A Small Find Near Equinox

The Cassini spacecraft captured this image of a small object in the outer portion of Saturn's B ring casting a shadow on the rings as Saturn approaches its August 2009 equinox.

This new moonlet, situated about 300 miles (480 kilometers), inward from the outer edge of the B ring, was found by detection of its shadow which stretches 25 miles, or 41 kilometers, across the rings. The shadow length implies the moonlet is protruding about 660 feet, or 200 meters, above the ring plane. If the moonlet is orbiting in the same plane as the ring material surrounding it, which is likely, it must be about 1,300 feet, or 400 meters, across.

This object is not attended by a propeller feature, unlike the band of moonlets discovered in Saturn's A ring earlier by Cassini. The A ring moonlets, which have not been directly imaged, were found because of the propeller-like narrow gaps on either side of them that they create as they orbit within the rings. The lack of a propeller feature surrounding the new moonlet is likely because the B ring is dense, and the ring material in a dense ring would be expected to fill in any gaps around the moonlet more quickly than in a less dense region like the mid-A ring. Also, it may simply be harder in the first place for a moonlet to create propeller-like gaps in a dense ring.

Straw-like patterns of clumping ring material are also visible along the edge of the outer B ring near the right of this image.

This image and others like it are only possible around the time of Saturn's equinox which occurs every half-Saturn-year (equivalent to about 15 Earth years). The illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun's angle to the ring plane and causes out-of-plane structures to cast long shadows across the rings.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 42 degrees below the ring plane. Background stars are visible on the right of the image. They appear elongated by the camera's exposure time.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 26, 2009. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 296,000 kilometers (184,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 120 degrees. Image scale is 1 kilometer (4,680 feet) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

For more information and images visit nasa.gov

NASA Goes Inside a Volcano, Monitors Activity

A sensor like this is being placed inside and around the mouth of Mount St. Helens. One day it may be used to respond rapidly to an impending eruption.

For more information and images visit nasa.gov

"Robots on the Road" Demonstrates Mars Rovers’ Work is Children’s Play

An artist's concept of the Mars rover Spirit Image credit: NASA

For more images and information visit nasa.gov

Hometown Heroes 2009: Grunsfeld Takes the Windy City by Storm

NASA astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld talks with broadcaster Ed Farmer at the White Sox game during the 2009 Hometown Heroes campaign in Chicago. Photo Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld presents a photo of Chicago from space to management at the White Sox game during the 2009 Hometown Heroes campaign in Chicago. Photo Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld signs autographs at the White Sox game during the 2009 Hometown Heroes campaign in Chicago. Photo Credit: NASA

For more information and images visit nasa.gov

A Moon Rock on the International Space Station

ISS020-E-14200 (FOR RELEASE 21 JULY 2009) --- A moon rock brought to Earth by Apollo 11, humans’ first landing on the moon in July 1969, is shown as it floats aboard the International Space Station. Part of Earth can be seen through the window. The 3.6 billion year-old lunar sample was flown to the station aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-119 in April 2009 in honor of the July 2009 40th anniversary of the historic first moon landing. The rock, lunar sample 10072, was flown to the station to serve as a symbol of the nation’s resolve to continue the exploration of space. It will be returned on shuttle mission STS-128 to be publicly displayed.

ISS020-E-007383 (FOR RELEASE 21 JULY 2009) --- A moon rock brought to Earth by Apollo 11, humans’ first landing on the moon in July 1969, is shown as it floats aboard the International Space Station. Part of Earth and a section of a station solar panel can be seen through the window. The 3.6 billion year-old lunar sample was flown to the station aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-119 in April 2009 in honor of the July 2009 40th anniversary of the historic first moon landing. The rock, lunar sample 10072, was flown to the station to serve as a symbol of the nation’s resolve to continue the exploration of space. It will be returned on shuttle mission STS-128 to be publicly displayed.

ISS020-E-014193 (FOR RELEASE 21 JULY 2009) --- A moon rock brought to Earth by Apollo 11, humans’ first landing on the moon in July 1969, is shown as it floats aboard the International Space Station. Part of Earth can be seen through the window. The 3.6 billion year-old lunar sample was flown to the station aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-119 in April 2009 in honor of the July 2009 40th anniversary of the historic first moon landing. The rock, lunar sample 10072, was flown to the station to serve as a symbol of the nation’s resolve to continue the exploration of space. It will be returned on shuttle mission STS-128 to be publicly displayed.

ISS020-E-14196 (FOR RELEASE 21 JULY 2009) --- A moon rock brought to Earth by Apollo 11, humans’ first landing on the moon in July 1969, is shown as it floats aboard the International Space Station. Part of Earth can be seen through the window. The 3.6 billion year-old lunar sample was flown to the station aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-119 in April 2009 in honor of the July 2009 40th anniversary of the historic first moon landing. The rock, lunar sample 10072, was flown to the station to serve as a symbol of the nation’s resolve to continue the exploration of space. It will be returned on shuttle mission STS-128 to be publicly displayed.

JSC2009-E-145988 (FOR RELEASE 21 JULY 2009) --- --- A moon rock brought to Earth by Apollo 11, humans’ first landing on the moon in July 1969, is shown on Earth prior to being placed in April 2009 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery for transporting it to the International Space Station. In honor of the July 2009 40th anniversary of the historic first moon landing, the rock, lunar sample 10072, was flown to the station to serve as a symbol of the nation’s resolve to continue the exploration of space. It will be returned on shuttle mission STS-128 to be publicly displayed.

For more information visit nasa.gov

Summer Heat

A white-hot flame surrounded by red hot exhaust shoots from a recent test of the J-2X engine 'workhorse' gas generator at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. The workhorse gas generator simulates the flow path inside the actual J-2X gas generator that powers the engine's turbo machinery. Testing to ensure stable combustion and uniform gas temperature in this component translates into a safer, more durable J-2X engine, which will power the second stage of the new Ares I rocket.

For more information about Ares, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ares

Image Credit: NASA/MSFC

Globally Threatened Indian Fauna:

India has a rich and varied heritage of biodiversity, encompassing a wide spectrum of habitats from tropical rainforests in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to alpine vegetation and dry alpine scrub high in the Himalayas and from temperate forests to coastal wetlands. Between the two extremes, the country has semi-evergreen rain forests, deciduous monsoon forests, thorn forests, and subtropical pine forests in the lower montane zone and temperate montane forests. Since the Indian sub-continent lies at the confluence of African, European and Indo-Malayan realms the biota, therefore, includes African, European, and Eurasian and Mediterranean elements.

