Europe and Africa Geographical Facts

Europe has about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi) and represents the world's second smallest continent by surface area after Australia. With a population of 731 million (or 11% of the Earth's population), Europe is the third-most populous continent after Asia and Africa. Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. It has an area of 30.2 million square km (11.7 million square mi) and a total population of 1 billion. Africa covers 20.4% of the Earth's total land area and it accounts for about 14.72% of the total human population. Here is a list with interesting geographical facts about these continents:

• Switzerland has four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh.
• The Danube river passes through four European capitals: Wien, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade.
•  Luxembourg is the country with the highest steel production per capita in the world - approximately 4 tonnes of steel for each inhabitant. 
• The belgian city of Antwerp is one of the most important diamond trade center in the world.
• The Öresund Bridge connects Sweden and Denmark, and it is the longest road and rail bridge in Europe (7.8 km or 4.8 mi).
• With a height of 3,718 m (12,198 ft), Mount Teide located in the Canary island of Tenerife is the heighest elevation in Spain.
• Germany borders with nine land neighbours: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland.
• 65% of the total land area of Sweden is covered with forests and 15% of its area lies north of the Artic Circle.
• Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. This island has an area of 25,711 square kilometers (9,927 square mi) and a population of 5 million.
• 10% of the population of Turkey lives in the European part of Turkey which represents only 3% of its total area.
• The Lötschberg Base Railway Tunnel in Switzerland is the world's longest land tunnel (it has a length of 34.57 km or 21.48 mi).
• 19% of the total electrical power production of Denmark is represented by the wind power.
• The Kaliningrad region is a province of Russia that is situated between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea.
• - You can find four European countries in the global top ten Gross Domestic Product rankings: Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy.
• France is the most visited country in the world and its capital Paris is the most visited city.
• Africa is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones.
• Lybia has the longest official country name: Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
• With 9.4 million square km (3.6 million square mi), Sahara is the world largest desert. Its area is comparable with that of Europe or the United States of America.
• The three main rivers of Africa are: Nile, Congo and Niger.
• Lake Chad, in Central Africa, has an average depth of 1,5 metres.
• The official language of Angola is Portuguese.
• The National Parks represent about 3% of the total area of South Africa.
• Burkina Faso was formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta.
• Cairo, the capital of Egypt, is the most populated city in Africa.
• The lowest point in Africa is lake Assal in Djibouti with 156 m (512 ft) below the sea level.
• With an area of 10,380 square km (4,007 square mi), Gambia is the smallest country on the African continent.
• 50% of the population of Uganda is less then 15 years old.
• South Africa has three capital cities: Cape Town is the legislative capital, Pretoria is the administrative capital and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital.
• Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, was founded in 1822 and it was named this way after the US President James Monroe.
• Over 60% of the population of Ethiopia is made up of Christians.
• Bir Tawil is an area on the border between Egypt and the Sudan and it is the only piece of land on Earth that is not claimed by any country.

How to Take Deep-Sky Astrophotographs

Deep-sky astrophotography is said to be easier than taking photographs of the Moon or the planets because there is an excellent chance that a good image will be captured on the first attempt. However, this does require the acquisition of extra equipment and skills.

The telescope needs to be mounted equatorially for a start, either with an equatorial mount or a wedge. Added to this, an eyepiece with crosshairs will be needed for guiding the telescope. The reason for having to guide the telescope is because telescope motor drives are hardly ever perfect, which means that manual corrections have to be made in the east-to-west direction in order to smooth out any erratic motion. Also, any tiny errors in polar alignment will need to be counteracted in the north-to-south direction.

If shooting the sky in piggyback mode, with a camera mounted on top of the telescope, guiding is easy; you just watch a guide star through the telescope, keeping it on or close to the crosshairs. When piggybacking with a medium-power telephoto lens attached to the camera, precision guidance is not essential - just keep the guide star somewhere close to the crosshairs.

The secret to good guiding is to ensure that only the equatorial motor drive is running, set the slew rate to a low value and turn off any backlash compensation to make sure that there is no unexpected jerking. Guiding corrections are best delayed rather than for them to be made suddenly or irregularly.

When taking shots through the telescope, guiding can be more challenging because there is little room for error, with the guide star having to be kept right on the crosshairs. But how is the telescope guided when it is being used to take a photograph through?

One method is to employ a separate guidescope that has a high enough magnification up to x 500, which is really far too high for proper observing. However, guidescopes only work with refracting and reflecting telescopes but not with Schmidt-Cassegrains and Maksutov Cassesgrains. This is because the mirror in catadioptric telescopes tends to move slowly as the telescope tilts while following a star. This creates image movement that the guidescope does not detect.

One way to get around this problem is to use an off-axis guider. This intercepts part of the main image that would not fall on the camera's image sensor, which means that the same image that is being photographed can be guided on. The difficulty with using an off-axis guider is locating a suitable guide star - more often than not there is no nearby star brighter than magnitude 12 in the appropriate place. But photographing open clusters and deep-sky objects close to the Milky Way makes it easier to find suitably bright guide stars compared to taking photographs of galaxies.

Because guiding is a tedious chore, most CCD cameras can actually do it for you. Such CCD cameras are called autoguiders, which can report on their accuracy as they go. Autoguiders replace the crosshair eyepiece. But there again how do you guide when taking a CCD shot? The same CCD cannot make guiding corrections whilst exposing an image simultaneously, can it? So, a second CCD is used in an off-axis guider. Or even by putting a single CCD to double use: to track and record at the same time. Such a set-up can take a short exposure, check for image shift, make another exposure, and shift as needed to match. Then the two images are combined, and so on over and over again.

Six Ways to Attach a Camera to a Telescope

There are six methods to attach a camera to a telescope for astrophotography. These are Piggybacking, Direct Coupling at the telescope's focus, Afocal Positioning of the camera, Positive and Negative Eyepiece Projection, and Compression Positioning of the camera. These methods will now be explained.

Piggybacking

This method of attaching a camera to a telescope does not involve the camera actually taking pictures through the telescope. Instead, the camera sits on the telescope and takes a long exposure through its own lens while the telescope tracks the stars. This method can give superb images of comets and the Milky Way Galaxy.

Direct Coupling

This is the easiest way to attach a camera to a telescope. The telescope does not need an eyepiece and the camera does not need a lens. The telescope goes onto the camera. Refracting telescopes, Maksutov-Cassegrain and Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes work well in this configuration. However, many Newtonian telescopes will not reach focus due to the fact that the image plane is not far enough from the end of the eyepiece tube.

Afocal Attachment

This method will work with any telescope and any camera - even with compact digital cameras and video cameras. This is a very easy method to use and is practically foolproof. The camera lens is set at maximum aperture (that is the lowest f-stop number) and focused at infinity. Do not use autofocus. The camera is then held in place with a bracket or simply placed on its own tripod. A bright object such as the Moon is best for this method as the camera does not track with the telescope. In fact, because the Moon is so bright it is quite easy to simply hand-hold the camera as the exposure will be short.

Positive Eyepiece Projection

This method gives a larger magnification than by Direct Coupling. An eyepiece is attached to the telescope, but the camera, behind it, has its lens removed. The downside of this method is that images tend to be sharp only at the centre, which means this may not be good enough for shots of the Moon. However, on the plus side, positive eyepiece projection will work with any telescope, Newtonians included.

Negative Eyepiece Projection

This method is very similar to Direct Coupling but a teleconverter or a Barlow lens is added for extra magnification. The benefits of this method compared to positive eyepiece projection, is that images of the Moon remain sharp throughout.

Compression Positioning

In this method of attaching a camera to a telescope, a focal reducer (telecompressor) is used. A focal reducer is basically the opposite of a Barlow lens - it has a convex lens to make the image smaller and brighter, reducing the focal length and f-ratio, hence the term compression. This is the method that is often used in deep-sky astrophotography.

Transpiration in a Box!

What use is there in knowing about transpiration in plants? Well... imagine yourself being stranded in a strange land. It is hot and you are thirsty. There is abundant plant life but you cannot find fresh water anywhere. Looking around at what you have you come up with a plan. And it is a good thing you listened in biology class when your teacher was talking about transpiration because what you learned there is about to save your life...

On a cold day, when you breathe out, you often see "steam" coming out of your mouth. Just like you, when plants "breathe" they give off products - one of which is good old dihydrogen oxide - water. Transpiration is part of this process. In this experiment, we are going to be trap the water that comes out of the plant during transpiration!

The aim

• To show that water is given off by plants in the process of transpiration.
• To trap some of this water so that we can drink it.

Equipment needed

• Fresh plant leaves (you need to ensure that the plant is not poisonous - check with and adult that knows. If you are not sure, rather choose another plant that you know is not poisonous!)
• A cardboard box.
• A large sheet of transparent (see through) plastic.
• Some masking tape.
• A small stone.
• A bowl or cup.
• A sunny day.

