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BD (company) In 2004, BD completed the acquisition of Atto Bioscience Acquired, a company specializing in optical instrumentation, software, and reagents for real-time analysis of interactions taking place in living cells. In 2005 BD entered the field of proteomics through its acquisition of FFE Weber GmbH, which specialized in the separation and fractionation of complex proteins. 2006 was also an important year to document BD's growth as the company acquired GeneOhm Sciences—a leader in the development of molecular diagnostic testing for the rapid detection of bacterial organisms and TriPath Imaging, a cancer diagnostics company. For the fiscal year 2017, Becton Dickinson reported earnings of US$1.030 billion, with an annual revenue of US$12.093 billion, an increase of 10.5% over the previous fiscal cycle. Becton Dickinson's shares traded at over $192 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$63 billion in November 2018. Becton Dickinson was formally divided into two business segments, namely BD Medical (52% of FY 09 revenues) and BD Life Sciences (44% of FY 09 revenues) Currently there are three business segments. The BD Medical segment consists of four divisions or units, namely Diabetes Care, Medication Delivery Solutions, Medication Management Solutions, and Pharmaceutical Systems | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=598704 |
BD (company) The products of this segment include: needles and syringes, intravenous catheters, safety-engineered and auto-disable devices, prefillable drug delivery systems, prefilled IV flush syringes, insulin syringes and pen needles, regional anesthesia needles, and anesthesia trays. This segment primarily sells to: hospitals and clinics, physicians' office practices, consumers and retail pharmacies, governmental and nonprofit public health agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and health care workers.. In certain places, BD Medical also offers consulting and analytics related services. BD Medical's Consulting services are primarily targeted at hospitals, healthcare systems and networks of healthcare providers. Business units include Diabetes Care, Medication Delivery Solutions, Medication Management Solutions, and Pharmaceutical Systems. Offerings include preanalytical solutions for sample management; immunology research, including flow cytometry and multiomics tools; microbiology and molecular diagnostics; lab automation and informatics; and differentiated reagents and assays. Business units include Peripheral Intervention, Surgery, Urology and Critical Care BD Biosciences designs, manufactures, and sells fluorescence-activated cell sorters and analyzers, monoclonal antibodies, and kits for cell analysis, reagent systems for life science research, cell imaging systems, laboratory products for tissue culture and fluid handling, and cell culture media supplements for biopharmaceutical manufacturing | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=598704 |
BD (company) BD Biosciences serves the following customers: research and clinical laboratories, academic and government institutions, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, hospitals, and blood banks. The company's line of plastic conical screwtop test tubes, known as 'Falcon tubes', is popular and the term is sometimes used as a generic term for such tubes. In 2004, BD agreed to pay out $100 million to settle allegations from competitor Retractable Technologies that it had engaged in anti-competitive behavior to prevent the distribution of Retractable's syringes, which are designed to prevent needlestick injury. The lawsuit touched off a series of legal conflicts between the companies. Retractable would accuse BD of patent infringement after BD released a retractable needle of its own. Later Retractable would claim BD was falsely advertising its own version retractable needs as being the “world’s sharpest needle”. The debate between the two companies was partially the basis for the 2011 movie "Puncture". As of February 2010, BD was ranked 18th in the EPA Fortune 500 List of Green Power Purchasers. BD was also listed among the top 100 companies in Newsweek's 2009 Green Rankings ranking of the 500 largest American corporations based on environmental performance, policies, and reputation. BD placed third in the health care sector and 83rd overall | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=598704 |
BD (company) In addition, BD has been a component of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index for the four and five consecutive years, respectively. In mid-2007, the firm's Discardit II series of syringes numbered 0607186 was withdrawn from hospitals and other medical services around Poland, about half a year after the discovery of remains of dark dust in some syringes, which were alleged to have been from this series. The newspaper Dziennik Online claimed that other series such as 06022444, 0603266, and 0607297 were also suspected of being contaminated. BD recalled and tested the syringes in question, and revealed sterile particulates in 0.013 percent of the products. Legal proceedings related to the incident started in December 2006. According to an article published in Dziennik on Monday, 21 April 2008, the prosecutor's office in Lublin discontinued the inquiry, because the disposable syringes were not dangerous. In February 2010 BD announced a voluntary product recall of certain lots of BD Q-Syte Luer Access Devices and BD Nexiva Closed IV Catheter Systems. BD stated that the use of the affected devices may cause an air embolism or leakage of blood and/or therapy, which may result in serious injury or death. The approximately 2.8 million BD Q-Syte and 2.9 million BD Nexiva units containing 5 million BD Q-Syte devices that were recalled were distributed in the United States, Asia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, the Middle East, South Africa, and South America | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=598704 |
BD (company) The recall was initiated on Oct. 28, 2009 after BD received complaints of problems due to air entry through a part of the device. BD stated that the cause of the problem was manufacturing deviation and claimed that it corrected the problem. BD announced that it notified customers about the recall by letter and has been working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and worldwide health agencies to coordinate recall activities. In April 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health and Administration fined BD $112,700 for safety violations. They found repeat and serious violations of health and safety law that had resulted in two employees having partial finger amputations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=598704 |
Stipe (botany) In botany, a stipe is a stalk that supports some other structure. The precise meaning is different depending on which taxonomic group is being described. In the case of ferns, the stipe is only the petiole from the rootstock to the beginning of the leaf tissue, or lamina. The continuation of the structure within the lamina is then termed a rachis. In flowering plants, the term is often used in reference to a stalk that sometimes supports a flower's ovary. In orchids, the stipe or caudicle is the stalk-like support of the pollinia. It is a non-viscid band or strap connecting the pollinia with the viscidium (the viscid part of the rostellum or beak). A stipe is also a structure found in organisms that are studied by botanists but that are no longer classified as plants. It may be the stem-like part of the thallus of a mushroom or a seaweed, and is particularly common among brown algae such as kelp. The stipe of a kelp often contains a central region of cells that, like the phloem of vascular plants, serves to transport nutrients within the alga. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=598999 |
Overburden In mining, overburden (also called waste or spoil) is the material that lies above an area that lends itself to economical exploitation, such as the rock, soil, and ecosystem that lies above a coal seam or ore body. is distinct from tailings, the material that remains after economically valuable components have been extracted from the generally finely milled ore. is removed during surface mining, but is typically not contaminated with toxic components. may also be used to restore an exhausted mining site to a semblance of its appearance before mining began. Interburden is material that lies between two areas of economic interest, such as the material separating coal seams within strata. is also used for all soil and ancillary material above the bedrock horizon in a given area. By analogy, overburden is also used to describe the soil and other material that lies above a specific geologic feature, such as a buried astrobleme, or above an unexcavated site of archeological interest. In particle physics, the overburden of an underground laboratory may be important to shield the facility from cosmic radiation that can interfere with experiments. In arboriculture, the word is also used for the soil over the top of the roots of a tree collected from the wild. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=605524 |
Photohydrogen is hydrogen produced with the help of artificial or natural light This is how the leaf of a tree splits water molecules into protons (hydrogen ions), electrons (to make carbohydrates) and oxygen (released into the air as a waste product). may also be produced by the photodissociation of water by ultraviolet light. is sometimes discussed in the context of obtaining renewable energy from sunlight, by using microscopic organisms such as bacteria or algae. These organisms create hydrogen with the help of hydrogenase enzymes which convert protons derived from the water splitting reaction into hydrogen gas which can then be collected and used as a biofuel. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=605697 |
Moonmilk (sometimes called mondmilch, also known as montmilch or as cave milk) is a white, creamy substance found inside limestone caves. It is a precipitate from limestone comprising aggregates of fine crystals of varying composition usually made of carbonates such as calcite, aragonite, hydromagnesite, and/or monohydrocalcite. There are several hypotheses concerning the origin of moonmilk. One of these explains moonmilk to be the result of bacterial action rather than from chemical reactions. According to this particular hypothesis, moonmilk is thought to have been created by the bacterium "Macromonas bipunctata". However, no microbiological studies have been carried out so far. was originally explained as created by "moon rays". It is possible that moonmilk is formed by water that dissolves and softens the karst of caves consisting of carbonates, and carries dissolved nutrients that can be used by microbes, such as Actinomycetes. As the microbial colonies grow, they trap and accumulate chemically-precipitated crystals in the organic matter-rich matrix formed that way. It has been suggested that these heterotrophic microbes, which produce CO as a waste product of respiration and possibly organic acids, may help to dissolve the carbonate. Being soft, moonmilk was frequently the medium for finger fluting, a form of prehistoric art. The world's largest formation of brushite moonmilk is found in the Big Room of Kartchner Caverns State Park in southern Arizona | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=608406 |
Moonmilk In the middle of 16th century moonmilk was used as a medicine according to Gessner, and continued to be used as such until the 19th century. It is said to have cured acidosis and probably cardialgia by neutralizing an overdose of acid. It had no adverse health effects. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=608406 |
Alexander Gorodnitsky Alexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky (; born March 20, 1933) is a well-known Soviet and Russian Jewish bard and poet. Professionally, he is a geologist and oceanographer. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. Gorodnitsky was born in Leningrad to a Russian Jewish family and graduated with a degree in geophysics from the Leningrad Mining Institute in 1957, and received a Ph.D. in geological and mineralogical sciences in 1982. He became a professor in 1991 and has published over 260 scientific papers. Since 1962, he has participated in Arctic geological expeditions and sailed on board various scientific research vessels. Gorodnitsky's first songs appeared during his expedition in 1953. For a long time his songs were distributed via samizdat tape recordings, and often performed by other singers. Like Alexander Galich, and unlike other bards, Gorodnitsky composed and sang his songs a cappella for several decades; later, he started playing the guitar. Most of his songs are of the Tourist Song subgenre and are based on his personal experiences. In concert, he usually performs with a professional guitarist accompanying him. Gorodnitsky currently resides in Moscow and regularly performs at concerts and various bard festivals. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=608799 |