India contributes significantly to this latitudinal biodiversity trend. India is a one of the twelve mega biodiversity countries of the world. With a mere 2.4% of the world's area, India 18 accounts for 7.25 % of the total global fauna (12, 21,315) ( with a count of 89,451 species (Alfred, 1998).

The present paper deals with the conservation status of globally threatened Indian fauna that has been red listed by IUCN. The tables providede also incorporates the red listed species that have been included in the various schedules of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, appendices of the Conventions on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and fauna (CITES) and appendices of Convention of Migratory Species (CMS).

India contains 648 species of animals listed as “Globally Threatened” by IUCN (2004) which is approximately 8.91%; of the world's total number of threatened faunal species (7266 species} The 648 Globally Threatened Indian species includes 213 Species of Mammals,149 Birds, 33 Reptiles, 148 Amphibians, 75 Pisces and 30 Invertebrate species. Of the 648 Threatened Indian Species 183 species are endemic It significantly makes 29.01% of the threatened Indian fauna, which is a very high ratio and the threats to the endemic species are a cause of concern. While there are tremendous efforts to conserve the threatened fauna world over there has been remarkable decline in the population trends as evident from the Table 6. Out of the 648 threatened Indian species we have the trends available for 447 species only, of which 218 species are showing downward trend while 217 species are indeterminate. Only eleven species have the stable population while, to speak towards upward trend we have only one species of mammals namely, Megaptera novaeangliae- a Bunch which is under vulnerable category.

Marine Ecotoxicology

Marine ecotoxicology is the study of the harmful effects of chemical pollutants on marine organisms and ecosystems such as corals, fish, oysters, mangroves and microalgae.

Significant proportions of pollutants from the Great Barrier Reef’s catchment reach the in-shore waters of the GBR during the intense flooding events that dominate north Queensland rainfall and river flows. Nitrogen levels in flood plumes are between 10 to 100 times higher than normal marine concentrations.

Coastal waters are also at risk from pollution derived from normal ship operations (such as waste disposal, vessel sewage, introduction of marine pests through ballast water and hull fouling, toxic compounds released from anti-fouling paints) and pollution caused by shipping accidents (such as vessel groundings and oil spills).

Apart from directly killing marine organisms, pollutants have the potential to cause sub-lethal effects such as disrupting symbioses and interfering with chemical cues responsible for key biological processes, including reproduction and recruitment.

Systematics

Biological systematics is considered to be the study of the diversity of life on the planet earth, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Systematics, is used to understand the evolutionary history of life on earth.

Systematics is often used synonymously with "taxonomy" and scientific classification." However, taxonomy is the describing, identifying, classifying, and naming of organisms. Classification is focused on categorizing organisms within specific groups that show their relationships to other organisms.

Systematics uses taxonomy as a means to understand organisms, as nothing about an organism's relationships with other living things can be understood without it first being properly studied and described in sufficient detail to identify and classify it correctly. Scientific classifications are aids in recording and reporting information to other scientists and to laymen.

A scientist who specializes in systematics is called a systematist. A systematist must be able to use existing classification systems to insure proper identification and classification of species.

William sisters in final

WIMBLEDON— Venus and Serena Williams won in distinct fashion.
Two time winner Serena saved a match point and overcame Elena Dementieva 6-7 (4), 7-5, 8-6 in 2 hours, 49 minutes this is the longest women's semifinal at Wimbledon in last 40 years. Five time winner Venus, meanwhile, took only 51 minutes to knock down Dinara Safina 6-1, 6-0 and reach her eighth Wimbledon final.

"Oh my God, this is my eighth final, and it's a dream come to true to be here again and have the opportunity to hold the plate up," Venus said.The sisters, who hold 17 Grand Slam titles between them, will face each other Saturday on the Fourth of July in the finals.If Venus wins the title she will become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1991-93 to win Wimbledon three years in a row.

"The more we play, the better it gets," Serena said. "When we play our match on Saturday, you know, it's for everything. This is what we dreamed of when we were growing up in Compton (California) 20-something years ago. This is what we worked for, and this is what we want. Like I wanted her to win today and she wanted me to win today. It's all come down to this."

Serena's father Richard Williams, who watched the match on Thursday, was the happiest man.

Saina Nehwal may be the next world champion in badminton

Saina Nehwal started her badminton training under the appropriate direction of S M Arif, who was a Dronacharya Awardee. The Gopi Chand Academy of Hyderabad is the place where Saina Nehwal is currently training. The Gopi Chand Academy at present is building plans to train Saina Nehwal in a more enhanced way by sending her to Holland and Denmark.

Being born to such parents as Harvir Singh, who is a scientist at Directorate of Oilseeds Research, and Usha Rani, who is a former Haryana state champion, Saina Nehwal has always received the support of her family members.

From her early years in the courts, Saina Nehwal had been considered as full of prospective. Being a National Junior champion, Saina Nehwal has performed very well in all the tournaments in which she has participated. Not only national but also in international tournaments Saina Nehwal has made a mark of her own.

The Junior Czech Open, which took place in the year 2003, was a major break in the career of Saina Nehwal as she went on to wins the tournament. Saina Nehwal also gave her finest in the Commonwealth Games of 2004 but could not win a medal. Saina Nehwal also took part in the Junior Asian Championship of 2004. At present, Saina is placed above shielding world champion Zhu Lin (No.8) and former World No.1 and world champion Xi Xingfang (No.9).

Drug War 'Testing US Mexico Ties'

Rising drug-related violence is testing relations between the US and Mexico, the US secretary of state has said, describing the situation along the border between the two countries as "intolerable".

Hillary Clinton who wrapped up a two-day visit to Mexico City on Thursday said both countries shared blame for the violence and reiterated the US commitment to stand by Mexico in its war on drugs and related violence.

She has promised an additional $80m to help Mexico's police buy advanced US-made Blackhawk helicopters for its fight against the drug cartels.

"We will stand shoulder to shoulder with you," Clinton said, accusing "criminals and kingpins spreading violence" of corroding the relationship between the two sides.

The drug war has left more than 1,000 people dead in Mexico so far this year, with violence spilling over the border into the US.

On Thursday Clinton toured the Mexican federal police's state-of-the-art headquarters, the key command centre in the country's bloody war on drugs.

Garcia Luna, Mexico's federal police chief, said Mexico was building, with US support, a modern police force capable of taking on organised crime.

