Lantern Fishes

Lantern Fishes

Kingdom:

Animalia

Phylum:
Chordata

Class:
Actinopterygii

Order:
Myctophiformes

Family:
Myctophidae

Lanternfishes are small, deep sea fish of the large family Myctophidae. One of two families in the order Myctophiformes, the Myctophidae are represented by 246 species in 33 genera, having a circumglobal distribution. They are aptly named after their conspicuous use of bioluminescence. Their sister family, the Neoscopelidae, is much fewer in number but superficially very similar; at least one neoscopelid shares the common name 'lanternfish': The large-scaled lantern fish, Neoscopelus macrolepidotus.
Sampling via deep trawling indicates that, together with the bristlemouths (Gonostomatidae) and lightfishes (Phosichthyidae), lanternfish account for as much as 90% of all deep sea fish biomass. Indeed, lanternfish are among the most widely distributed, populous, and diverse of all vertebrates, playing an important ecological role as prey for larger organisms. With an estimated global biomass of 550 - 660 million metric tonnes, several times the entire world fisheries catch, lanternfish also account for much of the biomass responsible for the deep scattering layer of the world's oceans. In the Southern Ocean, Myctophids provide an alternative food resource to krill for predators such as squid and the King Penguin. Although plentiful and prolific, currently only a few commercial lanternfish fisheries exist: These include limited operations off South Africa, in the sub-Antarctic, and in the Gulf of Oman.
Myctophid morphology is typified by a slender, compressed body covered in small, silvery deciduous cycloid scales (ctenoid in four species), a large bluntly rounded head, large elliptical to round lateral eyes (dorsolateral in Protomyctophum species), and a large terminal mouth with jaws closely set with rows of small teeth. The fins are generally small, with a single high dorsal fin, an adipose fin, and an anal fin—supported by a cartilaginous plate at its base—originating under or slightly behind the posterior end of the dorsal fin; the caudal fin is forked. The pectoral fins, usually with eight rays, may be large and well-developed to small and degenerate, or completely absent in a few species; the pectorals are greatly elongated in others, such as Lampanyctus species. The gas bladder is present in most lanternfish, but it degenerates or fills with lipids during the maturation of a few species. The lateral line is uninterrupted.
Lanternfish are well-known for their diel vertical migrations: during daylight hours most species remain within the gloomy bathypelagic zone, between 300 – 1,200 m depth; but towards sundown the fish begin to rise into the epipelagic zone, between 10 and 100 m depth. The lanternfish are thought to do this in order to avoid predation, and because they are following the diel vertical migrations of zooplankton upon which the lanternfish feed. After a night spent feeding in the surface layers of the water column, the lanternfish begin to descend back into the lightless depths and are gone by daybreak. Most species remain near to the coast, schooling over the continental slope. Different species are known to segregate themselves by depth, forming dense, discrete conspecific layers — this is believed to be a means of avoiding interspecies competition. Due to the lanternfishes' gas bladders, these layers are visible on sonar scans and give the impression of a "false bottom": this is the so-called deep-scattering layer that so perplexed early oceanographers.
It should be noted that there is great variability in migration patterns within the family. Some deeper-living species may not migrate at all, while others may do so only sporadically. Migration patterns may also be dependent on life history stage, sex, latitude, and season.
The arrangements of lanternfish photophores are different for each species, so it is assumed that their bioluminescence plays a role in intraspecies communication, specifically in shoaling and courtship behaviour. The concentration of the photophores on the flanks of the fish also indicate the light's use as camouflage: in a strategy termed counterillumination, the lanternfish regulate the brightness of the bluish light emitted by their photophores to match the ambient light level above, effectively masking the lanternfishes' silhouette when viewed from below.
A major source of food for many marine animals, lanternfish are an important link in the food chain of many local ecosystems, being heavily preyed upon by cetaceans, including whales and dolphins; large pelagic fish such as tuna and sharks; grenadiers and other deep-sea fish (including other lanternfish); pinnipeds; sea birds, notably penguins; and large squid such as the jumbo squid, Dosidicus gigas.