Clandestine chemistry is chemistry carried out in secret, and particularly in illegal drug laboratories. Larger labs are usually run by gangs or organized crime intending to produce for distribution on the black market. Smaller labs can be run by individual chemists working clandestinely in order to synthesize smaller amounts of controlled substances or simply out of a hobbyist interest in chemistry, often because of the difficulty in ascertaining the purity of other, illegally synthesized drugs obtained on the black market. The term "clandestine lab" is generally used in any situation involving the production of illicit compounds, regardless of whether the facilities being used qualify as a true laboratory. Ancient forms of clandestine chemistry included the manufacturing of explosives. Another old form of clandestine chemistry is the illegal brewing and distillation of alcohol. This is frequently done to avoid taxation on spirits. From 1919 to 1933, the United States prohibited the sale, manufacture, or transportation of alcoholic beverages. This opened a door for brewers to supply their own town with alcohol. Just like modern-day drug labs, distilleries were placed in rural areas. The term "moonshine" generally referred to "corn whiskey", that is, a whiskey-like liquor made from corn. Today, American-made corn whiskey can be labeled or sold under that name, or as Bourbon or Tennessee whiskey, depending on the details of the production process | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry Prepared substances (as opposed to those that occur naturally in a consumable form, such as cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms) require reagents. Some drugs, like cocaine and morphine, are extracted from plant sources and refined with the aid of chemicals. Semi-synthetic drugs such as heroin are made starting from alkaloids extracted from plant sources which are the precursors for further synthesis. In the case of heroin, a mixture of alkaloids is extracted from the opium poppy ("Papaver somniferum") by incising its seed capsule, whereupon a milky fluid (the opium 'latex') bleeds out of the incisions which is then left to dry out and scraped off the bulbs, yielding raw opium. Morphine, one of many alkaloids in opium, is then extracted out of the opium by acid-base extraction and turned into heroin by reacting it with acetic anhydride. Other drugs (such as methamphetamine and MDMA) are normally made from commercially available chemicals, though both can also be made from naturally occurring precursors. Methamphetamine can also be made from ephedrine, one of the naturally occurring alkaloids in ephedra ("Ephedra sinica"). MDMA can be made from safrole, the major constituent of several etheric oils like sassafras. Governments have adopted a strategy of chemical control as part of their overall drug control and enforcement plans. Chemical control offers a means of attacking illicit drug production and disrupting the process before the drugs have entered the market | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry Because many legitimate industrial chemicals such as anhydrous ammonia and iodine are also necessary in the processing and synthesis of most illicitly produced drugs, preventing the diversion of these chemicals from legitimate commerce to illicit drug manufacturing is a difficult job. Governments often place restrictions on the purchase of large quantities of chemicals that can be used in the production of illicit drugs, usually requiring licenses or permits to ensure that the purchaser has a legitimate need for them. Chemicals critical to the production of cocaine, heroin, and synthetic drugs are produced in many countries throughout the world. Many manufacturers and suppliers exist in Europe, China, India, the United States, and a host of other countries. Historically, chemicals critical to the synthesis or manufacture of illicit drugs are introduced into various venues via legitimate purchases by companies that are registered and licensed to do business as chemical importers or handlers. Once in a country or state, the chemicals are diverted by rogue importers or chemical companies, by criminal organizations and individual violators, or acquired as a result of coercion and/or theft on the part of drug traffickers | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry In response to stricter international controls, drug traffickers have increasingly been forced to divert chemicals by mislabeling the containers, forging documents, establishing front companies, using circuitous routing, hijacking shipments, bribing officials, or smuggling products across international borders. The Multilateral Chemical Reporting Initiative encourages governments to exchange information on a voluntary basis in order to monitor international chemical shipments. Over the past decade, key international bodies like the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the U.N. General Assembly's Special Session (UNGASS) have addressed the issue of chemical diversion in conjunction with U.S. efforts. These organizations raised specific concerns about potassium permanganate and acetic anhydride. To facilitate the international flow of information about precursor chemicals, the United States, through its relationship with the Inter-American Drug Control Abuse Commission (CICAD), continues to evaluate the use of precursor chemicals and assist countries in strengthening controls. Many nations still lack the capacity to determine whether the import or export of precursor chemicals is related to legitimate needs or illicit drugs. The problem is complicated by the fact that many chemical shipments are either brokered or transshipped through third countries in an attempt to disguise their purpose or destination | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry Beginning in July 2001, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has opted to organize an international conference with the goal of devising a specific action plan to counter the traffic in MDMA precursor chemicals. They hope to prevent the diversion of chemicals used in the production of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), including MDMA (ecstasy) and methamphetamine. In June 2015, the European Commission approved Regulation (EU) 2015/1013 which outlined for the monitoring of drug precursors traded between the Union and third countries. The Regulation also establishes uniform procedures for licensing and registration of operators and users who are listed in a European database tracking drug precursors. Despite this long history of law enforcement actions, restrictions of chemicals, and even covert military actions, many illicit drugs are still widely available all over the world. Operation Purple is a U.S. DEA driven international chemical control initiative designed to reduce the illicit manufacture of cocaine in the Andean Region, identifying rogue firms and suspect individuals; gathering intelligence on diversion methods, trafficking trends, and shipping routes; and taking administrative, civil and/or criminal action as appropriate. Critical to the success of this operation is the communication network that gives notification of shipments and provides the government of the importer sufficient time to verify the legitimacy of the transaction and take appropriate action | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry The effects of this initiative have been dramatic and far-reaching. Operation Purple has exposed a significant vulnerability among traffickers, and has grown to include almost thirty nations. According to the DEA, Operation Purple has been highly effective at interfering with cocaine production. However, illicit chemists always find new methods to evade the DEA's scrutiny. In countries where strict chemical controls have been put in place, illicit drug production has been seriously affected. For example, few of the chemicals needed to process coca leaf into cocaine are manufactured in Bolivia or Peru. Most are smuggled in from neighbouring countries with advanced chemical industries or diverted from a smaller number of licit handlers. Increased interdiction of chemicals in Peru and Bolivia has contributed to final product cocaine from those countries being of lower, minimally oxidized quality. As a result, Bolivian lab operators are now using inferior substitutes such as cement instead of lime and sodium bicarbonate instead of ammonia and recycled solvents like ether. Some non-solvent fuels such as gasoline, kerosene and diesel fuel are even used in place of solvents. Manufacturers are attempting to streamline a production process that virtually eliminates oxidation to produce cocaine base | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry Some laboratories are not using sulfuric acid during the maceration state; consequently, less cocaine alkaloid is extracted from the leaf, producing less cocaine hydrochloride, the powdered cocaine marketed for overseas consumption. Similarly, heroin-producing countries depend on supplies of acetic anhydride (AA) from the international market. This heroin precursor continues to account for the largest volume of internationally seized chemicals, according to the International Narcotics Control Board. Since July 1999, there have been several notable seizures of acetic anhydride in Turkey (amounting to nearly seventeen metric tons) and Turkmenistan (totaling seventy-three metric tons). Acetic anhydride, the most commonly used chemical agent in heroin processing, is virtually irreplaceable. According to the DEA, Mexico remains the only heroin source route to heroin laboratories in Afghanistan. Authorities in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan routinely seize ton-quantity shipments of diverted acetic anhydride. The lack of acetic anhydride has caused clandestine chemists in some countries to substitute it for lower quality precursors such as acetic acid and results in the formation of impure black tar heroin that contains a mixture of drugs not found in heroin made with pure chemicals. DEA's Operation Topaz is a coordinated international strategy targeting acetic anhydride | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry In place since March 2001, a total of thirty-one countries are currently organized participants in the program in addition to regional participants. The DEA reports that as of June 2001, some 125 consignments of acetic anhydride had been tracked totaling 618,902,223 kilograms. As of July 2001, there has been approximately 20 shipments of AA totaling 185,000 kilograms either stopped or seized. The practice of clandestine chemistry to synthesize controlled substance analogues and circumvent drug laws was first noticed in the late 1960s, as types of drugs became controlled substances in many countries. With the Title 21 United States Code (USC) Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of October 27, 1970 amphetamines became controlled substances in the United States. Prior to this, amphetamine sulfate first became widely available as an over-the-counter (OTC) nasal decongestant inhaler in 1933, marketed by SKF under the brand name Benzedrine. Shortly afterward, physicians began documenting amphetamine's general stimulant properties and subsequently its potential for treating narcolepsy, which prompted SKF in 1938 to begin also manufacturing amphetamine sulfate as tablets. Initially the frequency of amphetamine abuse was negligible, however, by 1959 its popularity as a therapeutic agent and also a drug of abuse had skyrocketed nationwide, causing the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) to reclassify amphetamine from OTC to prescription-only | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry As of the early 1990s, methamphetamine use was concentrated among young white males in California and nearby states. Since then its use has spread both demographically and geographically. Methamphetamine has been a favorite among various populations including motorcycle gangs, truckers, laborers, soldiers, and ravers. Known as a "club drug", the National Institute on Drug Abuse tracks its incidence of use in children as young as twelve, and the prevalence of users increases with age. In the 1980s and early 1990s, most methamphetamine production in the United States occurred in small independent laboratories. Phenylacetone, one precursor of methamphetamine, became a Schedule II controlled immediate precursor in 1979. Underground chemists searched for alternative methods for producing methamphetamine. The two predominant methods which appeared both involve the reduction of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine to methamphetamine. At the time, neither was a watched chemical, and pills containing the substance could be bought by the thousands without raising any kind of suspicion. In the 1990s, the DEA recognized that legally imported precursors were being diverted to the production of methamphetamine. Changes to federal regulations in 1988 and throughout the 1990s enabled the DEA to more closely track the ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors. Many individual States have enacted precursor control laws which limit the sale of over-the-counter cold medications which contain ephedrine or pseudoephedrine | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry This made it somewhat more difficult for underground chemists to produce methamphetamine. In May 1995, the DEA shut down two major suppliers of precursors in the United States, seizing 25 metric tons of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from Clifton Pharmaceuticals and 500 cases of pseudoephedrine from X-Pressive Looks, Inc. (XLI). The immediate market impact suggests that they had been providing more than 50 percent of the precursors used nationally to produce methamphetamine. However, the market rapidly rebounded. The methamphetamine situation also changed in the mid-1990s as Mexican organized crime became a major player in its production and distribution, operating "super-labs" which produced a substantial percentage of the drugs being sold. According to the DEA, the seizure of 3.5 metric tons of pseudoephedrine in Texas in 1994 revealed that Mexican trafficking groups were producing methamphetamine on an unprecedented scale. More recent reports indicate an ongoing presence of Mexican trafficking. Although the prevalence of domestic meth labs continues to be high in western states, they have spread throughout the United States. It has been suggested that "do-it-yourself" meth production in rural areas is reflective of a broader DIY approach that includes activities such as hunting, fishing, and fixing one’s cars, trucks, equipment, and house | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry Toxic chemicals resulting from methamphetamine production may be hoarded or clandestinely dumped, damaging land, water, plant life and wild life, and posing a risk to humans. Waste from methamphetamine labs is frequently dumped on federal, public, and tribal lands. The chemicals involved can explode and clandestine chemistry has been implicated in both house and wild land fires. In Oregon, Brett Sherry of the Oregon Clandestine Drug Lab Cleanup Program has been quoted as stating that