Scientists have long reasoned that fingerprints help humans
grip objects by creating friction, because a few primates and tree-climbing
koalas also have fingerprints.
But a new study found that if fingerprints help people grip
things, it's not since they create more friction.
Scientist Peter Warman, from the University
of Manchester in England, broke
his finger into a machine that measures friction, while his mentor Roland Ennos
slid a piece of acrylic glass, called Perspex, across the finger. To their shock,
they found that no matter how hard they pulled the glass, the friction would
barely increase.
In these experiments, with two solid objects, friction
should be proportional to the force of the glass on the finger, so the harder
they slid the glass, the extra friction should be produced. Though, the finger
was not behaving like a normal solid; it was behaving like rubber.
With rubber, friction is proportional to the contact area
between two surfaces, not how hard they push together. When the researchers
used glass strips of different width in their experiment, they found that the
wider strips formed the most friction.
Because our fingertips are ridged, not smooth, when we grab
an object we essentially have less of our skin in contact than we would if we
didn't have fingerprints. To make a strong grip, our fingers must touch as much
of an object as possible.
The result only shows that fingerprints don't tighten our
grasp on smooth surfaces. The authors think that the ridges on our fingerprints
might still have helped our primate ancestors grab rough surfaces, such as when
hiking a tree. Fingerprints could also drain water from our finger pads and
help us keep a dry grip during rain.
Jackson memorial service set to be 'peak show on earth'
Late King of Pop Michael Jackson's memorial service could
turn out to be the "greatest show on earth", just like the celebrity had
predicted in a past interview.
About one million fans of the superstar are expected to make
the pilgrimage to the StaplesCenter arena in Los
Angeles on July 7, while 750 million more will be
watching it on TV.
The Jackson
family has established that his send-off will feature performances and tributes
from a galaxy of music legends.
There are plans to set up huge screens outside the vast
20,000-seater stadium for mourners who cannot get in.
Reports even recommend that US President Barack Obama has been
sent an invitation.
Further people who are said to have been invited for Jacko's
last service include Sir Paul McCartney, singer Diana Ross, and screen legend
Liz Taylor.
The 'Thriller' hit-maker will be buried in rare 15,000
pounds 14-karat gold plated casket.
H1N1 virus, also known as "swine flu" and "swine Influenza A" is a virus that can spread from people who are infected to others through coughs and sneezes. When people cough or sneeze, they spread germs through the air or onto surfaces that other people may touch. H1N1 virus is not transmitted from pigs to humans or from eating pork products.
Confirmed human cases of the H1N1 virus (swine flu) have been reported in multiple states. Internationally, there are reported outbreaks in Mexico, Canada and other countries around the world. Although most cases of the H1N1 human swine flu infection have been mild, health officials are closely monitoring and responding aggressively to the outbreaks in an ongoing effort to reduce the spread and severity of illness.
"One of the great natural facts: is that the mouth of the Minnesota
River lies immediately over the center of the earth and under the
center of the heavens." (The Dakota Friend, a newspaper printed by missionaries Samuel and Gideon Pond, 1851.)
The confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers is one of the
most powerfully historic places in the Twin Cities. To the Mdewakanton
Dakota it has deep historic and spiritual meaning. They called the
joining of the two rivers Bdote Minisota. For some, it was
their place of origin, their Garden of Eden. To early Americans it
became a center of trade and military authority.
On July 4, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson announced the Louisiana
Purchase. The United States had bought the western half of the
Mississippi River watershed from France. Jefferson sent Meriwether
Lewis and William Clark out west and Lt Zebulon Pike up the Mississippi
River. Pike’s commander, General James Wilkinson, ordered Pike to
discover the Mississippi’s source, make alliances with the Chippewa and
Dakota, stop intertribal fighting, assess the fur trade, observe the
weather, and secure the best sites for military posts.
On September 21, 1805, Lt. Zebulon Pike landed his boats on the big
island at the confluence. That island is now Pike Island. About noon on
September 23, Pike says he "had a bower or shade, made of my sails, on
the beach, into which only my gentlemen (the traders) and the chiefs
entered." He gave a speech telling the Dakota that America now owned
both sides of the Mississippi.