Endangered Species

Asian Arowana ->
Loggerhead Sea Turtle ->

Endangered Species

An endangered species is a population of an organism which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters. An endangered species is usually a taxonomic species, but may be another evolutionary significant unit. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has calculated the percentage of endangered species as 40 percent of all organisms based on the sample of species that have been evaluated through 2006. (Note: the IUCN groups all threatened species for their summary purposes.) Many nations have laws offering protection to these species: for example, forbidding hunting, restricting land development or creating preserves. Only a few of the many species at risk of extinction actually make it to the lists and obtain legal protection. Many more species become extinct, or potentially will become extinct, without gaining public notice.
The conservation status of a species is an indicator of the likelihood of that endangered species not living. Many factors are taken into account when assessing the conservation status of a species; not simply the number remaining, but the overall increase or decrease in the population over time, breeding success rates, known threats, and so on. The IUCN Red List is the best known conservation status listing.
Internationally, 189 countries have signed an accord agreeing to create Biodiversity Action Plans to protect endangered and other threatened species. In the United States this plan is usually called a species Recovery Plan.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species uses the term endangered species as a specific category of imperilment, rather than as a general term. Under the IUCN Categories and Criteria, endangered species is between critically endangered and vulnerable. Also critically endangered species may also be counted as endangered species and fill all the criteria
The more general term used by the IUCN for species at risk of extinction is threatened species, which also includes the less-at-risk category of vulnerable species together with endangered and critically endangered.
Some endangered species laws are controversial. Typical areas of controversy include: criteria for placing a species on the endangered species list, and criteria for removing a species from the list once its population has recovered; whether restrictions on land development constitute a "taking" of land by the government; the related question of whether private landowners should be compensated for the loss of use of their land; and obtaining reasonable exceptions to protection laws.
Being listed as an endangered species can have negative effect since it could make a species more desirable for collectors and poachers. This effect is potentially reduce-able, such as in China where commercially farmed turtles may be reducing some of the pressure to poach endangered species.
Another problem with listing species is its effect of inciting the use of the "shoot, shovel, and shut-up" method of clearing endangered species from an area of land. Some landowners currently may perceive a diminution in value for their land after finding an endangered animal on it. They have allegedly opted to silently kill and bury the animals or destroy habitat, thus removing the problem from their land, but at the same time further reducing the population of an endangered species. The effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act, which coined the term "endangered species", has been questioned by business advocacy groups and their publications, but is nevertheless widely recognized as an effective recovery tool by wildlife scientists who work with the species. Nineteen species have been delisted and recovered and 93% of listed species have a recovering or stable population.

Some endangered animals:
- Island Fox
- Sea Otter
- American Bison
- California Condor
- Loggerhead Sea Turtle
- Santa-Cruz Long-Toed Salamander
- Asian Arowana

Devil Frog

Devil Frog

Beelzebufo ampinga was a particularly large species of prehistoric frog first identified in 2007. Common names assigned by the media include "Devil Frog", "Devil Toad", and "the Frog from Hell". Fossils of Beelzebufo have been recovered from strata dating to the late Cretaceous Period, some 70 million years ago.

The generic name Beelzebufo is a portmanteau of Beelzebub (a Semitic deity sometimes identified as one of the chief lieutenants, or persona of the Judeo-Christian Devil) and bufo (Latin for "toad"). The specific name ampinga means "shield" in Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar.

The species may have grown to over 40 cm (16 in.) and four kg (10 lb.) — larger than any living frogs, including the largest known species, the goliath frog, which can be up to 32 cm (12.5 in.).

Although Beelzebufo appears to have lived in what is now Madagascar, it superficially resembled its closest living relatives, the horned toads of South America, marketed as pacman frogs in the United States pet trade. Modern pacman frogs grow to 15 cm (6 in.) long.
Richard Lane, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences, said "The occurrence of this frog in Madagascar and its relatives' existence in South America provides strong evidence that the supercontinent Gondwana 'disassembled' during the latest part of the Cretaceous."

In comparison with the living horned frogs, Beelzebufo was a rapacious predator that would have attacked any animal that could fit into its capacious mouth, and would have been capable of eating relatively large prey, perhaps even juvenile dinosaurs. Beelzebufo was probably a dry-land frog, living in arid environments and ambushing prey.
The first fossil fragments were found in 1993 by David W. Krause of New York's Stony Brook University, but it took 14 years for scientists Susan E. Evans, Marc E. H. Jones, and Krause to assemble enough data for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences. Some 75 fossil fragments have been found. Researchers have been able to reconstruct parts of the frog's skeleton, including nearly the entire skull.

