make up 30 percent of the weight of the headphones.

Radio Jamming

It's as simple as this: bigger signal overrides smaller signal. Countermeasures are mostly in the military venue, since jamming is incredibly illegal. Anti-jam usually comes in the form of jumping your signal around in frequency (aka frequency hopping) so its constantly tuning away from the jammer, forcing them to retune to remain effective. Another way is to try and spread your signal as wide as possible (spread spectrum) so the jammer also has to do the same, reducing its effectiveness. Combine the two (frequency hopping spread spectrum) and you get a pretty jam-resistant signal. This is how Wi-Fi works, which is often jammed by interference from unintentional sources like microwave ovens, garage door openers, other Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices, and wireless sensors. In civilian venue like on voice radios, antijam could be done by coordinating back up frequencies (channels) and switching to them when the primary frequency is being jammed, or using a different radio service, band or modulation scheme. Hams also often track down repeater jammers by fox hunting, since they're usually dumb a**holes who are stationary and predictable. For professional and emergency services, it's probably wise to get recordings and get the FCC involved. I'll bet local hams would also be willing to volunteer to help track it down.

java vs javascript

Javascript runs in the browser. Java is compiled and run on a computer or device. They have different syntax, the way the code is written. JavaScript code is run on a browser only, while Java creates applications that run in a virtual machine or browser. Java is an OOP (object-oriented programming) language, and JavaScript is specifically an OOP scripting language.

Magnetohydrodynamics

Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD; also magneto-fluid dynamics or hydromagnetics) is the study of the magnetic properties and behaviour of electrically conducting fluids. Examples of such magnetofluids include plasmas, liquid metals, salt water, and electrolytes. The word "magnetohydrodynamics" is derived from magneto- meaning magnetic field, hydro- meaning water, and dynamics meaning movement. The fundamental concept behind MHD is that magnetic fields can induce currents in a moving conductive fluid, which in turn polarizes the fluid and reciprocally changes the magnetic field itself. The set of equations that describe MHD are a combination of the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid dynamics and Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The simplest form of MHD, Ideal MHD, assumes that the fluid has so little resistivity that it can be treated as a perfect conductor. This is the limit of infinite magnetic Reynolds number. In ideal MHD, Lenz's law dictates that the fluid is in a sense tied to the magnetic field lines. To explain, in ideal MHD a small rope-like volume of fluid surrounding a field line will continue to lie along a magnetic field line, even as it is twisted and distorted by fluid flows in the system. This is sometimes referred to as the magnetic field lines being "frozen" in the fluid.[5] The connection between magnetic field lines and fluid in ideal MHD fixes the topology of the magnetic field in the fluid—for example, if a set of magnetic field lines are tied into a knot, then they will remain so as long as the fluid/plasma has negligible resistivity. This difficulty in reconnecting magnetic field lines makes it possible to store energy by moving the fluid or the source of the magnetic field. The energy can then become available if the conditions for ideal MHD break down, allowing magnetic reconnection that releases the stored energy from the magnetic field.

muscovite

Muscovite is the most common mineral of the mica family. It is an important rock-forming mineral present in igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. Like other micas it readily cleaves into thin transparent sheets. Muscovite sheets have a pearly to vitreous luster on their surface. paper like rocks we found in black hills Muscovite (also known as common mica, isinglass, or potash mica[5]) is a hydrated phyllosilicate mineral of aluminium and potassium with formula KAl2(AlSi3O10)(F,OH)2, or (KF)2(Al2O3)3(SiO2)6(H2O). It has a highly perfect basal cleavage yielding remarkably thin laminae (sheets) which are often highly elastic. Sheets of muscovite 5 meters × 3 meters (16.5 feet × 10 feet) have been found in Nellore, India.[6]

Nash equilibrium

Nash equilibrium is a concept within game theory where the optimal outcome of a game is where there is no incentive to deviate from their initial strategy. More specifically, the Nash equilibrium is a concept of game theory where the optimal outcome of a game is one where no player has an incentive to deviate from his chosen strategy after considering an opponent's choice. sounds dumb..

Remanence

Remanence or remanent magnetization or residual magnetism is the magnetization left behind in a ferromagnetic material (such as iron) after an external magnetic field is removed.[1] Colloquially, when a magnet is "magnetized" it has remanence.[2] The remanence of magnetic materials provides the magnetic memory in magnetic storage devices, and is used as a source of information on the past Earth's magnetic field in paleomagnetism. The word remanence is from remanent + -ence, meaning "that which remains". The equivalent term residual magnetization is generally used in engineering applications. In transformers, electric motors and generators a large residual magnetization is not desirable (see also electrical steel) as it is an unwanted contamination, for example a magnetization remaining in an electromagnet after the current in the coil is turned off. Where it is unwanted, it can be removed by degaussing.

Time travel in physics

Some theories, most notably special and general relativity, suggest that suitable geometries of spacetime or specific types of motion in space might allow time travel into the past and future if these geometries or motions were possible.[21]:499 In technical papers, physicists discuss the possibility of closed timelike curves, which are world lines that form closed loops in spacetime, allowing objects to return to their own past. There are known to be solutions to the equations of general relativity that describe spacetimes which contain closed timelike curves, such as Gödel spacetime, but the physical plausibility of these solutions is uncertain. Many in the scientific community believe that backward time travel is highly unlikely. Any theory that would allow time travel would introduce potential problems of causality.[22] The classic example of a problem involving causality is the "grandfather paradox": what if one were to go back in time and kill one's own grandfather before one's father was conceived? Some physicists, such as Novikov and Deutsch, suggested that these sorts of temporal paradoxes can be avoided through the Novikov self-consistency principle or to a variation of the many-worlds interpretation with interacting worlds.[23] Time travel to the past is theoretically possible in certain general relativity spacetime geometries that permit traveling faster than the speed of light, such as cosmic strings, transversable wormholes, and Alcubierre drives. The theory of general relativity does suggest a scientific basis for the possibility of backward time travel in certain unusual scenarios, although arguments from semiclassical gravity suggest that when quantum effects are incorporated into general relativity, these loopholes may be closed.[26] These semiclassical arguments led Stephen Hawking to formulate the chronology protection conjecture, suggesting that the fundamental laws of nature prevent time travel,[27] but physicists cannot come to a definite judgment on the issue without a theory of quantum gravity to join quantum mechanics and general relativity into a completely unified theory.[28][29]:150

japanese samurai sword crafted from iron sand

Tamahagane is produced from iron sand, a source of iron ore, and mainly used to make samurai swords, such as the katana, and some tools.

Alcubierre drive

The Alcubierre drive, Alcubierre warp drive, or Alcubierre metric (referring to metric tensor) is a speculative idea based on a solution of Einstein's field equations in general relativity as proposed by theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre, by which a spacecraft could achieve apparent faster-than-light travel if a configurable energy-density field lower than that of vacuum (that is, negative mass) could be created.[1][2] Rather than exceeding the speed of light within a local reference frame, a spacecraft would traverse distances by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, resulting in effective faster-than-light travel. Objects cannot accelerate to the speed of light within normal spacetime; instead, the Alcubierre drive shifts space around an object so that the object would arrive at its destination faster than light would in normal space without breaking any physical laws.[3]

the eyes are a direct part of nervous system

The Central Nervous System is the integration and command center of the body. It consists of the brain, spinal cord and the retinas of the eyes.

liverworts

The Marchantiophyta are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information. It is estimated that there are about 9000 species of liverworts.[4] Some of the more familiar species grow as a flattened leafless thallus, but most species are leafy with a form very much like a flattened moss. Leafy species can be distinguished from the apparently similar mosses on the basis of a number of features, including their single-celled rhizoids. Leafy liverworts also differ from most (but not all) mosses in that their leaves never have a costa (present in many mosses) and may bear marginal cilia (very rare in mosses). Other differences are not universal for all mosses and liverworts, but the occurrence of leaves arranged in three ranks, the presence of deep lobes or segmented leaves, or a lack of clearly differentiated stem and leaves all point to the plant being a liverwort.