Method

• Place the cup or bowl inside the box - near the centre of the box.
• Put as many leaves as can fit in the box around the bowl, but they must not cover the bowl.
• Cover the top of the open box with the transparent plastic sheet and tape it onto the box around the edges. You need to tape it all around the edges of the plastic so that there are no gaps between the box and the plastic.
• Place the small stone in the middle of the plastic sheet over the bowl.
• Place the box in a sunny spot and wait to see what happens...

Results

Water droplets appear on the inside of the plastic sheet and when there are enough, start to drop into the bowl.

Conclusion

As the sun heats the leaves in the box, they give off water through the process of transpiration. This water condenses on the underside of the plastic sheet. The stone that you placed on the plastic will result in the plastic sheet sloping in towards just above the bowl. The water droplets will gather at this point and drop into the bowl. What you have essentially done is to capture the water that is given off by the leaves during the process of transpiration.

You now have fresh water in your bowl that you can drink to quench your thirst...

How Is Electrical Power Measured - The Watt, Joule, and KWh

Electric power is measured in watts, one of which is equal to one joule of work per second. Here, it becomes important to understand the difference, or relationship, between power and work. Power is defined as the rate at which "work" is done, or energy is converted. Energy can be delivered slowly, or quickly - depending on which it is, you'll get less or more "power".

Why? Because power is the rate of energy delivered per unit time, not the total energy. Work on the other hand, is defined as the force times the distance through which it acts. Correspondingly, the joule, which is the SI unit of work, is equal to the force of one newton acting over a distance of one meter. Now let's talk about practical applications.

The standard billing unit for electrical power in residential applications is the kilowatt-hour, or kWh. It is a unit of energy equal to 1000 watts used over a period of one hour. Here in Japan, it costs the equivalent of 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. It will most likely differ, even substantially, depending on region and country, but it gives you a ball-park figure.

All electrical appliances should have labels indicating their wattage, and by doing a calculation based on your local cost-per-kWh, it should give you a pretty good idea of what any one appliance is costing you. You can also incorporate this logic when you purchase new appliances, as newer technology often has lower power ratings for the same or higher performance.

The concept of investing in new electronic appliances with the idea of making monthly savings on your utility bills that will eventually surpass the initial cost of purchase, is certainly worth considering in this new era of ever-increasing electronic efficiency. Energy-efficient, or "eco-friendly" purchases that replace appliances that have long work-cycles, such as an air-conditioner, heater, or fridge, will naturally make the biggest difference.

• Note that not all new electronic appliances will be more energy efficient by virtue of their "newness" alone. Certain manufacturers will invest more into this aspect than others. Stores will often capitalize on energy-efficient products by making the economic and ecological advantages clear without you having to even search them out.

In today's modern world, it's pretty safe to say that the convenience of our lives depend heavily on power. More specifically, on electric power. Electric power provides the bulk of the power we rely on in our households, which in turn translates into the power that most people are familiar with - or should be familiar with.

One thing to keep in mind is that electricity is power that must be generated by another source of energy, such as fossil fuels, hydropower, and nuclear power. This means that electricity is not really all that "clean" a form of energy due to the process with which it's generated. This is the part that many people don't realize and that power companies don't tell you.

Back in the late 1930s when nuclear power was first being considered as a viable source of commercial energy, it was speculated that energy would become so cheap and plentiful that it would be "too cheap to meter". This of course, hasn't happened yet. Today, 80 years and dozens of nuclear power-related accidents later, we still wage war on the frontier of clean, renewable energy.

Can Science Explain Human Existence?

Emotions can run high in the debate between religion and science. Just take a look at the high-profile campaign in the United States to teach 'Intelligent Design' in schools. But is conflict inevitable?

Those who believe that the origin of human existence is a spiritual Life Source are aware however that science firmly favours Darwin's evolutionary theory, which is based on natural selection and chance factors in reproduction. Survival of the fittest means all human beings together with all animal life have descended from some one primordial form. Science it seems has no room for spiritual ideas such as a purposeful human creation.

The Darwinian view has easily seen off the creationists, who to my mind have failed to notice the allegorical nature of the Genesis story. By this I mean that the story of the beginning of the world and the Garden of Eden is not a physics and biology lesson but rather a psycho-spiritual one.

Some modern theologians see the first few chapters in Genesis as a symbolic representation of the origin and dynamic development of the human psyche and its consciousness in relation to its Source; an ageless model of each of us created in the image and likeness of God. Thus arguably the Garden of Eden is a picture of the state of trust in and obedience to God and the fall of humanity into reliance on self-intelligence and self-orientation.

To my way of thinking the Bible as a whole, if inwardly understood, shows the spiritual journey of humanity returning to a state of innocence. We have a tree of life in the first book Genesis and in the last book Revelation, both I think representing the reality seen through the depths of one's spirit. Understanding about life

"coming from a God-given rationality, structured yet full of vitality and dynamism." (Helen Brown)

According to this view trust in the Source is not one based on ignorance but is one with rational understanding - no blind faith but rather a realistic perception about meaning and purpose that takes into account all our understanding about life as a whole.

Are not more people these days rejecting the traditional superstitions and dogmas of religion? Are people more likely to want their spiritual intuition to be confirmed by rational discussion? Only the creationist will assume scripture is always literally true. I am arguing that people want answers to life's issues informed by scientific education and the reasoning of common sense, as well as by spiritual knowledge and insight.

When theological doctrines such as creationism are seen to lack realistic sense, then I guess religion will start to be side-lined by those who use their rational minds.

Likewise when scientific theoretical concepts appear unlinked to the results of research then even to scientists they will seem more like fantasy than reality.

I wonder if you would agree with the following statement? In its naturalistic explanations and focus on the question 'how?' science deals with the level of thinking of the external rational mind, whereas, religion, with its focus on meaning and the question 'why?', appeals to the inner rational mind.

In other words when rationally presented, perhaps both science and religion are useful for communicating different aspects of human knowledge and understanding: science for the outer, time-related, natural life and religion for the inner timeless spiritual life.

Does trouble not arise when some theologians or some scientists believe they know it all? Religion got it wrong in the past about the earth being at the centre of the solar system and today creationists claim the world was made in seven days despite all the evidence of science to the contrary.

I notice that likewise some scientists claim that random processes created human life rather than any creative design. Is this not because there can be no scientific instruments to observe purpose and meaning? And because science is limited by its assumption that knowledge is limited to natural things like fossils and genes? I can't imagine how there might be any scientific proof that science is the only means of acquiring valid knowledge.

Despite the victory of Darwinism over creationism, it is hard to see how adaption from something like a single cell through natural selection can give an account for the development of human self-reflection, courage, honesty, ethical insight, ideology, altruism, and resistance to temptation. This is not to deny the truth about the facts of nature that science can reveal but to acknowledge the deeper side of human life revealed inwardly to those of a spiritual bent. To my mind, human consciousness derives from the human soul absent in other forms of life.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." Galileo Galilei (1600-1670)

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Is It Possible to Build a Space Elevator?

First of all, what is a space elevator? Well, as the name suggests, it's an elevator-like structure that extends from the surface of the Earth up into space. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention...it doesn't actually physically exist just yet. Clearly, it would be totally awesome to be able to take a cute, little elevator ride straight up into the heavens, but...easier said than done. - At this point that is.

Even though the idea has been around since the late 1800s, there are still many obstacles that make its practical realization nearly impossible. The first ideas started out as simple towers built so high so as to enter the geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). Once there, it would orbit the Earth with an equal orbiting period, causing it to remain stationary relative to Earth.

The problem with this model is that it would be a compression structure, with the primary forces being compression. A tower can only go so high before it will buckle under its own weight. There is simply no material known to man that is both strong and light enough to withstand the compression forces the weight-force of a 35,000 kilometer-high tower (the approximate altitude of the geostationary orbit) will exert along its height.

The other option, and the one that is currently considered "viable", is a model that utilizes tension as opposed to compression. The way this would (theoretically) work is by launching repeated (thousands actually) space shuttles loaded with materials into the geostationary orbit, from where they would begin lowering cable toward the Earth's surface. By gradually connecting additional segments, the cable should eventually reach Earth, where it will be anchored.

So is it possible to build a space elevator? Well, I sure hope so...However, hope may not be enough at this point. The rest of the article covers various physics-related aspects of a space elevator as well as the limitations scientists and engineers face in making it a reality. Note that research on a space elevator is ongoing, and as such, certain aspects are subject to change as new technology emerges.

Physics of the Space Elevator

There are two primary forces at work concerning the statics of a space elevator - the force of gravity or centripetal force, and the Earth's centrifugal force. The Earth exerts a gravitational force on an object, the strength of which varies depending on the object's altitude. The further it is from the Earth's surface - or its core, depending on how you look at it - the weaker the force of gravity.

A centrifugal force is one that is directed away from the center of a given object, and is used in relation to spinning or rotating objects and the phenomenon of things seemingly flying outward from a spinning object. A ride in a merry-go-round is an example of a centrifugal force pulling you away from the axis of rotation.

