Some Facts about the Sun

The sun exerts a dominating influence on many aspects of the environment of mankind. It is to the sun that humans have looked for thousands of years as an object of worship and as the means of determining the patterns of their lives.

It is only in the past few centuries that science has been able to tell us much about the real sun - its size, its energy, its age and its future. Despite the advances of science in our knowledge, the statistics of the sun remain truly impressive compared with our everyday experience.

The following table gives us some of the important details of the sun.

Property Value

Radius 700,000 kilometres
Volume 1.4 billion billion cubic kilometres
Surface Area 6.1 billion billion square kilometres
Mass 2000 billion billion billion kilograms
Distance from Earth 149 million kilometres
Angular Diameter from Earth 0.53 degrees of arc
Gravity at Surface 290 metres/second/second
Escape Velocity at Surface 618 kilometers/second
Average Velocity 1400 kilograms/cubic meter
Total Radiated Power 380,000 billion billion kilowatts
Power at Earth 1380 watts/square metre/second
Effective Temperature 5770 degrees Kelvin
Solar Spectral Type G2V
Apparent Rotation Period 27.3 days (varies with latitude)
Age 5000 million years (approx)

What is PSLV AND GSLV

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle

The four stages PSLV is capable of launching up to 1,600 kg satellites into a 620 km polar orbit. It has provision to launch payloads from 100 kg micro-satellites or mini or small satellites in different combinations. It can also launch one-ton class payloads into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). So far, it has performed nine missions with eight consecutive successes. The latest launch of PSLV (PSLV-C6) was on 5 May 2005 during which the vehicle precisely placed the 1560 kg CARTOSAT-1 and the 42 kg HAMSAT into a 620 km high polar SSO.

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle

The GSLV was successful on its very first test flight. After its successful second flight on 8 May 2003, it was commissioned. This was followed by the success of its third flight on 20 September 2004. The GSLV is capable of launching 2,000 kg class satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). The development of Indigenous cryogenic stage to be used as the third stage of GSLV made further progress during the year. The cryogenic engine which forms part of this stage has already been successfully qualified. GSLV-Mk III, a new version of GSLV and capable of launching spacecraft weighing up to 4 tones to GTO is under development.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince- 6

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince….. First half of the story is the arrival of a new teacher at Hogwarts, Horace Slughorn, who is helpful to Harry. Next, Harry obtains a Potions book which teaches him a few helpful and dangerous spells along the way.

Harry is starts private lessons with Professor Dumbledore, during which Harry learns the dark secrets of Voldemort's past.

Harry's gets even more stressful with the distrustful actions of Draco Malfoy. Harry becomes determined, and slightly obsessed, to find out exactly what Malfoy has been up to and putting an end to it.

Ron gets a new girlfriend, Lavender Brown, Gryffindor student, and Hermione is unhappy about it. Harry, meanwhile, is facing a romantic quandary of his own- he falls for his best friend's sister, Ginny Weasley, but Ginny Weasley is unfortunately dating Harry's classmate, Dean Thomas. Harry's longing for Ginny and Ron's comical relationship with Lavender give the story a huge dose of reality.

India’s National tree and National River

Indian fig tree (Ficus bengalensis), the tree branches grow like a new tree over a large area. The roots then give rise to more trunks and branches. Because of this characteristic and its longevity, this tree is considered immortal and is an integral part of the myths and legends of India. Even today, the banyan tree is the focal point of village life and the village council meets under the shade of this tree.

The Ganga or Ganges is the longest river of India flowing over 2,510 kms of mountains, valleys and plains. It originates in the snowfields of the Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayas as the Bhagirathi River. It is later joined by other rivers such as the Alaknanda, Yamuna, Son, Gumti, Kosi and Ghagra. The Ganga river basin is one of the most fertile and densely populated areas of the world and covers an area of 1,000,000 sq. kms. There are two dams on the river - one at Haridwar and the other at Farakka. The Ganges River Dolphin is an endangered animal that specifically habitats this river. The Ganga is revered by Hindus as the most sacred river on earth. Key religious ceremonies are held on the banks of the river at cities such as Varanasi, Haridwar and Allahabad. The Ganga widens out into the Ganges Delta in the Sunderbans swamp of Bangladesh, before it ends its journey by emptying into the Bay of Bengal.