only 10-20% of drug labs are discovered by police. Statistics reporting the prevalence of meth labs and arrest of meth producers can vary greatly from county to county and state to state. Factors affecting policing and reporting include funding, specialized training, support from local residents, willingness to make the issue a priority in policing. How information is categorized and tracked may also inflate or minimize the apparent results. Missouri, which has tended to report some of the highest numbers of meth-lab arrests in the country, has pursued an aggressive and highly publicized policing policy, resulting in as many as 205 cases a year in one county. In contrast, West Virginia tends to report and prosecute very few cases, possibly because there the agency that reports a meth lab is held responsible for paying for its cleanup. Cleanup of toxic and hazardous materials at a single site may cost tens of thousands of dollars. This is a disincentive for agencies with limited budgets | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry Michigan reported an increase in incidents in 2016, following the formation of the Midland County Methamphetamine Protocol Team in 2015. Many of the cases reported involved meth users who were making small amounts of the drug in a simple "one-pot method" for both personal use and sale to others. DEA El Paso Intelligence Center data is showing a downward trend in the number of clandestine drug labs seized for the illicit manufacture of methamphetamine down from a high of 15,196 in 2010. Drug seizure quantities, on the other hand, are steadily increasing since 2007, according to data from the DEA's System to Retrieve Information from Drug Evidence (STRIDE) (see table to the right). Clean up processes were regulated by the EPA as of 2007. The Methamphetamine Remediation Research Act of 2007 required EPA to develop guidelines for remediation of former methamphetamine labs. This creates guidelines for States and local agencies to improve "our national understanding of identifying the point at which former methamphetamine laboratories become clean enough to inhabit again." The legislation also required that EPA periodically update the guidelines, as appropriate, to reflect the best available knowledge and research. Making a former meth lab site safer for habitation requires two basic efforts: Gross chemical removal: This is the process in which law enforcement or a Drug Enforcement Administration contractors removes the obvious dangers from the site | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry Obvious dangers include containers of chemicals, equipment, and apparatus that could be used to make illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, and other illegal items. This process does not cleanup or remove chemical spills, stains or residue that could be harmful to inhabitants. A property that has had only a gross chemical removal is not fit for habitation. Clandestine Remediation: The cleaning of interior structures and, if applicable, the surrounding land, surface waters and groundwater by an EPA approved or National Crime Scene Clean Up Association certified company. This is the process of removing the residue and waste from the site after the gross chemical removal is done. A property that has been re-mediated should present minimal to no health risk to occupants. Alcoholic drinks that are known to be contaminated. Black tar heroin is a free base form of heroin that is sticky like tar or hard like coal. Its dark color is the result of crude processing methods that leave behind impurities. Black Tar as a type holds a variable admixture morphine derivatives—predominantly 6-MAM ("6-monoacetylmorphine") which is another result of crude acetylation. The lack of proper reflux during acetylation fails to remove much of the moisture retained in the acetylating agent, glacial acetic acid. Oxi (abbr. from Portuguese "oxidado") is a stimulant drug based on cocaine paste originally developed in the Brazilian Amazon forest region. It is reportedly a mixture of cocaine paste, gasoline, kerosene and quicklime (calcium oxide) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry Illicitly produced desomorphine is typically far from pure and often contains large amounts of toxic substances and contaminants as a result of being "cooked" and used without any significant effort to remove the byproducts and leftovers from synthesis. Injecting any such mixture can cause serious damage to the skin, blood vessels, bone and muscles, sometimes requiring limb amputation in long-term users. Its melting point is 189 °C. Causes of this damage are from iodine, phosphorus and other toxic substances that are present after synthesis. A common adulterant is dimethyl sulfone, a solvent and cosmetic base without known effect on the nervous system; other adulterants include dimethylamphetamine HCl, ephedrine HCl, sodium thiosulfate, sodium chloride, sodium glutamate, and a mixture of caffeine with sodium benzoate. MPTP may be accidentally produced during the manufacture of MPPP. 1-Methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP+), a metabolite of MPTP, causes rapid onset of irreversible symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease. Embalming fluid has been found as a by-product of PCP manufacture. Marijuana cigarettes dipped in embalming fluid, sometimes also laced with PCP are known as "fry" or "fry sticks". is not limited to drugs; it is also associated with explosives, and other illegal chemicals. Of the explosives manufactured illegally, nitroglycerin and acetone peroxide are easiest to produce due to the ease with which the precursors can be acquired | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Clandestine chemistry Uncle Fester is a writer who commonly writes about different aspects of clandestine chemistry. "Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture" is among one of his most popular books, and is considered required reading for DEA Agents. More of his books deal with other aspects of clandestine chemistry, including explosives, and poisons. Fester is, however, considered by many to be a faulty and unreliable source for information in regard to the clandestine manufacture of chemicals. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610329 |
Good manufacturing practice Good manufacturing practices (GMP) are the practices required in order to conform to the guidelines recommended by agencies that control the authorization and licensing of the manufacture and sale of food and beverages, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, dietary supplements, and medical devices. These guidelines provide minimum requirements that a manufacturer must meet to assure that their products are consistently high in quality, from batch to batch, for their intended use. The rules that govern each industry may differ significantly; however, the main purpose of GMP is always to prevent harm from occurring to the end user. Additional tenets include ensuring the end product is free from contamination, that it is consistent in its manufacture, that its manufacture has been well documented, that personnel are well trained, and that the product has been checked for quality more than just at the end phase. GMP is typically ensured through the effective use of a quality management system (QMS). Good manufacturing practices, along with good agricultural practices, good laboratory practices and good clinical practices, are overseen by regulatory agencies in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Europe, China, India and other countries. guidelines provide guidance for manufacturing, testing, and quality assurance in order to ensure that a manufactured product is safe for human consumption or use | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=614085 |
Good manufacturing practice Many countries have legislated that manufacturers follow GMP procedures and create their own GMP guidelines that correspond with their legislation. All guideline follows a few basic principles: Good manufacturing practices are recommended with the goal of safeguarding the health of consumers and patients as well as producing quality products. In the United States, a food or drug may be deemed "adulterated" if it has passed all of the specifications tests but is found to be manufactured in a facility or condition which violates or does not comply with current good manufacturing guideline. GMP guidelines are not prescriptive instructions on how to manufacture products. They are a series of general principles that must be observed during manufacturing. When a company is setting up its quality program and manufacturing process, there may be many ways it can fulfill GMP requirements. It is the company's responsibility to determine the most effective and efficient quality process that both meets business and regulatory needs. GMPs are enforced in the United States by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), under Title 21 CFR. The regulations use the phrase "current good manufacturing practices" (CGMP) to describe these guidelines. Courts may theoretically hold that a product is adulterated even if there is no specific regulatory requirement that was violated as long as the process was not performed according to industry standards | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=614085 |
Good manufacturing practice However, since June 2007, a different set of CGMP requirements have applied to all manufacturers of dietary supplements, with additional supporting guidance issued in 2010. Additionally, in the U.S., medical device manufacturers must follow what are called "quality system regulations" which are deliberately harmonized with ISO requirements, not necessarily CGMPs. The World Health Organization (WHO) version of GMP is used by pharmaceutical regulators and the pharmaceutical industry in over 100 countries worldwide, primarily in the developing world. The European Union's GMP (EU-GMP) enforces similar requirements to WHO GMP, as does the FDA's version in the US. Similar GMPs are used in other countries, with Australia, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam and others having highly developed/sophisticated GMP requirements. In the United Kingdom, the Medicines Act (1968) covers most aspects of GMP in what is commonly referred to as "The Orange Guide," which is named so because of the color of its cover; it is officially known as "Rules and Guidance for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Distributors". Since the 1999 publication of "GMPs for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients", by the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH), GMPs now apply in those countries and trade groupings that are signatories to ICH (the EU, Japan and the U.S.), and applies in other countries (e.g., Australia, Canada, Singapore) which adopt ICH guidelines for the manufacture and testing of active raw materials | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=614085 |
Good manufacturing practice Within the European Union GMP inspections are performed by National Regulatory Agencies. GMP inspections are performed in Canada by the Health Products and Food Branch Inspectorate; in the United Kingdom by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA); in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS); in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA); in Bangladesh by the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA);; in South Africa by the Medicines Control Council (MCC); in Brazil by the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA); in India by state Food and Drugs Administrations (FDA), reporting to the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization; in Pakistan by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan; in Nigeria by NAFDAC; and by similar national organizations worldwide. Each of the inspectorates carries out routine GMP inspections to ensure that drug products are produced safely and correctly. Additionally, many countries perform pre-approval inspections (PAI) for GMP compliance prior to the approval of a new drug for marketing. Regulatory agencies (including the FDA in the U.S. and regulatory agencies in many European nations) are authorized to conduct unannounced inspections, though some are scheduled. FDA routine domestic inspections are usually unannounced, but must be conducted according to 704(a) of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 USCS § 374), which requires that they are performed at a "reasonable time" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=614085 |
Good manufacturing practice Courts have held that any time the firm is open for business is a reasonable time for an inspection. Other good-practice systems, along the same lines as GMP, exist: Collectively, these and other good-practice requirements are referred to as "GxP" requirements, all of which follow similar philosophies. Other examples include good guidance practices, and good tissue practices. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=614085 |
Electron deficiency is a term describing atom or molecules having fewer than the number of electrons required for maximum stability. At the atomic level, main group atoms having less than 8 electrons or transition metal atoms having less than 18 electrons are described as electron-deficient. At the molecular level, molecules which have an incompletely filled set of bonding molecular orbitals are considered to be electron-deficient. Thus, CH and BH are electron-deficient, while methane (CH) and diborane (BH) are not. Not surprisingly, electron-deficient molecules are typically strongly electron-attracting (electrophilic). As the most extreme form of electron deficiency one can consider the metallic bond. For many years, "electron-deficiency" was often used as a general descriptor for boron hydrides and other molecules featuring multicenter bonding (in which a pair of bonding electrons extends over more than two atoms, as in three-center two-electron bonds), as a way of distinguishing such molecules from conventionally bonded compounds such as hydrocarbons. However, this usage was incorrect, as many (indeed most) of the molecules formerly labeled "electron-deficient", such as boranes, are actually "electron-precise". An example is the extremely stable icosahedral BH dianion, whose 26 cluster valence electrons exactly fill the 13 bonding molecular orbitals "and is in no actual sense deficient in electrons"; indeed it is thermodynamically far more stable than benzene. The same is true of its isoelectronic CBH carborane analogues | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=617777 |