The Bug's Life (Sparing Times Edition)

Sparing Times

See from your nearest sight, then their lifes will look beautiful. Spare a little of times to see, and maybe they will give something useful. It's a truth that there are only few peoples that look at the insect that share life space with us. But, in fact, they make the gardens and parks as living places for themselves.

Global Warming

Global Warming

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation.

The global average air temperature near the Earth's surface rose 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations" via the greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward. These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. While individual scientists have voiced disagreement with some findings of the IPCC, the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree with the IPCC's main conclusions.

Climate model projections summarized by the IPCC indicate that average global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the 21st century. The range of values results from the use of differing scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions as well as models with differing climate sensitivity. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming and sea level rise are expected to continue for more than a thousand years even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized. The delay in reaching equilibrium is a result of the large heat capacity of the oceans.

Increasing global temperature will cause sea level to rise, and is expected to increase the intensity of extreme weather events and to change the amount and pattern of precipitation. Other effects of global warming include changes in agricultural yields, trade routes, glacier retreat, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.

Remaining scientific uncertainties include the amount of warming expected in the future, and how warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe. Most national governments have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but there is ongoing political and public debate worldwide regarding what, if any, action should be taken to reduce or reverse future warming or to adapt to its expected consequences.

Cell

Cell

The cell is the structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of an organism that is classified as living, and is sometimes called the building block of life. Some organisms, such as most bacteria, are unicellular (consist of a single cell). Other organisms, such as humans, are multicellular. (Humans have an estimated 100 trillion or 1014 cells; a typical cell size is 10 µm; a typical cell mass is 1 nanogram.) The largest known cell is an ostrich egg. In 1837 before the final cell theory was developed, a Czech Jan Evangelista Purkyně observed small "granules" while looking at the plant tissue through a microscope. The cell theory, first developed in 1839 by Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann, states that all organisms are composed of one or more cells. All cells come from preexisting cells. Vital functions of an organism occur within cells, and all cells contain the hereditary information necessary for regulating cell functions and for transmitting information to the next generation of cells.

All cells have several different abilities:
-Reproduction by cell division: (binary fission/mitosis or meiosis).
-Use of enzymes and other proteins coded for by DNA genes and made via messenger RNA intermediates and ribosomes.
-Metabolism, including taking in raw materials, building cell components, converting energy, molecules and releasing by-products. The functioning of a cell depends upon its ability to extract and use chemical energy stored in organic molecules. This energy is released and then used in metabolic pathways.
-Response to external and internal stimuli such as changes in temperature, pH or levels of nutrients.
-Cell contents are contained within a cell surface membrane that is made from a lipid bilayer with proteins embedded in it.

There are two types of cells: eukaryotic and prokaryotic. Prokaryotic cells are usually independent, while eukaryotic cells are often found in multicellular organisms.

Mushroom

Mushroom

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, hence the word mushroom is most often applied to fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) on the underside of the cap just as do store-bought white mushrooms.

However, "mushroom" can also refer to a wide variety of gilled fungi, with or without stems, and the term is used even more generally to describe both the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota and the woody or leathery fruiting bodies of some Basidiomycota, depending upon the context of the word. Forms deviating from the standard form usually have more specific names, such as "puffball", "stinkhorn", and "morel", and gilled mushrooms themselves are often called "agarics" in reference to their similarity to Agaricus or their placement in the order Agaricales. By extension, "mushroom" can also designate the entire fungus when in culture or the thallus (called a mycelium) of species forming the fruiting bodies called mushrooms.

Identifying mushrooms requires a basic understanding of their macroscopic structure. Most are Basidiomycetes and gilled. Their spores, called basidiospores, are produced on the gills and fall in a fine rain of powder from under the caps as a result. At the microscopic level the basidiospores are shot off of basidia and then fall between the gills in the dead air space. As a result, for most mushrooms, if the cap is cut off and placed gill-side-down overnight, a powdery impression reflecting the shape of the gills (or pores, or spines, etc.) is formed (when the fruitbody is sporulating). The color of the powdery print, called a spore print, is used to help classify mushrooms and can help to identify them. Spore print colors include white (most common), brown, black, purple-brown, pink, yellow, and cream, but almost never blue, green, or red.