Hydrogen line

The hydrogen line, 21-centimeter line or H I line[1] is the electromagnetic radiation spectral line that is created by a change in the energy state of neutral hydrogen atoms. This electromagnetic radiation is at the precise frequency of 1,420,405,751.7667±0.0009 Hz,[2][3] which is equivalent to the vacuum wavelength of 21.1061140542 cm in free space. This wavelength falls within the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum, and it is observed frequently in radio astronomy because those radio waves can penetrate the large clouds of interstellar cosmic dust that are opaque to visible light. This line is also the theoretical basis of hydrogen maser. The line is of great interest in Big Bang cosmology because it is the only known way to probe the "dark ages" from recombination to reionization. Including the redshift, this line will be observed at frequencies from 200 MHz to about 9 MHz on Earth. It potentially has two applications. First, by mapping the intensity of redshifted 21 centimeter radiation it can, in principle, provide a very precise picture of the matter power spectrum in the period after recombination. Second, it can provide a picture of how the universe was reionized, as neutral hydrogen which has been ionized by radiation from stars or quasars will appear as holes in the 21 cm background. However, 21 cm observations are very difficult to make. Ground-based experiments to observe the faint signal are plagued by interference from television transmitters and the ionosphere, so they must be made from very secluded sites with care taken to eliminate interference.

Prisoner's dilemma

The prisoner's dilemma is a paradox in decision analysis in which two individuals acting in their own self-interests do not produce the optimal outcome. The typical prisoner's dilemma is set up in such a way that both parties choose to protect themselves at the expense of the other participant If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves two years in prison If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve three years in prison If A remains silent but B betrays A, A will serve three years in prison and B will be set free If A and B both remain silent, both of them will serve only one year in prison (on the lesser charge).

Meibum

These meibomian glands, named after the German doctor who studied them, make an oil called meibum. Meibum, water, and mucus form the three layers of tear film, the fluid that keeps your eyes moist. The oil helps prevent the water layer on the eye surface from evaporating or drying out too quickly. Meibum prevents tears spilling onto the cheek, trapping the tears between the oiled edge and the eyeball, and making the closed lids airtight.[1] There are about 50 glands on the upper eyelid and 25 glands on the lower eyelid. Dysfunctional meibomian glands often cause dry eyes, one of the more common eye conditions. They may also contribute to blepharitis. Blepharitis is one of the most common ocular conditions characterized by inflammation, scaling, reddening, and crusting of the eyelid. In humans, more than 90 different proteins have been identified in meibomian gland secretions.[9] Meibum is a lipid-rich secretion that is produced by fully differentiated meibocytes in the holocrine Meibomian glands (MG) of humans and most mammals. The secretion is a part of a defense mechanism that protects the ocular surface from hazardous environmental factors, and from desiccation.

Tissue engineering

Tissue engineering is the use of a combination of cells, engineering, and materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physicochemical factors to improve or replace biological tissues. Tissue engineering involves the use of a tissue scaffold for the formation of new viable tissue for a medical purpose. While it was once categorized as a sub-field of biomaterials, having grown in scope and importance it can be considered as a field in its own. While most definitions of tissue engineering cover a broad range of applications, in practice the term is closely associated with applications that repair or replace portions of or whole tissues (i.e., bone, cartilage,[1] blood vessels, bladder, skin, muscle etc.). Often, the tissues involved require certain mechanical and structural properties for proper functioning. The term has also been applied to efforts to perform specific biochemical functions using cells within an artificially-created support system (e.g. an artificial pancreas, or a bio artificial liver). The term regenerative medicine is often used synonymously with tissue engineering, although those involved in regenerative medicine place more emphasis on the use of stem cells or progenitor cells to produce tissues.

Zero waste

Zero Waste is a set of principles focused on waste prevention that encourages the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused. The goal is for no trash to be sent to landfills, incinerators, or the ocean. Currently, only 9% of plastic is actually recycled. In a zero waste system, material will be reused until the optimum level of consumption. Zero Waste refers to waste prevention as opposed to end-of-pipe waste management.[3] It is a whole systems approach that aims for a massive change in the way materials flow through society, resulting in no waste.[3] Zero waste encompasses more than eliminating waste through recycling and reuse, it focuses on restructuring production and distribution systems to reduce waste. Similarly, a toxic material, such as lead in solder, may be replaced by less toxic materials like tin and silver. But if the mining of silver and tin releases more mercury or damages sensitive coral islands, the protection of landfills in developed nations is hardly paramount.

Zero-sum game

a situation in which one person's gain is another's loss In game theory and economic theory, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant's gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants.

Magnetostratigraphy

magnetic signatures in strata are compared to the global reference column to determine age Magnetostratigraphy is a geophysical correlation technique used to date sedimentary and volcanic sequences. The method works by collecting oriented samples at measured intervals throughout the section. The samples are analyzed to determine their characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM), that is, the polarity of Earth's magnetic field at the time a stratum was deposited. This is possible because volcanic flows acquire a thermoremanent magnetization and sediments acquire a depositional remanent magnetization, both of which reflect the direction of the Earth's field at the time of formation. This technique is typically used to date sequences that generally lack fossils or interbedded igneous rock.

Rotifer

member of a group of invertebrates with a complete digestive tract and a crown of rotating cilia The rotifers (from Latin rota "wheel" and -fer "bearing"), commonly called wheel animals or wheel animalcules. Like many other microscopic animals, adult rotifers frequently exhibit eutely—they have a fixed number of cells within a species, usually on the order of 1,000. Rotifers have a small brain, located just above the mastax, from which a number of nerves extend throughout the body. The coronal cilia create a current that sweeps food into the mouth. The mouth opens into a characteristic chewing pharynx (called the mastax), sometimes via a ciliated tube, and sometimes directly.

organism that grows faster than e coli

natriegens, a bacterium doubles in number every 10 minutes in ideal conditions "We use E. coli just because we know the most about it," says Harvard geneticist Henry Lee, who collaborated with Church on the Vibrio proposal. Coming from the field of electrical engineering, Lee was dismayed at how much time was spent in genomics research simply waiting for things to grow. This drove him to look for a better alternative, and he landed on V. natriegens, a bacterium that doubles in number every 10 minutes in ideal conditions, compared to twice the time in E. coli. V. natriegens shares a genus with Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium behind cholera. However, there's no evidence V. natriegens itself is harmful to people, Lee says. During testing, it was not susceptible to the same viruses, known as bacteriophages, that cause other Vibrio bacterium to produce the cholera toxins.

lapidary

relating to stone and gems and the work involved in engraving, cutting, or polishing.

interoperate

to work together work in conjunction with each other.

Without love, the whole world would be killing eachother.

/

"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance." ― Carl Sagan

/

Anything you are good at would seem simple to you, but the fact of the lack of effort at the output makes you feel like that output is worthless. So you avoid showing it, not wanting to annoy people with "bad work". Anything that you find impressive would be something that you did for the first time, and so be worthless, but you see it as valuable. So you show it off, and get hurt by the fact that "even your best" annoys people.

/

Millions of hives of honey bees are contracted out as pollinators by beekeepers, and honey bees are by far the most important commercial pollinating agents, but many other kinds of pollinators, from blue bottle flies, to bumblebees, orchard mason bees, and leaf cutter bees are cultured and sold for managed pollination. Other species of bees differ in various details of their behavior and pollen-gathering habits, and honey bees are not native to the Western Hemisphere; all pollination of native plants in the Americas historically has been performed by various native bees.

/

Mitochondria, the structures inside our cells that use food to produce energy, have been gene-edited for the first time. A new kind of "base editor" was used, opening the door to treating disorders related to faulty mitochondria. These organelles have their own genomes and mutations in this DNA can lead to everything from muscle weakness to intellectual disability. Some inherited mitochondrial mutations result in death in early childhood, while an accumulation of mitochondrial mutations may be one of the causes of age-related diseases.

/

Most people want to tell you what to do because it's what they would do if they had the opportunity to.

/

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

/

People buy iPhones because they'd rather have an iPhone than $800. Instead of asking "how can I make money", ask "how can I improve someone's life".

/

So much of America has "punish the whistleblower" ingrained into every single system. Nobody actually wants to address any actual problems, they just want to sweep them under the rug and get angry when someone points it out.

/

Sometimes I think I'm a npc in an advanced GTA game. We're all NPC's. Only the super wealthy get to play the game.

/

To accurately represent an image to a bird via video, one would need to install in the monitor a fourth phosphor, designed to transmit short wavelengths. And, Cuthill remarks, "I don't suppose SONY or anyone else is going to start making Bird TVs any time soon." This means the standard "mirror test" with animals needs to be improved since the aluminum/silver reflector in mirrors is usually coated with glass which would absorb UV light. How the heck did this test ever begin?