But the fact of the matter - and here is where it gets a little tricky - is that this force only exists so long as the opposing centripetal force exists. It's really no more than the "sensation" of being pulled outward from the center of the spinning mass.

In reality, if the centrifugal force overpowers the centripetal force, it will cause the object to fly tangent to the point on the orbital path that it occurred - not outward from the center of the spinning mass. A yo-yo being spun like a sling-shot is a good example that illustrates this principle. The yo-yo is kept in orbit by these 2 forces, the centripetal and centrifugal forces.

The string that keeps the yo-yo from flying away is continually pulling it toward the center of the spinning mass - your hand - as it spins. This force that tries to pull it in is the centripetal force, and the opposing force that keeps the string taut, is the centrifugal force. However, if you were to let the yo-yo go, releasing it into the air, in which direction would it fly? Yes, tangent to the orbital path!

If you were to take several photos in continuous shooting mode of the yo-yo "in action" within split-seconds of each other, you would no doubt witness this phenomenon first-hand. If you want the yo-yo to fly up vertically upon release, you'd have to release it when the string connecting the yo-yo to your hand forms a horizontal line, with the direction of angular motion being upward.

So, relating this to the space elevator, the force of gravity equals the centripetal force, the yo-yo string if you will. The centrifugal force would counter the force of gravity, keeping the cable taut in tension, and is what would prevent the whole structure from crashing down to Earth. In order for the centrifugal force to be strong enough however, the entire system's center of mass would have to be above the geostationary orbit.

To achieve this feasibly, a large counterweight would have to be installed some 144,000 kilometers above Earth - almost half the distance to the moon. This counterweight would be slowly extended into space to match the gravitational pull (centripetal force) of the lowering cable to Earth as it is constructed. An alternative would be to simply extend the cable (instead of the counterweight) to the needed distance to achieve equilibrium.

The Coriolis Effect and How it Will Affect a Space Elevator

Imagine you and a friend on opposite sides of a carousel tossing a ball back and forth to each other. As it spins, the rotation will cause the ball being thrown to seemingly assume a slightly curved path. If the carousel spins clockwise viewed from above, the curve will be to the left from the thrower's perspective, and to the right from the receiver's.

The Coriolis effect only manifests itself in a rotating reference frame, or non-inertial frame of reference. A non-inertial frame of reference can be described as a point of observation where you, the observer, are experiencing continuous changes in velocity. A rotating object is just such a situation, where even though the rate of rotation may be constant, the direction of movement is continually changing.

Let's say there was a tall tree that hung over the carousel in the above example, and you climbed up and observed 2 kids throwing the ball back and forth while spinning. From your vantage point up in the tree, now an inertial frame of reference in relation to the carousel, the ball will no longer seem to curve, but will fly straight. The difference lies simply in the observer's frame of reference.

Well, we all know that the Earth rotates as it orbits the Sun, right? So doesn't that mean we should see the Coriolis effect even if we're not on a carousel? The answer is yes. However, because the Earth rotates at only 1 revolution per day, the effect is so small that it's not detectable unless an object is in flight for a fairly long time.

But let's say we succeed in building a space elevator...will the Coriolis effect have to be taken into consideration? Yes, it will! As a climber ascends up the cable vertically, it must accelerate not only in the vertical direction, but in the horizontal as well. Because the Earth is spinning and the cable is spinning with it, the ascending climber must also achieve the equivalent angular velocity as it climbs.
The good news is that even though the Coriolis effect will cause the climber to pull the cable slightly backward as it ascends, the centrifugal force will always bring it back to the vertical position due to it being the natural energy-favorable position. By the time a climber gets to geostationary orbit, it will have reached an orbital velocity of roughly 3 kilometers per second.

Practical Limitations

The primary snag in the development of a space elevator is the lack of a material that is both strong and light enough to support the enormous tensile load of the cable. Various calculations put the required tensile strength of the cable between 130 giga-pascals and 300 giga-pascals (Gpa). As a comparison, structural steel has a tensile strength of about 250 mega-pascals (Mpa) - about 1000 times weaker than required.
The closest material to being a viable candidate is carbon nanotube. It has a measured tensile strength of 63 Gpa, but a theoretical tensile strength of 300 Gpa. However, at this point, carbon nanotube can only be produced in very small quantities - in the tens of centimeters. So to think of making a 100,000+ kilometer cable out of carbon nanotube is simply unrealistic at this point.

Preparing For Anatomy and Physiology Exams

People who would like to work in the health industry and become massage therapists or beauty therapists for example, will need to complete an anatomy and physiology course before they can qualify in these areas. In other words, this course is a must for all beauty and holistic courses and as a result, must be completed successfully. You need to be aware of how the human body functions, be able to recognise muscles and bones, know the structure and function of the various hormones, glands and organs and know the relationship between each of the body's systems The amount of work involved, coupled with the difficult technical terms, makes this subject challenging to say the least.

The anatomy and physiology syllabus is generally broken down into 12 systems including the skin, cells, skeletal, muscular, endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, nervous, reproductive, digestive, respiratory and urinary systems. Occasionally there can be some confusion between body systems so it is important, when revising, to study each system separately. Always have a good study guide, one that contains a large amount of relevant sample questions, quizzes and puzzles. A structured revision plan is also vital as it ensures that you remain focused throughout your studies. Having these things will mean that you can prepare for your exams in the best possible way.

After several years of teaching anatomy and physiology, I have devised a study and revision plan that has been instrumental in the successes of students. I would recommend students to follow this plan as much as they can as it will increase your knowledge in a very short time.

First of all, before you start any revision, you need to have a good written plan in place. Have 3 columns, the first column will have the area that you need to learn, for example, long bones, the second column will have the date that you have to begin studying this area and the third column will have the completion date. Using an excel spreadsheet would be ideal for this. Once it is typed up, print it off and make sure you have it in a place that you will always be able to see it, for example, on the wall over your desk.

When you start studying an area, take a bundle, about 20 or 25, of multiple choice questions from your revision guide. I would recommend using multiple choice questions as this is the format that most examining bodies use for their exam papers. There is no room for error with these questions, you get 4 possible answers with each question and you can only choose one. Copy the questions out on a record card and take them everywhere with you. This means that you can take them out when you have any spare time throughout your day and learn them. At the end of that day, go over the questions and test yourself on what you have learned. If there are some questions that you are still unsure of, add these to your next bundle the following day and continue learning them. If you follow this system for 5 days, you will have learned up to 125 questions. That is an amazing achievement and one that will definitely give you the confidence you need to pass your anatomy and physiology exams.

Repeat this system as often as you can. This is an extremely effective way to increase your knowledge of anatomy and physiology. Studying like this for one month would mean that you could be able to answer 400 exam questions correctly, imagine that!

What Is Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)?

Deoxyribonucleic acid called DNA, is the hereditary material all organisms. In human body DNA nearly same on the all part. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus is called nucleotide DNA. DNA also can be found in the mitochondria, it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA.

The information in DNA is constructed as a code made up of four chemical bases the construction are: adenine(A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people. The order, or sequence, of these bases determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism, similar to the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a certain order to form words and sentences.

Adenine with Thymine and Cytosine with Guanine are pair up with each other to form units called DNA base pairs. Sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule are also attached to each DNA base. a nucleotide consist of a base, sugar, and phosphate. Nucleotides are arranged in two long strands that form a spiral called a double helix. The structure somewhat like a ladder, with the base pairs forming the ladder's rungs and the sugar and phosphate molecules forming the vertical sidepieces of the ladder.

An important property of DNA is that it can replicate, or make copies of itself. Each strand of DNA in the double helix can serve as a pattern for duplicating the sequence of bases. This is critical when cells divide because each new cell needs to have an exact copy of the DNA present in the old cell.
DNA sequence analysis is enormously useful in studies of evolutionary history. Extensive sampling of DNA sequences has helped establish the diversity of life and allowed researchers to analyze evolutionary relationships within groups in detail.

The potential utility of a large-scale effort to sequence uniform gene targets across all species of life was the subject of "Taxonomy and DNA," a conference held at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on 9-12 March 2003. The conference participants included specialists in animal, microbial, and plant taxonomy; molecular biology; and bioinformatics. The goals of a large-scale sequencing project are to enable a practical method for species identification and to provide insight into the evolutionary history of life.

DNA sequencing has also been applied to identify specimens and resolve species boundaries in populations of apparently similar organisms. However, the bewildering variety of genes and methods of analysis employed in DNA-based phylogenetic and identification research has generally limited the applicability of results beyond the specific groups under study.

How to Determine Drilling Mud Motor Failure

At the drilling site, drilling mud motor failure downhole may be happened from time to time. The questions that are usually raised are things like "How do I know if the it fails down hole?" and "What indications will I see that this has happened?" etc. Due to this, I would like to share my personal experience regarding the mud motor failure and its symptoms.

The following signs indicate that you may be faced with downhole mud motor breakdown.