Electron deficiency More generally, nearly all carboranes, boranes, and other known and characterized polyboron clusters are similarly electron-precise. Some molecules that have "no overall electron deficiency" can nevertheless function as electron-acceptors at "specific locations" on the cluster, e.g., 1,2-CBH ("o"-carborane), whose C-H bonds are slightly acidic owing to the local positive charge at the carbon vertices, which increases the polarity of these bonds. In contrast, the B-H groups in this molecule have a relatively "high" electron density and exhibit no electrophilic behavior. The term electron-deficient has traditionally been used in organic chemistry to indicate a pi-system such as an alkene or arene that has electron-withdrawing groups attached, as found in nitrobenzene or acrylonitrile. Instead of showing the nucleated character common with simple C=C bonds, electron-deficient pi-systems may be electrophilic and susceptible to nucleophilic attack, as is seen in the Michael addition or in nucleophilic aromatic substitution. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=617777 |
Transfection is the process of deliberately introducing naked or purified nucleic acids into eukaryotic cells. It may also refer to other methods and cell types, although other terms are often preferred: "transformation" is typically used to describe non-viral DNA transfer in bacteria and non-animal eukaryotic cells, including plant cells. In animal cells, transfection is the preferred term as transformation is also used to refer to progression to a cancerous state (carcinogenesis) in these cells. Transduction is often used to describe virus-mediated gene transfer into eukaryotic cells. The word "transfection" is a portmanteau of "trans-" and "infection". Genetic material (such as supercoiled plasmid DNA or siRNA constructs), or even proteins such as antibodies, may be transfected. of animal cells typically involves opening transient pores or "holes" in the cell membrane to allow the uptake of material. can be carried out using calcium phosphate (i.e. tricalcium phosphate), by electroporation, by cell squeezing or by mixing a cationic lipid with the material to produce liposomes that fuse with the cell membrane and deposit their cargo inside. can result in unexpected morphologies and abnormalities in target cells. The meaning of the term has evolved. The original meaning of transfection was "infection by transformation", i.e., introduction of genetic material, DNA or RNA, from a prokaryote-infecting virus or bacteriophage into cells, resulting in an infection | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=619632 |
Transfection Because the term transformation had another sense in animal cell biology (a genetic change allowing long-term propagation in culture, or acquisition of properties typical of cancer cells), the term transfection acquired, for animal cells, its present meaning of a change in cell properties caused by introduction of DNA. There are various methods of introducing foreign DNA into a eukaryotic cell: some rely on physical treatment (electroporation, cell squeezing, nanoparticles, magnetofection); others rely on chemical materials or biological particles (viruses) that are used as carriers. Gene delivery is, for example, one of the steps necessary for gene therapy and the genetic modification of crops. There are many different methods of gene delivery developed for various types of cells and tissues, from bacterial to mammalian. Generally, the methods can be divided into two categories: non-viral and viral. Non-viral methods include physical methods such as electroporation, microinjection, gene gun, impalefection, hydrostatic pressure, continuous infusion, and sonication and chemical, such as lipofection, which is a lipid-mediated DNA-transfection process utilizing liposome vectors. It can also include the use of polymeric gene carriers (polyplexes). Virus mediated gene delivery utilizes the ability of a virus to inject its DNA inside a host cell. A gene that is intended for delivery is packaged into a replication-deficient viral particle | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=619632 |
Transfection Viruses used to date include retrovirus, lentivirus, adenovirus, adeno-associated virus, and herpes simplex virus. However, there are drawbacks to using viruses to deliver genes into cells. Viruses can only deliver very small pieces of DNA into the cells, it is labor-intensive and there are risks of random insertion sites, cytopathic effects and mutagenesis. Chemical-based transfection can be divided into several kinds: cyclodextrin, polymers, liposomes, or nanoparticles (with or without chemical or viral functionalization. See below). Other methods of transfection include nucleofection, which has proved very efficient in transfection of the THP-1 cell line, creating a viable cell line that was able to be differentiated into mature macrophages, and heat shock. DNA can also be introduced into cells using viruses as a carrier. In such cases, the technique is called transduction, and the cells are said to be transduced. Adenoviral vectors can be useful for viral transfection methods because they can transfer genes into a wide variety of human cells and have high transfer rates. Lentiviral and vectors are also helpful due to their ability to transduce cells not currently undergoing mitosis. Stable and transient transfection differ in their long term effects on a cell; a stably-transfected cell will continuously express transfected DNA and pass it on to daughter cells, while a transiently-transfected cell will express transfected DNA for a short amount of time and not pass it on to daughter cells | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=619632 |
Transfection For some applications of transfection, it is sufficient if the transfected genetic material is only transiently expressed. Since the DNA introduced in the transfection process is usually not integrated into the nuclear genome, the foreign DNA will be diluted through mitosis or degraded. Cell lines expressing the Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) or the SV40 large-T antigen, allow episomal amplification of plasmids containing the viral EBV (293E) or SV40 (293T) origins of replication, greatly reducing the rate of dilution. If it is desired that the transfected gene actually remain in the genome of the cell and its daughter cells, a stable transfection must occur. To accomplish this, a marker gene is co-transfected, which gives the cell some selectable advantage, such as resistance towards a certain toxin. Some (very few) of the transfected cells will, by chance, have integrated the foreign genetic material into their genome. If the toxin is then added to the cell culture, only those few cells with the marker gene integrated into their genomes will be able to proliferate, while other cells will die. After applying this selective stress (selection pressure) for some time, only the cells with a stable transfection remain and can be cultivated further. Common agents for selecting stable transfection are: RNA can also be transfected into cells to transiently express its coded protein, or to study RNA decay kinetics. RNA transfection is often used in primary cells that do not divide | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=619632 |
Transfection siRNAs can also be transfected to achieve RNA silencing (i.e. loss of RNA and protein from the targeted gene). This has become a major application in research to achieve "knock-down" of proteins of interests (e.g. Endothelin-1) with potential applications in gene therapy. Limitation of the silencing approach are the toxicity of the transfection for cells and potential "off-target" effects on the expression of other genes/proteins. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=619632 |
Windage The term can apply to several things. is a force created on an object by friction when there is relative movement between air and the object. loss is the reduction in efficiency due to windage forces. For example, electric motors are affected by friction between the rotor and air. Large alternators have significant losses due to windage. To reduce losses, hydrogen gas may be used, since it is less dense. There are two causes of windage: The term can refer to: Aerodynamic streamlining can be used to reduce windage. There is a hydrodynamic effect similar to windage. In firearms parlance, the word "windage" refers to the sight adjustment used to compensate for the horizontal deviation of the projectile trajectory from the intended point of impact due to wind drift or Coriolis effect. By contrast, the adjustment for the vertical deviation is the "elevation". "Kentucky windage" refers to the practice of aiming to one side of the target to adjust for wind, without changing the existing settings on the gunsight. "Windage" also refers to the difference in diameter between the bore and the ball, especially in muskets and cannons. The gap allows the shot to be loaded quickly, but reduces the efficiency of the weapon, as it allows gas to escape. It also reduces the accuracy, as the ball takes a zig-zag path along the barrel, emerging at an unpredictable angle | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=623150 |
Windage In automotive parlance, windage refers to parasitic drag on the crankshaft due to sump oil splashing on the crank train during rough driving, and/or dissipating energy in turbulence from the crank train moving the crankcase gas and oil mist at high RPM. may also inhibit the migration of oil into the sump and back to the oil pump, creating lubrication problems. Some manufacturers and aftermarket vendors have developed special scrapers to remove excess oil from the counterweights and windage screens to create a barrier between the crankshaft and oil sump. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=623150 |
Lode In geology, a lode is a deposit of metalliferous ore that fills or is embedded in a fissure (or crack) in a rock formation or a vein of ore that is deposited or embedded between layers of rock. The current meaning (ore vein) dates from the 17th century, being an expansion of an earlier sense of a "channel, watercourse" in late Middle English, which in turn is from the 11th-century meaning of "lode" as a ‘course, way’. The generally accepted hydrothermal model of lode deposition posits that metals dissolved in hydrothermal solutions (hot spring fluids) deposit the gold or other metallic minerals inside the fissures in the pre-existing rocks. deposits are distinguished primarily from placer deposits, where the ore has been eroded out from its original depositional environment and redeposited by sedimentation. A third process for ore deposition is as an evaporite. A stringer lode is one in which the rock is so permeated by small veinlets that rather than mining the veins, the entire mass of ore and the enveined country rock is mined. It is so named because of the irregular branching of the veins into many stringers, so that the ore is not separable from the country rock. One of largest silver lodes was the Comstock in Nevada, although it is overshadowed by the more recently discovered Cannington in Queensland, Australia. The largest gold lode in the United States was the Homestake Lode. The Broken Hill in South Australia is the largest lead-zinc lode ever discovered. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626023 |
Abraham Van Helsing Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a fictional character from the 1897 gothic horror novel "Dracula", is an aged polymath Dutch doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "MD, D.Ph., D.Litt., etc.", indicating a wealth of experience, education and expertise. The character is best known throughout many adaptations of the story as a vampire hunter and the archenemy of Count Dracula. In the novel, Professor Van Helsing is called in by his former student, John Seward, to assist with the mysterious illness of Lucy Westenra. Van Helsing's friendship with Seward is based in part upon an unknown prior event in which Van Helsing suffered a grievous wound, and Seward saved his life by sucking out the gangrene. It is Van Helsing who first realizes that Lucy is the victim of a vampire, and he guides Seward and his friends in their efforts to save Lucy. According to Leonard Wolf's annotations to the novel, Van Helsing had a son who died. Van Helsing says that his son, had he lived, would have had a similar appearance to Lucy's suitor Arthur Holmwood. Consequently, Van Helsing developed a particular fondness for Holmwood. Van Helsing's wife went insane from grief after their son's death, but as a Catholic, he refuses to divorce her ("with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church's law, though no wits, all gone, even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife") | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626067 |
Abraham Van Helsing Van Helsing is one of the few characters in the novel who is fully physically described in one place. In chapter 14, Mina Harker describes him as: Van Helsing's personality is described by John Seward, his former student, thus: In the novel Van Helsing is described as having what is apparently a thick foreign accent, in that he speaks in broken English and he uses German phrases such as "Mein Gott" (). Adaptations of the novel have tended to play up Van Helsing's role as a vampire expert, sometimes to the extent that it is depicted as his major occupation. In the novel, however, Dr. Seward requests Van Helsing's assistance simply because Lucy's affliction has him baffled and Van Helsing "knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world". Count Dracula, having acquired ownership of the Carfax estate near London through solicitor Jonathan Harker, moved to the estate and began menacing England. His victims included Lucy Westenra, who is on holiday in Whitby. The aristocratic girl has suitors such as John Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey Morris, and has a best friend in Mina Murray, Harker's fiancée. Seward, who works as a doctor in an insane asylum – where one of the patients, the incurably mad Renfield, has a psychic connection to Dracula – contacts Professor Van Helsing about Lucy's peculiar condition. Van Helsing, recognizing marks upon her neck, eventually deduces that she has been losing blood from a vampire bite. He administers multiple blood transfusions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626067 |