Arctic Ice Islands

When oil companies discover for oil offshore, they need a drilling place to work from. In most areas of the world, drilling platforms are constructed of steel. In the Arctic the oil companies can use sea water to build an ice island to use as a drilling platform. It takes very cold temperatures to freeze sea water and even colder temperatures to build an ice island. In fact, if the temperature is above minus 20 degrees F, it is too warm to build one.

Mars Ice Island, Beaufort Sea Alaska although the sea ice naturally freezes to several feet each winter, the ice may not be thick enough to support a drilling rig. One way to thicken the ice is to pump water on top of the ice and let it freeze. This process can be repeated many times until the ice is thick enough to support the drilling equipment.

In areas were the ice moves, the ice island must touch (ground) on the bottom of the sea floor. One of the fastest ways to thicken the ice is to spray sea water up into the cold Arctic air where it super-cools and falls back down onto the exterior of the ice. As the weight of the ice island increases it sinks deeper and deeper into the ocean until it grounds on the sea floor.

Spraying Seawater to Create an Ice Island in the Beaufort Sea, ice island building can begin in late December. It can take up to two months to build an ice island. After the island is constructed, the oil companies need enough time to drill the well and remove all of the drilling equipment before the ice begins to melt.

Facts about coconut

Scientists like to refer to the coconut as a water dispersal fruit and seed. A seed is the reproductive unit of a flowering plant. From a reproductive point of view, a seed has the “baby” plant inside, with two basic parts: the embryo root (hypocotyl) and the embryo leaves (epicotyl). In the coconut’s case, if you look at one end of the coconut, you’ll see three pores (also called eyes). The coconut seed germinates and a shoot emerges from one of the pores. In addition to the “baby” plant in the seed, there is the food to kick off its life called the endosperm. The endosperm is what makes up most of the seed and, in the coconut’s case, is the tasty white stuff we eat.

The word coconut itself can also be puzzling because the word “nut” is contained in the word. A nut can be defined as a one- seeded fruit. With that meaning, a coconut can also be a nut. However, a coconut is not an accurate nut. A true nut, such as the acorn, are indehiscent or do not open at maturity to release its seeds. The seeds are released when the fruit wall decays or are digested by an animal.

Facts
• Every bit of the coconut is used. As a result, coconuts are called the “Tree of Life” and can produce drink, fiber, food, fuel, utensils, musical instruments, and much more.
• When intra-venous (IV) solution was in short supply, doctors during World War II and Vietnam used coconut water in substitution of IV solutions.
• Botanically, the coconut palm is not a tree since there is no bark, no branches, or secondary growth. A coconut palm is a woody perennial monocotyledon with the trunk being the stem.
• Possibly the oldest reference is from Cosmas, a 5th century AD Egyptian traveler. He wrote about the “Indian nut” or “nut of India” after visiting India and Ceylon, Some scholars believe Cosmas was describing a coconut.
• Soleyman, an Arab merchant, visited China in the 9th century and describes the use of coir fiber and toddy made from coconuts.
• In 16th century, Sir Francis Drake called coconut “nargils”, which was the common term used until the 1700’s when the word coconut was established.
• It takes 11 -12 months for the coconut to mature.
• At one time scientists identified over 60 species of Cocos palm. Today, the coconut is a monotypic with one species, nucifera. However, there are over 80 varieties of coconut palms, which are defined by characteristics such as dwarf and tall.

Glowing Anemone

Anemone was discovered by Jörg Wiedenmann of the National Oceanography Centre of the University of Southampton in the UK and his equals on a mission to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, 500 to 600 meters down. The fish is glowing with stripes tentacles of the fluorescent anemone come out out of the darkness and there was nothing mainly special about that, apart from that this species, which may by no means have been seen before, is one of just a handful of organisms whose fluorescence can be switched on and off.

