London Gatwick Airport

Gatwick Airport is London's second airport and the second busiest airport in the UK after Heathrow in terms of passengers per year. It is situated in West Sussex, approximately 40 km (25 miles) south of London, and an equal distance north of Brighton.
Gatwick is the busiest single-runway airport in the world, handling over 31 million passengers yearly, flying to around 200 destinations. Charter airlines are normally not allowed to operate from Heathrow and many use Gatwick instead as their base. Many flights to and from the USA also use Gatwick because of restrictions on transatlantic operations from Heathrow. The airport is also a secondary hub for British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
In 1979, when the last major expansion took place, an agreement was reached with the local council not to expand further before 2019, but recent proposals to build a second runway at Gatwick led to protests about increased noise and pollution and demolition of houses and villages. The government has now decided to expand Stansted and Heathrow but not Gatwick. Gatwick's owners BAA contain published a new consultation which includes a possible second runway south of the airport, but leaves the villages of Charlwood and Hookwood, north of the airport, intact.
In common with many airports car parking is in limited supply, in part due to local planning restrictions, and facilities are full to capacity in the summer months

Radio clock

A radio clock is a clock that is synchronized by a time code bit stream transmitted by a radio transmitter associated to a time standard such as an atomic clock. The picture shows a type of radio controlled digital clock. With special mechanism, radio controlled analog clocks are also available.
A radio controlled clock consists of an antenna for intercepting the RF time code signal, a receiving circuit to exchange the time code RF signal into digital time code, and a controller circuit to decode the time code bit streams and to drive an output circuit which can be LCD in case of digital clocks or stepping motors in case of analog clocks.

Sagebrush

Sagebrush, or Big Sagebrush is the common name for Artemisia tridentata, a shrub or small tree from the composite family (Asteraceae). The name sagebrush is also used for several related members of the genus Artemisia, such as California Sagebrush It is a coarse, hardy silvery-grey bush with yellow flowers and grows in arid sections of the western United States. It is the main vegetation across vast areas of the Great Basin desert. Along rivers or in other relatively wet areas, sagebrush can grow as tall as 10 feet (3 meters).
Sagebrush has a strong pungent fragrance, particularly when wet, which is not unlike common sage. It is, however, dissimilar to common sage and has a bitter taste. It is thought that this odor serves to discourage browsing.
Sagebrush leaves are wedge-shaped, and are attached to the branch by the narrow end. The outer and wider end is usually divided into three lobes (although leaves with two or four lobes are not uncommon), hence the scientific name tridentata. The leaves are enclosed with fine silvery hairs, which are thought to keep the leaf cool and minimize water loss. Most of the leaves are carried year-round, as sagebrush tends to grow in areas where winter precipitation is greater than summer precipitation.
sagebrush leaves compare favorably to alfalfa for livestock nutrition value. However, they also have oils that are toxic to the symbiotic bacteria in the rumen of most ruminants. These oils have the most effect on cattle. Cattle that resort to sagebrush due to the lack of other fodder in the winter often freeze to death before starving, as they rely in large part on the heat of their digestive action for warmth. Ranchers call this condition "hollow belly". Sheep can stand moderate consumption of sagebrush leaves, especially the fresh spring buds. Pronghorn are the only large herbivore to browse sagebrush extensively. As pronghorn are the only remaining big herbivore that evolved along with sagebrush (deer are a more recent arrival from Asia), this is not surprising. There is speculation that some of the herbivores that went extinct in North America at the end of the Pleistocene such as the Ground Sloth or the American Camel were also capable of browsing sagebrush.
Sagebrush flowers in the late summer or early fall. The flowers are yellow and are carried in long, slender clusters.

Antarctic flora

The climate of Antarctica does not permit extensive vegetation. A combination of sub-zero temperatures, poor soil quality, lack of moisture, and lack of sunlight inhibit the flourishing of plants. As a result, plant life is limited to frequently mosses and liverworts. The autotrophic community is ended up of mostly protists. The flora of the continent mainly consists of lichens, bryophytes, algae, and fungi. Growth normally occurs in the summer, and only for a few weeks at most.
There are more than 200 species of lichens and approximately 50 species of bryophytes, such as mosses. Seven hundred types of algae exist, most of which are phytoplankton. Multicolored snow algae and diatoms are particularly abundant in the coastal regions during the summer. There are two species of flowering plants found in the Antarctic Peninsula: Deschampsia antarctica (Antarctic hair grass) and Colobanthus quitensis (Antarctic pearlwort).

Recreation

Recreation is the use of time in a non-profitable way, in many ways also therapeutic refreshment of one's body or mind. While leisure is more likely a type of entertainment or rest, recreation is active for the participant but in a refreshing and diverting manner. As people in the world's richer regions lead increasingly sedentary life styles, the need for recreation has grown. The rise of so called active vacations exemplifies this trend.

Sit flying

Sit flying is a form of locomotion obtainable to skydivers and vertical wind tunnel flyers. It describes the ability to 'fly' ones body in any direction while in a 'sit' position. It's called a 'sit' because it looks like the flyer is sitting in a chair.
The correct position for flying a sit is to orient yourself feet first in the direction of the relative wind and maintain 90-degree angle bends at the knees, hips, and shoulders. Wind from the tunnel or from free-fall should be hitting the flyer on the feet, hamstrings, bottom, and the underside of the arms. To move about relative to the tunnel or other jumpers, the flyer simply redirects the airflow the opposite direction the jumper wants to go. Newtonian mechanics then push the flyer in the preferred direction. Fall rate changes (descending faster or slower) can also be made. This is done by presenting more surface area (wide legs and arms, higher drag, slower fall rate) or less surface area (arms up or even stand up, less drag, faster fall rate) from the flyers body to the wind.

Minerals and rocks

A mineral is a obviously occurring, inorganic solid with a definite chemical composition and a crystalline structure. A rock is an collective of one or more minerals. (A rock may also include organic remains and mineraloids.) Some rocks are mostly composed of just one mineral. For example, limestone is a sedimentary rock composed almost wholly of the mineral calcite. Other rocks have many minerals, and the specific minerals in a rock can vary widely. Some minerals, like quartz, mica or feldspar are general, while others have been found in only one or two locations worldwide. The vast majority of the rocks of the Earth's crust consist of quartz, feldspar, mica, chlorite, kaolin, calcite, epidote, olivine, augite, hornblende, magnetite, hematite, limonite and a few other minerals.Over half of the mineral species identified are so rare that they have only been found in a handful of samples, and many are known from only one or two small grains.
Commercially costly minerals and rocks are referred to as industrial minerals. Rocks from which minerals are mined for economic purposes are referred to as ores (the rocks and minerals that remain, after the desired mineral has been separated from the ore, are referred to as tailings).