Sequoía sempervírens (D Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don) Endl. Redwood Taxodiaceae -- Redwood family David F. Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), also called coast redwood and California redwood, is native to the central and northern California coast, a region of moderate to heavy winter rain and summer fog so vital to this tree. Habitat Native Range The range of redwood extends southward from two groves on the Chetco River in the extreme southwest corner of Oregon (lat. 42° 09' N.), to Salmon Creek Canyon in the Santa Lucia Mountains of southern Monterey County, CA (lat. 35° 41' N.). - The native range of redwood. Climate The mild climate of the redwood forest region can be classed broadly as super-humid or humid. Annual precipitation varies between 640 and 3100 mm (25 and 122 in) and is mostly winter rain, although snow sometimes covers the highest ridges. The frequent summer fogs that blanket the redwood region seem to be more significant than the amount of precipitation in delineating the redwood type. Life History
Einstein was right - honey bee collapse threatens global food security The agri-business lender Rabobank said the numbers of US bee colonies failing to survive each winter has risen to 30pc to 35pc from an historical norm of 10pc. The rate is 20pc or higher in much of Europe, and the same pattern is emerging in Latin America and Asia. Albert Einstein, who liked to make bold claims (often wrong), famously said that "if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, man would have only four years to live". Such "apocalyptic scenarios" are overblown, said Rabobank. However, animal pollination is essential for nuts, melons and berries, and plays varying roles in citrus fruits, apples, onions, broccoli, cabbage, sprouts, courgettes, peppers, aubergines, avocados, cucumbers, coconuts, tomatoes and broad beans, as well as coffee and cocoa. This is the fastest growing and most valuable part of the global farm economy. The reservoir of bees is dwindling to the point where ratios are dangerously out of kilter, with the US reaching the "most extreme" imbalance.
12 bizarre real-life places that are stranger than science fiction Science fiction is home to some fantastic societies, from Cloud City to Bartertown. But you doesn't have to leave reality for this—our own world has places so abnormal, they make alien societies seem ordinary. Here are 12 remarkable locations in which people once lived (and some still do). 1. Off the coast of Japan lies a series of volcanic islands. 2. Neft Daslari is a functional city built 34 miles from the nearest shore. 3. One of the creepiest places on Earth, Sedlec Ossuary is a Roman Catholic chapel in the Czech Republic. 4. Temperatures in this Australian mining town reach well into broiling, so the opal miners who live there have built most of their town underground. 5. In 1962, a huge underground coal deposit ignited beneath the town of Centralia, Pa. 6. It's funny how something as boring as zoning regulations could lead to one of the most exciting office buildings on the planet. 7. Inside a spectacular Spanish church sits an enormous glass box. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
Baryon A baryon is a composite subatomic particle made up of three quarks (as distinct from mesons, which comprise one quark and one antiquark). Baryons and mesons belong to the hadron family, which are the quark-based particles. The name "baryon" comes from the Greek word for "heavy" (βαρύς, barys), because, at the time of their naming, most known elementary particles had lower masses than the baryons. As quark-based particles, baryons participate in the strong interaction, whereas leptons, which are not quark-based, do not. The most familiar baryons are the protons and neutrons that make up most of the mass of the visible matter in the universe. Electrons (the other major component of the atom) are leptons. Background[edit] Baryons are strongly interacting fermions — that is, they experience the strong nuclear force and are described by Fermi−Dirac statistics, which apply to all particles obeying the Pauli exclusion principle. Baryonic matter[edit] Baryogenesis[edit] Properties[edit]
The dancing plant - Thailand Dr. Pradit Kampermpool marches through his plant nursery, past row upon row of exotic orchids, before stopping, his chest proudly puffed out, in front of an unremarkable, weedy-looking plant. This plant, he says gravely, cost him a fortune. He developed complicated breeding programs and followed them religiously for almost 10 years to produce it, he says. This plant, he says, is a dancing plant. He pauses for effect. Kampermpool stands maybe 5 and a half feet tall. It is almost 6:30 in the morning and we are standing in Kampermpool’s plant nursery in Udon Thani Province, in tropical northern Thailand. At night, elephant handlers — bent, little toothless mahouts — park their elephants implausibly under the store awnings downtown, to shelter from the rain that comes nightly. The dancing plant grows unchecked in a secluded enclosure at the back of Kampermpool’s nursery, bursting from a brick trough filled with dark wet soil. Kampermpool doesn’t care. The Plant twitches. It was 1976.
