International auxiliary languages

Some languages, most constructed, are meant specifically for communication between people of different nationalities or language groups as an easy-to-learn second language. Several of these languages have been constructed by individuals or groups. Natural, pre-existing languages may also be used in this way - their developers merely catalogued and standardized their vocabulary and identified their grammatical rules. These languages are called naturalistic. One such language, Latino Sine Flexione, is a simplified form of Latin. Two others, Occidental and Novial, were drawn from several Western languages.

To date, the most successful auxiliary language is Esperanto, invented by Polish ophthalmologist Zamenhof. It has a relatively large community roughly estimated at about 2 million speakers worldwide, with a large body of literature, songs, and is the only known constructed language to have native speakers, such as the Hungarian-born American businessman George Soros. Other auxiliary languages with a relatively large number of speakers and literature are Interlingua and Ido.

Ribosome

Ribosomes (from ribonucleic acid and "Greek: soma (meaning body)") are complexes of RNA and protein that are found in all cells. Ribosomes from bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes, the three domains of life on Earth, have significantly different structure and RNA. Interestingly, the ribosomes in the mitochondrion of eukaryotic cells resemble those in bacteria, reflecting the evolutionary origin of this organelle.

The ribosome functions in the expression of the genetic code from nucleic acid into protein, in a process called translation. Ribosomes do this by catalyzing the assembly of individual amino acids into polypeptide chains; this involves binding a messenger RNA and then using this as a template to join together the correct sequence of amino acids. This reaction uses adapters called transfer RNA molecules, which read the sequence of the messenger RNA and are attached to the amino acids.

Peanut milk

Peanut milk is a non-dairy beverage created using peanuts, water and an additional sweetener. It does not contain any lactose and is therefore suitable for people with lactose intolerance.

Peanut milk is similar to soy milk and rice milk in its production: the substance is ground, soaked, (sometimes heated) and then filtered through a fine filter -- the resulting liquid is considered the "milk".

One commercial brand which originated in San Francisco in 1999 received national attention in 2002, after a local news story reported supposed health benefits.

Trashing California’s Beaches

Californian’s love their coast and ocean — nine out of ten will visit the beach at least once this year. When they arrive at the beach, they are finding a lot more than sand and surf. During a recent summer, Orange County collected enough garbage from six miles of beach to fill ten garbage trucks full of trash every week, at a cost to taxpayers of $350,000. Other California counties spend even more.

In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that ocean-based sources, such as cargo ships and cruise liners, dumped 14 billion pounds of garbage into the ocean. In 1988, the U.S. signed onto MARPOL Annex V, joining 64 other countries that signed the international protocol that regulates ocean dumping and made it illegal to dump plastic into the ocean. Laws like MARPOL have reduced the amount of trash on our beaches and in our ocean. Even so, plastic pollution is still a major problem.

A recent study found an average of 334,271 pieces of plastic per square mile in the North Pacific Central Gyre, which serves as a natural eddy system to concentrate material.1 Results of more than 10 years of volunteer beach cleanup data indicate that 60 to 80 percent of beach debris comes from land-based sources. And debris in the marine environment means hazards for animals and humans. Plastic marine debris affects at least 267 species worldwide, including 86 percent of all sea turtle species, 44 percent of all sea bird species, and 43 percent of marine mammal species.

Hypertonicity

A cell is surrounded by an environment with a higher concentration of solutes than within the cell itself, resulting in water leaving the cell through osmosis.

In animal cells, being in a hypertonic environment results in crenation, where the shape of the cell becomes distorted and wrinkled as water leaves the cell. Some organisms have evolved methods of circumventing hypertonicity; for example, saltwater is hypertonic to the fish that live in it. Since they cannot isolate themselves from osmotic water loss, because they need a large surface area in their gills for gas exchange, they respond by drinking large amounts of water, and excreting the salt. This process is called osmoregulation.

In plant cells, the effect is more dramatic. The cell membrane pulls away from the cell wall, but the cell remains joined to the adjacent cells at points called plasmodesmata. Thus, the cell takes on the appearance of a pincushion, with the plasmodesmata almost ceasing to function because they have become so constricted. This condition is known as plasmolysis. The terms isotonic, hypotonic and hypertonic cannot be accurately used in plant cells however as the pressure potential exerted by the cell wall affects the equilibrium point significantly.

Inner planet Mars

Mars (1.5 AU) is smaller than Earth and Venus (0.107 Earth masses). It possesses a tenuous atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide. Its surface, peppered with vast volcanoes such as Olympus Mons and rift valleys such as Valles Marineris, shows geological activity that may have persisted until very recently. Its red color comes from rust in its iron-rich soil. Mars has two tiny natural satellites (Deimos and Phobos) thought to be captured asteroids.

Cone cell

Cone cells, or cones, are photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye which function best in relatively bright light. The cone cells gradually become more sparse towards the periphery of the retina.

A commonly cited figure of six million in the human eye was found by Osterberg in 1935. Oyster's textbook (1999) cites work by Curcio et al. (1990) indicating an average closer to 4.5 million cone cells and 90 million rod cells in the human retina.

Cones are less sensitive to light than the rod cells in the retina (which support vision at low light levels), but allow the perception of color. They are also able to perceive finer detail and more rapid changes in images, because their response times to stimuli are faster than those of rods.Because humans usually have three kinds of cones, with different photopsins, which have different response curves, and thus respond to variation in color in different ways, they have trichromatic vision. Being color blind can change this, and there have been reports of people with four or more types of cones, giving them tetrachromatic vision.