Mexico has long complained its police force is often outgunned by drug dealers armed with firearms purchased in the US and smuggled into the country.

It is illegal to export guns to Mexico but US authorities rarely check vehicles or trains travelling across the joint border into Mexico.

ForMoreInfo:http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/03/20093271333227728.html

Children Being Killed: SRI LANKA

The conflict in Sri Lanka has killed hundreds of children and left many more injured, United Nations' children's agency, Unicef, has said.

Moreover, thousands of children are at risk because of "a critical lack of food, water and medicines", the agency says.

Intense fighting is going on between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels in north-eastern Sri Lanka.

The Tigers have been driven from most of the territory they held by the army.

They are now cornered in a small patch of jungle and coastal area in the Mullaitivu district.

Medical Volunteers Kidnapped In Sudan

Days after Sudan's president derided international humanitarian workers here as "spies" and "thieves," three volunteers with Doctors Without Borders were kidnapped from their Darfur compound.

The abductions late Wednesday appeared to be part of the ongoing backlash in Sudan over an arrest warrant issued against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir last week by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Seven gunmen scaled the walls of the medical relief group's facility in Saraf Umra, 125 miles west of El Fasher, and seized the aid workers along with two Sudanese guards who later were released.

Although foreign aid workers in western Sudan have been robbed, carjacked, beaten and raped, the attack is believed to mark the first time international staffers have been kidnapped.

"This is something new," said Noureddine Mezni, spokesman for the UN mission in Darfur. "We deplore this act."

Doctors Without Borders said Thursday that it is withdrawing most of its international staff as a result of the attack, forcing the closings of several clinics and medical facilities that the agency operates in Darfur.

The identity of the kidnappers was unclear, officials said, but negotiations are under way to secure the workers' release. The victims are a Canadian nurse, an Italian doctor and a French administrator.

Sudanese government officials said they were assisting the talks.

The kidnappings come just a week after Doctors Without Borders found itself on a list of 13 international aid groups ordered to halt work in Darfur and leave the country. The expulsions came shortly after the International Criminal Court charged Bashir with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from the government's counterinsurgency campaign in Darfur.

Two of the five Doctors Without Borders international divisions, from France and the Netherlands, were ordered out of the country. The Belgian unit was operating the clinic that was attacked Wednesday night.

King Of Pop Michael Jackson

Stepping through the red curtains at the O2 arena in London to the hysterical screams of his loyal fans, the King of Pop almost seemed like his old self once more.

There were broad smiles, sparkling silver and jewels adorning his black jacket, and waves and peace signs for his army of followers.

There was no mask over the face, no trace of the supposed "flesh-eating bug" and no sign of the Michael Jackson who looked frail while shuffling into court in his pyjamas during his child abuse trial and deluded as he danced on a car.

His appearance to announce 10 dates at the O2 in the summer was a day that some thought would never come.

Given his past behaviour, there was a suspicion that he might fly into London, feel a bit funny and get straight back on the next plane home.

Or that if he did arrive at the O2 announcement at all, that he would hover in the background for 20 seconds, mumble something incoherent and then disappear again.

In the end, his appearance lasted less than five minutes, and his speech was filled with hesitant pauses.

But that can be put down to the fact that he was too busy grinning as he surveyed his fans, listening to their screams of support and making various gestures in response.

"I love you. I really do," he told them. "You have to know that. I love you so much. Really. From the bottom of my heart."

It was a far cry from a two-hour stage show, but it was a start.

He did not break into song, but he looked fit enough to persuade most fans to want to part with their cash.

There may have been fewer fans queuing up here than there would have been 10 years ago, but the hardcore are still as fervent as ever.

For them, seeing the King of Pop is a quasi-religious experience, and they went into rapture when he appeared.

Indian Mobile User

India mobile users in larger cities and the biggest states will be able to retain their mobile number even if they switch operator from September, the telecoms minister said on Thursday.

Andimuthu Raja told parliament the government would announce on March 5 the successful bidders which will operate the mobile number portability (MNP) system and award letters of intent.

"MNP is to be implemented in all 'Metro' and Category 'A' service areas within six months of the award of the licence and in rest of the service areas within one year of the award of the licence," the minister said in a written statement. (Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy)

Researchers for HIV work

Even as Connecticut considers reducing funding for AIDS programs, state public health researchers are winning accolades for their work with those living with HIV.

A program developed at the University of Connecticut's Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention is among a group of eight intervention programs commended recently by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Under the program, known as "Options," clinicians are trained to counsel HIV-positive patients during routine medical appointments to avoid risky behavior, such as unprotected sex and drug use, developing a list of behavioral prescriptions for patients to follow as they live with the virus.

"Most interventions focus on people not infected with HIV and not likely to become infected," said Jeffrey D. Fisher, a social psychology professor at UConn and director of the intervention center. "But we also need to help people who have HIV to practice safer sex and drug use."

Such precautions are necessary not just to protect the health of those living with HIV or AIDS, which make patients substantially more susceptible to infection and disease, but also to ensure that continued risky behavior doesn't spread HIV to those with whom diagnosed people share needles or have sex.

Fisher developed the program in the late 1990s with his brother, Bill Fisher, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, and three other researchers from CHIP and Yale University.

The Options program was developed from current behavioral theory and a process of collaboration with those struggling with HIV diagnosis and problems with substance abuse or risky sex, Fisher said. The intervention plan asks clinical workers to work with patients to develop strategies for reducing risk, and to evaluate each patient's willingness to change.

The program was included this year in "The 2008 Compendium of Evidence-based HIV Prevention Interventions," which is compiled annually by the CDC, and recognizes programs that have proven successful at reducing HIV infection and behavior that can increase the chance of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

The CDC estimates that 46,000 people were infected with HIV in the U.S. in 2006, the most recent year for which data was available.

Source: theday.com/re.aspx?re=76b88ed9-71a3-4510-a675-6361d367da02

Subject Verb Object

In linguistic typology, subject-verb-object (SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third. Languages may be classified according to the dominant sequence of these elements. Together with the SOV order, SVO is one of the two most common orders, accounting for more than 75% of the world's languages between them. It is also the most common order developed in Creole languages, suggesting that it may be somehow more initially 'obvious' to human psychology.

Arabic, Finnish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Modern Hebrew, Khmer, Luganda, Russian, Bulgarian, Swahili, Hausa, English, Yoruba, Quiche, Guaraní, Javanese, Malay, Latvian, Rotuman and Indonesian are examples of languages that can follow an SVO pattern. The Romance languages also follow SVO construction, except for certain constructions in many of them in which a pronoun functions as the object. All of the Scandinavian languages follow this order also but change to VSO when asking a question. Some of these languages, such as English, can also use an OSV structure in certain literary styles, such as poetry.

