Monday, December 25, 2006

Extra-terrestrial weather

Weather phenomena and systems on other planets are consideration to be similar to those on Earth, but often occur on a much bigger scale or involve different substances to those familiar to Earth dwellers. The Cassini-Huygens mission to Titan, for example, discovered clouds produced from methane or ethane which deposit rain composed of liquid methane and other organic compounds.

Extra-terrestrial weather systems can be extremely stable; one of the most famed landmarks in the solar system, Jupiter's Great Red Spot is an anticyclonic storm known to have existed for at least 300 years. On other gas giants, the lack of a surface allows the wind to reach huge speeds: gusts of up to 400 meters per second have been measured on the planet Neptune. This has created a puzzle for planetary scientists: The weather is created by the differential action of the Sun's energy on different places and the amount of energy received by Neptune is very, very small, relative to the Earth, yet the strength and magnitude of weather phenomena on Neptune is far, far greater than on Earth. This mystery is still to be solved.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Music

Music is an art, entertainment, or other human activity that involve organized and audible sounds and silence. It is expressed in terms of pitch, rhythm, harmony, and timbre. Music involves complex generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli mainly sound. As a human activity, music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The definition of what constitutes music varies according to culture and social context.

The broadest definition of music is organized sound. There are observable patterns to what is broadly labeled music, and while there are reasonable cultural variations, the properties of music are the properties of sound as perceived and processed by humans.A more conservative definition would be: Music is harmonious sound created by the playing of instruments as a whole or independently. It is a direct expression of human emotions designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music is designed to be felt unlike sound which is heard.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Animal

Animals are a main group of organisms, classified as the kingdom Animalia or Meta­zoa. In general they are multi­cellular, capable of locomotion, responsive to their environment, and feed by consuming other organisms. Their body plan becomes permanent as they develop, usually early on in their development as embryos, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on.

The word "animal" comes from the Latin word animal, of which animalia is the plural, and is derived from anima, meaning vital breath or soul. In everyday usage animal refers to any member of the animal kingdom that is not a human being, and sometimes excludes insects. The use of the word animal in law classically reflects the common pre-scientific use of the word, roughly equivalent to what modern biology would classify as nonhuman mammal. For example, wildlife laws normally use phrases such as "animals, birds and fish."

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Hail formation

Hail forms on condensation nuclei such as dust, bugs, or ice crystals, when super cooled water freezes on make contact with. In clouds contains large numbers of super cooled water droplets, these ice nuclei grow quickly at the expense of the liquid droplets because the saturation vapor pressure over ice is slightly less than the saturation vapor pressure over water. If the hail stones grow large enough, latent heat released by further freezing may melt the external shell of the hail stone. The development that follows, usually called wet growth, is more efficient because the liquid outer shell allows the stone to accrete other smaller hail stones in addition to super cooled droplets.

Once a hailstone become too heavy to be supported by the storm's updraft it falls out of the cloud. The reason rain can't fall, is typically because of the tough winds inside a thunderstorm cloud. These winds hold the rain and freeze it. As the process repeats, the hail grows gradually larger. When a hail stone is cut in half, a series of concentric rings, like that of an onion, are revealed. From these rings we can determine the total number of times the hail stone had traveled to the top of the storm before falling to the ground.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering, genetic modification and gene splicing are terms for the process of manipulating genes, usually outside the organism's normal reproductive process. It involves the isolation, manipulation and reintroduction of DNA into cells or model organisms, usually to express a protein. The aim is to introduce new characteristics or attributes physiologically or physically, such as making a crop resistant to a herbicide, introducing a novel trait, or producing a new protein or enzyme. Examples can include the production of human insulin through the use of modified bacteria, the production of erythropoietin in Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, and the production of new types of experimental mice such as the OncoMouse for research, through genetic redesign.

Since a protein is specified by a segment of DNA called a gene, future versions of that protein can be modified by changing the gene's underlying DNA. One way to do this is to isolate the piece of DNA containing the gene, precisely cut the gene out, and then reintroduce the gene into a different DNA segment. Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Smith received the 1978 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their isolation of restriction endonucleases, which are able to cut DNA at specific sites. Together with ligase, which can join fragments of DNA together, restriction enzymes formed the initial basis of recombinant DNA technology.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is a monument located in Agra, India, constructed in 22 years by a workforce of 22,000. The Muslim Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned its construction as a mausoleum for his favourite wife, Arjumand Bano Begum, who is better known as Mumtaz Mahal.

The Taj Mahal is generally considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements of Indian, Islamic and Persian architectures. The Taj Mahal has achieved special note because of the romance of its inspiration. While the white domed marble mausoleum is the most familiar part of the monument, the Taj Mahal is actually an integrated complex of structures.