Frequent Motor Stall - Motor stall happens when the rotor of the mud motor has stopped moving. Typically, the motor stalls only with a high differential of pressure. However, if the down hole equipment doesn't perform as normal, it will get stalled with by a small amount of differential pressure. For instance, a mud motor normally drills at 400 psi differential pressure, but if it is stalled out with only 100 psi you can suspect the problem is with the motor.

Pressure fluctuation while rotating - As you know, differential pressure it a set parameter while rotating down, not based on the weight on bit (WOB). Rotating with a good mud motor won't create pressure fluctuations, whereas a bad mud motor will show fluctuation in stand pipe pressure and you may not be able to maintain constant pressure.

Abnormally high surface pressure - A stator is made of rubber. When the stator rubber is worn out and breaking into pieces, small parts of rubber can jam the flow path in the motor or a drilling bit. This situation also results in high stand pipe pressure.

Reduction in rate of penetration - If there are no changes in formation and drilling parameters, the decreasing in ROP (Rate of Penetration) may be caused by failure of the down hole tool. Moreover, if the took is severely damaged, you will be able to drill any footage.

What should you do if the problem is clearly identified?

The only thing you can do is pull out of the hole and change a new tool. It is almost impossible to drill with a damaged drilling motor unless you only have a few feet to the well target depth. If you continue drilling with a bad tool, the down hole tool may be parted and lost in the well.
With the mentioned indicators of mud motor failure above, you should be able to identify your suspected problem and begin troubleshooting as soon as possible to minimize unproductive time on a drilling rig.

Hojo Magnetic Motor Plan Review - Does It Really Work? Energy Generator by Howard Johnson

The Hojo Magnetic Motor by Howard Johnson is a popular & successful guide today and has helped thousands of people worldwide to produce free energy at home. This handbook will show you how to create a magnetic generator, which can help you produce energy at home, and eliminate your need to constantly have to pay for electricity.

Discover How to Produce Free Energy at Home.

This motor is based on Howard Johnson's patented magnetic generator and has 3 US patents behind the plans. Howard was one of the greatest inventors in the free energy area. His dream was to create a device that could help any house eliminate their need to pay for electricity.

How Does The Hojo Motor System Work?

The motor uses two groups of magnets instead of one group. The groups of magnets are placed in the correct position around a rotor. The stator magnets are set into a drum with a moving drum put inside and this is what makes the rotor. When the magnets are aligned properly you just need to start the motor with a little push and from then on it will run by itself. After that you just need to attach a rubber belt to the motor and fix this to a generator, in order to create free electricity.

There are 2 different versions of generators presented in the book. The first version is an advanced version while the second one is a more simplified version that is easier to build but slightly less functional that the advanced version. The plans for building the device are included in the package, which shows you step by step instructions for the entire construction process. It has been simplified into step by step instructions as well.

Discover How to Produce Steady Amounts of Power for Your House.

This motor is a quiet and compact working motor. When it is complete it is ready to produce power for your house. Today this guide is still available for download. However, some of the large energy corporations have indicated that they do not like this idea of giving people the ability to generate their own homemade electricity. Therefore it's not sure that these step-by-step instructions will be available on the internet for long. So if you are looking for a way to produce energy in your home within 2 days from now, and save money on your power bills, try the Hojo Motor!

Melting Ice and Flooding Is a Bad Thing

We had been talking a long time. You had started with a glass of mostly ice plus a little water in front of you, and now it was mostly water plus a little ice. If we had started with a thermometer, stirred a little, and read it, the initial temperature would have been zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), and the current temperature would still be zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit). Yes, the same temperature, because in a stirred mixture of a liquid (water in this case) and its solid (ice in this case), as long as some liquid is left, removing heat (say by putting it in the freezer) changes liquid to solid instead of changing temperature, and adding heat (say from a nice warm room) changes solid (ice) to liquid (water) instead of changing temperature. A physicist might say: Phase conversion trumps (has precedence over) temperature change.

But this is not about your glass of ice water. It is about our planet, Planet Earth. Planet Earth can not be stirred. It is not nice and mixed like the ice water. But it has immense amounts of water, an awesome amount of ice, and air and water motion exchange heat back and forth between water and ice. A physicist would describe it as a buffered system. What this means is that the temperature is modified by the water/ice exchanges, so the temperature does not tell the true story. Also, taking the temperature of a planet is a bit of a challenge, and it is really hard to prove you did it right.

To take Planet Earth's temperature, you need to cover all the locations on sphere Earth, let's say every 10 degrees of longitude, and every 5 degrees of latitude, so 72 by 36 gives us 2592 points to cover. (Who gets to do the poles?) Then there is the high and the low. Say surface up to 30 meters, by 30 centimeter steps takes us to 259 200 temperatures, and for water, surface down to 30 meters by 30 centimeter steps, and we are at about 440 000 temperatures. Then there are all the hours of the day, because Planet Earth rotates, and all the days of the year, because Planet Earth goes around the Sun. Every fifteen minutes for a year gets you about 35 000, so we now have about 15 billion temperatures. If we do this for five or ten years, for some averaging, we end up with between 75 and 150 billion temperatures. That is a lot of data points. And we have not discussed high mountains or deep valleys.

Well fortunately there is a much simpler way, provided by mama nature herself. It is the same science which applied to the ice water drink. Keep an eye on the ice. If it grows, the glass is losing energy, and if it shrinks, the glass is gaining energy. Even more to the point, what concerns us is not primarily the energy, but rather the ice. You see, almost all of Planet Earth's major cities are built near water. (Before the gasoline-powered truck, you could move stuff by horse and wagon or by water.) Water was better. If that ice really melts, (and there is a lot of ice on Planet Earth) all those cities flood. You might want to review the New Orleans disaster.

So to recap here, the ice is melting, which means Planet Earth is gaining energy. Continued ice melt will flood most cities, and those of us who live in those cities view this as a bad thing. Why is Planet Earth gaining energy? That is for another article, but it really does not matter. If the Sun did it by over-revving, don't expect an apology or reparations from either the Sun or the Cosmos. If we humans did it by burning 50% of Planet Earth's oil, plus a lot of gas, coal, and wood in only 50 years, well, what is done is done. You can't stick the carbon chains back together. It is a bad thing and even if we did not cause it, we need to stop or even reverse it, but that is for another article.

How a Telescope Works - Part One

A telescope consists of an objective (a lens in a refracting telescope or a curved mirror in a reflecting telescope) and an eyepiece (also called an ocular). The objective forms a real image, which the eyepiece magnifies. The objective lens and eyepiece normally consist of more than one lens element.
A telescope's aperture is simply the diameter of the objective. For amateur telescopes this is up to six inches for a refractor, and up to sixteen inches for a reflector. The aperture determines the amount of light the telescope is able to collect. It is the most important optical parameter - the greater the aperture the more the instrument can resolve.

The telescope's focal length determines the image size. If the instrument is a refractor, then the focal length is just the distance from the lens to the image. With more complex telescopes like catadioptrics, the focal length is appreciably more than the length of the instrument, usually up to three times the telescope's physical length.

The magnification or power of a telescope is completely dependent on the focal length of the eyepiece being used. The magnification is the ratio of the telescope's focal length and the eyepiece focal length. For example, a refractor of one metre focal length in combination with an eyepiece of 25 mm focal length magnifies 40x because 1000 divided by 25 equals 40. This is why telescopes are not rated 20x or 100x the way binoculars are. By changing the eyepiece any power can be obtained, but what can be seen will be limited by the telescope's resolution.

Telescopic images are normally upside down or reversed right to left. This is because the objective flips the image over with no re-flipping carried out by the eyepiece. Binoculars and terrestrial telescopes have erect images because prisms or other lenses are purposely used in the design. But for astronomical instruments there is no need to have an erect image, which means more light gets through to the eyepiece.

Most modern telescopes are equipped with a diagonal, so that the observer does not have to crane his or her neck when viewing the night sky. The diagonal simply flips the image in one direction only, which means that what is seen is the right way up, but is reversed left to right. Diagonals can be made from a prism or from a plane mirror, but both transmit light just as effectively.

How to Set Up a GOTO Telescope for Astrophotography

Here is a general way in five parts of setting up a computer-controlled telescope on an altazimuth mount for astrophotography.

1. Roughly level the tripod. This is not a critical thing to do as this method uses alignment on two stars. But a little care must be taken to at least keep the tripod level by less than five degrees because you should not totally rely on the telescopes built-in software. Precise leveling is only necessary if aligning on one star only.


2. Make sure the telescope's finder is centred in the field of the telescope. To do this, make sure that the crosshairs are correctly centred by adjusting the finder with a distant object on the ground during daylight.


3. Put the telescope into its 'home' position. Where this is will depend on the make of the telescope. This will usually be due north or due south. Again, there is no need to perfectly accurate while doing this.