The anemone may perhaps be a species that is new to science, as the researchers have not been able to make out it up till now. Although it is possible that the anemones use their fluorescence to attract prey, Wiedenmann points out that it might not have any evolutionary purpose. Wiedenmann and his colleagues have now secluded the protein that makes the anemones glow, which they have named cerFP505. It has one particularly unusual characteristic: it can be switched on and off by shining a light of a certain wavelength onto it.

Interesting and amazing facts:

 The bird that can fly the fastest is called a White it can fly up to 95 miles per hour.
 The Blue Whale's whistle is the loudest noise made by an animal.
 The brain of an average adult male weighs 1,375 gm (55 oz). The brain of Russian novelist Turgenev weighed 2021 gm (81 oz), Bismark's weighed 1807 gm (72 oz), while that of French statesman Gambetta was only 1294 gm (51 oz). Einstein's brain was of average size.
 A person can live without foodstuff for about a month, but only about a week without water.If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1%, you'll feel dry.
If it's reduced by 10%, you'll die.
 A mouse is so small compared to an elephant, that an elephant does not even know that there is a mouse close to it.
 Do you know that books can breathe? People visiting the British Museum complained of getting headaches. This was for the reason that books seem to absorb or "breathe" in air and "breathe" out smells of their own. There are so many old books in the Museum that there was no fresh air left which meant people got headaches from breathing in bad air
 Major Walter Clopton Wingfield invented land tennis in 1873, which later became the "tennis" we know today.
 The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning it's head are the rabbit and the parrot.
 The Sumerians invented writing.
 India is the world's largest consumer of gold. And, by year 2000 the Indian marketplace for gold will reach 1000 tons.
 Money notes are not made from paper, they are made mostly from a special blend of cotton and linen. In 1932, when a shortage of cash occurred in Tenino, Washington, USA, notes were made out of wood for a brief period.
 Chinese made the first wheelbarrow.
 India has 3.5 million professionals trained in medicine or other technical sciences. Ranking India as one of the ten largest emerging markets in the world .
 55 per cent of people yawn within 5 minutes of seeing someone else yawn. Reading about yawning makes most people yawn.
 India is the biggest diamond-cutting center for small roughs. These diamonds are eventually sold in shops on Fifth Avenue.
 Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water. The tea bag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York.
 The first toy balloon, made of vulcanized rubber, was thought of by someone in the J.G.Ingram Company in London, England in 1847.
 The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start
 India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in100 BC. Albert Einstein said: "We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made".
Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India.Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India.

Reviews Reports On Recalled Diet Pill

Health Canada says it has received 17 "adverse reaction" reports related to Hydroxycut, an Ontario-made diet supplement linked to serious liver damage and at least one death in the U.S.

While the federal agency didn't officially authorize the pills for sale in Canada, the product was still available as a non-authorized product, Health Canada told CTV News.

Still, in a statement released on Friday, the agency said that none of the 17 reports in this country were related to liver injuries.

"These adverse reactions relate to the cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and neurological systems," the agency said.

Health Canada said: "Authorized health products will bear either an eight-digit Drug Identification Number (DIN), a Natural Product Number (NPN), or a Homeopathic Medicine Number (DIN-HM) on the label."

Source: http://www.ctv.ca/

Motorola's Rough And Tough Handsets Comes to India

Motorola has announced the launch of its FR Series of enterprise grade, rough and tough handsets in India.The series include two new phones, the FR 6000 and the FR68-both of which are aimed at enterprise level consumers and users. Designed for weathering tough working environments and conditions, both the phones offer smartphone abilities and can go places where no smartphone might have been ever been before.

Both the phones come equipped with 3.5G HSDPA/WAN and GPS navigation and a 1D laser scanner built in along with Bluetooth and IrDA. On the imaging front, one of the models, the FR68 features a decent 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus and not to mention optical character recognition.

Source: http://www.techtree.com/

Funny Accidents

Bulls May Take A Breather; Global Cues Mixed

Stocks are likely to remain in a consolidation mode on Friday after a sharp rally in the previous session. The market is likely to take cues from the Asian markets which had a tepid start.