Shah Jahan, who commissioned the monument, was a prolific patron with effectively limitless resources. He had previously created the gardens and palaces of Shalimar in honor of his wife, Mumtaz. After her death in childbirth Shah Jahan was reportedly inconsolable; the court chronicler 'Abd al-Hamid Lahawri tells us that before her death the emperor had but twenty white hairs in his beard, but thereafter many more. The contemporary court chroniclers paid an unusual amount of attention to Mumtaz Mahal's death and Shah Jahan's grief at her demise, and it may well be that the traditional "love-story"

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the walls of Babylon were considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. They were both supposedly built by Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC.
The lush Hanging Gardens are extensively documented by Greek historians such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, but otherwise there is little evidence for their existence. In fact, there are no Babylonian records of any such gardens having existed. Some evidence gathered at the excavation of the palace at Babylon has accrued, but does not completely substantiate what look like fanciful descriptions. Through the ages, the location may have been confused with gardens that existed at Nineveh, since tablets from there clearly show gardens. Writings on these tablets describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes' screw as a process of raising the water to the required height.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Conjoined twins

Conjoined twins, are monozygotic twins, whose bodies are joined together at birth. This occurs where the single zygote of identical twins fails to separate completely, and the zygote starts to split after day 13 following fertilization. This condition occurs in about 1 in 50,000 human pregnancies. Most conjoined twins are now evaluated for surgery to attempt to separate them into separate functional bodies. The degree of difficulty rises if a vital organ or structure is shared between twins, such as brain, heart or liver.

A chimera is an ordinary person or animal except that some of his or her parts actually came from his or her twin. A chimera may arise either from identical twin fetuses,or from dizygotic fetuses, which can be identified by chromosomal comparisons from various parts of the body. The number of cells derived from each fetus can vary from one part of the body to another, and often leads to characteristic mosaicism skin colouration in human chimeras. A chimera may be a hermaphrodite, composed of cells from a male twin and a female twin.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Psychology of education

Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Although the terms "educational psychology" and "school psychology" are often used interchangeably, researchers and theorists are likely to be identified as educational psychologists, whereas practitioners in schools or school-related settings are identified as school psychologists.
Educational psychology is concerned with the processes of educational attainment among the general population and sub-populations such as gifted children and those subject to specific disabilities.Educational psychology can in part be understood through its relationship with other disciplines. It is informed primarily by psychology, bearing a relationship to that discipline analogous to the relationship between medicine and biology.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Identical twins

Identical twins occur when a single egg is fertilized to form one zygote which then divides into two separate embryos. This is not considered to be a hereditary trait, but rather an anomaly that occurs in birthing at a rate of about 1:150 births worldwide, regardless of ethnic background. The two embryos develop into fetuses sharing the same womb. When one egg is fertilized by one sperm cell, and then divides and separates, two identical cells will result. Depending on the stage at which the zygote divides, identical twins may share the same amnion, which can cause complications in pregnancy.

For example, the umbilical cords of monoamniotic twins can become entangled, reducing or interrupting the blood supply to the developing fetus. About 50% of mono-mono twins die from umbilical cord entanglement. Monochorionic twins, sharing one placenta, usually also share the placental blood supply. These twins may develop such that blood passes disproportionately from one twin to the other through connecting blood vessels within their shared placenta, leading to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Genetics

Genetics is the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organisms. The word genetics was first suggested to describe the study of inheritance and the science of variation by the prominent British scientist William Bateson in a personal letter to Adam Sedgwick, dated April 18, 1905. Bateson first used the term genetics publicly at the Third International Conference on Genetics London, England in 1906.

Heredity and variations form the basis of genetics. Humans applied knowledge of genetics in prehistory with the domestication and breeding of plants and animals. In modern research, genetics provides important tools for the investigation of the function of a particular gene, e.g., analysis of genetic interactions. Within organisms, genetic information generally is carried in chromosomes, where it is represented in the chemical structure of particular DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecules.

Genes encode the information necessary for synthesizing the amino-acid sequences in proteins, which in turn play a large role in determining the final phenotype, or physical appearance, of the organism. In diploid organisms, a dominant allele on one chromosome will mask the expression of a recessive gene on the other.The phrase to code for is often used to mean a gene contains the instructions about how to build a particular protein, as in the gene codes for the protein. The one gene, one protein concept is now known to be simplistic. For example, a single gene may produce multiple products, depending on how its transcription is regulated. Genes code for the nucleotide sequences in mRNA, tRNA and rRNA, required for protein synthesis.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Music

Music is an art, entertainment, or other human activity that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. It is expressed in terms of pitch, rhythm, harmony, and timbre. Music involves complex generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli, principally sound. As a human activity, music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The definition of what constitutes music varies according to culture and social context.