Cameraphones

Mobile phones started to incorporate digital cameras from 2001 when first introduced in Japan by J-Phone. The most rapidly spread technology of all time, these cameraphones reached a billion devices sold in only five years. By 2007 more than half of the installed base of all mobile phones was of the cameraphone type. In 2003 more cameraphones were sold than all stand-alone digital cameras and in 2006 more cameraphones sold than all film-based cameras and digital cameras combined.

Cameraphones tend to be at the very lowest end of the scale of digital cameras in technical specificiations, such as low resolution cameras, poor quality optics, and limited abilities to use accessories. With the rapid development of digital technologies, however, the gap between mainstream digital cameras and cameraphones is closing and high-end cameraphones are competitive with low end stand-alone digital cameras of the same generation.

Aerial-seeding

Aerial seeding is a technique of sowing seeds by spraying them through aerial mechanical means such as an aircraft. This technique is one of the several broadcast seeding techniques. This technique is usually used to grow grasses, legumes or other suitable soil binding plants. The process is applied to increase vegetative cover over barren lands like ravines or burnt sites, where large geographical area is involved. The purpose of the technique is soil conservation by reducing soil erosion in extremely large area within lesser period. It is typically used where soil erosion hazards are high and native plant seed bank is destroyed by temperature or washed away by water resulting into complete denudation of top soil. This is the most effective technique for geographically inaccessible areas. Seed is dropped from fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter directly on the soil from a reasonable altitude.

Alpaca

The Alpaca (Vicugna pacos) is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in superficial appearance.

Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of Ecuador, southern Peru, northern Bolivia, and northern Chile at an altitude of 3,500 m (11,483 ft) to 5,000 m (16,404 ft) meters above sea-level, throughout the year.[citation needed] Alpacas are considerably smaller than llamas, and unlike llamas, alpacas are not used as beasts of burden but are valued only for their fiber. Alpaca fiber is used for making knitted and woven items, much as sheep's wool is. These items include blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, a wide variety of textiles and ponchos in South America, and sweaters, socks, coats and bedding in other parts of the world. The fiber comes in more than 52 natural colors as classified in Peru, 12 as classified in Australia and 16 as classified in the United States. Alpacas and llamas differ in that alpacas have straight ears and llamas have banana-shaped ears. Aside from these differences, llamas are on average 1-2 feet taller and proportionally bigger than alpacas.

In the textile industry, "alpaca" primarily refers to the hair of Peruvian alpacas, but more broadly it refers to a style of fabric originally made from alpaca hair but now often made from similar fibers, such as mohair, Icelandic sheep wool, or even high-quality English wool.[citation needed] In trade, distinctions are made between alpacas and the several styles of mohair and luster.

Indian Ocean

• Andaman Sea
• Arabian Sea
• Bay of Bengal
• Gulf of Aden
• Gulf of Oman
• Mozambique Channel
• Persian Gulf
• Red Sea
• Timor Sea

Ramie

Ramie (Boehmeria nivea) is a flowering plant in the nettle family Urticaceae, native to eastern Asia. It is a herbaceous perennial growing to 1 - 2.5 m tall; the leaves are heart-shaped, 7-15 cm long and 6-12 cm broad, and white on the underside with dense small hairs - this gives it a silvery appearance; unlike nettles, the hairs do not sting. The true ramie or China Grass also called Chinese plant or white ramie is the Chinese cultivated plant. A second type, is known as green ramie or rhea and is believed to have originated in the Malay Peninsula. This type has smaller leaves which are green on the underside, and it appears to be better suited to tropical conditions.

Popigai crater

The Popigai crater in Siberia, Russia is tied with Manicouagan Reservoir as the 4th largest verified impact crater on Earth. A large bolide impact created the 100-kilometer diameter crater 35.7 ± 0.2 (2σ) million years ago during the late Eocene (Priabonian stage). The crater is just north of the Siberian city Norilsk, or 1 1/2 hours (by helicopter) from the outpost of Khatanga. It is designated by UNESCO as a Geopark, a site of special geological heritage.

For decades the Popigai crater has fascinated paleontologists and geologists, but the entire area was completely off limits because of the diamonds and the mines constructed by gulag prisoners under Stalin; however, a major investigatory expedition was undertaken in 1997 (IPEX 1997) which greatly advanced understanding of the enigmatic structure. The impactor in this event has been identified as either an eight-kilometer diameter chondrite asteroid, or a five-kilometer diameter stony asteroid.

The shock pressures from the impact instantaneously transformed graphite in the ground into diamonds within a 13.6 kilometer radius of the impact point. Diamonds are usually 0.5 to 2 millimeters in diameter; a few exceptional specimens are 10 millimeters in size. The diamonds not only inherit the tabular shape of the original graphite grains but they additionally preserve the original crystal's delicate striations.

Popigai is the best example yet of the formation of a crater of this type. Three other craters are larger, but they are either buried (Chicxulub), strongly deformed (Sudbury), or deformed and severely eroded (Vredefort).

There is a small possibility that Popigai impact crater formed simultaneous with the c. 35 million year old Chesapeake Bay and Toms Canyon impact craters.

Constructed languages

Some individuals and groups have constructed their own artificial languages, for practical, experimental, personal, or ideological reasons. International auxiliary languages are generally constructed languages that strive to be easier to learn than natural languages; other constructed languages strive to be more logical ("loglangs") than natural languages; a prominent example of this is Lojban.

Some writers, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, have created fantasy languages, for literary, artistic or personal reasons. The fantasy language of the Klingon race has in recent years been developed by fans of the Star Trek series, including a vocabulary and grammar.

Constructed languages are not necessarily restricted to the properties shared by natural languages.

This part of ISO 639 also includes identifiers that denote constructed (or artificial) languages. In order to qualify for inclusion the language must have a literature and it must be designed for the purpose of human communication. Specifically excluded are reconstructed languages and computer programming languages.

Heredity

Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring (from its parent or ancestors). This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause a species to evolve. The study of heredity in biology is called genetics, which includes the field of epigenetics.