While modern identification of mushrooms is quickly becoming molecular, the standard methods for identification are still used by most and have developed into a fine art harking back to medieval times and the Victorian era, combined with microscopic examination. The presence of juices upon breaking, bruising reactions, odors, tastes, shades of color, habitat, habit, and season are all considered by mycologists, amateur and professional alike. Tasting and smelling mushrooms carries its own hazards because of poisons and allergens. Chemical spot tests are also used for some genera.

In general, identification to genus can often be accomplished in the field using a local mushroom guide. Identification to species, however, requires more effort; one must remember that a mushroom develops from a button stage into a mature structure, and only the latter can provide certain characteristics needed for the identification of the species. However, over-mature specimens lose features and cease producing spores. Many novices have mistaken humid water marks on paper for white spore prints, or discolored paper from oozing liquids on lamella edges for colored spored prints.

Though mushrooms are thought to be short-lived, the fungus that forms the mushroom fruitbodies can itself be long-lived and massive. A colony of Armillaria ostoyae in Malheur National Forest in the United States is estimated to be 2,400 years old, possibly older, and spans an estimated 2,200 acres. Most of the fungus is underground and in decaying wood or dying tree roots in the form of white mycelia combined with black shoelace-like rhizomorphs that bridge colonized separated woody substrates.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

Monosodium glutamate, sodium glutamate, flavour enhancer 621, EU food additive code: E621, HS code: 29224220 (IUPAC name 2-aminopentanedioic acid. Also known as 2-aminoglutaric acid), commonly known as MSG, Ajinomoto, Vetsin, or Accent, is a sodium salt of glutamic acid. MSG is a food additive and it is commonly marketed as a "flavour enhancer".

Although traditional Asian cuisine uses flavour-enhancing ingredients which contain high concentrations of MSG, it was not isolated until 1907. MSG was subsequently patented by the Japanese Ajinomoto Corporation in 1909. In its pure form, it appears as a white crystalline powder; when dissolved in water (or saliva) it rapidly dissociates into sodium cations and glutamate anions (glutamate is the anionic form of glutamic acid, a naturally occurring amino acid).

Under Standard conditions for temperature and pressure, MSG is stable, but it reacts with strong oxidizing agents. Two chiral enantiomers exist for monosodium glutamate, but only the naturally occurring L-glutamate form is used as a flavour enhancer.
The Ajinomoto Company was formed to manufacture and market MSG in Japan; the name 'Ajinomoto' means "essence of taste". It was introduced to the United States in 1947 as Ac'cent flavor enhancer.

Modern commercial MSG is produced by fermentation of starch, sugar beets, sugar cane, or molasses. About 1.5 million metric tons were sold in 2001, with 4% annual growth expected. MSG is used commercially as a flavour enhancer. Once stereotypically associated with food in Chinese restaurants in America, it is now found in some common food products consumed in the US.
Only the L-glutamate enantiomer has flavour-enhancing properties. Manufactured MSG contains over 99.6% of the naturally predominant L-glutamate form, which is a higher proportion of L-glutamate than found in the free glutamate ions of naturally occurring foods. Fermented products like soy sauce, steak sauce, and Worcestershire sauce have comparable levels of glutamate as foods with added MSG. However, glutamate in these brewed products may be composed 5% or more of the D-enantiomer.

Earthquake

Earthquake

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are recorded with a seismometer, also known as a seismograph. The moment magnitude of an earthquake is conventionally reported, or the related and mostly obsolete Richter magnitude, with magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes being mostly imperceptible and magnitude 7 causing serious damage over large areas. Intensity of shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale.

At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by a shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground. When a large earthquake epicenter is located offshore, the seabed sometimes suffers sufficient displacement to cause a tsunami. The shaking in earthquakes can also trigger landslides and occasionally volcanic activity.

In its most generic sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event—whether a natural phenomenon or an event caused by humans—that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of geological faults, but also by volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear experiments.

An earthquake's point of initial rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The term epicenter means the point at ground level directly above this.

Most naturally occurring earthquakes are related to the tectonic nature of the Earth. Such earthquakes are called tectonic earthquakes. The Earth's lithosphere is a patchwork of plates in slow but constant motion caused by the release to space of the heat in the Earth's mantle and core. The heat causes the rock in the Earth to flow on geological timescales, so that the plates move slowly but surely. Plate boundaries lock as the plates move past each other, creating frictional stress. When the frictional stress exceeds a critical value, called local strength, a sudden failure occurs. The boundary of tectonic plates along which failure occurs is called the fault plane. When the failure at the fault plane results in a violent displacement of the Earth's crust, energy is released as a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface, and cracking of the rock, thus causing an earthquake. This process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden earthquake failure is referred to as the Elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of an earthquake's total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the earthquake's energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth or is converted into heat generated by friction. Therefore, earthquakes lower the Earth's available elastic potential energy and raise its temperature, though these changes are negligible compared to the conductive and convective flow of heat out from the Earth's deep interior.