The broadest definition of music is organized sound. There are observable patterns to what is broadly labeled music, and while there are understandable cultural variations, the properties of music are the properties of sound as perceived and processed by humans.A more conservative definition would be: Music is harmonious sound created by the playing of instruments as a whole or individually. It is a direct expression of human emotions designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music is designed to be felt unlike sound which is heard.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is a scientific discipline that studies the structure, function, development, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, and pathology of the nervous system. Traditionally it is seen as a branch of biological sciences. However, recently there has been of convergence of interest from many allied disciplines, including psychology, computer science, statistics, physics, and medicine. The scope of neuroscience has now broadened to include any systematic scientific experimental and theoretical investigation of the central and peripheral nervous system of biological organisms.
The methodologies employed by neuroscientists have been enormously expanded, from biochemical and genetic analysis of dynamics of individual nerve cells and their molecular constituents to imaging representations of perceptual and motor tasks in the brain.
Furthermore, neuroscience is at the frontier of investigation of the brain and mind. The study of the brain is becoming the cornerstone in understanding how we perceive and interact with the external world and, in particular, how human experience and human biology influence each other.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Dance

Dance from Old French dancier, perhaps from Frankish generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting.Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication between humans or animals bee dance, mating dance, motion in inanimate objects the leaves danced in the wind, and certain musical forms or genres.Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who does this is called a choreographer. Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. In sports, gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are dance disciplines while Martial arts 'kata' are often compared to dances.

Unlike some early human activities such as the production of stone tools, hunting, cave painting, etc., dance does not leave behind physical artifacts for immediate evidence. Thus, it is impossible to say with any certainty when dance became part of human culture. However, dance has certainly been an important part of ceremony, rituals, celebrations and entertainment since the birth of the earliest human civilizations. Archaeology delivers traces of dance from prehistoric times such as gyptian tomb paintings depicting dancing figures from circa 3300 BC and the Bhimbetka rock-shelter paintings in India.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Naturalization

In law, naturalization is the act whereby a person voluntarily and actively acquires a nationality which is not his or her nationality at birth. Naturalization is most associated with economic migrants or refugees who have immigrated to a country and resided there as an alien, and who have voluntarily chosen to become a citizen of that country after meeting specific requirements. Denaturalization is the reverse of naturalization, when a state deprives one of its citizens of his or her citizenship. After World War I, many European countries, including democracies, passed denaturalization laws, of which the 1935 Nuremberg Laws remained the most famous.

In general, basic requirements for naturalization are that the applicant hold a legal status as a full-time resident for a minimum period of time and that the applicant promise to obey and uphold that country's laws, to which an oath or pledge of allegiance is sometimes added. Some countries also require that a naturalized national must renounce any other nationalities that he currently holds, forbidding dual citizenship, but whether this renunciation actually causes loss of the person's original nationalities will again depend on the laws of the countries involved.

Nationality is traditionally either based on jus soli or on jus sanguinis, although it now usually mixes both. Whatever the case, the massive increase in population flux due to globalization and the sharp increase in the numbers of refugees following World War I has created an important class of non-citizens, sometimes called denizens. In some rare cases, procedures of mass naturalization were passed.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Digital audio

Digital audio is a technology has emerged because of its supreme usefulness to sound recording, manipulation, mass-production and distribution. The modern day distribution of music across the internet through on-line stores depends on digital recording, and digital compression algorithms. "Dematerialization" of the music software into computer files has significantly reduced costs of distribution. However, it has brought about the concomitant rise in music sharing thorough peer to peer networks