Almond milk

Almond milk is a milky drink made from ground almonds. Unlike animal milk, almond milk contains no cholesterol or lactose and can be used as a substitute for animal milk in many recipes. Almond milk is also completely vegan. Commercial almond milk products come in plain, vanilla, or chocolate flavors. They are often enriched with vitamins. It can also be made at home by combining ground almonds with water in a blender. Vanilla flavoring and sweeteners are often added. However, users should be cautious not to use bitter almonds, since the combination of bitter almonds and water releases cyanide.

Water Quality

The Environment Agency is responsible for maintaining or improving the quality of fresh, marine, surface and underground water in England and Wales.Many human activities and their by-products have the potential to pollute water. Large and small industrial enterprises, the water industry, the urban infrastructure, agriculture, horticulture, transport, discharges from abandoned mines, and deliberate or accidental pollution incidents all affect water quality.

Pollution may arise as point sources, such as discharges through pipes, or may be more diffuse, such as from run off from streets and buildings, or agricultural nutrients lost from fields.We aim to prevent or reduce the risk of water pollution wherever possible, and to ensure that it gets cleaned up if pollution occurs that might lead to effects on ecosystems or people.

The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) has overall interests for the quality of water in our taps, and local responsibility rests with the local authority environmental health departments.

Turgor pressure

Turgor pressure' or turgidity is the main pressure of the cell contents against the cell wall in plant cells and bacteria cells, determined by the water content of the vacuole, resulting from osmotic pressure, i.e. the hydrostatic pressure produced by a solution in a space divided by a semipermeable membrane due to a differential in the concentration of solute. Turgid plant cells contain more water than flaccid cells and exert a greater osmotic pressure on its cell walls.

Turgor is a force exerted outward on a plant cell wall by the H2O contained in the cell. This force gives the plant rigidity, and may help to keep it erect. Turgor may also result in the bursting of a cell.

Inner planets Earth

Earth (1 AU) is the largest and densest of the inner planets, the only one known to have current geological activity, and the only planet known to have life. Its liquid hydrosphere is unique among the terrestrial planets, and it is also the only planet where plate tectonics has been observed. Earth's atmosphere is radically different from those of the other planets, having been altered by the presence of life to contain 21% free oxygen. It has one natural satellite, the Moon (Latin: Luna), the only large satellite of a terrestrial planet in the Solar System.

OpenGL 3.0

The newest revision of the OpenGL API is OpenGL 3.0, released August 11, 2008 and is backward compatible with all prior OpenGL versions, though a deprecation mechanism has been introduced to simplify the API in future revisions.

• OpenGL Shading Language revision 1.30 (GLSL)

• Array Objects

• More flexible Framebuffer Objects

• 32-bit (single precision) floating-point textures and render buffers

• 16-bit (half precision) floating-point vertex and pixel data

• Ability to render vertex transformations into a buffer

• Texture arrays

• 32-bit (single precision) floating point depth buffer support

Full use of OpenGL 3.0 requires the same level of hardware as is required for DirectX 10 support. Unlike DirectX 10, OpenGL 3.0 does not require Windows Vista and can be used on any OS for which the appropriate drivers are provided.

Ontology

On an individual being level, these questions are studied by the separate fields above, but are also more integrated into cognitive ontology of various kinds. This challenges the older linguistically dependent views of ontology, wherein one could debate being, perceiving, and doing, with no cognizance of innate human limits, varying human lifeways, and loyalties that may let a being "know" something (see qualia) that for others remains very much in doubt.

On the level of an individual mind, an emergent behavior might be the formation of a new concept, 'bubbling up' from below the conscious level of the mind. A simple way of stating this is that beings preserve their own attention and are at every level concerned with avoiding interruption and distraction. Such cognitive specialization can be observed in particular in language, with adults markedly less able to hear or say distinctions made in languages to which they were not exposed in youth.

Small Arms Protective Insert

The Small Arms Protective Insert (SAPI) is a ceramic plate first used in the Interceptor body armor, a bulletproof vest. It is now also used in the Improved Outer Tactical Vest as well as the Modular Tactical Vest, in addition to commercially available "plate carriers". The kevlar Interceptor vest itself is designed to stop projectiles up to and including 9mm submachine gun rounds, in addition to fragmentation. To protect against higher velocity rifle rounds, SAPI plates are needed.

Personal identification number

A personal identification number (PIN) is a secret numeric password shared between a user and a system that can be used to authenticate the user to the system. Typically, the user is required to provide a non-confidential user identifier or token (such as a banking card) and a confidential PIN to gain access to the system. Upon receiving the User ID and PIN, the system looks up the PIN based upon the User ID and compares the looked-up PIN with the received PIN. The user is granted access only when the number entered matches with the number stored in the system.

PINs are most often used for ATMs but are increasingly used at the Point of sale, especially for debit cards. Throughout Europe the traditional in-store credit card signing process is being replaced with a system where the customer is asked to enter their PIN instead of signing. In the UK and Ireland this goes under the term 'Chip and PIN', since PINs were introduced at the same time as EMV chips on the cards. In other parts of the world, PINs have been used before the introduction of EMV. Apart from financial uses, GSM mobile phones usually allow the user to enter PIN between 4 and 8 digits length. The PIN is recorded in the SIM card.

Bluetooth 2.0

This version of the Bluetooth specification was released on November 10, 2004. It is backward-compatible with the previous version 1.1. The main difference is the introduction of an Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) for faster data transfer. The nominal rate of EDR is about 3 megabits per second, although the practical data transfer rate is 2.1 megabits per second.[8] The additional throughput is obtained by using a different radio technology for transmission of the data. Standard, or Basic Rate, transmission uses Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying (GFSK) modulation of the radio signal; EDR uses a combination of GFSK and Phase Shift Keying (PSK) modulation.

GEE

The British GEE system was developed during World War II. GEE used a series of transmitters sending out precisely timed signals, and the aircraft using GEE, RAF Bomber Command's heavy bombers, examined the time of arrival on an oscilloscope at the navigator's station. If the signal from two stations arrived at the same time, the aircraft must be an equal distance from both transmitters, allowing the navigator to determine a line of position on his chart of all the positions at that distance from both stations. By making similar measurements with other stations, additional lines of position can be produced, leading to a fix. GEE was accurate to about 165 yards (150 m) at short ranges, and up to a mile (1.6km) at longer ranges over Germany. Used after WWII as late as the 1960s in the RAF (approx freq was by then 68MHZ).