One Per Cent: Green Machine: Sucking carbon dioxide out of the air Helen Knight, technology reporter (Image: F1 Online/Rex Features) Think of it as a chemical vacuum cleaner for sucking greenhouse gases out of the air. Air capture, in which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere, has been touted as a potentially promising way to tackle climate change. To demonstrate that the technology works, Christopher Jones at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta tested a CO2 absorbent based on amines - the chemicals predominantly used in power plant carbon capture trials - on gases with CO2 concentrations similar to those found in ambient air. He found the material was able to repeatedly extract CO2 from the gas without being degraded, which will be vital if the technology is to be used economically on a wide-scale. Solid amines release the stored CO2 when heated to just 110 degrees Celsius - much lower than the temperatures required by the water-based liquid amine solutions - reducing the amount of energy required by 75 per cent.
5 Numbers That Influence Our Life In Unexpected Ways From counting out the exact change for a coffee cup to planning a retirement fund, numbers influence almost every aspect of one’s life. However, numbers have a much deeper influence on the world around us, often in ways that we don’t even realize. A mathematical constant determines what we find beautiful and a number decides how many friends we have; mathematics is written into our genes and here are just a few of the fascinating ways it changes our lives. Certain communities survive largely unchanged over long periods of time while other tribes or even modern neighborhoods collapse into chaos and hostility. We keep in touch with some friends and co-workers and ignore others, apparently for no reason. Even corporations seem to have trouble managing workers after, hiring a certain amount of people. Researchers claim that human social functions are hardwired around the number 150. This number is the single most widely encountered constant in the whole universe. Advertisements 0StumbleUpon
Trapping flying qubits in a crystal (and getting them back out) Quantum computers come in many different shapes and forms, but the granddaddy of them all is based on light. This is because it is very easy to create the basic computational unit, called a qubit, from light. The big problem is the memory unit. Light has a pesky habit of traveling quite fast, so by the time you are ready to use your carefully prepared qubit, it is halfway to the Moon, never to return. A pair of research groups, working independently, showed an effective and reliable memory for light-based qubits. There are three key elements that make a quantum computer special: superposition, coherence, and entanglement. If we limit ourselves to light, there are still many possible ways to encode a qubit on a photon. Why was memory so difficult? But memory is a problem. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as sticking a bit of material in the path of the photon and hoping that the photon will be absorbed. No, to store the quantum state, one needs to carefully prepare the material.
Rare Plants | It's a Wonderful World 神秘果 Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum Dulcificum)Although not sweet itself, if consumed fresh and allowed to coat your mouth, this miraculous fruit alters your tastebuds so that everything you eat tastes sweet with effect lasting one to two hours. The beauty of it is that it only removes the acidic sourness (such as lemon) from what you are eating. The natural aroma and taste remains. It has been used to sweeten bitter medicines. You should eat the berries immediately on picking. 神秘果尝后能暂时改变人的味觉系统，即使再吃酸味水果亦呈甜味。 舞草 Telegraph Plant (Desmodium Gyrans) The plant is also known as the Dancing Plant or the Curiosity Plant. Charles Darwin once wrote in his book,"The little leaflets never go to sleep, and this seems to me very odd… They are at their games of play as late as 11 o’clock at night and probably later." 这是一枝普普通通的小草。 露美玉 Living Stone (Lithops turbiniformis) Living Stone is a type of succulent plant. 植物体形如石头，开出花来好像从石缝里钻出来。 Like this: Like Loading...