From the Long-play gramophone record and compact cassette, the 78 RPM vinyl records and wax cylinders before them, analogue audio music storage and reproduction have been based on the same principles upon which human hearing are based. Sounds begin and end as mechanical energy wave forms in air, are captured in said wave form, and transformed into an electrical energy by a microphone transducer. Although its nature may change, its fundamental wave-like characteristics remain unchanged during its storage, transformation, duplication, amplification. Up until very recently, analogue audio is susceptible to significant information loss, as noise and distortions tend to creep in at each stage.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in North West England, situated along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary.
Built across a ridge of hills rising up to a height of around 70 meters above sea-level at Everton Hill, the city's urban area runs directly into Bootle and Crosby in Sefton to the north, and Huyton and Prescot in Knowsley to the east. It faces Wallasey and Birkenhead across the River Mersey to the west. The city centre is located about 5 miles inland from Liverpool Bay and the Irish Sea.
Liverpool is governed by Liverpool City Council, one of five councils within the Metropolitan county of Merseyside, and is one of England's core cities and it’s fifth most populous. The population of Liverpool in 2002 was 441,477, and that of the Merseyside conurbation was 1,362,026.
Inhabitants of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians and nicknamed "Scousers", in reference to the local meal known as 'scouse', a form of stew. The name Scouse has also become synonymous with the Liverpool accent.
In the late 19th century, Liverpool laid claim to being the "Second Port of the Empire", handling more goods than any British city outside London. It also became a major industrial centre. However, during the 20th century it lost most of its manufacturing base and was in economic decline; it is still one of the poorest areas of Britain.
Liverpool is famous as a cultural centre, particularly for its connections with modern popular music; the city is the birthplace of The Beatles. In 2008, Liverpool will hold the European Capital of Culture title.
In 2007, the city will be celebrating its 800th anniversary.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Racism:

Racism:

It refers to belief systems maintaining that the essential value of an individual person can be determined according to a perceived or ascribed racial category and that social discrimination by race is therefore justifiable. The word it self mean that it appeared in the 1930’s both in English as well as in French. Such discrimination generally includes the belief that people differ in aptitudes and abilities such as intelligence, physical prowess, or virtue according to their races. Many who use the concept of racial categories believe that different races can be placed on a ranked, hierarchical scale. It could also be said as the act of separating groups according to these ascribed race categories. In doing so the term receives the appropriate -ism ending, meaning the practice or act of doing such as described above.

Monday, July 17, 2006

germany cricket up date

In August, Germany will participate in Division Two of the European Championship. They are drawn in the same group as Gibraltar, Greece and Guernsey. The other group consists of France, Israel, Jersey and Norway. A top two finish in this tournament will give them a chance at qualification for the 2011 World Cup.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

polka dot jersey

To host a stage start or finish brings prestige, and a lot of business, to a town. Whereas formerly each stage would start at the preceding stage's finish line, making a conrom the previous day's finish, to as between stages, requiring a rest day tge of the Tour are particularly prestigious to host. Usually one town will hs, like 2005, there is no prologue. The Tour alternates between starting inside and outside France; traditionally, the first few stages are in a nthe points and the mountain c Tallied at the endch stage, the current leaders of the three competitions are required to wear a corresponding, distinctly coloured, jersey during tr leads in the competition for more than one jersey, they wear the most prestigious jersey to which they are entitled, and the second-placed rider in each of the other classificationt is common for the overall classification (yellow jersey) and points (sprint) competition (green jersey) to be led by the same rider. In this case the leading rider will wear the yellow jersey and the rider placed second in the points competition will wear the green jersey.
A rider who leads a classification for a stage of the Tour gets three copies of the coloured jersey. The jersey bears their team logo, and the copy that they are awarded immediately after rapid process that can be done in the field but which yields an inferior y. Overnight, a high-quality jersey is printed to be wo next day. They also get a metimes damaged by the day's cyclingcolours have been adopted by otherstage races, and have thus come to have meaning within cyclith the same meaning as in the Tour de France. The Giro d'Italia notably differs in awarding the overall n Italian sports daily newspaper with pink pages. Its King ofrn by the overall time leader, is most prized. It is aware leader to omething distinctive and because the pages of his magazine, Lollow. Additional time bonuses, in the form of a number of seconds to be deducted from the rider's ate sprint (see below). As of 2005, the first 3 places to finish are awarded bonuses of 20, 12 and 8 secondsile the first 3 places at intermediate sprints are awarded 6, 4 and 2 seconds. However, these bonuses are rarely significant enough to cause major upset in the classement géneral (general classification).
Sometimes a rider takes the overall lead during a stage and gets sufficiently far ahead of thersey wearer such that his current time lead is greater than his time deficit to the yellow jersey in the generallow jersey on the road". No jerseys are exchanged in this situatiodots (maillot à pois rouges), referred to as the "polka dot jersey". At the top of each climb in the Tour, there are points for the riders who are first over the top. The climbs are divided into categories from 1 (mcult) to 4 (least difficult) based on their difficulty, measured as a function of their steepness and length. A fifth category, called Hors categorie (outside c is formed by mountains even more difficult than those of the first category.
Although the best climber was first recognized in 1933, the distinctive jersey was not introduced until 1975. The colours were decided by the then sponsor, Poulain Chocolate, to match a pothem awards the leader with a jersey. The maillot blanc (white jersey) r with moge, it is not always so, especially during flat stagesFinally, theteam classification. For this classification, the time of the first tree riders from each team is added after each stage. The Tour currently has 22 wear their national jerseys in "ordinary stages"; the current world champion can wear the rainbow jersey. National time-trial champions are wear their natirseys in time-trial stages only. National championships are held the weekend before the tour starts, and many of the tour favourites and team leaders do not compete in them. Often, therefore, national championship titles are held by domestiques or young, "up-and-coming" riders.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Home Accents