4. Choose the 'two-star' alignment mode. The 'auto' or 'easy' alignment mode can be selected, but you have to be careful as the telescope seldom goes to the exact position of the alignment star, just the general area. Do not select 'one-star' or even 'zero-star' alignment as these require a perfectly leveled tripod. You will always find at this stage that pointing accuracy is out by several degrees until you can find bright objects like planets or first magnitude stars and synchronize on them. First magnitude stars are easily visible at medium power in daylight.


5. The two stars should be on opposite sides of the zenith some 120 degrees apart in azimuth but not at the same altitude. Neither star should be within 20 degrees of the zenith. When you have centred on each star, you will need to inform the telescope's computer. The more accurately you centre the star, the better, because any small errors will be magnified as the telescope swings across the sky. Be aware that using a planet as an alignment star should be a last resort because the positions of objects in the Solar System are not computed as accurately as those of stars.

To ensure that your set-up is working properly, simply go to stars that you can readily identify and make sure that the instrument locates them perfectly. Once you trust the telescope to go to familiar objects in the night sky you can be sure that the telescope will locate unfamiliar ones every time.

Spinosaurus - The Largest Land Carnivore of All Time?

T. rex versus Spinosaurus - Giant Killers

Scientists knowledge of dinosaurs has greatly improved over the last decade or so. New fossil finds coupled with new research techniques have enabled palaeontologists to learn a great deal about these reptiles. When we visit schools or work in museums our staff get bombarded with questions and one of the most popular is - which is the largest, meat-eating dinosaur of them all? To be truthful, this is a difficult question to answer, but amongst the contenders would be Spinosaurus (Spinosaurus aegyptiacus), a strange, sail-backed dinosaur that may have reached lengths in excess of 18 metres.

Spinosaurus featured in the first episode of the BBC television series "Planet Dinosaur". This episode was entitled "Lost World" and focused on the dinosaur discoveries from North Africa. This part of the world around ninety-five million years ago was home to a variety of huge prehistoric animals, giant crocodiles, enormous Sauropods and at least two super-sized meat-eaters. The carnivores in question are Carcharodontosaurus and perhaps the largest meat-eater of them all - Spinosaurus.

A Tale of the Tape

Just like two heavy-weight boxing contenders, let us look briefly at what we know about Spinosaurus in comparison to T. rex.

T. rex - length = 13-14 metres, weight 5.5 to 7 Tonnes, size of skull 1.75 metres

Spinosaurus - length 12-18 metres, weight 4 to 20 Tonnes, size of skull 2 metres

Based on these statistics, it looks like Spinosaurus is the bigger animal, but we have to take into account the actual fossil evidence, when we do a more confusing picture emerges.
There are something like thirty T. rex fossil specimens known, with at least half a dozen or so individual skeletons with at least 40% of the complete fossil material, including skull material. However, for Spinosaurus the fossil record is far less complete. Only six specimens have been found to date. Most of what palaeontologists know about Spinosaurus comes from this scant material and by scaling up the fossil bones from related genera such as Suchomimus, Baronyx and Irritator.

The most complete Spinosaurus fossils found to date were discovered by a German led expedition to the Western Egyptian desert. This expedition was headed by Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach, who perhaps should be as famous today as the likes of Cope and Marsh. However, Stromer was dogged by misfortune and the story of Spinosaurus is one of lost opportunities and mistakes.

The Discovery of Spinosaurus

In November 1911, Stromer's party set sail for Egypt, on a quest not to find dinosaurs but to find evidence of early hominids. Stromer believed (quite rightly as it turned out), that mankind originated in Africa. In the early part of the 20th Century there were two contrasting theories as to the origins of our own species. Some scientists believed that H. sapiens evolved in Europe, whereas, other scientists, Stromer included believed that mankind originated in Africa. Stromer's party explored a number of areas before visiting the Bahariya Oasis in western Egypt, what they thought would be Eocene aged deposits, a potential location for primate fossils. The team discovered the remains of several new types of dinosaur including two huge predators - Carcharodontosaurus and perhaps most famously of all Spinosaurus.

The remains were fragmentary, part of the lower jaw, some vertebrae, plus of course those huge neural spines, the largest of which was nearly six feet high. It is these spines that give this dinosaur its name, the spines are believed to have supported a huge sail-like structure on the animal's back. Quite what this device was used for (thermoregulation, fat storage, visual signalling) remains unclear. However, Stromer was aware that he had some huge, fossilised bones to contend with.

He was taken aback by the size and scale of the specimens that the expedition collected, he was quoted as saying "... I don't know how to conserve such gigantic species". The team ended up mixing flour and water to make a paste and tearing strips of cloth which they then soaked in this mixture and applied to the fossils to make a sort of protective jacket for their finds.

Getting the fossils back to Germany proved very difficult. Egypt was under British control and on the eve of the First World War, diplomatic relations between Britain and Germany were strained. One crate was able to leave the country, but the remainder stayed in Egypt until after the war ended. They were not finally returned to Stromer until 1922.

Spinosaurus (Spinosaurus aegyptiacus) was formally named and scientifically described by Stromer in 1915. Stromer thought that this Egyptian dinosaur was at least as big as Tyrannosaurus rex, which had been named just nine years earlier.

Unfortunately, the crates that were returned to Germany in 1922 contained fossils that had become damaged. Many of the specimens were in a bad way and Stromer set about spending the next decade or so repairing them and studying them. More descriptions, drawings and even some photographs of the Spinosaurus fossils were made, but in the 1930s Stromer fell out of favour with the Nazi Party and had greater and greater difficulty in getting his work published.

April 24th/April 25th 1944 - Fossils Destroyed

Stromer had pleaded with the authorities to remove his Spinosaurus fossil material and other specimens out of the Munich museum where they were stored for much of the Second World War. As Allied bombing raids became more frequent Stromer urged the authorities to let him transport the specimens to a safe storage area such as a coal mine or other underground facility. His pleas went unheeded and his luck finally ran out on the evening of April 24th, morning of April 25th 1944 when a British night bombing raid effectively flattened the museum and the surrounding area. Stromer's life's work was all but destroyed, including the Spinosaurus fossils. His holotype specimen is no longer around and not available therefore for study. Only a few tantalising photographs of Stromer's Spinosaurus fossils remain.


Morocco - New Discoveries

A number of other, fragmentary Spinosaurus fossils have been found since Stromer's time. Not in Egypt but in Morocco, this has led scientists to describe a second potential Spinosaurus species. The Canadian palaeontologist Dale Russell has studied the Moroccan fossil material, some of which was provided by an Italian museum which had originally received this specimen from the collection of a private individual. Although, still very fragmentary, scientists have named and described a second species of Spinosaurus - Spinosaurus maroccansus, although this second species is not fully accepted by the scientific community as being a separate species.
In terms of confirming the size of Spinosaurus, based on the fossil evidence that remains and on the holotype from the Bahariya Oasis of Egypt, we can state that this Theropod was very big, whether or not it is the largest land carnivore ever to have existed is more difficult to say. Further research and more complete fossil specimens are needed.

How a Telescope Works - Part Two - Light Gathering Power

The human eye has a diameter of seven millimetres; a 250 mm aperture reflecting telescope has 1275 times as much surface area (250 divided by 7, squared), which means that it collects 1275 times as much light. Celestial objects will therefore appear 1275 times as bright as with the unaided eye.

Astronomers measure the brightness of stars in terms of a magnitude scale, which is essentially derived from an old classification of stellar brightness as classes 1, 2, 3, and so on. The brightest stars are those of first magnitude and the faintest stars visible with the unaided eye are of magnitude six. There are a number of stars that are brighter than first magnitude; Sirius, the brightest star, shines at magnitude minus 1.4; the planet Venus, at its brightest, shines at around magnitude minus 4. The Sun, being the brightest object in the sky, shines at around magnitude minus 26.

Now, the magnitude scale is a logarithmic one, which basically means that if the brightness is divided by a number x, then 2.5 times log to the base 10 is added to the magnitude. For example, a 250 mm telescope makes celestial objects appear 1275 times brighter, which means it makes them 2.5 xlog1275 which equals 7.8 magnitudes brighter. This means that such an instrument can theoretically extend the observer's visual limit to magnitude 7.8 + 6.0 which equals magnitude 13.8.

In reality however, telescopes do a little better than this calculation suggests; with a 250 mm instrument in good seeing conditions, it is possible to see objects down to a magnitude 14.5. This is due to the fact that a telescope can be focused perfectly, with all the light being captured going straight into the observer's eye. The actual formula to use is 7.5 + 5 x log10 times the telescope aperture in centimetres. So, for the 250 mm telescope, the limiting magnitude is 7.5 + 5log10 x 25, which equals 14.49.