Abraham Van Helsing Van Helsing, Seward, and Arthur each donate blood to her, but each night she continues to lose blood. He prescribes her garlic, makes a necklace of garlic flowers for her and hangs garlic about her room. He also gives her a crucifix to wear around her neck. Lucy's demise was brought by her mother, who cleared the room of garlic and opened the window for fresh air; a servant had stolen the gold crucifix. Lucy dies and after the funeral returns as a vampire, seeking out children. Eventually, Van Helsing, Arthur, Morris and Seward free the undead Lucy from her vampiric curse: Arthur uses a hammer to drive the stake through her heart and Van Helsing cuts off her head and puts garlic in her mouth. Mina, now married to Harker, becomes increasingly worried about his brain fever. Van Helsing reviews his journal and Harker's health returns when he learns that his experiences in Transylvania were real. Mina discovers that various letters and accounts provide further intelligence on Dracula's movements, and shares these with Harker, Seward, Morris, and Van Helsing. They learn that Dracula's residence in Carfax is near Seward's, and Van Helsing's research reveals Dracula's weaknesses and strengths. Seward and Van Helsing also write to a university acquaintance to aid in further research. Staying at Seward's residence to better plan strategies in their efforts to deal with Dracula, they have frequent meetings and each member is assigned duties. At a later meeting a bat is seen at a window | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626067 |
Abraham Van Helsing To destroy Dracula and prevent further spread of evil, the party enter his estate at Carfax and as a group encounter him for the first time. They discover that he has been purchasing properties in and around London, with plans to distribute 50 boxes of Transylvanian earth to them, used as graves so each property would become a safe lair. They visit these lairs and place sacramental bread in the boxes of earth to "sterilize" them, preventing Dracula from further using them. Dracula entices Renfield to invite him into Seward's residence. Renfield is found critically injured by Seward and Van Helsing who operate on him, and Renfield informs them that Dracula went to see Mina. They go to Mina's room and find Harker hypnotized while Dracula is giving Mina the 'Vampire's Baptism of Blood', cursing her and the group for plotting against him. The party use sacred items to repel Dracula, who flees into a different room as a vapour. Dracula then destroys all the texts Mina had produced, except for one which was hidden, and breaks Renfield's neck before leaving. Van Helsing places a wafer of sacramental bread upon Mina's forehead to bless her but it burns her flesh, leaving a scar. Mina, feeling that she is now connected with Dracula, asks Van Helsing to hypnotize her before dawn, the only time she feels she could freely speak. Through this hypnosis they learn that Mina has a telepathic link with Dracula, that she could tell everything he hears and feels, which could be used to track his movements | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626067 |
Abraham Van Helsing Mina agrees that any plans should be kept from her for fear that Dracula could read her thoughts. The group have additional encounters with Dracula as they continue to search for his residences throughout London and sterilize the boxes. Learning that his final grave is aboard a boat, Van Helsing deduces that Dracula is fleeing back to his castle. When the party pursues Dracula to Transylvania, they split into groups. While Mina and Van Helsing travel straight to Dracula's castle, the others attempt to ambush the boat on which Dracula is a passenger. Van Helsing's influence over Mina diminishes each day, and her behavior changes as she sleeps more during the day, loses her appetite for food, and ceases to write in her journal. He finds that she cannot cross a circle of crumbled sacramental bread. Later, Dracula's vampiric wives approach their camp but they too are unable to cross into the circle of bread. Failing at their attempts to lure Van Helsing and Mina out of the circle, they flee back to Dracula's castle just before sunrise. Van Helsing binds Mina at a cave to keep her from danger as he goes into Dracula's castle to kill the vampires. As Van Helsing runs through the castle searching its rooms, he finds Dracula's empty tomb and the three female vampires he saw earlier. He begins to do his operation on the first vampire but finds himself entranced by her beauty and unable to bring himself to harm her. In his feelings of enchantment he even contemplates love for her | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626067 |
Abraham Van Helsing He is broken out of this enchantment when he hears a "soul wail" from Mina, awakening him. He proceeds to drive stakes into their hearts and sever their heads, one by one. Van Helsing returns to Mina and they see the rest of their party as they chase a group of gypsies down the Borgo Pass and corner them. Armed with knives and firearms they overtake the gypsies and open the final box of Dracula; Jonathan Harker brings his Kukri knife down on Dracula's throat as the bowie knife of Quincey Morris simultaneously impales Dracula's heart in the final moments of daylight. At this moment Dracula's body crumbles to dust. After the struggle, Quincey is seen to have been fatally wounded. Six years later, Van Helsing takes a grandfatherly role in regard to the young Quincey Harker, Jonathan and Mina's son. Van Helsing is seen utilizing many tools to aid him and his party in fending off Dracula, warding off vampires and in general defeating the undead: In the Big Finish Productions audio drama "The Tangled Skein" (adapted from the novella by David Stuart Davies) Van Helsing, acting alone, joins forces with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to investigate the presence of vampires in London. Although initially disbelieving of Van Helsing's convictions when they read about his lectures on vampires, the duo accept his word when they are confronted and nearly killed by a vampire in Hampstead Heath, joining Van Helsing in staking the vampire | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626067 |
Abraham Van Helsing While Van Helsing is forced to focus on his lectures over the next few days, he leaves his vampire-hunting equipment with Holmes and Watson, who track Dracula to Dartmoor, where he has hidden in Baskerville Hall, and are able to defeat him using Van Helsing's advice. After Dracula is defeated when trapped in the Grimpen Mire as the sun rises, Holmes gives Van Helsing Dracula's ring as a memento of their victory, concluding that Van Helsing's research is what enabled him to destroy Dracula. was also portrayed in "The Tomb of Dracula" Marvel Comics series, which was based on the characters of Bram Stoker's novel. In the Marvel Comics miniseries "", Van Helsing joins forces with the immortal mutant Apocalypse and his worshipers, Clan Akkaba, in order to destroy Dracula, their common enemy. It is noted that Van Helsing had encountered Apocalypse before and previously believed him to be a vampire. In the Italian comic book "Martin Mystère" and the spin-off series "Storie di Altrove/Stories from Elsewhere" Van Helsing's name is Richard. He was originally a knight in the service of the Holy Roman Emperors but he was captured in 1475 by the undead warriors of the Order of the Dragon and turned into a vampire by the Wallachian Prince Vlad Dracula. Four centuries later, Van Helsing killed Dracula, and later came to London to solve the case of Jack the Ripper, eventually discovering that the murderers were mentally controlled by demons from another world | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626067 |
Abraham Van Helsing In 1902 he worked together with the resurrected Dracula to prevent the assassination of King Edward VII. There have been numerous works of fiction depicting descendants of Van Helsing carrying on the family tradition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626067 |
Zhang Daqing (张大庆) (born October 23, 1969) is a Chinese amateur astronomer. He is from Henan province. He co-discovered periodic comet 153P/Ikeya-Zhang. He is the first Chinese amateur astronomer who has a comet name after him. He is also a telescope maker. Periodic comet 153P/Ikeya-Zhang is discovered by his self-made telescope on Feb.1st 2002. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=631710 |
Aleksandr Poleshchuk Aleksandr Fyodorovich Poleshchuk (, born October 30, 1953) is a Russian cosmonaut. Born in Cheremkhovo, Irkutsk region, he graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1977 with a mechanical engineering diploma. He then joined RSC Energia as a test engineer, where he was occupied with perfecting repair and assembly techniques performed during space flights. He has extensive experience in test work under simulated weightlessness conditions. In February 1989 he was selected as a test cosmonaut candidate (1989 Cosmonaut Candidates Class, Group 14, Civil Specialists). From September 1989 to January 1991 he underwent the complete course of general space training and was qualified as a test cosmonaut, and then till March 1992 he undertook advanced training for the Soyuz-TM transport vehicle and Mir station flight. In 1992 he was selected as the backup flight engineer of the Soyuz TM-15 joint Russian-French mission, and consequently nominated as the flight engineer of the prime crew of Soyuz TM-16. In space from January 24 to July 22, 1993, he participated in a 179-day space flight with Gennady Manakov. During the flight he performed two EVAs totaling 9 hours and 58 minutes. Also testing of the androgynous peripheral docking subassembly of the Kristall module was performed. October 1994 to March 1995 he trained as back-up flight engineer for the Soyuz TM-21 transport vehicle and Mir Station 18th primary expedition flights. Poleshchuk is married and has one daughter. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=635379 |
Wunda (crater) Wunda is a large crater on the surface of Uranus' moon Umbriel. It is 131 km in diameter and is located near the equator of Umbriel. The crater is named after "Wunda", a dark spirit of Australian aboriginal mythology. Wunda has a prominent albedo feature on its floor, which takes the shape of a ring of bright material at least 10 km in radial width. The reason for its brightness, which stands out from the very dark composition of the moon as a whole, is unknown. It may be a deposit of carbon dioxide ice. Citations Sources | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=639158 |
George Brettingham Sowerby III (16 September 1843 – 31 January 1921) was a British conchologist, publisher, and illustrator. He, too, worked (like his father George Brettingham Sowerby II and his grandfather George Brettingham Sowerby I) on the "Thesaurus Conchyliorium", a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated work on molluscs. He was colour blind, and thus his daughter did most of the colouring of his engravings. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=640533 |
Quiver diagram In physics, a quiver diagram is a graph representing the matter content of a gauge theory that describes D-branes on orbifolds. Each node of the graph corresponds to a factor "U"("N") of the gauge group, and each link represents a field in the bifundamental representation The relevance of quiver diagrams for string theory was pointed out and studied by Michael Douglas and Greg Moore. While string theorists use the words "quiver diagram", many of their colleagues in particle physics call these diagrams "mooses". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=645203 |
Agrobacterium is a genus of Gram-negative bacteria established by H. J. Conn that uses horizontal gene transfer to cause tumors in plants. "tumefaciens" is the most commonly studied species in this genus. "Agrobacterium" is well known for its ability to transfer DNA between itself and plants, and for this reason it has become an important tool for genetic engineering. The genus "Agrobacterium" is quite heterogeneous. Recent taxonomic studies have reclassified all of the "Agrobacterium" species into new genera, such as "Ahrensia", "Pseudorhodobacter", "Ruegeria", and "Stappia", but most species have been controversially reclassified as "Rhizobium" species. "tumefaciens" causes crown-gall disease in plants. The disease is characterised by a tumour-like growth or gall on the infected plant, often at the junction between the root and the shoot. Tumors are incited by the conjugative transfer of a DNA segment (T-DNA) from the bacterial tumour-inducing (Ti) plasmid. The closely related species, "rhizogenes", induces root tumors, and carries the distinct Ri (root-inducing) plasmid. Although the taxonomy of "Agrobacterium" is currently under revision it can be generalised that 3 biovars exist within the genus, "tumefaciens", "rhizogenes", and "vitis". Strains within "tumefaciens" and "rhizogenes" are known to be able to harbour either a Ti or Ri-plasmid, whilst strains of "vitis", generally restricted to grapevines, can harbour a Ti-plasmid | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=646842 |