Hearing

Hearing or audition is the sense of sound perception. Since sound is vibrations propagating through a medium such as air, the detection of these vibrations, that is the sense of the hearing, is a mechanical sense akin to a sense of touch, albeit a very specialized one. In humans, this perception is executed by tiny hair fibres in the inner ear which detect the motion of a membrane which vibrates in response to changes in the pressure exerted by atmospheric particles within a range of 20 to 22000 Hz, with substantial variation between individuals. Sound can also be detected as vibrations conducted through the body by tactition. Lower and higher frequencies than that can be heard are detected this way only. The inability to hear is called deafness.

Prehistoric life

Prehistoric life are the diverse organisms that have inhabited Earth from the origin of life about 3.8 billion years ago (b.y.a.) to the Historic period (about 3500 BC) when humans began to keep written records.

During the course of evolution, new forms of life developed and many other forms, such as the dinosaurs, became extinct. (See Timeline of evolution).

Prehistoric life evolved over this vast timespan from simple bacteria-like cells in the oceans to algae and protozoa, and ultimately to complex multicellular forms such as fungi, land plants, worms, molluscs, crustaceans, insects, and vertebrates.

In geologic terms, humans evolved very recently, only about 2.5 million years ago (mya). (See Geologic time scale, Human evolution).

Very few species of prehistoric life (such as the coelacanth) still exist today unchanged, tens of millions of years later, thereby making them living fossils. Yet other creatures, like sharks, have changed but a little over millions of years.

However, most life forms -- over 99 percent -- have become extinct, and so the only record of them ever existing that remains today are rock imprints, casts or other fossils.

Social anxiety disorder

Social anxiety disorder is also known as social phobia. Individuals with this disorder experience intense fear of being negatively evaluated by others or of being publicly embarrassed because of impulsive acts. Almost everyone experiences "stage fright" when speaking or performing in front of a group. Since occasionally there are artists or performers with social anxiety disorder who are able to perform publicly without significant anxiety, their love of performing and practicing their art may be diminishing their anxiety. Although some high-functioning phobics such as Glenn Gould are able to perform despite anxiety, most people with social phobias become so anxious that performance is out of the question. In fact, their fear of public scrutiny and potential humiliation becomes so pervasive that normal life can become impossible (den Boer 2000; Margolis & Swartz, 2001). Another social phobia is fear of intimacy, or "love-shyness", which most adversely affects certain men. Those afflicted find themselves unable to initiate intimate adult relationships (Gilmartin 1987).

Memory management

Among other things, a multiprogramming operating system kernel must be responsible for managing all system memory which is currently in use by programs. This ensures that a program does not interfere with memory already used by another program. Since programs time share, each program must have independent access to memory.

Cooperative memory management, used by many early operating systems assumes that all programs make voluntary use of the kernel's memory manager, and do not exceed their allocated memory. This system of memory management is almost never seen anymore, since programs often contain bugs which can cause them to exceed their allocated memory. If a program fails it may cause memory used by one or more other programs to be affected or overwritten. Malicious programs, or viruses may purposefully alter another program's memory or may affect the operation of the operating system itself. With cooperative memory management it takes only one misbehaved program to crash the system.

Memory protection enables the kernel to limit a process' access to the computer's memory. Various methods of memory protection exist, including memory segmentation and paging. All methods require some level of hardware support (such as the 80286 MMU) which doesn't exist in all computers.

In both segmentation and paging, certain protected mode registers specify to the CPU what memory address it should allow a running program to access. Attempts to access other addresses will trigger an interrupt which will cause the CPU to re-enter supervisor mode, placing the kernel in charge. This is called a segmentation violation or Seg-V for short, and since it is usually a sign of a misbehaving program, the kernel will generally kill the offending program, and report the error.

Windows 3.1-Me had some level of memory protection, but programs could easily circumvent the need to use it. Under Windows 9x all MS-DOS applications ran in supervisor mode, giving them almost unlimited control over the computer. A general protection fault would be produced indicating a segmentation violation had occurred, however the system would often crash anyway.

Population Ecology

Population ecology Population ecology is a major sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment.

The older term, autecology refers to the roughly same field of study, coming from the division of ecology into autecology—the study of individual species in relation to the environment—and synecology—the study of groups of organisms in relation to the environment—or community ecology. Odum (1959, p. 8) considered that synecology should be divided into population ecology, community ecology, and ecosystem ecology, defining autecology as essentially "species ecology." However, biologists have for some time recognized that the more significant level of organization of a species is a population, because at this level the species gene pool is most coherent. In fact, Odum regarded "autecology" as no longer a "present tendency" in ecology (i.e., an archaic term), although included "species ecology"—studies emphasizing life history and behavior as adaptations to the environment of individual organisms or species—as one of four sub-divisions of ecology.

The development of the field of population ecology owes much to the science of demography and the use of actuarial life tables. Population ecology has also played an important role in the development of the field of conservation biology especially in the development of population viability analysis (PVA) which makes it possible to predict the long-term probability of a species persisting in a given habitat patch .

PCX

PCX is an image file format developed by the ZSoft Corporation of Marietta, Georgia, USA. It was the native file format for PC Paintbrush (PCX = "PC Paintbrush Exchange") and became one of the first widely accepted DOS imaging standards, although its use has since been succeeded by more sophisticated image formats such as GIF, JPEG, and PNG.

The PCX is a device-independent raster image format; the file header stores information about the display hardware (screen resolution, color depth and palette information, bit planes and so on) separately from the actual image information, allowing the image to be properly transferred and displayed on computer systems with different hardware. PCX files commonly store palette-indexed images ranging from 2 or 4 colors to 16 and 256 colors, although the format has been extended to record true-color (24-bit) images as well.

A PCX file has three main sections. A 128 byte header which is followed by image data and an optional 256 color palette. PCX files were designed for use on PC and so always use little endian byte ordering.

Mitosis

Mitosis is the process by which a cell separates the chromosomes in its cell nucleus, into two identical sets in two daughter nuclei. It is generally followed immediately by cytokinesis, which divides the nuclei, cytoplasm, organelles and cell membrane into two daughter cells containing roughly equal shares of these cellular components. Mitosis and cytokinesis together define the mitotic (M) phase of the cell cycle - the division of the mother cell into two daughter cells, genetically identical to each other and to their parent cell.

Mitosis occurs exclusively in eukaryotic cells, but occurs in different ways in different species. For example, animals undergo an "open" mitosis, where the nuclear envelope breaks down before the chromosomes separate, while fungi such as Aspergillus nidulans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) undergo a "closed" mitosis, where chromosomes divide within an intact cell nucleus. Prokaryotic cells, which lack a nucleus, divide by a process called binary fission.