However, reflecting telescopes have a central obstruction caused by the holder of the secondary mirror. This covers around 16 per cent of the total surface area, which costs 0.2 magnitudes. So the limiting magnitude under perfect seeing conditions with a 250 mm reflector will be around 14.3.
Telescopes will brighten point-like objects, such as stars, but not extended objects, like the Moon, the planets, nebulae and galaxies. The reason for this is because the telescope spreads the collected light over a wider area of the eye's retina. This means that the higher the power being used, the dimmer the image becomes. This is a phenomenon that always disappoints those who use a telescope on the night sky for the first time. They expect to see more, but struggle to do so.

However, the telescope is gathering more light than the eye ever can, and an extended object like a galaxy at magnitude 10 will be visible through a telescope, but not as bright as hoped for. This is why astronomers use long exposure photography in order to capture and accumulate all the photons of light coming from extended celestial objects. It is the only way that we can truly appreciate the beauty and the colour of the night sky. Witness the wonderful images obtained by the amateur astronomers from all around the world, and of course by the Hubble Space Telescope.

How a Telescope Works - Part Three - Resolving Power

It is physically impossible for any telescope, no matter how big or how perfect its optics have been made, to reveal an infinite amount of detail of the celestial object being looked at. This is because a telescope is limited by atmospheric turbulence and diffraction, in other words the telescope's resolving power.

When light passes through an opening its constituent waves spread out. This effect is diffraction and it shows up in an image of a star as a disk surrounded by rings instead of pin-sharp points of light. The same phenomenon blurs fine detail on images of the planets. However, the larger the telescope the less is the diffraction and consequently more detail can be resolved compared to images produced by smaller telescopes.

Greater resolving power means that some stars that appear to be single stars can in fact be separated into double stars. There are two formulae that are used to determine the resolution of telescopes; these are the Dawes limit and the Rayleigh limit. The Dawes limit is given by the ratio 11.6 arcseconds divided by the telescope's aperture in centimetres. The Rayleigh limit for light of 550 nm wavelength is the ratio 14 arcseconds divided by the telescope's aperture in centimetres.

For example, a 9 cm instrument has a Dawes resolution limit of 11.6 arcseconds divided by 9, which is 1.29 arcseconds, and a Rayleigh resolution limit of 14 arcseconds divided by 9, which is 1.55 arcseconds. The Rayleigh limit is in fact theoretical whilst the Dawes limit is determined by the actual observation of double stars that are equal in brightness. So, a double star with components separated by 1.3 arcseconds will be close to the resolving limit of a 9 cm aperture telescope in perfect, steady seeing conditions. A 15 cm aperture telescope by comparison has a Dawes limit of 0.76 arcseconds, so that instrument will easily resolve the double star.

Now, if diffraction were the only limiting factor then the biggest telescopes in the world would obviously provide astronomers with the best images. But the Earth's atmosphere is constantly moving and jiggling around - what is better known as atmospheric turbulence. This means that ground-based telescopes with apertures larger than 75 cm can not show much more detail on objects such as the planets, especially during average seeing conditions.

These days, however, the technology of adaptive optics has come to the rescue of the big ground-based professional telescopes. Most can now compete with the Hubble Space Telescope in resolving fine detail. But amateur astronomers will still have to put up with the limitations imposed by the Earth's atmosphere when it comes to resolving objects through their telescopes.

Zeno's Paradoxes Revisited

Zeno was a Greek philosopher living in Southern Italy at about 350 BC. He was engaged in an argument between schools of philosophers regarding motion: 1) Was motion continuous or discontinuous? 2) Was motion real or unreal? Zeno invented his paradoxes to support his side of this argument. They are not truly paradoxes, but they are very clever and have been faking people out for over two-thousand years. Let us examine Zeno's Paradoxes.

There are nine surviving paradoxes, but all share a similar error, and you can easily generate more by the paradox-load. The author's favorite is The Achilles and the Tortoise Foot Race. Achilles, famous Greek warrior, hero of the Trojan War, runs a foot race against Torty, the World's most famous Tortoise. One can set this up an infinite number of ways. Let us endow Achilles with 10 times the speed of Torty, set the race at 1.25 mile, and give Torty a one mile lead. They are off and Achilles runs the mile lead in 0.1 unit of time (remember - ten times as fast). But during that 0.1 time unit, Torty runs 0.1 mile and so is still ahead. Well, Achilles runs the 0.1 mile in 0.01 time units, but Torty uses the 0.01 to run another 0.01 mile. This can be repeated forever, but with each repetition the time gets shorter. An infinite repetition gets to 0.111111... time units, where "..." is math speak for "repeats forever". The sum of these times, 0.111111..., is exactly 1/9 time unit. It will take Achilles 0.1250 time units to run the mile and one-quarter. Zeno's reporting system stops at 0.111111..., so it never gets to the end of the race. Clever Zeno offers no paradox, just a flawed reporting system.

If you have been hit by a car, a bicycle, someone on a skateboard, you probably have decided motion is real. Is it continuous? In year 2011, we still do not know. It has been suggested that space may "be foamy" or "have a structure" at a very very minute distance called the Planck length. The Planck length is 1.6 x 10^-35 meter. This is a whole lot smaller than a single electron or a single proton, so neither Achilles, Torty, nor we could ever be aware of it. It is probably just right for philosophical debate.

These 350 BC Greeks used a reasoning step that we now know to be false. Since at every given instant Achilles, Torty, or an Arrow shot at someone, (from the Arrow Paradox), had to be somewhere, occupying a space its own size: an Achilles size space for Achilles, Torty size for Torty, Arrow size for the Arrow. They saw this as evidence that at any given instant the item (Achilles, Torty, or Arrow) was motionless. Therefore, they argued, at any step on its journey, a moving item is motionless. Bolstered by the Calculus invented late 1600 s, by Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton, we now know that an object in motion is always in motion and its motion can be computed even for each single point on its path. There is no "motionless". The false motionless argument, and the erroneous data reporting together accounted for the "paradoxes".

Career Options For A Graduate With A Degree In Biology

Students who graduate from college with a science degree such as Biology are more likely to have a higher income than those with another type of degree. If you are considering a Biology degree, however, you may be wondering what kind of career you can have with your degree. For example, a degree in this field does not offer career-specific training. Rather, it provides an overview of the life sciences which will be up to you to translate into career opportunities. If Biology is your strong suit, there is no reason why you should not have a rewarding career in this field. In fact, there are many opportunities out there for you if you know what to look for.

It can be difficult to find career support if you are majoring in Biology. Many schools are working on career development in the sciences, but often, it is hard to get a clear answer about how you can use your degree to find employment. It is likely that you decided to major in Biology because you are interested in this area of study, and not necessarily because it was originally your goal to pursue a career that requires a life sciences background. Now is the time to begin working towards specific goals as you pursue your degree.

Many careers for Biology majors require graduate studies. If you are seeking a degree in the field of health care, for example, a background in Biology is key, but you will need to pursue additional education. Research careers are also popular among this field but generally require additional education after completion of your undergraduate degree.

If your prospective career requires a graduate degree, take steps during your undergraduate degree program in Biology to prepare for graduate school. You should be taking advanced classes in your undergraduate program that are required for graduate studies. You should also think about completing an internship or taking advantage of other opportunities to prepare for your graduate studies application.

There are also many government jobs that hire candidates with Biology degrees. Areas include environmental science, resource management, wildlife management, and many others. If you have a degree in this field and a concern about the natural world, a job with a government environmental agency may be a good choice.

If you enjoy promoting the joys of learning about the life sciences to others, a teaching career may be a good choice for you. A teaching career will allow you to combine your interest in Biology with a career as a science teacher. Science teachers are generally in demand in both elementary and secondary education. Inquire with your advisor about steps you can take to qualify for teaching jobs with your degree. You may even wish to double-major in Biology and Education.

If you are a Biology major but you also like to write, a science writing career might be a great choice for you. Science and health care journals, newspapers, magazines, and other publications both in print and online require science writers to craft well-researched articles. You can prepare for this type of career by taking journalism classes in addition to your science courses in college.

Who Turned Up the Heat?

The ice on Planet Earth is melting. There is a lot of ice so it will take some time. The ice is melting therefore Planet Earth's energy content is going upward. Records long stored on our Planet, deep under the surface, show us that at times the Sun has been hotter. Is the Sun now hotter? NASA religiously takes the Sun's temperature. A rise in Sun temperature could fry its satellites and its astronauts. NASA shows no recent increase in Sun temperature. (At present temperatures, it takes 21 more Sun degrees to raise Planet Earth one degree.) The ice is melting, the seas are rising, if you live near water learn to swim.

Has Planet Earth's orbit or tilt changed a bit? The records show changes in the past. To read more on this, search for Milutin Milankovic in Wikipedia or Google. At present, all over Planet Earth giant telescopes are computer aimed at targets all about the cosmos. The slightest twitch in orbit or tilt would throw them all off. Reports would gush forth from all over Planet Earth. No such reports have issued and therefore there have been no changes in orbit or axis tilt. Nor has the temperature of space changed; it is still absolute zero (zero Kelvin, absolute temperature scale). That leaves changes happening on Planet Earth.