Pike wanted the Dakota to sign a treaty granting the U.S. land at the
confluence, St. Anthony Falls, and the St. Croix River’s mouth for
military forts. After the Dakota signed, Pike boasted to Wilkinson that
he had acquired the land "for a song."
The Americans made little effort to take control of the area from the
Dakota until 1819, when Colonel Henry Leavenworth arrived to build a
fort. One year later, Colonel Josiah Snelling replaced Leavenworth, and
on September 10, Snelling set the fort’s cornerstone.
Finished in 1824, Fort Snelling became the regional center for
intertribal gatherings and negotiations. Although in Dakota territory,
the Chippewa, Menominee, and Winnebago also visited the fort. Fur
traders soon located across the river at Mendota, nearby at Camp
Coldwater and just up the Minnesota River.
The most exciting adventure that we've had in the Submarine Alvin was the discovery and exploration of hot vents on the sea floor.
They range from just a little bit warm to outrageously hot, 350 degrees centigrade.
You know, ordinarily water would boil at 100 degrees centigrade, but the pressure's so high there that it doesn't boil, but it comes out extremely hot.
When it's a little bit cooler, there are lots of strange animals that live around there that have never been seen anywhere else, including really long tube worms with bright red flesh at the end.
There are crabs running all round eating everything else.
Giant claims like this with red flesh.
All those animals are living on the chemical energy that's in the water of the vents.
They have special bacteria that use the hydrogen sulfide; that's gas that poisons us if we get a tiny whiff.
They're using it and using it for its chemical energy and passing that down the food chain, so it's a totally different ecological situation then we're used to.
It's so exciting to see a living thing in such an alien environment.
They're really bizarre; really bizarre.
These weird and wondrous denizens of the deep are the only examples of life which get their entire supply of energy and warmth from the interior of the Earth itself.
They live kilometers beneath the ocean surface in a world as alien as any encountered in outer space.
"Strange Things Happen to Non-Christian People": Human-Animal Transformation among the Inupiat of Arctic Alaska
Inuit myths, folklore, and material culture are filled with examples of people who turn into animals. Margaret Lantis, a well-known Eskimologist of the mid-twentieth century, once commented that human-animal transformation in Inuit mythology had an "immediacy and a reality" that was unknown in other parts of the world. It is hard to discern from more contemporary ethnography, however, whether transformation still occupies a meaningful place in Inuit life. This article examines present-day Inupiaq understandings of, and experiences with, human-animal transformation. The author offers conventional wisdom on this topic, how such metamorphosis is accomplished, and the cosmological forces that still are believed to operate behind the scenes. This article departs from the customary preoccupation with shamanistic practices and instead focuses on how everyday Inupiat explain the social and moral significance of turning into an animal. Through this discursive lens, the author argues, one may appreciate how different generations of Inupiat have integrated Christian cosmology and deities into their interpretations of both animals and human-animal hybridity. Attention to animality in the context of transformation, rather than during the hunt (the context in which the majority of theories on Inuit-nature relations are generated), provides a unique perspective on how missionization has shaped Inupiaq conceptions of human-animal relations. This research allows one to consider how today's "Christianized" animals contrast with the "nonhuman persons" that populate anthropological literature and joins a broader anthropological concern with how indigenous religious practice coexists with world religions.
The Great Wall of China is frequently described the only man-made structure visible from the moon, although common sense suggests that for all its length it isn't big enough. What is indisputable is the awesome majesty of the Great Wall. The most popular section for tourists is at Badaling, 80 kilometers north os Beijing. However, the Mutianyu section is equally impressive. Both can be scaled on foot or by cable car.
The history of the wall is one of China's great sagas. Its construction as a series of originally separate walls began in the 5th century BC and it attained its greatest length as a single wall only during the Ming Dynasty. It was intended by the early emperors of China to serve as a barrier against the marauding nomads of the barbarial North. Although it failed to keep out the Mongols it did establish a border within which the Chinese developed their distinctive civilization.
The wall - in varying states of disrepair - stretches over 3,500 kilometers from the Yellow Sea through the mountains to Jiayuguan Pass in the Gobi deseart. For much of its length it was built of earth and rubble faced with masonry and it is recorded that it took 300,000 men 10 years to complete one section.