The process of mitosis is complex and highly regulated. The sequence of events is divided into phases, corresponding to the completion of one set of activities and the start of the next. These stages are prophase, prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase and telophase. During the process of mitosis the pairs of chromosomes condense and attach to fibers that pull the sister chromatids to opposite sides of the cell. The cell then divides in cytokinesis, to produce two identical daughter cells.

Because cytokinesis usually occurs in conjunction with mitosis, "mitosis" is often used interchangeably with "mitotic phase". However, there are many cells where mitosis and cytokinesis occur separately, forming single cells with multiple nuclei. This occurs most notably among the fungi and slime moulds, but is found in various different groups. Even in animals, cytokinesis and mitosis may occur independently, for instance during certain stages of fruit fly embryonic development. Errors in mitosis can either kill a cell through apoptosis or cause mutations that may lead to cancer.

Sociocultural evolution

Sociocultural evolution(ism) is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have developed over time. Although such theories typically provide models for understanding the relationship between technologies, social structure, the values of a society, and how and why they change with time, they vary as to the extent to which they describe specific mechanisms of variation and social change.

Most 19th century and some 20th century approaches aimed to provide models for the evolution of humankind as a whole, arguing that different societies are at different stages of social development. At present this thread is continued to some extent within the World System approach. Many of the more recent 20th-century approaches focus on changes specific to individual societies and reject the idea of directional change, or social progress. Most archaeologists and cultural anthropologists work within the framework of modern theories of sociocultural evolution. Modern approaches to sociocultural evolution include neoevolutionism, sociobiology, theory of modernization and theory of postindustrial society.

Featural scripts

A featural script notates the building blocks of the phonemes that make up a language. For instance, all sounds pronounced with the lips ("labial" sounds) may have some element in common. In the Latin alphabet, this is accidentally the case with the letters "b" and "p"; however, labial "m" is completely dissimilar, and the similar-looking "q" is not labial. In Korean hangul, however, all four labial consonants are based on the same basic element. However, in practice, Korean is learned by children as an ordinary alphabet, and the featural elements tend to pass unnoticed.

Another featural script is SignWriting, the most popular writing system for many sign languages, where the shapes and movements of the hands and face are represented iconically. Featural scripts are also common in fictional or invented systems, such as Tolkien's Tengwar.

Purebred breeding

Mating animals of the same breed for maintaining such breed is referred to as purebred breeding. Opposite to the practice of mating animals of different breeds, purebred breeding aims to establish and maintain stable traits, that animals will pass to the next generation. By "breeding the best to the best," employing a certain degree of inbreeding, considerable culling, and selection for "superior" qualities, one could develop a bloodline or "breed" superior in certain respects to the original base stock.

Such animals can be recorded with a breed registry, the organisation that maintains pedigrees and/or stud books.

The observable phenomenon of hybrid vigor stands in contrast to the notion of breed purity. However, on the other hand, indiscriminate breeding of crossbred or hybrid animals may also result in degradation of quality.

Buckler

A buckler (French bouclier 'shield', from old French bocle, boucle 'boss') is a small shield gripped in the fist -- it was generally used as a companion weapon in hand-to-hand combat during the Middle Ages, as its size made it poor protection against missile weapons (e.g., arrows) but useful in deflecting the blow of an opponent's sword or mace. There are two major forms of medievally documented bucklers. The first is a simple round shield with the fist positioned directly behind the boss with a variety of shapes of face and depths of rim. These could also have projections from the top and bottom as in Hans Talhoffer's Fechtbücher or serrated rings around the boss as in one example in the Wallace Collection. The second major form is a corrugated rectangle as suggested by Achille Marozzo in his Opera Nova.

Molecular basis

Several types of molecules are particularly important during morphogenesis. Morphogens are soluble molecules that can diffuse and carry signals that control cell differentiation decisions in a concentration-dependent fashion. Morphogens typically act through binding to specific protein receptors. An important class of molecules involved in morphogenesis are transcription factor proteins that determine the fate of cells by interacting with DNA. These can be coded for by master regulatory genes and either activate or deactivate the transcription of other genes; in turn, these secondary gene products can regulate the expression of still other genes in a regulatory cascade. Another class of molecules involved in morphogenesis are molecules that control cell adhesion. For example, during gastrulation, clumps of stem cells switch off their cell-to-cell adhesion, become migratory, and take up new positions within an embryo where they again activate specific cell adhesion proteins and form new tissues and organs. Several examples that illustrate the roles of morphogens, transcription factors and cell adhesion molecules in morphogenesis are discussed below.

Cytokinesis

Cytokinesis is the process whereby the cytoplasm of a single cell is divided to spawn two daughter cells. It usually initiates during the late stages of mitosis, and sometimes meiosis, splitting a binucleate cell in two, to ensure that chromosome number is maintained from one generation to the next. In animal cells, one notable exception to the normal process of cytokinesis is oogenesis (the creation of an ovum in the ovarian follicle of the ovary), where the ovum takes almost all the cytoplasm and organelles, leaving very little for the resulting polar bodies, which then die. In plant cells, a dividing structure known as the cell plate forms across the centre of the cytoplasm and a new cell wall forms between the two daughter cells.

During normal proliferative divisions, animal cell cytokinesis begins shortly after the onset of sister chromatid separation in the anaphase of mitosis. A contractile ring, made of non-muscle myosin II and actin filaments, assembles equatorially (in the middle of the cell) at the cell cortex (adjacent to the cell membrane). Myosin II uses the free energy released when ATP is hydrolysed to move along these actin filaments, constricting the cell membrane to form a cleavage furrow. Continued hydrolysis causes this cleavage furrow to ingress (move inwards), a striking process that is clearly visible down a light microscope. Ingression continues until a so-called midbody structure (composed of electron-dense, proteinaceous material) is formed and the process of abscission then physically cleaves this midbody into two. Abscission depends on septin filaments beneath the cleavage furrow, which provide a structural basis to ensure completion of cytokinesis. After cytokinesis, non-kinetochore microtubules reorganize and disappear into a new cytoskeleton as the cell cycle returns to interphase (see also cell cycle).

VLSI

The final step in the development process, starting in the 1980s and continuing through the present, was "Very Large-Scale Integration" (VLSI). This could be said to start with hundreds of thousands of transistors in the early 1980s, and continues beyond several billion transistors as of 2007.