Agrobacterium Non-"Agrobacterium" strains have been isolated from environmental samples which harbour a Ri-plasmid whilst laboratory studies have shown that non-"Agrobacterium" strains can also harbour a Ti-plasmid. Some environmental strains of "Agrobacterium" possess neither a Ti nor Ri-plasmid. These strains are avirulent. The plasmid T-DNA is integrated semi-randomly into the genome of the host cell, and the tumor morphology genes on the T-DNA are expressed, causing the formation of a gall. The T-DNA carries genes for the biosynthetic enzymes for the production of unusual amino acids, typically octopine or nopaline. It also carries genes for the biosynthesis of the plant hormones, auxin and cytokinins, and for the biosynthesis of opines, providing a carbon and nitrogen source for the bacteria that most other micro-organisms can't use, giving "Agrobacterium" a selective advantage. By altering the hormone balance in the plant cell, the division of those cells cannot be controlled by the plant, and tumors form. The ratio of auxin to cytokinin produced by the tumor genes determines the morphology of the tumor (root-like, disorganized or shoot-like). Although generally seen as an infection in plants, "Agrobacterium" can be responsible for opportunistic infections in humans with weakened immune systems, but has not been shown to be a primary pathogen in otherwise healthy individuals. One of the earliest associations of human disease caused by "radiobacter" was reported by Dr. J. R. Cain in Scotland (1988) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=646842 |
Agrobacterium A later study suggested that "Agrobacterium" attaches to and genetically transforms several types of human cells by integrating its T-DNA into the human cell genome. The study was conducted using cultured human tissue and did not draw any conclusions regarding related biological activity in nature. The ability of "Agrobacterium" to transfer genes to plants and fungi is used in biotechnology, in particular, genetic engineering for plant improvement. A modified Ti or Ri plasmid can be used. The plasmid is 'disarmed' by deletion of the tumor inducing genes; the only essential parts of the T-DNA are its two small (25 base pair) border repeats, at least one of which is needed for plant transformation. The genes to be introduced into the plant are cloned into a plant transformation vector that contains the T-DNA region of the disarmed plasmid, together with a selectable marker (such as antibiotic resistance) to enable selection for plants that have been successfully transformed. Plants are grown on media containing antibiotic following transformation, and those that do not have the T-DNA integrated into their genome will die. An alternative method is agroinfiltration. Transformation with "Agrobacterium" can be achieved in multiple ways. Protoplasts or alternatively leaf-discs can be incubated with the "Agrobacterium" and whole plants regenerated using plant tissue culture. In agroinfiltration the "Agrobacterium" may be injected directly into the leaf tissue of a plant | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=646842 |
Agrobacterium This method transforms only cells in immediate contact with the bacteria, and results in transient expression of plasmid DNA. Agroinfiltration is commonly used to transform tobacco ("Nicotiana"). A common transformation protocol for "Arabidopsis" is the floral dip method: inflorescence are dipped in a suspension of "Agrobacterium", and the bacterium transforms the germline cells that make the female gametes. The seeds can then be screened for antibiotic resistance (or another marker of interest), and plants that have not integrated the plasmid DNA will die when exposed to the correct condition of antibiotic. "Agrobacterium" does not infect all plant species, but there are several other effective techniques for plant transformation including the gene gun. "Agrobacterium" is listed as being the vector of genetic material that was transferred to these USA GMOs: The transformation of fungi using "Agrobacterium" is used primarily for research purposes, and follows similar approaches as for plant transformation. The Ti plasmid system is modified to include DNA elements to select for transformed fungal strains, after co-incubation of "Agrobacterium" strains carrying these plasmids with fungal species. The sequencing of the genomes of several species of "Agrobacterium" has permitted the study of the evolutionary history of these organisms and has provided information on the genes and systems involved in pathogenesis, biological control and symbiosis | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=646842 |
Agrobacterium One important finding is the possibility that chromosomes are evolving from plasmids in many of these bacteria. Another discovery is that the diverse chromosomal structures in this group appear to be capable of supporting both symbiotic and pathogenic lifestyles. The availability of the genome sequences of "Agrobacterium" species will continue to increase, resulting in substantial insights into the function and evolutionary history of this group of plant-associated microbes. Marc Van Montagu and Jozef Schell at the University of Ghent (Belgium) discovered the gene transfer mechanism between "Agrobacterium" and plants, which resulted in the development of methods to alter "Agrobacterium" into an efficient delivery system for gene engineering in plants. A team of researchers led by Dr Mary-Dell Chilton were the first to demonstrate that the virulence genes could be removed without adversely affecting the ability of "Agrobacterium" to insert its own DNA into the plant genome (1983). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=646842 |
Nikolai Severtzov Nikolai Alekseevich Severtzov (5 November 1827 – 8 February 1885) was a Russian explorer and naturalist. Severtzov studied at the Moscow University and at the age of eighteen he came into contact with G.S. Karelin and took an interest in central Asia. In 1857 he joined a mission to Syr-Darya. On the expedition to the Syr Darya, he was captured by bandits and freed after a month. In 1865–68, he explored the Tian Shan mountains and Lake Issyk Kul. In 1877–78, he explored the Pamir Mountains, following a route close to the current Pamir Highway as far as Lake Yashil Kul on the Ghunt River. Severtzov wrote the "Vertical and Horizontal Distribution of Turkestan Wildlife" (1873), which included the first description of a number of animals. Among them is a subspecies of argali (wild sheep) later named after him: "Ovis ammon severtzovi". He also described many new species and subspecies of birds. The Spotted Great Rosefinch "Carpodacus severtzovi" is among those named after him. Severtzov began to assemble a collection of birds in the estate of Petrovskoe. On 8 February 1885 he was returning home in a carriage along the frozen Ikorts river that feeds into the Don. The carriage broke the ice and plunged. While everyone extricated themselves and attempted to find a warm place nearby, he delayed by searching for his portfolio and collapsed. His driver froze to death. The Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow is named after his son Alexey Severtzov. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=648116 |
Duricrust is a hard layer on or near the surface of soil. Duricrusts can range in thickness from a few millimeters or centimeters to several meters. It is a general term (not to be confused with duripan) for a zone of chemical precipitation and hardening formed at or near the surface of sedimentary bodies through pedogenic and (or) non-pedogenic processes. It is typically formed by the accumulation of soluble minerals deposited by mineral-bearing waters that move upward, downward, or laterally by capillary action, commonly assisted in arid settings by evaporation. There are different types of duricrusts, each distinguished by a dominant mineralogy. For example, ferricrete (laterite) is dominated by sesquioxides of iron; alcrete (bauxite) is dominated by sesquioxides of aluminum; silcrete by silica; calcrete (caliche) by calcium carbonate, and gypcrete (gypcrust) by gypsum. Duricrusts need to be formed in absolute accumulation, therefore they must have a source, transfer and precipitation. is often studied during missions to Mars because it may help prove the planet once had more water. was found on Mars at the Viking 2 landing site, and a similar structure, nicknamed "Snow Queen", was found under the Phoenix landing site. Phoenix's duricrust was later confirmed to be water-based. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=650321 |
Shiraz Minwalla Shiraz Naval Minwalla (born 2 January, 1972) is an Indian theoretical physicist and string theorist. He is a faculty member in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Prior to his present position, he was a Harvard Junior Fellow and subsequently an Assistant Professor at Harvard University. Born in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, in 1972, to a Parsi-Zoroastrian father (Naval) and a Muslim mother (Khadija), Minwalla graduated from Campion School, Mumbai in 1988 and then Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1995. He later moved to Princeton University to earn his Ph.D. under the guidance of Nathan Seiberg. Minwalla was awarded the Swarnajayanti Fellowship 2005-06 by the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India. He was awarded the ICTP Prize in 2010 and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, the highest science award in India, in the physical sciences category in 2011. He was awarded the Infosys Prize 2013 in the field of Physical Sciences by the Infosys Science Foundation. He was awarded the 2014 New Horizons in Physics Prize by the Fundamental Physics Prize for "his pioneering contributions to the study of string theory and quantum field theory; and in particular his work on the connection between the equations of fluid dynamics and Albert Einstein's equations of general relativity." In 2016, The World Academy of Sciences awarded him the TWAS Prize in Physics. is married to Ananya Dasgupta | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=653011 |
Shiraz Minwalla He has two children, a boy Spandan Minwalla and a girl Chinar Minwalla. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=653011 |
Retrogradation is the landward change in position of the front of a river delta with time. This occurs when the mass balance of sediment into the delta is such that the volume of incoming sediment is less than the volume of the delta that is lost through subsidence, sea-level rise, and/or erosion. As a result, retrogradation is most common: Schlumberger Oilfield Glossary | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=654355 |
Bottom crawler A bottom crawler is an underwater exploration and recovery vehicle. It is designed to sink to the bottom of a body of water, where it moves about using traction against the bottom with wheels or tracks. It is usually tethered to a surface ship by cables providing power, control, video, and lifting capabilities, but this is not essential. Such devices have been proposed for use in recovering deep seabed minerals, such as manganese nodules. These also have been considered since the late 1960s for use in offshore oil exploration and production in extremely deep water, but practical devices have used other technologies from the sea surface, such as moored barges and tension leg platforms. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=655266 |
Albert Sacco Jr. (born May 3, 1949) is an American chemical engineer who flew as a Payload Specialist on the Space Shuttle "Columbia" on Shuttle mission STS-73 in 1995. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Sacco completed a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston in 1973, and then a Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. He then joined the faculty of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, becoming a full professor and rising to department head in 1989. Sacco accepted the position of Dean of the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering at Texas Tech University, effective January 1, 2011. Sacco flew as a payload specialist on STS-73, which launched on October 20, 1995, and landed at the Kennedy Space Center on November 5, 1995. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=656373 |
Environmental chemistry is the scientific study of the chemical and biochemical phenomena that occur in natural places. It should not be confused with green chemistry, which seeks to reduce potential pollution at its source. It can be defined as the study of the sources, reactions, transport, effects, and fates of chemical species in the air, soil, and water environments; and the effect of human activity and biological activity on these. is an interdisciplinary science that includes atmospheric, aquatic and soil chemistry, as well as heavily relying on analytical chemistry and being related to environmental and other areas of science. involves first understanding how the uncontaminated environment works, which chemicals in what concentrations are present naturally, and with what effects. Without this it would be impossible to accurately study the effects humans have on the environment through the release of chemicals. Environmental chemists draw on a range of concepts from chemistry and various environmental sciences to assist in their study of what is happening to a chemical species in the environment. Important general concepts from chemistry include understanding chemical reactions and equations, solutions, units, sampling, and analytical techniques. A contaminant is a substance present in nature at a level higher than fixed levels or that would not otherwise be there. This may be due to human activity and bioactivity | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=656979 |