US stocks rose on Thursday, with the Nasdaq turning positive for the year-to-date, as a batch economic data that was not as dire as expected fed optimism the economy's worst days were behind.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 174.75 points, or 2.25 per cent, to 7,924.56. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 18.98 points, or 2.33 per cent, to 832.86 and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 58.05 points, or 3.80 per cent, to 1,587.00.

Stocks across the Asia Pacific were trading mixed following cues from Wall Street. The Nikkei climbed 0.8 per cent, Topix rose 0.93 per cent, Hang Seng edged 0.04 per cent lower and Straits Times fell 1 per cent.

Back home, bulls were on a rampage fourth day running Thursday, helping the Sensex reclaim the 10,000 mark. The Nifty also tested the 3100 mark during the day but retreated towards the fag end of the session.

The market opened trade on a firm footing, and then there was no looking back. In step with strong global markets and boosted by short-covering on the last day of monthly derivatives contracts, the Indian stock market marched northward.

Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex settled at 10,003.10, up 335.20 points or 3.47 per cent. The index soared to an intra-day high of 10,061.36 after opening trade at 9,739.93. This is the first time since January 7, 2009 that the 30-share index scaled the 10000 mark.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty advanced 3.28 per cent or 97.4 points to 3082.25. The 50-share index rose to a high of 3103.35 during the day. Midcaps and smallcaps space was also buzzing with activity. The BSE Midcap Index was up 1.16 per cent and the BSE Smallcap Index rose 0.69 per cent.

ForMoreInfo: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4321856.cms

Drop Charges Against Zuma

he leader of the ruling ANC Jacob Zuma, will have more than 700 counts of fraud and corruption charges against him dropped soon.

This follows representations made by Mr. Zuma's lawyers to the National Prosecution Authority(NPA), which has instituted the charges against the ANC leader.

The representations follow a recent rejection by the Appeal Court against a ruling by the Pietermaritzburg High Court that the charges be thrown out. Mr. Zuma subsequently made representations to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that

Mr. Zuma should be entitled to make representations to the NPA and that the ANC could be a friend of Zuma in court.

Mr. Zuma has been charged with fraud and corruption after his Indian-origin financier and comrade, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of bribing Zuma to the tune of more than 25,0000 USD over a ten year period since 1995. Shaik was released three weeks ago on medical parole after only serving two years of a 15-year sentence.

Mr. Zuma is scheduled to appear in court again in August, four months after he's expected to be elected President of the country.

The wide speculation about the dropping of charges against Zuma has reached a feverish level in South Africa after Shaik's brother, Mo Shaik, told a university students meeting in Pretoria yesterday that newspapers would report that the NPA would drop the charges against Mr. Zuma.

Carroll Helps Missouri Pull Away From Texas Tech

Oklahoma City, OK (Sports Network) - DeMarre Carroll led the way with 19 points and five rebounds, as 14th-ranked Missouri returned some order to the Big 12 Tournament, blitzing Texas Tech, 81-60, in a quarterfinal matchup at the Ford Center.

A 31-31 halftime tie quickly turned into a 50-point second half for the Tigers, who used the full court press and efficient execution to overwhelm the Red Raiders (14-19).

J.T. Tiller and Matt Lawrence added 13 points apiece for the Tigers (26-6), who are the only top-four seed remaining after the wild quarterfinals. Kansas, Oklahoma and fourth-seeded Kansas State all fell on Thursday, leaving Baylor, Oklahoma State, Texas and Missouri left in Oklahoma City.

Missouri will face Oklahoma State in the semifinals.

Mike Singletary, one day after scoring 29 straight points as part of a 43- point effort, managed only 17, while Nick Okorie added 13 points for Texas Tech.

A 35-35 stalemate turned into a 13-point Tigers lead in a flash. Leo Lyons converted two buckets from in close off the bat, Tiller scored from in close right after that and Carroll's bucket put Missouri in front, 48-35 just over five minutes in.

Alan Voskuil's free throws brought the Red Raiders back within single digits, 55-46, but they never got closer. The margin grew to 67-48 on Zaire Taylor's two free throws with 6:11 to play, and Missouri rolled from there.