/

To speak an idea aloud means certain death. Is that a familiar feeling? Does that sound absurd? - Don't close the tab. There is a choice - to hoard ideas or to spread them. To keep your secrets to yourself or to talk them out at every opportunity. It's a choice between a high chance of low benefit to everyone at certainty of zero benefit to yourself and tiny chance of high benefit to yourself at almost no benefit to everyone. An idea is like a seed. You can try to grow it yourself, but you can only grow a few at a time and won't know the outcome for years. Or you can send it out, to be duplicated a hundred times by spoken word and digital magic. Each then might be tried many times by many people. Each might scatter against someone's head and turn into more ideas. You don't see it that way. All you see is an idea lost. Spent. Permanently less available. You get a few `wow`s and `awesome`s, and it's never heard of again, whether it rings across the world, annoys or vanishes without a trace. If you spread ideas, you stay a nobody, you die. So you hoard them, to have a chance of making one work at a benefit to yourself, to avoid certain death.

/

when was wind power invented?

1888: The first known US wind turbine created for electricity production is built by inventor Charles Brush to provide electricity for his mansion in Ohio.

Dye-Sensitized solar cell (DSSC)

A dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC, DSC, DYSC or Grätzel cell) is a low-cost solar cell belonging to the group of thin film solar cells. It is based on a semiconductor formed between a photo-sensitized anode and an electrolyte, a photoelectrochemical system. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been considered as one of the most promising photovoltaic technologies because they are generally made from inexpensive components, and have simple designed structure. A DSSC is composed of following components nanocrystalline porous semiconductor based working electrode, sensitizer, counter electrode, and an electrolyte. One of the factors that is limiting the long term stability and practical use of DSSCs is the leakage and vaporization of organic solvents. Therefore, researchers are focusing their attention in the solidification of electrolyte such as inorganic or organic hole conductors, ionic liquids, polymer electrolyte, gel electrolyte. In the present work, we are focusing our attention not only in developing stable DSSCs but also biodegradable one by employing natural polymer Chitosan based electrolyte. Chitosan has gain interest as polymer electrolyte due its various specific properties like biodegradability, non toxicity, odourless, homogeneity with high mechanical strength. Chitosan is employed in various devices like fuel cells, lithium ion batteries, capacitors.

glyphosate is to blame for celiac and gluten intolerance

A recent blog post revisits the Samsel and Seneff publication from 2013 alleging glyphosate residues are responsible for the recent surge in Celiac disease. Specifically, that residues from Roundup "commonly" sprayed on wheat in the U.S. pre-harvest causes gluten intolerance. Maybe.

Photoelasticity

A stress induced birefringence. In a polymer this is caused by stress induced alignment of the polymer chains. Photoelasticity describes changes in the optical properties of a material under mechanical deformation. It is a property of all dielectric media and is often used to experimentally determine the stress distribution in a material, where it gives a picture of stress distributions around discontinuities in materials. Photoelastic experiments (also informally referred to as photoelasticity) are an important tool for determining critical stress points in a material, and are used for determining stress concentration in irregular geometries. The experimental procedure relies on the property of birefringence, as exhibited by certain transparent materials. Birefringence is a phenomenon in which a ray of light passing through a given material experiences two refractive indices. The property of birefringence (or double refraction) is observed in many optical crystals. Upon the application of stresses, photoelastic materials exhibit the property of birefringence, and the magnitude of the refractive indices at each point in the material is directly related to the state of stresses at that point. Information such as maximum shear stress and its orientation are available by analyzing the birefringence with an instrument called a polariscope. When a ray of light passes through a photoelastic material, its electromagnetic wave components are resolved along the two principal stress directions and each component experiences a different refractive index due to the birefringence. The difference in the refractive indices leads to a relative phase retardation between the two components.

what is the strongest beetle?

After months of grueling tests, a species of horned dung beetle takes the title for world's strongest insect. The beetle, called Onthophagus taurus, was found to be able to pull a whopping 1,141 times its own body weight, which is the equivalent of a 150-pound (70 kilogram) person lifting six full double-decker buses.

Electron avalanche

An electron avalanche is a process in which a number of free electrons in a transmission medium are subjected to strong acceleration by an electric field and subsequently collide with other atoms of the medium, thereby ionizing them (impact ionization). This releases additional electrons which accelerate and collide with further atoms, releasing more electrons—a chain reaction. In a gas, this causes the affected region to become an electrically conductive plasma. Electron avalanches are essential to the dielectric breakdown process within gases. The process can culminate in corona discharges, streamers, leaders, or in a spark or continuous arc that completely bridges the gap between the electrical conductors that are applying the voltage. The process extends to huge sparks — streamers in lightning discharges propagate by formation of electron avalanches created in the high potential gradient ahead of the streamers' advancing tips. Once begun, avalanches are often intensified by the creation of photoelectrons as a result of ultraviolet radiation emitted by the excited medium's atoms in the aft-tip region. background radiation. If this event occurs within an area that has a high potential gradient, the positively charged ion will be strongly attracted toward, or repelled away from, an electrode depending on its polarity, whereas the electron will be accelerated in the opposite direction. Because of the huge mass difference, electrons are accelerated to a much higher velocity than ions. High-velocity electrons often collide with neutral atoms inelastically, sometimes ionizing them. In a chain-reaction — or an 'electron avalanche' — additional electrons recently separated from their positive ions by the strong potential gradient, cause a large cloud of electrons and positive ions to be momentarily generated by just a single initial electron. However, free electrons are easily captured by neutral oxygen or water vapor molecules (so-called electronegative gases), forming negative ions. In air at STP, free electrons exist for only about 11 nanoseconds before being captured. Captured electrons are effectively removed from play — they can no longer contribute to the avalanche process. If electrons are being created at a rate greater than they are being lost to capture, their number rapidly multiplies, a process characterized by exponential growth. The degree of multiplication that this process can provide is huge, up to several million-fold depending on the situation. Image: Avalanche effect in gas subject to ionising radiation between two plate electrodes. The original ionisation event liberates one electron, and each subsequent collision liberates a further electron, so two electrons emerge from each collision to sustain the avalanche.

Autoregressive model

Autoregression is a time series model that uses observations from previous time steps as input to a regression equation to predict the value at the next time step. It is a very simple idea that can result in accurate forecasts on a range of time series problems. In statistics, econometrics and signal processing, an autoregressive (AR) model is a representation of a type of random process; as such, it is used to describe certain time-varying processes in nature, economics, etc. The autoregressive model specifies that the output variable depends linearly on its own previous values and on a stochastic term (an imperfectly predictable term); thus the model is in the form of a stochastic difference equation (or recurrence relation which should not be confused with differential equation). Together with the moving-average (MA) model, it is a special case and key component of the more general autoregressive-moving-average (ARMA) and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models of time series, which have a more complicated stochastic structure; it is also a special case of the vector autoregressive model (VAR), which consists of a system of more than one interlocking stochastic difference equation in more than one evolving random variable.

Biomineralization

Biomineralization is the process by which living organisms produce minerals,[a] often to harden or stiffen existing tissues. Such tissues are called mineralized tissues. It is an extremely widespread phenomenon; all six taxonomic kingdoms contain members that are able to form minerals, and over 60 different minerals have been identified in organisms.[2][3][4] Examples include silicates in algae and diatoms, carbonates in invertebrates, and calcium phosphates and carbonates in vertebrates. These minerals often form structural features such as sea shells and the bone in mammals and birds. Organisms have been producing mineralised skeletons for the past 550 million years. Other examples include copper, iron and gold deposits involving bacteria. Biologically-formed minerals often have special uses such as magnetic sensors in magnetotactic bacteria (Fe3O4), gravity sensing devices (CaCO3, CaSO4, BaSO4) and iron storage and mobilization (Fe2O3•H2O in the protein ferritin).

Cartilage

Cartilage is a resilient and smooth elastic tissue, a rubber-like padding that covers and protects the ends of long bones at the joints and nerves, and is a structural component of the rib cage, the ear, the nose, the bronchial tubes, the intervertebral discs, and many other body components. It is not as hard and rigid as bone, but it is much stiffer and much less flexible than muscle. The matrix of cartilage is made up of glycosaminoglycans, proteoglycans, collagen fibers and, sometimes, elastin. Because of its rigidity, cartilage often serves the purpose of holding tubes open in the body. Examples include the rings of the trachea, such as the cricoid cartilage and carina. Cartilage is composed of specialized cells called chondrocytes that produce a large amount of collagenous extracellular matrix, abundant ground substance that is rich in proteoglycan and elastin fibers. Cartilage is classified in three types, elastic cartilage, hyaline cartilage and fibrocartilage, which differ in relative amounts of collagen and proteoglycan. Cartilage does not contain blood vessels (it is avascular) or nerves (it is aneural). Nutrition is supplied to the chondrocytes by diffusion. The compression of the articular cartilage or flexion of the elastic cartilage generates fluid flow, which assists diffusion of nutrients to the chondrocytes. Compared to other connective tissues, cartilage has a very slow turnover of its extracellular matrix and does not repair.