Environmental chemistry The term contaminant is often used interchangeably with "pollutant", which is a substance that has a detrimental impact on the surrounding environment. Whilst a contaminant is sometimes defined as a substance present in the environment as a result of human activity, but without harmful effects, it is sometimes the case that toxic or harmful effects from contamination only become apparent at a later date. The "medium" (e.g. soil) or organism (e.g. fish) affected by the pollutant or contaminant is called a "receptor", whilst a "sink" is a chemical medium or species that retains and interacts with the pollutant e.g. as carbon sink and its effects by microbes. Chemical measures of water quality include dissolved oxygen (DO), chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, nutrients (nitrates and phosphorus), heavy metals, soil chemicals (including copper, zinc, cadmium, lead and mercury), and pesticides. is used by the Environment Agency in England, Natural Resources Wales, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Association of Public Analysts, and other environmental agencies and research bodies around the world to detect and identify the nature and source of pollutants. These can include: Quantitative chemical analysis is a key part of environmental chemistry, since it provides the data that frame most environmental studies | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=656979 |
Environmental chemistry Common analytical techniques used for quantitative determinations in environmental chemistry include classical wet chemistry, such as gravimetric, titrimetric and electrochemical methods. More sophisticated approaches are used in the determination of trace metals and organic compounds. Metals are commonly measured by atomic spectroscopy and mass spectrometry: Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission (ICP-AES) or Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometric (ICP-MS) techniques. Organic compounds, including PAHs, are commonly measured also using mass spectrometric methods, such as Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS). Tandem Mass spectrometry MS/MS and High Resolution/Accurate Mass spectrometry HR/AM offer sub part per trillion detection. Non-MS methods using GCs and LCs having universal or specific detectors are still staples in the arsenal of available analytical tools. Other parameters often measured in environmental chemistry are radiochemicals. These are pollutants which emit radioactive materials, such as alpha and beta particles, posing danger to human health and the environment. Particle counters and Scintillation counters are most commonly used for these measurements. Bioassays and immunoassays are utilized for toxicity evaluations of chemical effects on various organisms | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=656979 |
Environmental chemistry Polymerase Chain Reaction PCR is able to identify species of bacteria and other organisms through specific DNA and RNA gene isolation and amplification and is showing promise as a valuable technique for identifying environmental microbial contamination. Peer-reviewed test methods have been published by government agencies and private research organizations. Approved published methods must be used when testing to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=656979 |
Water mass An oceanographic water mass is an identifiable body of water with a common formation history which has physical properties distinct from surrounding water. Properties include temperature, salinity, chemical - isotopic ratios, and other physical quantities. Water masses are generally distinguished not only by their respective tracers (see above) but also by their location in the Worlds' oceans. Water masses are also distinguished by their vertical position, so that there are surface water masses, intermediate water masses and deep water masses. Common water masses in the world ocean are: Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW), North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW), Subantarctic Mode Water (SAMW), Arctic Intermediate Water (AIW), North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW), the central waters of various oceanic basins, and various ocean surface waters. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=657988 |
Jay C. Buckey Jay Clark Buckey, Jr. (born June 6, 1956, in New York City) is an American physician and astronaut who flew aboard one Space Shuttle mission (STS-90) as a Payload Specialist. Buckey briefly ran for the Democratic nomination to challenge New Hampshire Senator John E. Sununu, a first term Republican, when he was up for re-election in 2008. Buckey withdrew from the race when former Governor Jeanne Shaheen entered the race. Buckey holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University (1977) and an M.D. from Cornell in 1981, interning at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and completing his residence at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Currently, Buckey is a Professor of Medicine at the Dartmouth Medical School. He was also a flight surgeon with the U.S. Air Force Reserve for 8 years. In 1998 he was a Payload Specialist aboard NASA Space Shuttle flight STS-90 as part of the Neurolab mission from April 17 to May 3, 1998. Aboard the Neurolab Mission, Buckey was the Payload Specialist for the experiment "Cardiovascular Adaptation to Zero-Gravity" and assisted with other Spacelab Life Sciences experiments. During the 16-day Spacelab flight, the seven person crew aboard Space Shuttle "Columbia" served as both experiment subjects and operators for 26 individual life science experiments focusing on the effects of microgravity on the brain and nervous system. The STS-90 flight orbited the Earth 256 times, covered 6.3 million miles, and logged him over 381 hours in space | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=658606 |
Jay C. Buckey In 2018, Buckey was part of research using virtual reality, at the Australian Antarctic Division’s Mawson Station, wherein the expeditioners used VR headsets to view Australian beach scenes, European nature scenes, and North American nature scenes of forests and urban environments, which were different from the isolation of the whiteness and silence of Antarctica. The research will inform psychological techniques to support long duration spaceflight such as for astronauts going to Mars. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=658606 |
Clumping (biology) Clumping is a behavior in an organism, usually sessile, in which individuals of a particular species group close to one another for beneficial purposes. Clumping can be caused by the abiotic environment surrounding an organism. Barnacles, for example, group together on rocks that are exposed for the least amount of time during the low tide. Usually, clumping in sessile animals starts when one organism binds to a hard substrate, such as rock, and other members of the same species attach themselves afterwards. Herbivorous snails are known to clump around where sufficient algae are present. The clumping of mussels (shown right) has been found to be influenced by competition with other species. The mussels attach themselves by byssal threads to potential competitors for space. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=660213 |
Mordehai Milgrom Mordehai "Moti" Milgrom is an Israeli physicist and professor in the department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. He received his first degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1966. Later he studied at the Weizmann Institute of Science and completed his doctorate in 1972. In 1981, he proposed Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) as an alternative to the dark matter and galaxy rotation curve problems. Milgrom suggests that Newton's Second Law be modified for very small accelerations. In the academic years 1980–1981 and 1985–1986 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Before 1980 he worked primarily on high-energy astrophysics and became well-known for his kinematical model of SS 433. Milgrom is married and has three daughters. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=660242 |
Herman Verlinde Herman Louis Verlinde (born 21 January 1962) is a Dutch theoretical physicist and string theorist. He is a professor at Princeton University. He is also the identical twin brother of Erik Verlinde. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=661246 |
Pancake ice is a form of sea ice that consists of round pieces of ice with diameters ranging from to , depending on the local conditions that affect ice formation. It may have a thickness of up to . features elevated rims formed by piling the frazil ice/slush/etc. up the edges of pancakes when they collide, both due to random bumping into each other and because of periodic compressions at wave troughs. These rims are the first indication of the onset of the formation of the pancake ice from less consolidated forms of ice. may be formed in two ways. It may be formed on water covered to some degree in slush, shuga or grease ice. Alternatively, it may be created by breaking ice rind, nilas or even gray ice in the agitated conditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=661585 |
Macula (planetary geology) Macula (pl. maculae ) is the Latin word for 'spot'. It is used in planetary nomenclature to refer to unusually dark areas on the surface of a planet or moon. They are seen on the icy surfaces of Pluto, Jupiter's moon Europa, Saturn's moon Titan, Neptune's moon Triton, and Pluto's moon Charon. The term was adopted for planetary nomenclature when high resolution pictures of Europa revealed unusual new surface features. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=663171 |
Cymdeithas Edward Llwyd (English: Edward Llwyd Society) is a Welsh natural history organization whose name commemorates the great Welsh natural historian, geographer and linguist Edward Llwyd. The organizes regular country walks throughout Wales in sites of interest of the Welsh environment, including SSI's & post-industrial landscapes. These are Welsh-language walking groups, although learners are just as welcome. They also organize a variety of Nature & Environmental activities, including lectures, publications on Welsh Nature & Environment & conservation work. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=665333 |
Spatial resolution In physics and geosciences, the term "spatial resolution" refers to the precision of a measurement with respect to space, or the real dimension that represents a pixel of the image. While in some instruments, like cameras and telescopes, spatial resolution is directly connected to angular resolution, other instruments, like synthetic aperture radar or a network of weather stations, produce data whose spatial layout is not related to an angular resolution. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=667957 |
Fire point The fire point of a fuel is the lowest temperature at which the vapour of that fuel will continue to burn for at least 5 seconds after ignition by an open flame of standard dimension. At the flash point, a lower temperature, a substance will ignite briefly, but vapor might not be produced at a rate to sustain the fire. Most tables of material properties will only list material flash points. Although in general the fire points can be assumed to be about 10 °C higher than the flash points, although this is no substitute for testing if the fire point is safety critical. Testing of the fire point is done by open cup apparatus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=668710 |
Linea (plural: lineae ) is Latin for 'line'. In planetary geology it is used to refer to any long markings, dark or bright, on a planet or moon's surface. The planet Venus and Jupiter's moon Europa have numerous lineae; Pluto and Saturn's moon Rhea have several. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=670517 |
Abell 1835 is a galaxy cluster in the Abell catalogue. It is a cluster that also gravitational lenses more-distant background galaxies to make them visible to astronomers. The cluster has a red shift of around 75,900 km/s and spans 12′. In 2004, one of the galaxies lensed by this cluster was proposed to be the most distant galaxy known, Galaxy IR1916. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=671262 |
Warped geometry In mathematics and physics, in particular differential geometry and general relativity, a warped geometry is a Riemannian or Lorentzian manifold whose metric tensor can be written in form The geometry almost decomposes into a Cartesian product of the "y" geometry and the "x" geometry – except that the "x" part is warped, i.e. it is rescaled by a scalar function of the other coordinates "y". For this reason, the metric of a warped geometry is often called a warped product metric. Warped geometries are useful in that separation of variables can be used when solving partial differential equations over them. Warped geometries acquire their full meaning when we substitute the variable "y" for "t", time and "x", for "s", space. Then the "d"("y") factor of the spatial dimension becomes the effect of time that in words of Einstein "curves space". How it curves space will define one or other solution to a space–time world. For that reason different models of space–time use warped geometries. Many basic solutions of the Einstein field equations are warped geometries, for example, the Schwarzschild solution and the Friedmann–Lemaitre–Robertson–Walker models. Also, warped geometries are the key building block of Randall–Sundrum models in string theory. 3. Chen, Bang-Yen (2017). Differential geometry of warped product manifolds and submanifolds. World Scientific. . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=671814 |
Homentropic flow In fluid mechanics, a homentropic flow has uniform and constant entropy. It distinguishes itself from an isentropic or particle isentropic flow, where the entropy level of each fluid particle does not change with time, but may vary from particle to particle. This means that a homentropic flow is necessarily isentropic, but an isentropic flow need not be homentropic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=672080 |
Worldsheet In string theory, a worldsheet is a two-dimensional manifold which describes the embedding of a string in spacetime. The term was coined by Leonard Susskind around 1967 as a direct generalization of the world line concept for a point particle in special and general relativity. The type of string, the geometry of the spacetime in which it propagates, and the presence of long-range background fields (such as gauge fields) are encoded in a two-dimensional conformal field theory defined on the worldsheet. For example, the bosonic string in 26-dimensional Minkowski space has a worldsheet conformal field theory consisting of 26 free scalar fields. Meanwhile, a superstring worldsheet theory in 10 dimensions consists of 10 free scalar fields and their fermionic superpartners. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=672758 |