Game Notes

Missouri shot 55.4 percent on the game, while Texas Tech made just 36.7 percent of its shots, including only 4-of-15 from beyond the arc...The Red Raiders bench scored more points than their starters (31 to 30).

Chris Paul Leads

New Orleans, LA (Sports Network) - Chris Paul scored 21 of his 27 points in the second half and dished out 15 assists, as the Hornets stretched their season-best winning streak to six games with a 104-88 dismantling of the Dallas Mavericks.

David West netted 19 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks for the Hornets, who also received 10 points and 11 boards from Tyson Chandler. Rasual Butler scored 18 in the win.

"We're definitely not peaking, but we're playing a lot better than we were," said Paul. "Ever since I got my big man back, we're 6-0, so I'm glad to have (Chandler) back and we're doing a good job right now."

After losing 21 straight games to the Mavericks in the all-time series, the Hornets have won four of the last six meetings, eight of the last 11 games including their 4-2 first-round playoff series win over Dallas last season.

Dirk Nowitzki had 27 points and seven rebounds for the Mavericks, who have dropped two of their last three contests. Jason Kidd added 13 points and Jason Terry scored 10 for the Mavs, who shot 39.5 percent from the field, while allowing the Hornets to make 56 percent of their attempts.

"We could never get a consistent string of shot making," said Dallas coach Rick Carlisle. "We were playing from behind all night. We just couldn't sustain them."

Nowitzki nailed a three-pointer to extend Dallas to a 51-46 lead just over two minutes into the third quarter, but the Hornets came back with a stinging 25-7 spurt to take control. Butler's three-pointer capped the burst for a 71-59 lead with barely over two minutes left in the third.

Paul and Chandler combined for 18 points in the third quarter as New Orleans shot 66.7 percent (12-of-18), while holding Dallas to 29.4 percent (5-of-17) in the period.

"In the first half, we weren't aggressive enough," said Paul. "We didn't push the tempo enough. In the second half, I knew that was my job, and that's what I tried to do. In the first half, they started switching ball screens. I was passing, deferring to my teammates. Coach told me I just needed to be more aggressive. I attacked him (Nowitzki) a few times, and finally my jump shot started falling."

Facing a 75-67 deficit entering the final quarter, the Mavs fell apart defensively as the game turned into a rout. Paul's three-pointer expanded the lead to 91-76 and that was the start of a sealing 10-0 flurry, which was culminated by a Butler three-point play.

New Orleans led 24-21 after the opening quarter and the game remained tight until the half, when it was tied at 45. Nowitzki hit a jumper at the buzzer to seemingly give Dallas the lead, but the basket was waived off as replays showed the shot barely came after the red light went on before he fully released the ball.

"In the first half I thought we played their style of basketball, they looked like the younger fresher basketball team which I wasn't really happy about," said Hornets coach Byron Scott. "So I let the guys know at halftime that we have to come out there and be more aggressive. Then we got going in the third quarter at both ends of the floor."

Boxing Championship

The Indian Boxing Federation's (IBF) request to postpone the Commonwealth Championships here from December to February-March next year has been accepted by the Commonwealth body.

The Commonwealth Boxing Federation (CBF) has agreed to reschedule the tournament in the city from December 2009 to February-March next year, the IBF said in a statement.

"The Indian Boxing Federation has now requested the International Boxing Association to allot a suitable date in February-March 2010 so that it does not clash with any other major international boxing competitions in the world," IBF secretary general PK Muralidharan Raja said.

This change was necessitated since construction work at Talkatora Stadium, venue of the boxing event for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, will be completed by November this year.

"Although NDMC has promised to hand over the stadium by December, the federation in consultation with the Organising Committee of Commonwealth Games has preferred to host the Commonwealth Boxing Championships, which will be a test event for the Commonwealth Games, in February-March 2010 rather than trying to squeeze it in December this year," Raja added.

In another development, the first international (16th AK Mishra) boxing tournament will be held in Chandigarh from March 11-15 this year.