Magnetic stripe card

Credit cards have a bunch of tiny magnets on the black line on the back organized in a discrete order. The card reader has a solenoid inside. When the card is swiped past the reader, the magnets interact with the magnetic field produced by the solenoid. This interaction is then decoded by the machine, if successful the transaction will be approved. A magnetic stripe card is a type of card capable of storing data by modifying the magnetism of tiny iron-based magnetic particles on a band of magnetic material on the card. The magnetic stripe, sometimes called swipe card or magstripe, is read by swiping past a magnetic reading head. Magnetic stripe cards are commonly used in credit cards, identity cards, and transportation tickets. They may also contain an RFID tag, a transponder device and/or a microchip mostly used for business premises access control or electronic payment. Magstripes come in two main varieties: high-coercivity (HiCo) at 4000 Oe and low-coercivity (LoCo) at 300 Oe, but it is not infrequent to have intermediate values at 2750 Oe. High-coercivity magstripes require higher amount of magnetic energy to encode, and therefore are harder to erase. HiCo stripes are appropriate for cards that are frequently used, such as a credit card. Other card uses include time and attendance tracking, access control, library cards, employee ID cards and gift cards. Low-coercivity magstripes require a lower amount of magnetic energy to record, and hence the card writers are much cheaper than machines which are capable of recording high-coercivity magstripes. However, LoCo cards are much easier to erase and have a shorter lifespan. Typical LoCo applications include hotel room keys, time and attendance tracking, bus/transit tickets and season passes for theme parks. A card reader can read either type of magstripe, and a high-coercivity card writer may write both high and low-coercivity cards (most have two settings, but writing a LoCo card in HiCo may sometimes work), while a low-coercivity card writer may write only low-coercivity cards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS4okPmwaEk

Cryptochrome

Cryptochromes are a class of flavoproteins that are sensitive to blue light. They are found in plants and animals. Cryptochromes are involved in the circadian rhythms of plants and animals, and possibly also in the sensing of magnetic fields in a number of species. The name cryptochrome was proposed as a portmanteau combining the cryptic nature of the photoreceptor, and the cryptogamic organisms on which many blue-light studies were carried out.[1] In plants, cryptochromes mediate phototropism, or directional growth toward a light source, in response to blue light. This response is now known to have its own set of photoreceptors, the phototropins. The two genes Cry1 and Cry2 code for the two cryptochrome proteins CRY1 and CRY2.[2] In insects and plants, CRY1 regulates the circadian clock in a light-dependent fashion, whereas, in mammals, CRY1 and CRY2 act as light-independent inhibitors of CLOCK-BMAL1 components of the circadian clock.[3] In plants, blue-light photoreception can be used to cue developmental signals.[4] Besides chlorophylls, cryptochromes are the only proteins known to form photoinduced radical-pairs in vivo.[5]

Electrical breakdown

Electrical breakdown or dielectric breakdown is a process that occurs when an electrical insulating material, subjected to a high enough voltage, suddenly becomes an electrical conductor and electric current flows through it. All insulating materials undergo breakdown when the electric field caused by an applied voltage exceeds the material's dielectric strength. The voltage at which a given insulating object becomes conductive is called its breakdown voltage and depends on its size and shape. Under sufficient electrical potential, electrical breakdown can occur within solids, liquids, gases or vacuum. However, the specific breakdown mechanisms are different for each kind of dielectric medium. Electrical breakdown may be a momentary event (as in an electrostatic discharge), or may lead to a continuous electric arc if protective devices fail to interrupt the current in a power circuit. In this case electrical breakdown can cause catastrophic failure of electrical equipment, and fire hazards. However when a large enough electric field is applied to any insulating substance, at a certain field strength the number of charge carriers in the material suddenly increases by many orders of magnitude, so its resistance drops and it becomes a conductor.[1] This is called electrical breakdown. The physical mechanism causing breakdown differs in different substances. In a solid, it usually occurs when the electric field becomes strong enough to pull outer valence electrons away from their atoms, so they become mobile, and the heat created by their collisions releases additional electrons. In a gas, the electric field accelerates the small number of free electrons naturally present (due to processes like photoionization) to a high enough speed that when they collide with gas molecules they knock additional electrons out of them, called ionization, which go on to ionize more molecules creating more free electrons and ions in a chain reaction called a Townsend discharge. As illustrated above, in most materials breakdown occurs by a chain reaction in which mobile charge particles release additional charged particles.

Electrostriction

Electrostriction (cf. magnetostriction) is a property of all electrical non-conductors, or dielectrics, that causes them to change their shape under the application of an electric field. Electrostriction is a property of all dielectric materials, and is caused by displacement of ions in the crystal lattice upon being exposed to an external electric field. Positive ions will be displaced in the direction of the field, while negative ions will be displaced in the opposite direction. This displacement will accumulate throughout the bulk material and result in an overall strain (elongation) in the direction of the field. The thickness will be reduced in the orthogonal directions characterized by Poisson's ratio. All insulating materials consisting of more than one type of atom will be ionic to some extent due to the difference of electronegativity of the atoms, and therefore exhibit electrostriction. The resulting strain (ratio of deformation to the original dimension) is proportional to the square of the polarization. Reversal of the electric field does not reverse the direction of the deformation. The related piezoelectric effect occurs only in a particular class of dielectrics. Electrostriction applies to all crystal symmetries, while the piezoelectric effect only applies to the 20 piezoelectric point groups. Electrostriction is a quadratic effect, unlike piezoelectricity, which is a linear effect. bru\

Environmental engineering

Environmental engineering is a professional engineering discipline that takes from broad scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematics to create solutions that will protect and also improve the health of living organisms and improve the quality of the environment.[1][2] Environmental engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering. Environmental engineering is the application of scientific and engineering principles to improve and maintain the environment to: - protect human health - protect nature's beneficial ecosystems - improve environmental-related enhancement of the quality of human life. Environmental engineers devise solutions for wastewater management, water and air pollution control, recycling, waste disposal, and public health.[2][3] They design municipal water supply and industrial wastewater treatment systems,[4][5] and design plans to prevent waterborne diseases and improve sanitation in urban, rural and recreational areas. They evaluate hazardous-waste management systems to evaluate the severity of such hazards, advise on treatment and containment, and develop regulations to prevent mishaps. They implement environmental engineering law, as in assessing the environmental impact of proposed construction projects.

superparasitism

If multiple parasitoids of the same species coexist in a single host, it is called superparasitism.

GPT-3

Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) is an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text. It is the third-generation language prediction model in the GPT-n series created by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research laboratory.[2] GPT-3's full version has a capacity of 175 billion machine learning parameters, which is over two orders of magnitude greater than that of its predecessor, GPT-2.[1]:14 GPT-3, which was introduced in May 2020, and is in beta testing as of July 2020,[3] is part of a trend in natural language processing (NLP) systems of "pre-trained language representations."[1] Prior to the release of GPT-3, the largest language model was Microsoft's Turing NLG, introduced in February 2020, with a capacity ten times less than that of GPT-3. The quality of the text generated by GPT-3 is so high that it is difficult to distinguish from that written by a human, which has both benefits and risks.[4] Thirty-one OpenAI researchers and engineers presented the original May 28, 2020 paper introducing GPT-3. In their paper, they warned of GPT-3's potential dangers and called for research to mitigate risk.[1]:34 David Chalmers, an Australian philosopher, described GPT-3 as "one of the most interesting and important AI systems ever produced."[5] GPT-3 can design websites, answer questions, and prescribe medications. Because GPT-3 can "generate news articles which human evaluators have difficulty distinguishing from articles written by humans,"[4] GPT-3 has the "potential to advance both the beneficial and harmful applications of language models."[1]:34 In their May 28, 2020 paper, the researchers described in detail the potential "harmful effects of GPT-3"[4] which include "misinformation, spam, phishing, abuse of legal and governmental processes, fraudulent academic essay writing and social engineering pretexting".[1] The authors draw attention to these dangers to call for research on risk mitigation.[1]:34