Supercharge In theoretical physics, a supercharge is a generator of supersymmetry transformations. It is an example of the general notion of a charge in physics. Supercharge, denoted by the symbol Q, is an operator which transforms bosons into fermions, and vice versa. Since the supercharge operator changes a particle with spin one-half to a particle with spin one or zero, the supercharge itself is a spinor that carries one half unit of spin. Depending on the context, supercharges may also be called "Grassmann variables" or "Grassmann directions"; they are generators of the exterior algebra of anti-commuting numbers, the Grassmann numbers. All these various usages are essentially synonymous; they refer to the formula_1 grading between bosons and fermions, or equivalently, the grading between "c-numbers" and "a-numbers". Calling it a charge emphasizes the notion of a symmetry at work. is described by the Super-Poincaré algebra. commutes with the Hamiltonian operator: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=673356 |
Petrarch (crater) Petrarch is a crater on Mercury. This crater is located within the distorted terrain on the opposite side of the planet from the Caloris Basin. It was named after Petrarch, the medieval Italian poet, by the IAU in 1976. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=675909 |
Lithophyte Lithophytes are plants that grow in or on rocks. Those that grow on rocks are also known as epipetric or epilithic plants. Lithophytes that grow on land feed off nutrients from rain water and nearby decaying plants, including their own dead tissue. Chasmophytes grow in fissures in rocks where soil or organic matter has accumulated. Examples of lithophytes include several "Paphiopedilum" orchids, ferns, many algae and liverworts. Species that only grow on rock or gravel are obligate lithophytes. Species that grow on rocky substrate and elsewhere are facultative lithophytes. As nutrients tend to be rarely available to lithophytes or chasmophytes, many species of carnivorous plants can be viewed as being pre-adapted to life on rocks. By consuming prey, these plants can gather more nutrients than non-carnivorous lithophytes. Examples include the pitcher plants "Nepenthes campanulata" and "Heliamphora exappendiculata", many "Pinguicula" and several "Utricularia" species. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=676910 |
Burroughs (crater) Burroughs is a large crater on Mars at latitude 72.5S / longitude 243.1W, with a diameter of . The crater is named after Edgar Rice Burroughs, the American science fiction novelist who wrote a series of fantasy novels set on the planet. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=681532 |
Guido of Pisa (died 9 July 1169) was an Italian geographer from Pisa. In 1119 he edited and updated the "Geographica", a geographic encyclopedia first created in the eighth century by the Anonymous of Ravenna. It followed in the tradition of earlier geographies, such as Strabo's "Geographica", Pomponius Mela's "De situ orbis", Claudius Ptolemy's "Geography", and the Antonine Itinerary. Guido's book included text, as well as maps of Italy and the world as it was known to the Romans. It also included the only known text of the "Carmen in victoriam Pisanorum". His map of the Western Roman Empire contains the inscription "Carantano", which is probably the first cartographical mention of the Slovene territory. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=681575 |
Canso (Martian crater) Canso is a Martian crater. It lies about 450 kilometres west of the Viking 1 lander, slightly northeast of Lunae Planum, and west of Chryse Planitia, in the Lunae Palus quadrangle. The crater is named after Canso, a fishing town in Nova Scotia. The name was officially adopted in 1988 by the International Astronomical Union's Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (IAU/WGPSN). Impact craters generally have a rim with ejecta around them, in contrast volcanic craters usually do not have a rim or ejecta deposits. As craters get larger (greater than 10 km in diameter) they usually have a central peak. The peak is caused by a rebound of the crater floor following the impact. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=681577 |
Extremal black hole In theoretical physics, an extremal black hole is a black hole with the minimal possible mass that can be compatible with a given charge and angular momentum. In other words, this is the smallest possible black hole that can exist while rotating at a given fixed constant speed. The concept of an extremal black hole is theoretical and none have thus far been observed in nature. However, many theories are based on their existence. In supersymmetric theories, extremal black holes are often supersymmetric: they are invariant under several supercharges. This is a consequence of the BPS bound. Such black holes are stable and emit no Hawking radiation. Their black hole entropy can be calculated in string theory. It has been suggested by Sean Carroll that the entropy of an extremal black hole is equal to zero. Carroll explains the lack of entropy by creating a separate dimension for the black hole to exist within. The hypothetical black hole electron is super-extremal (having more charge and angular momentum than a black hole of its mass "should"). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=681802 |
Near-extremal black hole In theoretical physics, a near-extremal black hole is a black hole which is not far from the minimal possible mass that can be compatible with the given charges and angular momentum. The calculations of the properties of near-extremal black holes are usually performed using perturbation theory around the extremal black hole; the expansion parameter is called non-extremality. In supersymmetric theories, near-extremal black holes are often small perturbations of supersymmetric black holes. Such black holes have a very small Hawking temperature and consequently emit a small amount of Hawking radiation. Their black hole entropy can often be calculated in string theory, much like in the case of extremal black holes, at least to the first order in non-extremality. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=681806 |
Alza Corporation was a pharmaceutical and medical systems company. Founded in 1968 by Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni; the company's name is a portmanteau of his name. was a major pioneer in the field of drug delivery systems, bringing over 20 prescription pharmaceutical products to market, and employing about 10,000 people during 20 years. In 2001, was acquired by Johnson & Johnson via a stock-for-stock transaction worth US$10.5 billion. The company owns the patents on the following delivery platforms: built its first corporate headquarters in 1971, at 950 Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, California, now occupied by law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. In 1999, moved its headquarters to Shoreline Business Park, where it remained until July 2007 when was acquired by Johnson & Johnson and the space was vacated. The remaining employees were relocated to two buildings elsewhere in the Shoreline Business Park. is now in operation in Vacaville, California, but this facility will be closed by 2022. operated a large-scale manufacturing facility in Vacaville, California, and previously operated a large-scale facility in Cashel, Ireland. Google's Googleplex is located just east of Plaza. In August–September 2008, Google moved into the plaza buildings. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=684040 |
Fram (crater) Fram is an impact crater located within the Meridiani Planum extraterrestrial plain, situated within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle (MC-19) region of the planet Mars. It was visited by the rover "Opportunity" (MER-B) on Sol 84, April 24, 2004. Fram spans about 8 metres (26 feet) in diameter. "Opportunity" paused beside it while travelling from the rover's landing site toward a larger crater, Endurance. Fram is located about 450 metres (0.3 miles) east of the crater Eagle and around 250 metres (820 feet) west of Endurance. It is named after the famous Norwegian polar exploration vessel the "Fram", a ship used by many famous Norwegian explorers such as Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, Oscar Wisting, and Roald Amundsen. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=685739 |
Faraday Society The was a British society for the study of physical chemistry, founded in 1903 and named in honour of Michael Faraday. In 1980, it merged with several similar organisations, including the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, and the Society for Analytical Chemistry to form the Royal Society of Chemistry which is both a learned society and a professional body. At that time, the Faraday Division became one of six units within the Royal Society of Chemistry. The published "Faraday Transactions" from 1905 to 1971, when the Royal Society of Chemistry took over the publication. Of particular note were the conferences called "Faraday Discussions", which were published under the same name. The publication includes the discussion of the paper as well as the paper itself. At the meeting, more time is given to the discussion than to the author presenting the paper as the audience are given the papers prior to the meeting. These conferences continue to be run by the Royal Society of Chemistry. In addition to its presidents, key figures at the included George Stanley Withers Marlow, Secretary and Editor of the society from 1926–1948, and his successor Frederick Clifford Tompkins. Tompkins served as Editor until 1977, and as the President of the Faraday Division of the amalgamated Royal Society of Chemistry from 1978–1979. Prior to the amalgamation, Tompkins received valuable assistance from D. A. Young, who became Editor as of 1977. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=696626 |
Scintillometer A scintillometer is a scientific device used to measure small fluctuations of the refractive index of air caused by variations in temperature, humidity, and pressure. It consists of an optical or radio wave transmitter and a receiver at opposite ends of an atmospheric propagation path. The receiver detects and evaluates the intensity fluctuations of the transmitted signal, called scintillation. The magnitude of the refractive index fluctuations is usually measured in terms of formula_1, the structure constant of refractive index fluctuations, which is the spectral amplitude of refractive index fluctuations in the inertial subrange of turbulence. Some types of scintillometers, such as displaced-beam scintillometers, can also measure the inner scale of refractive index fluctuations, which is the smallest size of eddies in the inertial subrange. Scintillometers also allow measurements of the transfer of heat between the Earth's surface and the air above, called the sensible heat flux. Inner-scale scintillometers can also measure the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy and the momentum flux. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=698220 |
Abraham Langlet Nils (9 July 1868 – 30 March 1936; known by his second given name) was a Swedish chemist. Langlet was born in Södertälje, Sweden. He was the son of architect Emil Victor Langlet (1824–1898) and his wife, author Clara Mathilda Ulrika Clementine Söderén (1832–1904). His brothers included author Valdemar Langlet (1872–1960). From 1886 to 1896, he studied chemistry under Per Teodor Cleve (1840–1905) at Uppsala University, where he became a philosophy graduate in 1888, Philosophy Licentiate in 1893 and obtained a doctorate in 1896 and was made "docent" in the same year. In 1899, he became lecturer in Chemistry and Chemical Technology at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, where he received a professorship in the same field in 1911. From 1926, when his professorship was divided, he was professor of Organic Chemistry. In 1895, while working with Cleve in Uppsala, he made the independent discovery of the element helium (in the same year discovered by William Ramsay) in the mineral cleveite. Langlet was the first to correctly define its atomic weight. He died in Gothenburg, Sweden. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=706454 |
Atmospheric chemistry is a branch of atmospheric science in which the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere and that of other planets is studied. It is a multidisciplinary approach of research and draws on environmental chemistry, physics, meteorology, computer modeling, oceanography, geology and volcanology and other disciplines. Research is increasingly connected with other areas of study such as climatology. The composition and chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere is of importance for several reasons, but primarily because of the interactions between the atmosphere and living organisms. The composition of the Earth's atmosphere changes as result of natural processes such as volcano emissions, lightning and bombardment by solar particles from corona. It has also been changed by human activity and some of these changes are harmful to human health, crops and ecosystems. Examples of problems which have been addressed by atmospheric chemistry include acid rain, ozone depletion, photochemical smog, greenhouse gases and global warming. Atmospheric chemists seek to understand the causes of these problems, and by obtaining a theoretical understanding of them, allow possible solutions to be tested and the effects of changes in government policy evaluated. Notes: the concentration of CO and CH vary by season and location. The mean molecular mass of air is 28.97 g/mol. Ozone (O) is not included due to its high variability. The ancient Greeks regarded air as one of the four elements | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=706999 |
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