Planet Earth is like a pot on the stove. It gains heat from the Sun, as does the pot from the burner. Its temperature rises, as does that of the pot. It loses heat to space by radiation, just as the pot loses heat to the room by air convection, radiation, and steam production. You can change the pot temperature by adjusting the burner, moving the pot closer-to or farther-from the burner, or changing the pot's heat loss, such as by covering it. In any case, the temperature rises until heat lost equals heat gained. Pot (or Planet Earth) is then at equilibrium, and its temperature stays put.

If Planet Earth is warming-up, and if the Sun has not changed, and the orbit/tilt has not changed, then Planet Earth is retaining more heat and must get hotter to reach radiation-in-equals-radiation-out equilibrium. This can occur if things in the atmosphere are interfering with outgoing radiation. One of those things is called Carbon Dioxide. Production of Carbon Dioxide gas is one of the main results of burning oil, gas, wood, coal, paper or other organics. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has gone from 320 ppm in 1965 to 390 ppm in 2011. (ppm is science speak for parts-per-million. 320 ppm carbon dioxide means that of every one million atmosphere molecules, 320 will be carbon dioxide molecules). You can see how powerful its effect is if such small amounts bring change.
Gasses like carbon dioxide, methane, and many others, trap outgoing radiation and keep it on Planet Earth, thus raising the Planet's equilibrium temperature. The ppm increase and temperature rise would be worse, but Earth's waters have absorbed a lot of the carbon dioxide. About one-quarter of the carbon dioxide released into the air will be absorbed by the seas. The rise of carbon dioxide dissolved in sea water is further proof that the cause of this Earth warming is not increased Sun output. Increased Sun output warms the oceans causing out gassing thus lowering carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean.

In about fifty years, we have burnt about one-half of all of Planet Earth's oil. At the same time, we have burned a lot of coal, natural gas, paper and wood. All of these produce water, carbon dioxide, and assorted other chemicals when they burn. Some of these chemicals, carbon dioxide for example, are very good at absorbing radiation which otherwise would have gone on out to the cold of space. When this happens, this absorbed radiation becomes retained heat on Planet Earth. Think of gasses such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrogen dioxide, gasses which are called greenhouse gasses, as a warm fluffy blanket in the atmosphere surrounding Planet Earth and retaining her heat. Ah ha! That is where the heat got turned up. It is just like bedtime. A little blanket is okay. A whole lot of blanket is not okay. See, not so complicated after all.

There is no way we can stick all the carbon molecules back together. We can reduce our burning of organics by lowering our energy use, using solar, wind, earth, and wave wherever possible, using more (and safer) nuclear, recycling wherever possible, and maximizing efficiencies for all things. It is either those things or move uphill. If you choose to move uphill, sooner would probably be better than later. You also might be in for a diet change because climate change means crop change. Sleep tight under your nice new "blankey".

A, B, C, D of Chromatography

Chromatography is a separation process involving two phases, stationary and mobile phase. Mixture to be analyzed is adsorbed in stationary phase and mobile phase is passed into it, eventually compounds of mixture get separated on basis of rate of adsorption and solubility. Both are physical properties. Depending on this, chromatography is classified into two groups.

1)Adsorption chromatography:

a)Column Chromatography:

Generally, In this chromatography, a glass tube is filled with adsorbent (alumina or silica gel) up-to one third of it's length. Then, it is soaked with selective solvent. Sometimes, column is filled with slurry (adsorbent + solvent). The column should not have any space. Such a column is stated as 'well packed column'. In this method, less polar compound will be eluted first. Because, less polar compound will be less adsorbed in polar stationary phase. Eventually, more polar compound will come out.

b) Thin layer chromatography:

In TLC, a plate (glass/plastic) is coated with a thin layer of solid adsorbent. A small drop of mixture is spotted near the bottom of plate. Then, plate is placed in solvent chamber in such way that only bottom part gets dipped into solvent (mobile phase). This liquid slowly rises up to TLC. In this method, separation is measured by RF value. Separated compounds move to different distance, which is expressed by retention factor (RF value). Compound of lower polarity will have higher RF value than more polar ones.

2)Partition chromatography:

a) Paper chromatography:

In this chromatography, stationary phase is water adsorbed in paper and mobile phase is mixtures of different organic solvent and water. Any drop of organic solvent on a filter paper gets partitioned between water and solvent. Then, this paper is dipped into number of solvent mixtures and chromatograms are developed. Ascending and descending, this two types of development generally take place. Like TLC, in this method also, separation is expressed by RF value. Compounds with higher RF value has lower polarity and vice versa.

b)Gas chromatography:

This is the most modern technique of chromatography. It is commonly used in analytical chemistry. In this method, sample (vaporized without decomposition ) is injected into column. The sample is moved through this column by the flow of mobile phase. Here, mobile phase is inert carrier gases (Ex- He or nitrogen). Column is coated with different stationary phases. So, basically, elements of analyzed mixture are partitioned between solid stationary phase and mobile gas. Each compounds elute at a different time, which is called retention time. Compounds eluted at different retention time then get detected in various detectors. Finally, these are recorded in a recorder and chromatograms are obtained.

How Pioneers Washed Clothes

The cleaning chapter from the Iowa Settlers Manual of 1881 explains how to make a basic liquid laundry detergent using available materials.

Washing clothes in the days of the pioneers and settlers was an elaborate ritual. Multiple tubs of water, scrubbing boards, handmade soaps, blue dyes for the white clothes, salt for the colored - and all done on a Monday. Monday was always washing day.

Before the pioneers and settlers could wash their clothes they needed laundry washing soap. What was important was that it had to be a liquid soap that would easily mix in with the clothes. Hard soaps were readily available and reasonably complex to make, so it was always easier to buy hard soap. But liquid soap wasn't so easily transported. It had to be made at home.

This is a recipe from the Iowa Settlers Manual of 1881 that we can still use today.
It involves three separate steps...

The Compound:
"Take five pounds of sal soda, one pound borax, one pound of fresh unslacked lime; dissolve the soda and borax in one gallon of boiling water, and slack the lime in the same quantity of boiling water. Then pour them both into eight gallons of water; stir a few times and let it stand 'till morning, when the clear fluid should be drawn off and kept ready for use."

The Soft Soap:
"One quart of this compound, with three pounds of good bar soap, cut fine, and two pounds of sal soda boiled in three gallons of water for ten minutes, will give four gallons of splendid soft soap."

The Washing Detergent:

"Add half a pint of compound, half a pint of soft soap to four gallons of hot water."
Sal soda is used to soften the water, as the settlers often would be using well water. Sal soda is also known as washing soda, soda crystals or sodium carbonate. It can be bought from a swimming pool supply store.

Borax is still common and is also known as sodium borate. You can get it from the pool supply shop too.

Unslacked lime is also known as quicklime, burned lime and calcium oxide. You can get it from a large garden center, where it is sold as a fertilizer for lawns and gardens.

All three of these powders are reasonably safe to work with, but do avoid breathing them and getting them on your skin or in your eyes.

You can use any bar soap you choose, but it's best to get the simplest and cheapest you can and use a fine cheese grater on it.

The settlers also used bluing to brighten their whites in a final rinse. If you want to get the real deal, you can get Prussian blue from an art supply store. It can come in a few forms - you want the stuff that looks like a block of blue chalk.

To use it you should tie the block up in a muslin bag, to protect the clothes from direct contact with the blue dye. It will stain them. Then place the block in the rinse water while you rinse the clothes.

Or you can buy a bottle of Mrs. Stewart's Bluing. This brand has been around for more than 100 years and is as close to an original pioneer product as you can get.

To brighten your colored clothes, use everyday salt. Just a couple of pinches to the first wash. It needs to be dissolved, so it's easier to add it to a glass of warm water, dissolve it and then pour that into the wash.

You don't have to dig out several large tubs and fill them with boiling water to use these three clothes washing materials. They will work in a modern washing machine as well.

Protein Origami And Schroedinger's Free Energy

It is a common understanding in thermodynamics that things happen faster as they become hotter. Yet this does not seem to be the case with protein folding. Instead of folding taking place more quickly as heating increases, the opposite occurs, leaving biologists scratching their heads. This was until two women scientists worked out why the second law of thermodynamics was being violated. Chinese scientists, Liaofu Luo at the Inner Mongolia University and Jun Lu at the Inner Mongolia University of Technology, both in China, made a major break through in quantum biology.

Instead of proteins folding as they cooled down and unfolding 'quickly' as they heat up, the scientists discovered the relationship between folding and unfolding to be non-linear and asymmetrical. This meant that folding was not the opposite of unfolding. So, if folding and unfolding are not opposite what is their relationship based upon? Molecular biologists, trying to hold fast to their mechanistic science position, suggested that non-linear action between water and hydrophobic parts of proteins could well be the reason for the strange phenomenon. The Chinese scientists were not convinced. They maintained that the way folding depends on temperature becomes perfectly clear once the problem is approached from a quantum angle.