Hot water and steam drills

Hot water can be used to drill in ice by pumping it down a hose with a nozzle at the end; the jet of hot water will quickly produce a hole. Letting the hose dangle freely will produce a straight hole; as the hole gets deeper the weight of the hose makes this hard to manage manually, and at a depth of about 100 m it becomes necessary to run the hose over a pulley and enlist some method to help lower and raise the hose, usually consisting of a hose reel, capstan, or some type of hose assist. Steam can also be used in place of hot water, and does not need to be pumped. A handheld steam drill is able to rapidly drill short holes, for example for ablation stakes, and both steam and hotwater drills can be made light enough to be hand carried.[30] A guide tube can be used to help keep the borehole straight.[122]

Hysteresis

Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Plots of a single component of the moment often form a loop or hysteresis curve, where there are different values of one variable depending on the direction of change of another variable. This history dependence is the basis of memory in a hard disk drive and the remanence that retains a record of the Earth's magnetic field magnitude in the past. Hysteresis occurs in ferromagnetic and ferroelectric materials, as well as in the deformation of rubber bands and shape-memory alloys and many other natural phenomena. In natural systems it is often associated with irreversible thermodynamic change such as phase transitions and with internal friction; and dissipation is a common side effect. Magnetic hysteresis Magnetic hysteresis occurs when an external magnetic field is applied to a ferromagnet such as iron and the atomic dipoles align themselves with it. Even when the field is removed, part of the alignment will be retained: the material has become magnetized. Once magnetized, the magnet will stay magnetized indefinitely. To demagnetize it requires heat or a magnetic field in the opposite direction. This is the effect that provides the element of memory in a hard disk drive.

Side-channel attack

In computer security, a side-channel attack is any attack based on information gained from the implementation of a computer system, rather than weaknesses in the implemented algorithm itself (e.g. cryptanalysis and software bugs). Timing information, power consumption, electromagnetic leaks or even sound can provide an extra source of information, which can be exploited. Electromagnetic attack — attacks based on leaked electromagnetic radiation, which can directly provide plaintexts and other information. Such measurements can be used to infer cryptographic keys using techniques equivalent to those in power analysis or can be used in non-cryptographic attacks, e.g. TEMPEST (aka van Eck phreaking or radiation monitoring) attacks. Some side-channel attacks require technical knowledge of the internal operation of the system, although others such as differential power analysis are effective as black-box attacks. The rise of Web 2.0 applications and software-as-a-service has also significantly raised the possibility of side-channel attacks on the web, even when transmissions between a web browser and server are encrypted (e.g. through HTTPS or WiFi encryption). Attempts to break a cryptosystem by deceiving or coercing people with legitimate access are not typically considered side-channel attacks: see social engineering and rubber-hose cryptanalysis.

Parasitoid

In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasitism, distinguished by the fatal prognosis for the host, which makes the strategy close to predation. Among parasitoids, strategies range from living inside the host (endoparasitism), allowing it to continue growing before emerging as an adult, to paralysing the host and living outside it (ectoparasitism). Hosts can include other parasitoids, resulting in hyperparasitism; in the case of oak galls, up to five levels of parasitism are possible. Some parasitoids influence their host's behaviour in ways that favour the propagation of the parasitoid. Primary parasitoids have the simplest parasitic relationship, involving two organisms, the host and the parasitoid. Hyperparasitoids are parasitoids of parasitoids; secondary parasitoids have a primary parasitoid as their host, so there are three organisms involved. Hyperparasitoids are either facultative (can be a primary parasitoid or a hyperparasitoid depending on the situation) or obligate (always develop as a hyperparasitoid). Levels of parasitoids beyond secondary also occur, especially among facultative parasitoids. In oak gall systems, there can be up to five levels of parasitism.[13] Cases in which two or more species of parasitoids simultaneously attack the same host without parasitizing each other are called multi- or multiple parasitism. In many cases, multiple parasitism still leads to the death of one or more of the parasitoids involved. If multiple parasitoids of the same species coexist in a single host, it is called superparasitism.

Parasitism

In evolutionary ecology, parasitism is a symbiotic relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or in another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life.[1] The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one".[2] Parasites include protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes. There are six major parasitic strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), trophically transmitted parasitism (by being eaten), vector-transmitted parasitism, parasitoidism, and micropredation. Parasitism is a kind of symbiosis, a close and persistent long-term biological interaction between a parasite and its host. Unlike saprotrophs, parasites feed on living hosts, though some parasitic fungi, for instance, may continue to feed on hosts they have killed. Unlike commensalism and mutualism, the parasitic relationship harms the host, either feeding on it or, as in the case of intestinal parasites, consuming some of its food. Because parasites interact with other species, they can readily act as vectors of pathogens, causing disease. Parasitic castrators Parasitic castrators partly or completely destroy their host's ability to reproduce, diverting the energy that would have gone into reproduction into host and parasite growth, sometimes causing gigantism in the host. Directly transmitted Directly transmitted parasites, not requiring a vector to reach their hosts, include parasites of terrestrial vertebrates such as lice and mites; marine parasites such as copepods and cyamid amphipods; monogeneans; and many species of nematodes, fungi, protozoans, bacteria, and viruses. Trophically transmitted Trophically transmitted parasites are transmitted by being eaten by a host. They include trematodes (all except schistosomes), cestodes, acanthocephalans, pentastomids, many round worms, and many protozoa such as Toxoplasma.[21] They have complex life cycles involving hosts of two or more species. In their juvenile stages, they infect and often encyst in the intermediate host. When this animal is eaten by a predator, the definitive host, the parasite survives the digestion process and matures into an adult; some live as intestinal parasites. Many trophically transmitted parasites modify the behaviour of their intermediate hosts, increasing their chances of being eaten by a predator.

In vitro fertilisation

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm outside the body, in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating a woman's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) from the woman's ovaries and letting sperm fertilise them in a liquid in a laboratory. After the fertilised egg (zygote) undergoes embryo culture for 2-6 days, it is implanted in the same or another woman's uterus, with the intention of establishing a successful pregnancy.

ancient corn vs modern corn

Kelly Swarts, a quantitative geneticist, and her team sequenced the genomes of fifteen 1,900-year-old maize cobs found in [a Utah cave] and compared their sequences to those in a database of genomes and physical traits from some 2,600 modern maize lines. The researchers then used that information to extrapolate the physical characteristics of the Turkey Pen maize plants, including complex traits such as flowering time. The analysis revealed a crop that was shorter and more branched than modern varieties...The crop also flowered more quickly than lowland varieties — an important adaptation to life in the highlands, which have a shorter growing season than lower elevations.

Linamarin

Linamarin is a cyanogenic glucoside found in the leaves and roots of plants such as cassava, lima beans, and flax. It is a glucoside of acetone cyanohydrin. Upon exposure to enzymes and gut flora in the human intestine, linamarin and its methylated relative lotaustralin can decompose to the toxic chemical hydrogen cyanide; hence food uses of plants that contain significant quantities of linamarin require extensive preparation and detoxification. Ingested and absorbed linamarin is rapidly excreted in the urine and the glucoside itself does not appear to be acutely toxic. Consumption of cassava products with low levels of linamarin is widespread in the low-land tropics. Ingestion of food prepared from insufficiently processed cassava roots with high linamarin levels has been associated with dietary toxicity, particularly with the upper motor neuron disease known as konzo to the African populations in which it was first described by Trolli and later through the research network initiated by Hans Rosling. However, the toxicity is believed to be induced by ingestion of acetone cyanohydrin, the breakdown product of linamarin.

Magnetosome

Magnetosomes are membranous structures present in magnetotactic bacteria (MTB). They contain iron-rich magnetic particles that are enclosed within a lipid bilayer membrane. Each magnetosome can often contain 15 to 20 magnetite crystals that form a chain which acts like a compass needle to orient magnetotactic bacteria in geomagnetic fields, thereby simplifying their search for their preferred microaerophilic environments. Recent research has shown that magnetosomes are invaginations of the inner membrane and not freestanding vesicles.[2] Magnetite-bearing magnetosomes have also been found in eukaryotic magnetotactic algae, with each cell containing several thousand crystals. Magnetotactic bacteria are widespread, motile, diverse prokaryotes that biomineralize a unique organelle called the magnetosome. A magnetosome consists of a nano-sized crystal of a magnetic iron mineral, which is enveloped by a lipid bilayer membrane. In the cells of most all magnetotactic bacteria, magnetosomes are organized as well-ordered chains. The magnetosome chain causes the cell to behave as a motile, miniature compass needle where the cell aligns and swims parallel to magnetic field lines.[5]

gynecomastia

Male breast tissue swells due to reduced male hormones (testosterone) or increased female hormones (estrogen). Causes include puberty, aging, medications, and health conditions that affect hormones.

how fast a glacier moves each year?