Visitiors can reach the Badalign section by a modern prupose built road. Those on a day's excursion vsvally combine the wall with a visit to the Ming Tombs. There are altogether 13 tombs scattered around a valley, complete eith a Spirit Way of stone animals, warriors and mandarins. Only a few of the tombs have been restored, most notably those of the Yongle and Wanli emperors.
Man's first venture into the air was in a hot air balloon invented by the Montgolfier brothers, papermakers of Annonay, France. The Montgolfier balloon, sponsored by Louis XVI, was flown from the Bois de Boulogne in Paris on November 21, 1783. In attendance were many notables, including Benjamin Franklin. When asked by a skeptic, "Of what use is it?," Ambassador Franklin is reported to have said, "Of what use is a newborn baby?"
Professor Charles, inventor of the gas balloon, was working concurrently with the Montgolfier brothers, and in direct competition for the support of the king. His approach was a balloon filled with newly discovered hydrogen obtained from disassociation of the elements composing water. Professor Charles' creation, the Charliere balloon, flew from the Tuileries on December 1, 1783, and the Space Race was on!
Within a very few years, a third type of balloon was flown by Pilatre de Rozier, also in France. The Rozier balloon combined hot air and hydrogen; a hydrogen envelope inside a hot air envelope was heated so that less valving and ballasting were necessary to maintain altitude control. This soon proved to be dangerous, and the Roziere-type balloon was forgotten until helium became readily available.
All three types of balloons, or aerostats - the Mongolfiere, Charliere, and Roziere - are in use today. Propane burners have replaced wood, straw, and dung in the hot air, or Mongolfiere balloons. Helium, ammonia, city gas, and hydrogen are the lifting gasses used in gas, or Charliere balloons, while Roziere balloons now use a helium inner envelope, with a surrounding hot air envelope heated by propane.
The renaissance of hot air ballooning developed under the guidance of Ed Yost in Sioux Falls, SD, in the early 1960s under a U.S. Navy contract with General Mills. The Yost-General Mills product proved to be more valuable for recreation than for military use, and sport hot air ballooning was reborn. There has since been a steady growth of ballooning in the United States and around the world, and balloons can be seen flying every day. Many flights are in competitive events and rallies. Balloons are also used commercially to give sightseeing rides, and as flying billboards to advertise many products.
Public hearings of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, investigating the fires that swept through the state in late January and early February this year, commenced on 11 May 2009. The Library can help you stay up to date with proceedings of the Royal Commission as well as guide you to learn more about Victoria's bushfire history.
Access the Royal Commission public hearings
The Library is making it as easy as possible for you to stay up to date with the proceedings of the Royal Commission's public hearings. You can:
Please note: between 12 and 2pm Wednesday 20 May and every second Wednesday thereafter until the hearings conclude, the hearings will be available via webcast on a dedicated Royal Commission PC in the Information Centre.
check the official Royal Commission website for further information, including the Terms of Reference and how to make a written submission.
You can also access video and transcripts of the proceedings at other public libraries throughout the state. Check your local library for details.
Find out about previous Victorian bushfires
The Library has produced an online guide to researching Victorian bushfires, from 1851 to the present. Learn how to access information about major bushfires, including the 2009 Black Saturday fires, 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, 1851 Black Thursday fires and 1939 Black Friday fires. Use the guide to help locate bushfire-related information from:
Finding that perfect book club for 2009 may now be non-fiction thanks to Council’s Readers Rendezvous.
Readers Rendezvous is a fun social evening for lovers of books to
come along and match their interests with the perfect book club.
Community and Cultural Development Chair Cr Bob La Castra said the
evening was designed to provide opportunities for those who have always
wanted to join a book club but didn’t know where to start.
“Book groups are a great way to meet people and discover new books,” said Cr La Castra.
“Readers Rendezvous is a free cocktail-style social evening with strong emphasis on fun rather than a formal seminar.
“On the night, guests will be asked to fill in a simple questionnaire on what types of books they are interested in.
“There will also be trivia and prizes to be won and library staff
will contact guests later with details of local book groups that may be
of interest.”
Readers Rendezvous will be held at 6.30pm, Friday 30 January 2009 at the Broadbeach Branch Library.
Places are limited and bookings are essential.
To book, contact the Broadbeach Branch Library on 5581 1555.