The majority of tectonic earthquakes originate at depths not exceeding tens of kilometers. In subduction zones, where older and colder oceanic crust descends beneath another tectonic plate, Deep focus earthquakes may occur at much greater depths (up to seven hundred kilometers). These seismically active areas of subduction are known as Wadati-Benioff zones. These are earthquakes that occur at a depth at which the subducted lithosphere should no longer be brittle, due to the high temperature and pressure. A possible mechanism for the generation of deep focus earthquakes is faulting caused by olivine undergoing a phase transition into a spinel structure.

Earthquakes also often occur in volcanic regions and are caused there, both by tectonic faults and by the movement of magma in volcanoes. Such earthquakes can serve as an early warning of volcanic eruptions.

Sometimes a series of earthquakes occur in a sort of earthquake storm, where the earthquakes strike a fault in clusters, each triggered by the shaking or stress redistribution of the previous earthquakes. Similar to aftershocks but on adjacent segments of fault, these storms occur over the course of years, and with some of the later earthquakes as damaging as the early ones. Such a pattern was observed in the sequence of about a dozen earthquakes that struck the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey in the 20th century, the half dozen large earthquakes in New Madrid in 1811-1812, and has been inferred for older anomalous clusters of large earthquakes in the Middle East and in the Mojave Desert.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a technique of inserting and manipulating filiform needles into points on the body with the aim of relieving pain and for therapeutic purposes. Acupuncture is thought to have originated in China and is most commonly associated with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Different types of acupuncture (Classical Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Korean acupuncture) are practiced and taught throughout the world.

The effectiveness of acupuncture remains controversial in the scientific community, according to a review by Edzard Ernst and colleagues in 2007, which found that the body of evidence was growing, research is active, and that the "emerging clinical evidence seems to imply that acupuncture is effective for some but not all conditions". Researchers using the protocols of evidence-based medicine have found good evidence that acupuncture is moderately effective in preventing nausea. There is conflicting evidence that it can treat chronic low back pain, and moderate evidence of efficacy for neck pain and headache. For most other conditions reviewers have found either a lack of efficacy (e.g., help in quitting smoking) or have concluded that there is insufficient evidence to determine whether acupuncture is effective (e.g., treating shoulder pain). While little is known about the mechanisms by which acupuncture may act, a review of neuroimaging research suggests that specific acupuncture points have distinct effects on cerebral activity in specific areas that are not otherwise predictable anatomically.

The WHO, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Medical Association (AMA) and various government reports have also studied and commented on the efficacy of acupuncture. There is also general agreement that acupuncture is safe when administered by well-trained practitioners, and that further research is warranted.

Traditional Chinese medicine's acupuncture theory predates the use of the modern scientific method, and has received various criticisms based on modern scientific thinking. There is no generally-accepted anatomical or histological basis for the existence of acupuncture points or meridians. Acupuncturists tend to perceive TCM concepts in functional rather than structural terms, i.e. as being useful in guiding evaluation and care of patients. Scientists have reported a cultural bias in scientific studies of acupuncture.

Most acupuncture points are found along the "fourteen channels", which are described in TCM as pathways through which Qi and Blood flow. There also exist "extra points" not belonging to any channel. Other tender points (known as "ashi points") may also be needled as they are believed to be where stagnation has gathered.

Treatment of acupuncture points may be performed along several layers of pathways, most commonly the twelve primary channels, or mai, located throughout the body. The first twelve channels correspond to systems of function: Lung, Large Intestine, Stomach, Spleen, Heart, Small Intestine, Bladder, Kidney, Pericardium, San Jiao (an intangible, also known as Triple Burner), Gall Bladder, and Liver. Other pathways include the Eight Extraordinary Pathways (Qi Jing Ba Mai), the Luo Vessels, the Divergents and the Sinew Channels. Ashi (tender) points are generally used for treatment of local pain.