Many move at a rate between zero and 0.3 miles per year. The fastest moving glacier is in Greenland, rushing forward at 7.8 miles per year. The middle of a glacier moves much more quickly than its edges, which are held back by friction with the surrounding land.

Microfluidics

Microfluidics refers to the behaviour, precise control, and manipulation of fluids that are geometrically constrained to a small scale (typically sub-millimeter) at which capillary penetration governs mass transport. It is a multidisciplinary field that involves engineering, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. It has practical applications in the design of systems that process low volumes of fluids to achieve multiplexing, automation, and high-throughput screening. Microfluidics emerged in the beginning of the 1980s and is used in the development of inkjet printheads, DNA chips, lab-on-a-chip technology, micro-propulsion, and micro-thermal technologies. Typically microfluidic systems transport, mix, separate, or otherwise process fluids. Various applications rely on passive fluid control using capillary forces, in the form of capillary flow modifying elements, akin to flow resistors and flow accelerators. In some applications, external actuation means are additionally used for a directed transport of the media. Examples are rotary drives applying centrifugal forces for the fluid transport on the passive chips. Active microfluidics refers to the defined manipulation of the working fluid by active (micro) components such as micropumps or microvalves. Micropumps supply fluids in a continuous manner or are used for dosing. Microvalves determine the flow direction or the mode of movement of pumped liquids. Often, processes normally carried out in a lab are miniaturised on a single chip, which enhances efficiency and mobility, and reduces sample and reagent volumes.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface. "We can retrace the astronauts' steps with greater clarity to see where they took lunar samples,"

Piezomagnetism

Piezomagnetism is a phenomenon observed in some antiferromagnetic crystals. It is characterised by a linear coupling between the system's magnetic polarisation and mechanical strain. In a piezomagnetic material, one may induce a spontaneous magnetic moment by applying physical stress, or a physical deformation by applying a magnetic field. The piezomagnetic effect is made possible by an absence of certain symmetry elements in a crystal structure; specifically, symmetry under time reversal forbids the property.[3] The strongest piezomagnet known is uranium dioxide, with magnetoelastic memory switching at magnetic fields near 180,000 Oe.[5]

pulsed power

Pulsed power is the science and technology of accumulating energy over a relatively long period of time and releasing it very quickly, thus increasing the instantaneous power. Energy is typically stored within electrostatic fields (capacitors), magnetic fields (inductors), as mechanical energy (using large flywheels connected to special-purpose high-current alternators), or as chemical energy (high-current lead-acid batteries, or explosives). By releasing the stored energy over a very short interval (a process that is called energy compression), a huge amount of peak power can be delivered to a load. For example, if one joule of energy is stored within a capacitor and then evenly released to a load over one second, the average power delivered to the load would only be 1 watt. However, if all of the stored energy were released within one microsecond, the average power over one second would still be one watt, but the instantaneous peak power would be one megawatt, a million times greater. Pulsed Power was first developed during World War II for use in radar. Radar requires short high-power pulses. After the war, development continued in other applications, leading to the super pulsed power machines at Sandia National Laboratories.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a service (SaaS) (also known as subscribeware or rentware) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as "on-demand software", and was formerly referred to as "software plus services" by Microsoft. SaaS applications are also known as Web-based software, on-demand software and hosted software.[5] The term "software as a service" (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), desktop as a service (DaaS),[6] managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), datacenter as a service (DCaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS). SaaS apps are typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization,[7] accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), management information systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), geographic information systems (GIS), and service desk management.[8] SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.

Square ice crystals

Square ice crystals form at room temperature when squeezed between two layers of graphene. The finding could potentially improve filtration, distillation and desalination processes. The material was a new crystalline phase of ice, joining 17 others, when it was first reported in 2014. The research derived from the earlier discovery that water vapor and liquid water could pass through laminated sheets of graphene oxide, unlike smaller molecules such as helium. The effect is thought to be driven by the van der Waals force, which may involve more than 10,000 atmospheres of pressure.

unistrut

Strut channel is used to mount, brace, support, and connect lightweight structural loads in building construction. These include pipes, electrical and data wire, mechanical systems such as ventilation, air conditioning, and other mechanical systems.

Technosignature

Technosignature is any measurable property or effect that provides scientific evidence of past or present technology. Technosignatures are analogous to the biosignatures that signal the presence of life, whether or not intelligent.[1] Some authors prefer to exclude radio transmissions from the definition,[3] but such restrictive usage is not widespread. Various types of technosignatures, such as radiation leakage from megascale astroengineering installations such as Dyson spheres, the light from an extraterrestrial ecumenopolis, or Shkadov thrusters with the power to alter the orbits of stars around the Galactic Center, may be detectable with hypertelescopes.

bee flies

The Bombyliidae are a family of flies. Their common name are bee flies or humbleflies. Adults generally feed on nectar and pollen, some being important pollinators. Larvae generally are parasitoids of other insects. these are the lil bee dudes i always see flying around The Bombyliidae include at least 4,500 described species, and certainly thousands more remain to be described. The Bombyliidae are a large family of flies comprising hundreds of genera, but the lifecycles of most species are known poorly, or not at all. They range in size from very small (2 mm in length) to very large for flies (wingspan of some 40 mm).[1][2] When at rest, many species hold their wings at a characteristic "swept back" angle. Adults generally feed on nectar and pollen, some being important pollinators, often with spectacularly long proboscises adapted to plants such as Lapeirousia species with very long, narrow floral tubes. Unlike butterflies, bee flies hold their proboscis straight, and cannot retract it. In parts of East Anglia, locals refer to them as beewhals, thanks to their tusk-like appendages. Many Bombyliidae superficially resemble bees and accordingly the prevalent common name for a member of the family is bee fly.[2] Possibly the resemblance is Batesian mimicry, affording the adults some protection from predators. The Bombyliidae include at least 4,500 described species, and certainly thousands more remain to be described. However, most species do not often appear in abundance, and compared to other major groups of pollinators they are much less likely to visit flowering plants in urban parks or suburban gardens. As a result, this is arguably one of the most poorly known families of insects relative to its species richness. The family has a patchy fossil record, with species being known from a handful of localities,[3] the oldest known species are known from the Middle Cretaceous Burmese amber, around 99 million years old.[4]

Fu-Go balloon bomb

The Japanese made around 9,000 balloons. The plan was to send them into the jet stream that extended from Japan across the United States. They had an altimeter and 32 sandbags on each balloon. When night would come, the air would become colder which made the balloon descend towards the ground. This would trigger the release of a sandbag, allowing the balloon to rise. Once all sandbags were released, bombs would begin being released. The Japanese intended on scaring the Americas by bombs coming from nowhere with no sound or detection of craft that released the explosives. Their plan failed. Only one lethal attack took place . On May 5, 1945, a pregnant woman and five children were killed when they discovered a balloon bomb that had landed in the forest of Gearhart Mountain in Southern Oregon. A Fu-Go "Code Fu [Weapon]"), or fire balloon, was a weapon launched by Japan during World War II. A hydrogen balloon with a load varying from a 33 lb (15 kg) antipersonnel bomb to one 26-pound (12 kg) incendiary bomb and four 11 lb (5.0 kg) incendiary devices attached, it was designed as a cheap weapon intended to make use of the jet stream over the Pacific Ocean and drop bombs on American cities, forests, and farmland. Canada and Mexico reported fire balloon sightings as well.

Transformer (machine learning model)

The Transformer is a deep learning model introduced in 2017, used primarily in the field of natural language processing (NLP). Like recurrent neural networks (RNNs), Transformers are designed to handle sequential data, such as natural language, for tasks such as translation and text summarization. However, unlike RNNs, Transformers do not require that the sequential data be processed in order. For example, if the input data is a natural language sentence, the Transformer does not need to process the beginning of it before the end. Due to this feature, the Transformer allows for much more parallelization than RNNs and therefore reduced training times. Since their introduction, Transformers have become the model of choice for tackling many problems in NLP, replacing older recurrent neural network models such as the long short-term memory (LSTM). Since the Transformer model facilitates more parallelization during training, it has enabled training on larger datasets than was possible before it was introduced. This has led to the development of pretrained systems such as BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) and GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer), which have been trained with huge general language datasets, and can be fine-tuned to specific language tasks.