Making judgments of value requires a basis for criticism: a way to determine whether the impact of the object on the senses meets the criteria to be considered art, whether it is perceived to be ugly or beautiful. Perception is always colored by experience, so a reaction to art as 'ugly' or 'beautiful' is necessarily subjective. The Framed Art is used as home accents.

Because of its elusive nature, "good" art is not always, or even regularly, appealing. In other words, it does not have to be "nice-looking", and often depicts terrible images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons. Coat Hangers are used for home decorations.

Countless schools have proposed their own ways to define quality, yet they all seem to agree in at least one point once their aesthetic choices are accepted, the home decorations, value of the work of art is determined by its capacity to transcend the limits of its chosen medium in order to strike some universal chord (which, oddly enough, tends to be the most personal one).

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Advantages of debt consolidation

1. Reduction of average interest rate:
Taking multiple credit interest rate (which varies from one credit card to another) in to account will have a high interest when compared to one single credit interest for the whole amount with a low interest rate. So an individual may choose this option to reduce his interest rate.

2. Reduction to one credit payment:
An individual may use many credit cards and pay his bills for all the credit cards. This may need a good management technique depending up on the number of cards in use. If you use more number of credit cards then the planning need to be done more appropriately and executed timely where as if you have one credit card your job is done in a way simple and easily executable. One hence opts to shift from multiple loan payments to one loan payment program replacing all the rest.

3. Reduction of past interest or penalty charges:
One opting for debt consolidation may go for reduction of past interest or penalty charges paid for the borrowed amount under certain options. Options include high interest rate or penalty charges placed for the credited amount, when the total amount paid in the history till date exceeds the borrowed amount, or if it is a very long duration payment program going for 5 yrs or above. Under each case stated one can reduce the past interest and penalty charges or sometimes even eliminate those and pay only the amount borrowed.

4. Obtaining a payment plan:
This payment plan is given to the consumer analyzing the capability of an individual by thoroughly going through the personal needs of an individual, his responsibilities etc after which the debt consolidator restructures the existing plans taken by the consumer.

5. Becoming debt free at a faster rate:
Taking debt consolidation program relieves a person from debts at a faster rate than the usual time, which is required to come out of the debt. Following the plans given by a debt consolidator and proper execution of the plan will surely make an individual debt free and obtain high credit scores.

Credit score

The credit score is calculated using a formula provided by the Fair Isaac Corporation under the act of FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act ). The three national bureaucrats dealing with credit reports are Equifax, Experian and Trans Union. The credit report can vary between these three credit bureaus since the credit reporters do not submit the reports in all three bureaus. Basically it is the procedure that one‘s credit report is the average taken from the values of these three bureaus. There may be a small difference existing between these bureaucracies credit reports which doesn’t seem to harm any of the customers credit score hence no issue has arisen till now in regards to the above.

Grisaille paintings

Grisaille is not a paintings type by its own but an initial step in oil painting. It is the step representing lighter shades of the image to be painted. This type grisaille grey is basically a painting in lighter grey shade (followed as per the rules of oil painting the darker painting section follows the lighter colors to be implemented in oil painting) before the whole painting is all done. This painting is executed entirely on monochrome in various shades of grey which can also be used for decorative purposes such as representing an object in relief.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Reverse Osmosis

Common use for Reverse osmosis is in purifying water where it produces water, which is in demand at all, places. One of the finest filtration under Reverse Osmosis is Hyper Filtration, where the removals of particles are as small as ions. In this Process, water gets purified and the various salts and other impurities are removed to improve the Properties of fluid, its taste as well as color.

Reverse osmosis occurs when the water is moved across the membrane against the concentration gradient, from lower concentration to higher concentration. It thus purifies water by ejecting out fluids, inorganic chemicals such as nitrates, calcium, and magnesium, other ions and contaminants.

It uses a semi-permeable membrane, allowing the fluid that is being purified to pass through it. Most of the reverse osmosis technology procedures undergoes a cross flow Process to allow the membrane to clean itself periodically. As some of the fluid gets rested in downstream, continuous cross-flow process helps or sweeps out the rejected species away from the membrane.