Of the eight extraordinary pathways, only two have acupuncture points of their own: the Ren Mai and Du Mai, which are situated on the midline of the anterior and posterior aspects of the trunk and head respectively. The other six meridians are "activated" by using a master and couple point technique which involves needling the acupuncture points located on the twelve main meridians that correspond to the particular extraordinary pathway.

The twelve primary pathways run vertically, bilaterally, and symmetrically and every channel corresponds to and connects internally with one of the twelve Zang Fu ("organs"). This means that there are six yin and six yang channels. There are three yin and three yang channels on each arm, and three yin and three yang on each leg.

Nitrous

Nitrous

Nitrous is an often used abbreviation for the chemical compound nitrous oxide (N2O) also referred to as NOS. The term NOS is derived from the abbreviation of the company name Nitrous Oxide Systems (NOS), one of the pioneering companies in the development of nitrous oxide injection systems for automotive performance use. More recently, the term was used prominently in the film The Fast and the Furious, and not surprisingly, shortly after the film's release, various automotive newsgroups and forums featured unprecedented numbers of inquiries about "NOS" and how to install and use it. To a chemist, however, NOS refers to Nitric Oxide Synthase.

Nitrous oxide is an oxidizing agent used to increase an engine's power output by allowing more fuel (usually gasoline or alcohol) to be burned than would normally be the case.

When nitrous oxide decomposes, a single mole will release 1/2 mole of oxygen gas, allowing an oxygen saturation of 33% to be reached. Air, which contains only 21% oxygen, permits a maximum saturation of only 21%. This oxygen combines with hydrocarbons such as gasoline, alcohol, and diesel fuel to produce carbon dioxide and water vapor, which expand and exert pressure on pistons.

Nitrous oxide is stored as a liquid in tanks, but because of its low boiling point it vaporizes easily when released to atmosphere. When injected into an inlet manifold this characteristic causes a reduction in air/fuel charge temperature with an associated increase in density, thereby increasing the cylinder's volumetric efficiency.

When N2O breaks down in the engines combustion phase, the oxygen atoms are freed from their bond to the nitrogen atoms in an exothermic reaction, contributing to the overall power increase.
Nitrous systems can increase power by as little as 0.5 hp or as much as 3,000 hp, depending on the engine type and nitrous system type. All systems are based on a single power kits but these kits can be used in multiples (called 2, 3 or even 4 stage); the most advanced systems are controlled by an electronic progressive delivery unit that allows a single kit to perform better than multiple kits can. Most Pro Mod cars and some Pro Street cars use three stages for additional power, but more and more are switching to pulsed progressive technology.

Fans can easily identify nitrous-equipped cars at the track by the fact that most will "purge" the delivery system prior to reaching the starting line. A separate electrically operated valve is used to release air and gaseous nitrous oxide trapped in the delivery system. This brings liquid nitrous oxide all the way up through the plumbing from the storage tank to the solenoid valve or valves that will release it into the engine's intake tract. When the purge system is activated, one or more plumes of nitrous oxide will be visible for a moment as the liquid flashes to vapor as it is released. The purpose of a nitrous purge is to ensure that the correct amount of nitrous oxide is delivered the moment the system is activated—air or gaseous nitrous oxide in the line will cause the car to "bog" for an instant until liquid nitrous oxide reaches the intake.

There are two main categories of nitrous systems: dry & wet. A nitrous system is primarily concerned with introducing fuel and nitrous into the engine's cylinders, and combining them for more efficient combustion. There are 4 main sub types of wet system: single point, direct port, plate, plenum bar all of which are just slightly different methods of discharging nitrous into the plenums of the intake manifold.

Dry
In a dry nitrous system, extra fuel required is introduced through the fuel injectors, keeping the manifold dry of fuel. This property is what gives the dry system its name. Fuel flow can be increased either by increasing the pressure in the fuel injection system, or by modifying the vehicle's computer to increase the time the fuel injectors remain open during the engine cycle. This is typically done by spraying nitrous past the mass airflow sensor (MAF), which then sends a signal to the vehicle's computer telling it that it sees colder denser air, and that more fuel is needed. This is typically not an exact method of adding fuel. Once additional fuel has been introduced, it can burn with the extra oxygen provided by the nitrous, providing additional power.
Dry nitrous systems rely on a single type nozzle that only sprays nitrous through it, not nitrous and fuel. These nitrous nozzles generally spray in a 90 degree pattern.