Bioweapon Defense Mode

The air filtration system was put to the test in real-world environments from California freeways during rush hour, to smelly marshes, landfills, and cow pastures in the central valley of California, to major cities in China. We wanted to ensure that it captured fine particulate matter and gaseous pollutants, as well as bacteria, viruses, pollen and mold spores. Not only did the vehicle system completely scrub the cabin air, but in the ensuing minutes, it began to vacuum the air outside the car as well, reducing PM2.5 levels by 40%. In other words, Bioweapon Defense Mode is not a marketing statement, it is real. You can literally survive a military grade bio attack by sitting in your car. - pressurizes cabin with air pulled entirely from HEPA and carbon air purification filters - provides max protection from hazardous outside elements - only available with premium upgrade Model S - $3,000 Model X - $4,500

how did the land bridge form?

The bridge "rose" from the ocean as vast amounts of ocean water became tied up in the enormous glaciers of the last ice age. That exposed the broad continental shelves now covered by the Bering Strait and created the land bridge. As water evaporates from the ocean it usually makes its way back as rain. When this is not the case, the water gets tied up as snow, causing the ocean level to drop, and thus producing glaciers on land.

Catalytic converter

The catalytic converter's construction is as follows: The catalyst support or substrate. For automotive catalytic converters, the core is usually a ceramic monolith that has a honeycomb structure (commonly square, not hexagonal). (Prior to the mid 1980s, the catalyst material was deposited on a packed bed of alumina pellets in early GM applications.) Metallic foil monoliths made of Kanthal (FeCrAl)[15] are used in applications where particularly high heat resistance is required.[15] The substrate is structured to produce a large surface area. The cordierite ceramic substrate used in most catalytic converters was invented by Rodney Bagley, Irwin Lachman, and Ronald Lewis at Corning Glass, for which they were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002.[1] The washcoat. A washcoat is a carrier for the catalytic materials and is used to disperse the materials over a large surface area. Aluminum oxide, titanium dioxide, silicon dioxide, or a mixture of silica and alumina can be used. The catalytic materials are suspended in the washcoat prior to applying to the core. Washcoat materials are selected to form a rough, irregular surface, which greatly increases the surface area compared to the smooth surface of the bare substrate. This in turn maximizes the catalytically active surface available to react with the engine exhaust. The coat must retain its surface area and prevent sintering of the catalytic metal particles even at high temperatures (1000 °C).[16] Ceria or ceria-zirconia. These oxides are mainly added as oxygen storage promoters.[17] The catalyst itself is most often a mix of precious metals, mostly from the platinum group. Platinum is the most active catalyst and is widely used, but is not suitable for all applications because of unwanted additional reactions and high cost. Palladium and rhodium are two other precious metals used. Rhodium is used as a reduction catalyst, palladium is used as an oxidation catalyst, and platinum is used both for reduction and oxidation. Cerium, iron, manganese, and nickel are also used, although each has limitations. Nickel is not legal for use in the European Union because of its reaction with carbon monoxide into toxic nickel tetracarbonyl.[citation needed] Copper can be used everywhere except Japan.[clarification needed] Upon failure, a catalytic converter can be recycled into scrap. The precious metals inside the converter, including platinum, palladium, and rhodium, are extracted.

Rhodium

The element's major use (approximately 80% of world rhodium production) is as one of the catalysts in the three-way catalytic converters in automobiles. Because rhodium metal is inert against corrosion and most aggressive chemicals, and because of its rarity, rhodium is usually alloyed with platinum or palladium and applied in high-temperature and corrosion-resistive coatings. White gold is often plated with a thin rhodium layer to improve its appearance while sterling silver is often rhodium-plated for tarnish resistance. Rhodium is sometimes used to cure silicones; a two-part silicone in which one part containing a silicon hydride and the other containing a vinyl-terminated silicone are mixed. One of these liquids contains a rhodium complex.[5]

Environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM)

The environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) is a scanning electron microscope (SEM) that allows for the option of collecting electron micrographs of specimens that are wet, uncoated, or both by allowing for a gaseous environment in the specimen chamber. An ESEM employs a scanned electron beam and electromagnetic lenses to focus and direct the beam on the specimen surface in an identical way as a conventional SEM. A very small focused electron spot (probe) is scanned in a raster form over a small specimen area. The beam electrons interact with the specimen surface layer and produce various signals (information) that are collected with appropriate detectors. The output of these detectors modulates, via appropriate electronics, the screen of a monitor to form an image that corresponds to the small raster and information, pixel by pixel, emanating from the specimen surface. Beyond these common principles, the ESEM deviates substantially from an SEM in several respects, all of which are important in the correct design and operation of the instrument. The outline below highlights these requirements and how the system works.

Execution of Saddam Hussein

The execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein took place on Saturday, 30 December 2006. Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging, after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the murder of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites in the town of Dujail in 1982, in retaliation for an assassination attempt against him. The Iraqi government released an official videotape of his execution, showing him being led to the gallows, and ending after the hangman's noose was placed over his head.

viceroy butterfly vs monarch butterfly

The main visual difference between the Viceroy and Monarch butterfly is the black line drawn across the viceroy's hind wings, which monarch butterflies do not have. The viceroy is also a bit smaller than the monarch. Caterpillars of monarchs and viceroys are significantly different in appearance as well. Monarch (left) and viceroy (right) butterflies exhibiting Müllerian mimicry. Monarchs share the defense of noxious taste with the similar-appearing viceroy butterfly in what is perhaps one of the most well-known examples of mimicry.

mad hatter origin

The origin of the phrase, it's believed, is that hatters really did go mad. The chemicals used in hat-making included mercurous nitrate, used in curing felt. Prolonged exposure to the mercury vapors caused mercury poisoning. "Mad as a hatter" is a colloquial English phrase used in conversation to suggest (lightheartedly) that a person is suffering from insanity. It is believed to emanate from Luton, Bedfordshire, in eastern England, where men in the area worked predominantly in the hattery business, which used mercury in the hat making process. The accumulation of mercury in the body causes symptoms similar to madness. The earliest known appearance of the phrase in print is in an 1829 issue of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

Reverse engineering

The process of taking something apart and analyzing its workings in detail.

How baryonic matter is distributed throughout the universe

The researchers found that, while 50% of the universe's total mass resides within the galaxies (stars, black holes, planets, asteroids, etc.), it is compressed into a volume that's only 0.2% of the universe. 44% of the mass is found in the enveloping filaments, which means the remaining 6% of universal mass resides in the vast voids that make up 80% of the volume.

warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM)

The warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) is the sparse, warm-to-hot (105 to 107 K) plasma that cosmologists believe to exist in the spaces between galaxies and to contain 40-50%[1][2] of the baryonic 'normal matter' in the universe at the current epoch.[3] The WHIM can be described as a web of hot, diffuse gas stretching between galaxies, and consists of plasma or as atoms and molecules, in contrast to dark matter. The WHIM is a proposed solution to the missing baryon problem, where the observed amount of baryonic matter does not match theoretical predictions from cosmology.[4]

How do you keep wasps from eating caterpillars?

Wasps lay their eggs on the caterpillars and the wasp larvae kill the caterpillar by eating it. To protect against wasps, try covering the swan plant with a mosquito net or something with a small weave. This will also prevent further monarch eggs being laid and depleting the food resource even more. Butterflies and caterpillars frequently host parasitoids, insects that attack and destroy their hosts, sometimes eating them alive. These are usually wasps, laying their own eggs inside an egg, caterpillar or pupa. Parasitoids start their lives as parasites, in or on the body of a host, but they end up as predators, eating the host entirely. Broad says, 'Butterfly enthusiasts are often disappointed when a caterpillar becomes a pupa but a wasp chews its way out. One wasp, Hyposoter horticola, employs a sinister tactic to get inside its host, the egg of the Glanville Fritillary butterfly. After keeping a close eye on a set of new butterfly eggs, a female wasp will lay its own inside them just before the tiny caterpillar is about to hatch. 'The wasp larva sits tight inside the body of its host until the caterpillar is almost fully grown. 'At that point, the wasp puts on a growth spurt. It eats the entire contents of the caterpillar's body and spins its own tough cocoon to pupate in, before emerging as another adult wasp.' https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/body-snatchers-eaten-alive.html#:~:text=Butterflies%20and%20caterpillars%20frequently%20host,an%20egg%2C%20caterpillar%20or%20pupa.&text='But%20every%20other%20stage%20%2D%20egg,'