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

Language

A language is a dynamic set of sensory symbols of communication and the elements used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon. Strictly speaking, language is considered to be an exclusively human mode of communication. Although other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language.

In Western Philosophy, language has long been closely associated with reason, which is also a uniquely human way of using symbols. In Ancient Greek philosophical terminology, the same word, logos, was used as a term for both language or speech and reason, and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the English word "speech" so that it similarly could refer to reason, as will be discussed below. More commonly though, the English word "language", derived ultimately from lingua, Latin for tongue, typically refers only to expressions of reason which can be understood by other people, most obviously by speaking.

CD Logical structure

The largest entity on a CD is called a track. A CD can contain up to 99 tracks (including a data track for mixed mode discs). Each track can in turn have up to 100 indexes, though players which handle this feature are rarely found outside of pro audio, particularly radio broadcasting. The vast majority of songs are recorded under index 1, with the pre-gap being index 0. Sometimes hidden tracks are placed at the end of the last track of the disc, often using index 2 or 3. This is also the case with some discs offering "101 sound effects", with 100 and 101 being indexed as two and three on track 99. The index, if used, is occasionally put on the track listing as a decimal part of the track number, such as 99.2 or 99.3. (Information Society's Hack was one of very few CD releases to do this, following a release with an equally-obscure CD+G feature.) The track and index structure of the CD carried forward to the DVD as title and chapter, respectively.

Genetic diversity

Genetic diversity is a level of biodiversity that refers to the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a specie. It is distinguished from genetic variability, which describes the tendency of genetic characteristics to vary.:)

The academic field of population genetics includes several hypotheses regarding genetic diversity. The neutral theory of evolution proposes that diversity is the result of the accumulation of neutral substitutions. Diversifying selection is the hypothesis that two subpopulations of a species live in different environments that select for different alleles at a particular locus. This may occur, for instance, if a species has a large range relative to the mobility of individuals within it. Frequency-dependent selection is the hypothesis that as alleles become more common, they become less fit. This is often invoked in host-pathogen interactions, where a high frequency of a defensive allele among the host means that it is more likely that a pathogen will spread if it is able to overcome that allele.

Ruminantia

The biological suborder Ruminantia includes many of the well-known large grazing or browsing mammals: among them cattle, goats, sheep, deer, and antelope. All members of the Ruminantia are ruminants: they digest food in two steps, chewing and swallowing in the normal way to begin with, and then regurgitating the semi-digested cud to re-chew it and thus extract the maximum possible food value.

Note that not all ruminants belong to the Ruminantia. Camels and llamas are among the exceptions, a suborder known as Tylopoda. Also, there are a number of other large grazing mammals that, while not strictly ruminants, have similar adaptations for surviving on large quantities of low-grade food. Kangaroos and horses are examples.

Landlocked seas

• Aral Sea
• Lake Balkhash
• Caspian Sea
• Lake Chad
• Lake Chilwa
• Chott Melrhir
• Dead Sea
• Lake Eyre
• Issyk Kul
• Namtso
• Sea of Galilee
• Great Salt Lake
• Qinghai Lake
• Salton Sea
• Tonle Sap
• Lake Torrens
• Lake Turkana
• Lake Van

Leather

Leather is a material created through the tanning of hides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide. The tanning process converts the putrescible skin into a durable, long-lasting and versatile natural material for various uses.

Together with wood, leather formed the basis of much ancient technology. The leather industry and the fur industry are distinct industries that are differentiated by the importance of their raw materials. In the leather industry the raw materials are by-products of the meat industry, with the meat having higher value than the skin. The fur industry uses raw materials that are higher in value than the meat and hence the meat is classified as a by-product. Taxidermy also makes use of the skin of animals, but generally the head and part of the back are used. Hides and skins are also used in the manufacture of glue and gelatin

Chesapeake Bay impact crater

The Chesapeake Bay impact crater was formed by a bolide that impacted the eastern shore of North America about 35.5 million years ago, in the late Eocene epoch. It is one of the best-preserved "wet-target" or marine impact craters, and the largest impact crater in the U.S. Continued slumping of sediments over the rubble of the crater have helped shape Chesapeake Bay.