Wet single-point
A wet single-point nitrous system introduces the fuel and nitrous together, causing the upper intake to become wet with fuel. In carbureted applications, this is typically accomplished with a spraybar plate mounted between the carburetor base and the intake manifold, while cars fitted with electronic fuel injection often use a plate mounted between the manifold and the base of the throttle body, or a single nozzle mounted in the intake tract. However, most makes of nitrous systems combined with unsuitable intake designs, often result in distribution problems and/or intake backfires. Dry-flow intakes are designed to contain only air, which will travel through smaller pipes and tighter turns with less pressure, whereas wet-flow intakes are designed to contain a mixture of fuel and air. Wet nitrous systems tend to produce more power than dry systems, but in some cases can be more expensive and difficult to install.

A wet nozzle differs in the way that it takes in both nitrous and fuel which are metered by jets to create a perfect or proper air-fuel ratio (AFR).

Newer wet nitrous kits on domestic cars have become increasingly easy to install by pulling fuel via the schrader valve on the fuel rail which is normally designated as a fuel test port. It makes plumbing and using a wet nitrous kit much more simple.

Wet direct port

A wet direct port nitrous system introduces nitrous and fuel directly into each intake port on the engine. These systems are also known as direct port nitrous systems. Normally, these systems combine nitrous and fuel through several nozzles similar in design to a wet single-point nozzle, which mixes and meters the nitrous and fuel delivered to each cylinder individually, allowing each cylinder's nitrous/fuel ratio to be adjusted without affecting the other cylinders. There are several different types of nozzles and placements ranging from fogger nozzles that require one to drill and tap the manifold, to specialty direct port E.F.I. nozzles that fit into the fuel injector ports along with the fuel injectors.

A multi-point system is the most powerful type of nitrous system, due to the placement of the nozzle in each runner, as well as the ability to use more and higher capacity solenoid valves. Wet multi-point kits can go as high as 3,000 horsepower (2,400 kW) with only one stage, but most produce less than half that amount with two, three or even four stages. These systems are also the most complex and expensive systems, requiring significant modification to the engine, including adding distribution blocks and solenoid assemblies, as well as drilling, tapping and constructing plumbing for each cylinder runner. These systems are most often used on racing vehicles specially built to take the strain of such high power levels. Many high-horsepower race applications will use more than one nozzle per cylinder, plumbed in stages to allow greater control of how much power is delivered with each stage. A two-stage system will actually allow three different levels of additional horsepower; for example, a small first stage can be used in first gear to prevent excessive wheelspin, and then turned off in favor of a larger second stage once the car is moving. In top gear, both stages can be activated at the same time for maximum horsepower. A more recent improvement on the staged concept from WON is the progressive delivery system, which allows a simpler single stage system to act even better than multiple stages, delivering a smoothly progressive increase in power which is adjustable to suit the user requirements.

Plenum bar
Another type of system is called a plenum bar system. These are spraybars that are installed inside of the plenums of the intake manifold. Plenum bar systems are usually used in conjunction with direct port systems in multi-stage nitrous systems.

Antifreeze Protein

Antifreeze Protein

Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) or ice structuring proteins (ISPs) refer to a class of polypeptides produced by certain vertebrates, plants, fungi and bacteria that permit their survival in subzero environments. AFPs bind to small ice crystals to inhibit growth and recrystallization of ice that would otherwise be fatal (Madura, 2001). There is also increasing evidence that AFPs interact with mammalian cell membranes to protect from cold damage. This work suggests the involvement of AFPs in cold acclimatization (Fletcher et al, 2001).

Volcano

Volcano

A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or crust, which allows hot, molten rock, ash, and gases to escape from below the surface. Volcanic activity involving the extrusion of rock tends to form mountains or features like mountains over a period of time.

Volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are pulled apart or come together. A mid-oceanic ridge, for example the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has examples of volcanoes caused by "divergent tectonic plates" pulling apart; the Pacific Ring of Fire has examples of volcanoes caused by "convergent tectonic plates" coming together. By contrast, volcanoes are usually not created where two tectonic plates slide past one another. Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the Earth's crust (called "non-hotspot intraplate volcanism"), such as in the African Rift Valley, the Wells Gray-Clearwater Volcanic Field and the Rio Grande Rift in North America and the European Rhine Graben with its Eifel volcanoes.