Proteins (long chains of amino acids that become biologically active once they are folded into highly complex shapes) carry out specific functions according to their geometry. The thing that puzzled science was, with so many configurations to choose from, was how did proteins fold into their perfect shape so quickly? The Chinese scientists said it was entirely possible if the process was a quantum, not mechanical one. What these women scientists discovered amounts to the first universal laws of protein folding, which is equivalent, in biology, to the discovery of thermodynamic laws in physics.

Long before this discovery, however, during the 1990s the Science-Art Research Center of Australia held that coherent light passing through micro-tubules caused proteins to be constantly enfolded into patterns within DNA. This protein patterning takes place in order to intuitively guide humanity to develop a global human survival technology associated with the functioning of a universal holographic reality. Such a technology, could not be understood within the entropic Einsteinian world-view because it forbade the human living-process to evolve toward infinity. During his recorded speech as a guest of honor at the opening of Yangzhou University's College of Art in 2001, Professor Pope made his theory quite clear with this statement:

"The cellular membrane employs a fractal logic that has solved far greater environmental problems that the ones we are creating for ourselves now. Evolutionary direction is provided by the constantly changing shapes of the evolving protein, which when measured, demonstrate that it is moving towards universal infinity. This process and not the DNA controls evolution, however we cannot reason about it under the present scientific world view, which deems any connection of the living process with universal infinity as impossible. The human survival technology is about obtaining computer simulations extending the cellular experience further into the survival direction taken up by the evolving protein."

From this it can be reasoned that quantum protein folding actually negates the entropic effect of the second law of thermodynamics. In Edwin Schroedinger's book 'What is life?' he wrote, It is by avoiding the rapid decay into the Inert state of 'equilibrium' that an organism appears so enigmatic. What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy. This neg-entropy, he later explained in a footnote, as 'free energy'.

Any concept of free energy greatly disturbs physicists, who treat the second law as gospel. After all it is common knowledge that the ultimate source of all our energy and negative entropy is the radiation from the sun. Such scientists tried to explain away neg-entropy simply as entropy with a negative sign. But, to the astute scientist the meaning did not capture what Schroedinger intended the term to mean. He used it to identify the remarkable ability of the living system, to not only avoid the effects of entropy production, as dictated by the second law, but to do just the opposite and increase organization as a fractal expression, which intuitively is the converse of entropy. 1937 Nobel Laureate in medicine, Szent Gyorgy, alluded to both notions of free energy and organisation in his understanding of neg-entropy. Both scientists had the correct intuition where neg-entropy is concerned and it can be reasoned that this neg-entropic principle of order and freedom can be applied to protein folding within a quantum biological context. Energy and organization are certainly both intrinsically bound up with each other, as shown in fractal logic.

Energy content within a system is thereby divided into entropy, which is related to the haphazard thermal motion (molecular chaos) of molecules unavailable for work, and which tend to disappear at or close to absolute zero temperature. However, as has now been proven, neg-entropy kicks in before entropy can reach absolute zero. This is because free energy, which is in some way available for work, creates more energetic order. Also, as there need be no entropy generated in no loss, gain heat situations - which occur frequently in living systems - division into available and non-available energy cannot be absolute and can only exist as quantum probability. The difficulty of the no loss, no gain, heat energy scenario is related to the problem of Maxwell's demon (a hypothetical intelligent being who can open a microscopic trapdoor between two compartments of a container of gas at equilibrium in order to let fast molecules through in one direction, and the slow ones in the other, so that work can then be extracted from the system.)

For a while this challenge to second law domination puzzled science. However, in the 1950s it became evident that something like a Maxwell's demon could be achieved with little more than a trapdoor that opens in one-direction only and just requires a threshold amount of activation energy to open it. This is achievable in solid-state devices such as diodes and transistors that act as rectifiers.

The problem of Maxwell's demon is broadly considered as having been 'solved' by Austral-Hungarian Physicist, Leo Szilard, and later, French American Physicist, Leon Brillouin, who showed that the demon, being intelligent would receive required information about the molecules. The problem with this theory is that the energy used up in gaining the information would be greater that the energy gained. So, according to science the second law remains inviolate. Perhaps, what they have failed to take account is that the so-called information is already supplied by the special structure or organization of the system in which energy is stored. Biological membranes, in particular, are excitable structures poised for relaying and amplifying weak signals into the cell. Weak in this sense refers to weak electromagnetic frequencies, which are now known to hold most of our biological information.

What Chinese scientists, Liaofu Luo and Jun Lu have clearly shown is that protein folding is a quantum biological neg-entropic process based on fractal logic. With an infinite number of origami like shapes for proteins to fold into, their speed of geometric choice has to mean entanglement between protein shape and protein function. In other words the protein has an intuitive sensory perception that allows it to fold correctly, instantly, according to the universal law of form follows function.

Dispelling the Myths of Colloidal Silver

Some of you may well have heard of colloidal silver before, and some may have even worked with it. Others may have heard about it but have no idea what the term actually means and how it works. As it turns out, silver colloids are particularly useful mixtures which are widely used in laboratories all around the world.

The term colloidal silver was coined during the 1990s to describe a mixture containing silver nanoparticles whose silver content totals over 50% of the mixture. However, where many companies have come unstuck is in labelling their products as colloidal silver, without undergoing the detailed and often costly laboratory process to determine the exact levels of silver in their products. Many companies have advertised silver colloids, when the actual product on the shelves may be nothing of the sort.

So, how can you tell if a product is a true colloid or not?

There are a few telltale signs which show when the silver content of a solution is less than half. If the colour of a solution is clear then it is not colloidal silver. In actual fact, true silver colloids in natural light will be amber in colour, as the silver particles suspended in the liquid absorb light at a different wavelength to most liquids. It stands to reason that the darker amber a liquid appears, the higher the concentration of silver nanoparticles it contains and the purer the mixture will be.

Another sure fire method of recognising when a solution is not true silver colloid is when it has been labelled by the manufacturers as "mild silver protein" or "silver protein". The difference between these mixtures and true silver colloids are the size of the silver particles (a silver protein can be in the order of 100s of times bigger than a silver nanoparticle!). Of course there are plenty of other tests which show whether or not your solution is true colloidal silver or not, but as is so often the way with science, such tests are not quite so simple to perform outside of a laboratory.

Unfortunately, the trials do not stop there, as colloidal silver itself doesn't have a one size fits all approach, i.e. not all colloidal silver solutions have the same properties! If only life were so simple; the truth is that there are vast differences in the properties of silver colloids based on the concentration of nanoparticles, making the mixture suitable for use in varying applications. It is for this reason that if you wish to buy silver colloids, it is important you use an experienced producer of colloids that knows exactly how to engineer the perfect solution for your intended purpose.

Vacuums and a Vacuum

One of the wonders of the English language, and an aspect that is fairly unique compared to other languages, is how the same word and spelling can have different meanings (known as a homonym). Such is the case with the word "vacuum." Webster's Dictionary gives four different definitions for the term, but these can basically be boiled down into two different sets. The first is "a space absolutely devoid of matter." This phrase is used primarily in science, astronomy, and physics. To the layperson, this form of a vacuum rarely comes into play. The second is "a device creating a partial vacuum," which refers to machines that we commonly refer to as vacuums, with most American homes owning some form of a vacuum cleaner. These terms refer to different things, but the latter actually relies on the former to operate.

Let us focus first on the scientific and physics definition of vacuums. You probably remember your high school science teacher referring to how certain aspects of science hold true in a vacuum. For example, all objects would fall at the same rate in a vacuum regardless of weight, but in practice this is not true. Air resistance can lead to a piece of paper falling much more slowly than a bowling ball. A perfect vacuum is an area with absolutely no particles in it at all - this includes any form of air (gas). On Earth, it is almost impossible to achieve. Even in space, the occurrence of a total vacuum may be rare. Scientists are constantly discovering new things such as dark matter that make it more likely that even visible voids in space may contain particles of something. However, in laboratories, partial vacuums can be created that are void of enough particles to produce experiments that would behave very similar to how they would in a complete vacuum.

The vacuum cleaner, meanwhile, takes advantage of the vacuum in physics terms to create suction. This is done by creating pressure differentials that lead to air flowing from one area to another. Fluid dynamics dictates that air will flow from a region of high pressure to that of low pressure. For an example, think of the movies when a door is opened into outer space and everything inside the ship jets out. This occurs because the ship is higher pressure and outer space is low pressure. By creating a low pressure area within the vacuum cleaner, a small amount of air is sucked from outside in, creating suction at the end of the nozzle all the way into the canister. By this notion, the whole concept of suction (sucking) is actually a misnomer when applied to a vacuum cleaner. In reality, the air and lighter particles it surrounds (preferably dirt) is actually being pushed from the higher pressure area outside the cleaner into the storage canister.

It is interesting to see how physics terms relate to the devices we use every day. Now, you have some level of understanding of the relationship between voids in outer space and cleaning up your dirty floor.