There was no single breakthrough that allowed this increase in complexity, though many factors helped. Manufacturing moved to smaller rules and cleaner fabs, allowing them to produce chips with more transistors with adequate yield, as summarized by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). Design tools improved enough to make it practical to finish these designs in a reasonable time. The more energy efficient CMOS replaced NMOS and PMOS, avoiding a prohibitive increase in power consumption. Better texts such as the landmark textbook by Mead and Conway helped schools educate more designers...

In 1986 the first one megabit RAM chips were introduced, which contained more than one million transistors. Microprocessor chips passed the million transistor mark in 1989 and the billion transistor mark in 2005. The trend continues largely unabated, with chips introduced in 2007 containing tens of billions of memory transistors .

Popular trance

By the mid-1990s trance, specifically progressive trance, which emerged from acid trance much as Progressive house had emerged from Acid house, had emerged commercially as one of the dominant genres of dance music. Progressive trance has set in stone the basic formula of modern trance by becoming even more focused on the anthemic basslines and lead melodies, moving away from hypnotic, repetitive, arpeggiated analog synth patterns and spacey pads. Popular elements and anthemic pads became more widespread. Compositions continued to contain incremental changes (aka progressive structures), sometimes composed in thirds (as BT frequently does). Meanwhile, a different type of trance, generally called uplifting trance was becoming popular. Uplifting trance had buildups and breakdowns that were longer and more exaggerated, being more direct and less subtle than progressive, with more easily identifiable tunes and anthems. Many such trance tracks follow a set form, featuring an introduction, steady build, a breakdown, and then an anthem, a form aptly called the "build-breakdown-anthem" form. Uplifting vocals, usually female, were also becoming more and more prevalent, adding to trance's popular appeal.

Immensely popular, trance found itself filling a niche that was 'edgier' than house, more soothing than drum and bass, and more melodic than techno, which made it accessible to a wide audience. Artists like Tiësto, Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, Robert Miles, Above & Beyond, Darren Tate, Ferry Corsten, Johan Gielen, ATB and Paul Oakenfold came to the forefront as premier producers and remixers, bringing with them the emotional, "epic" feel of the style. Many of these producers also DJ'd in clubs playing their own productions as well as those by other trance DJs. By the end of the 1990s, trance remained commercially huge, but had fractured into an extremely diverse genre. Some of the artists that had helped create the trance sound in the early and mid-1990s had, by the end of the decade, abandoned trance completely in favor of more underground sounds - artists of particular note here include Pascal F.E.O.S. and Oliver Lieb.

As trance entered the mainstream it alienated many of its original fans. As the industry became bigger, record labels, Ibiza based producers, clubs (most notably Ministry of Sound) and DJs continued to alter their sound to more of a pop based one, so as to make the sound more accessible to an even wider and younger audience.

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.

Understanding the Context

Many different methods of communication are possible on the Internet; some use specific software and all involve text and/or graphics.

* Some activities take place in real-time while others allow for a delayed reply.

* Discussion areas may be public or exist for a particular group of people.

* Information can either be broadcast or targeted at a particular user.

As the technology develops, and users and providers become more proficient, the boundaries between the different Internet services are blurred. For example, email is used in chat rooms, web pages include discussion areas and newsgroups can have files attached.

Each Internet service has its own educational value, risks, and recommended ways of dealing with problems, and these are detailed in the following pages. They are not exhaustive and many apply across Internet services. Schools should consider the sum of the advice in these guidelines across all areas.

Overview of the Click Thinking Pack

Schools and government initiatives are encouraging the educational use of the Internet right across the curriculum and young people are taking readily to this way of learning and communicating.

At the same time, the media tends to focus on the rare occasions when use of the Internet causes distress. The Scottish Executive believes that young people need to be protected and informed; and that those responsible for them, whether teachers, parents or other careers, should be aware of the issues involved.

Previous Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) publications in this area have dealt with the need to protect pupils from misuse of computers (Information Ethics) and to understand copyright implications (Copyright and Ethics in a Digital Age).

This booklet focuses on personal safety and wellbeing. It attempts to clarify potential risks and to empower Internet users in schools so that they can keep themselves safe. Those who manage Scottish schools, and all teachers, whether responsible for a primary class or for teaching a subject, will find policy guidelines and background information which will prepare our pupils to take their safe and well-earned place in the Digital Age.

Much of the advice in these guidelines will be relevant to other Local Authority staff responsible for overseeing young people's use of the Internet (e.g. managers and staff in community education centers, residential homes for young people, libraries and other settings). These groups should take account of the messages about personal safety, and put into place the recommendations suitable for their setting.

BACK TO SCHOOL SAFETY ALERT:

CPSC Urges Bicyclists to Wear Helmets

CPSC Document #5002

Each year about 800 bicyclists are killed and more than half a million are treated in hospital emergency rooms. In recent years, almost two-thirds of the deaths and one-third of the injuries involved head and face injury. About one-half the injuries to children under the age of 10 involved the head or face. Helmets may reduce the risk of head injury to bicyclists by as much as 85 percent. Yet, only about 50 percent of bicyclists wear helmets.

The purpose of a helmet is to absorb the energy of an impact to minimize or prevent a head injury. Crushable, expanded polystyrene foam generally is used for this purpose.

A bicycle helmet should have a snug but comfortable fit on the rider's head. Some helmets are available with several different thicknesses of internal padding to custom fit the helmet to the user. If a parent is buying a helmet for a child, the CPSC recommends that the child accompany the parent so that the helmet can be tested for a good fit.

For a helmet to provide protection during impact, it must have a chin strap and buckle that will stay securely fastened. No combination of twisting or pulling should remove the helmet from the head or loosen the buckle on the strap. Children should be instructed to always wear the helmet level on the forehead, not tilted back. The chin strap should be adjusted correctly and firmly buckled.

Helmets manufactured after March 1999, are required by federal law to meet the CPSC standard. When purchasing a helmet, consumers are urged to examine the helmet and accompanying instructions and safety literature carefully. Consumers should also look for a label stating conformance with the CPSC standard.

Bicyclists should avoid riding at night. If you must ride at night, install and use front and rear lights on the bicycle and wear clothing with reflective tape or markings. These precautions are in addition to the reflectors that the CPSC requires to be on the front, rear, pedals, and wheels of bicycles.

Many bicycle-car crashes can be avoided by applying the rules of the road and by increasing attentiveness of cyclists and motorists. Bicyclists have a legal right to share the road, but they are often not noticed in traffic. Drivers should always keep an eye out for bicyclists, especially when turning, merging, changing lanes, or entering intersections.