Volcanoes can be caused by "mantle plumes". These so-called "hotspots”, for example at Hawaii, can occur far from plate boundaries. Hotspot volcanoes are also found elsewhere in the solar system, especially on rocky planets and moons.

Human Cloning

Human Cloning

Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of an existing or previously existing human. The term is generally used to refer to artificial human cloning; human clones in the form of identical twins are commonplace, with their cloning occurring during the natural process of reproduction. There are two commonly discussed types of human cloning: therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning. Therapeutic cloning involves cloning cells from an adult for use in medicine and is an active area of research: while reproductive cloning would involve making cloned human beings. Such reproductive cloning has not been performed and is illegal in many countries. A third type of cloning called replacement cloning is a theoretical possibility, and would be a combination of therapeutic and reproductive cloning. Replacement cloning would entail the replacement of an extensively damaged, failed, or failing body through cloning followed by whole or partial brain transplant.

The various forms of human cloning are controversial. There have been numerous demands for all progress in the human cloning field to be halted. Some people and groups oppose therapeutic cloning, but most scientific, governmental and religious organizations oppose reproductive cloning. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and other scientific organizations have made public statements suggesting that human reproductive cloning be banned until safety issues are resolved . Serious ethical concerns have been raised by the idea that it might be possible in the future to harvest organs from clones. Some people have considered the idea of growing organs separately from a human organism - in doing this, a new organ supply could be established without the moral implications of harvesting them from humans. Research is also being done on the idea of growing organs that are biologically acceptable to the human body inside of other organisms, such as pigs or cows, then transplanting them to humans, a form of xenotransplantation.

The first human hybrid human clone was created in November 1998, by American Cell Technologies. It was created from a man's leg cell, and a cow's egg whose DNA was removed. It was destroyed after 12 days. Since a normal embryo implants at 14 days, Dr Robert Lanza, ACT's director of tissue engineering, told the Daily Mail newspaper that the embryo could not be seen as a person before 14 days. While making an embryo, which may have resulted in complete human had it been allowed to come to term, according to ACT: "[ACT's] aim was 'therapeutic cloning' not 'reproductive cloning'" .

On January, 2008, Wood and Andrew French, Stemagen's chief scientific officer in California, announced that they successfully created the first 5 mature human embryos using DNA from adult skin cells, aiming to provide a source of viable embryonic stem cells. Dr. Samuel Wood and a colleague donated skin cells, and DNA from those cells was transferred to human eggs. It is not clear if the embryos produced would have been capable of further development, but Dr. Wood stated that if that were possible, using the technology for reproductive cloning would be both unethical and illegal. The 5 cloned embryos, created in Stemagen Corporation lab, in La Jolla, were destroyed.

First Diving Car

First Diving Car

The sQuba, developed by Swiss company Rinspeed, is the world's first car that can be driven both on land and under water. The original idea by Rinspeed founder and CEO Frank M. Rinderknecht was inspired by the 1977 James Bond hit The Spy Who Loved Me.

The sQuba is a zero-emission, all electric vehicles which uses three electric motors, one for land travel and two for water. It drives on land powered by its electric rear-wheel drive powertrain, utilizing rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Upon entering water, it floats on the surface until the operator floods the interior to submerge it. It can be submerged to a depth of 10 metres (33 ft), powered by twin electric-powered propellers supplemented by two Seabob water jets. It "flies" when underwater, like a submarine, as it is not designed to drive along the surface at the bottom of the water. The car's top land speed is 120 kilometres per hour (75 mph). On the surface of water, the top speed is 6 kilometres per hour (3.7 mph) and underwater it is 3 kilometres per hour (1.9 mph).

The vehicle can transport a driver and passenger in its open cockpit. The open cockpit design is intended to allow the occupants to escape easily in case of emergency. When underwater, the occupants breathe air carried in the vehicle through scuba-style rebreathers.

The vehicle's body is constructed of carbon nanotubes, giving it the light weight it needs to stay buoyant. The airtight construction of internal systems adds buoyancy giving the car the ability to resurface if power is lost. Without occupants, the sQuba will surface automatically. The twin water jets mounted on rotating louvers at the front of the vehicle provide steering and lift while it is underwater and the propellers at the rear provide forward movement.
The vehicle's interior is water and salt resistant so that it can be driven in the ocean. The sQuba also comes equipped with a laser sensor system made by autonomous cruise control system manufacturer Ibeo to allow autonomous operation.