When Grasshoppers Go Biblical: Serotonin Causes Locusts to Swarm

What makes harmless little green grasshoppers turn into brown, crop-chomping clouds of swarming locusts? Serotonin, according to a study published this week in Science. Researchers from universities in the UK and Australia found that that neurotransmitter (a chemical compound that sends impulses between nerve cells and affects everything from sleep to aggression in humans) spurs a cascade of changes in at least one species of grasshopper — the desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria). This species is infamous for wreaking havoc from Africa to Asia. It took just two to three hours for timid grasshoppers in a lab to morph into gregarious locusts after they were injected with serotonin. Conversely, if they were given serotonin blockers, they stayed solitary even in swarm-inducing conditions. "These little guys changed from a shy creature that actively avoided making contact with other grasshoppers [into a creature] actively seeking out other insects and joining a gang," ___________________ Locusts (derived from the Vulgar Latin locusta, meaning grasshopper[1]) are a collection of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstances they become more abundant and change their behaviour and habits, becoming gregarious. No taxonomic distinction is made between locust and grasshopper species; the basis for the definition is whether a species forms swarms under intermittently suitable conditions. These grasshoppers are normally innocuous, their numbers are low, and they do not pose a major economic threat to agriculture. However, under suitable conditions of drought followed by rapid vegetation growth, serotonin in their brains triggers a dramatic set of changes: they start to breed abundantly, becoming gregarious and nomadic (loosely described as migratory) when their populations become dense enough. They form bands of wingless nymphs which later become swarms of winged adults. Both the bands and the swarms move around and rapidly strip fields and cause damage to crops. The adults are powerful fliers; they can travel great distances, consuming most of the green vegetation wherever the swarm settles.[2] Locusts are the swarming phase of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstances become more abundant and change their behaviour and habits, becoming gregarious. No taxonomic distinction is made between locust and grasshopper species; the basis for the definition is whether a species forms swarms under intermittently suitable conditions. In English, the term "locust" is used for grasshopper species that change morphologically and behaviourally on crowding, forming swarms that develop from bands of immature stages called hoppers. The change is referred to in the technical literature as "density-dependent phenotypic plasticity". These changes are examples of phase polymorphism.

using bacteria in concrete to heal cracks

When the concrete cracks, and water enters the gaps, it comes into contact with the bacteria and the food source, setting the healing process off. The bacteria then feed on the calcium lactate, joining the calcium with carbonate to form limestone, fixing the crack. Crack formation is a commonly observed phenomenon in concrete structures. Although micro crack formation hardly affects structural properties of constructions, increased permeability due to micro crack networking may substantially reduce the durability of concrete structures due to risk of ingress of aggressive substances particularly in moist environments. In order to increase the often observed autogenous crack-healing potential of concrete, specific healing agents can be incorporated in the concrete matrix. The aim of this study was to quantify the crack-healing potential of a specific and novel two-component bio-chemical self-healing agent embedded in porous expanded clay particles, which act as reservoir particles and replace part of regular concrete aggregates. Upon crack formation the two-component bio-chemical agent consisting of bacterial spores and calcium lactate are released from the particle by crack ingress water. Subsequent bacterially mediated calcium carbonate formation results in physical closure of micro cracks. Experimental results showed crack-healing of up to 0.46 mm-wide cracks in bacterial concrete but only up to 0.18 mm-wide cracks in control specimens after 100 days submersion in water. That the observed doubling of crack-healing potential was indeed due to metabolic activity of bacteria was supported by oxygen profile measurements which revealed O2 consumption by bacteria-based but not by control specimens. We therefore conclude that this novel bio-chemical self-healing agent shows potential for particularly increasing durability aspects of concrete constructions in wet environments.

sectarianism

excessive attachment to a particular sect or party, especially in religion. "religious sectarianism"

vestigial

forming a very small remnant of something that was once much larger or more noticeable. (of an organ or part of the body) degenerate, rudimentary, or atrophied, having become functionless in the course of evolution. "the vestigial wings of kiwis are entirely hidden"

RNA interference (RNAi)

introduction of double-stranded RNA into a cell to inhibit gene expression RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA molecules inhibit gene expression or translation, by neutralizing targeted mRNA molecules. Two types of small ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules - microRNA (miRNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA) - are central to RNA interference. RNAs are the direct products of genes, and these small RNAs can direct enzyme complexes to degrade messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules and thus decrease their activity by preventing translation, via post-transcriptional gene silencing. Moreover, transcription can be inhibited via the pre-transcriptional silencing mechanism of RNA interference, through which an enzyme complex catalyzes DNA methylation at genomic positions complementary to complexed siRNA or miRNA. RNA interference has an important role in defending cells against parasitic nucleotide sequences - viruses and transposons. It also influences development. RNAi is an RNA-dependent gene silencing process that is controlled by the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) and is initiated by short double-stranded RNA molecules in a cell's cytoplasm, where they interact with the catalytic RISC component argonaute.[6] When the dsRNA is exogenous (coming from infection by a virus with an RNA genome or laboratory manipulations), the RNA is imported directly into the cytoplasm and cleaved to short fragments by Dicer.

Dung beetle

lil dudes that roll turds around the earth Dung beetles are beetles that feed on feces. Some species of dung beetles can bury dung 250 times their own mass in one night. Many dung beetles, known as rollers, roll dung into round balls, which are used as a food source or breeding chambers. Others, known as tunnelers, bury the dung wherever they find it. A third group, the dwellers, neither roll nor burrow: they simply live in manure. They are often attracted by the dung collected by burrowing owls. There are dung beetle species of different colours and sizes, and some functional traits such as body mass (or biomass) and leg length can have high levels of variability.[2] All the species belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, most of them to the subfamilies Scarabaeinae and Aphodiinae of the family Scarabaeidae (scarab beetles). As most species of Scarabaeinae feed exclusively on feces, that subfamily is often dubbed true dung beetles. There are dung-feeding beetles which belong to other families, such as the Geotrupidae (the earth-boring dung beetle). The Scarabaeinae alone comprises more than 5,000 species. The nocturnal African dung beetle Scarabaeus satyrus is one of the few known non-vertebrate animals that navigate and orient themselves using the Milky Way. Talk about star power—a new study shows that dung beetles navigate via the Milky Way, the first known species to do so in the animal kingdom.

confide

tell someone about a secret or private matter while trusting them not to repeat it to others.

Magnetostriction

the expansion and contraction of a magnetic material under the influence of a changing magnetic field Magnetostriction (cf. electrostriction) is a property of magnetic materials that causes them to change their shape or dimensions during the process of magnetization. This effect causes energy loss due to frictional heating in susceptible ferromagnetic cores. The effect is also responsible for the low-pitched humming sound that can be heard coming from transformers, where oscillating AC currents produce a changing magnetic field. Internally, ferromagnetic materials have a structure that is divided into domains, each of which is a region of uniform magnetic polarization. When a magnetic field is applied, the boundaries between the domains shift and the domains rotate; both of these effects cause a change in the material's dimensions. The reason that a change in the magnetic domains of a material results in a change in the materials dimensions is a consequence of magnetocrystalline anisotropy, that it takes more energy to magnetize a crystalline material in one direction than another. If a magnetic field is applied to the material at an angle to an easy axis of magnetization, the material will tend to rearrange its structure so that an easy axis is aligned with the field to minimize the free energy of the system. Since different crystal directions are associated with different lengths this effect induces a strain in the material. The reciprocal effect, the change of the magnetic susceptibility (response to an applied field) of a material when subjected to a mechanical stress, is called the Villari effect. Two other effects are thus related to magnetostriction: the Matteucci effect is the creation of a helical anisotropy of the susceptibility of a magnetostrictive material when subjected to a torque and the Wiedemann effect is the twisting of these materials when a helical magnetic field is applied to them. Magnetostrictive materials can convert magnetic energy into kinetic energy, or the reverse, and are used to build actuators and sensors. Like flux density, the magnetostriction also exhibit hysteresis versus strength of magnetizing field. The shape of this hysteresis loop (called "dragonfly loop") can be reproduced using the Jiles-Atherton model.[4] duh

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

uses electronic tags and labels to identify objects wirelessly over short distances Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID tag consists of a tiny radio transponder; a radio receiver and transmitter. When triggered by an electromagnetic interrogation pulse from a nearby RFID reader device, the tag transmits digital data, usually an identifying inventory number, back to the reader. This number can be used to inventory goods. There are two types. Passive tags are powered by energy from the RFID reader's interrogating radio waves. Active tags are powered by a battery and thus can be read at a greater range from the RFID reader; up to hundreds of meters. Unlike a barcode, the tag doesn't need to be within the line of sight of the reader, so it may be embedded in the tracked object. RFID is one method of automatic identification and data capture (AIDC). RFID tags are used in many industries. For example, an RFID tag attached to an automobile during production can be used to track its progress through the assembly line; RFID-tagged pharmaceuticals can be tracked through warehouses; and implanting RFID microchips in livestock and pets enables positive identification of animals.