To obtain power from the sun’s rays is to use

nuclear power developed at no expense in a

laboratory 93 million miles away. For the radiant

energy of the sun is maintained by nuclear

transformation of chemical elements occurring in

the sun’s interior at temperatures of many million

degrees, and at pressures of many million

atmospheres. The resources of solar power are

enormous. If 100 per cent efficiency could be

secured in the transformation of radiant solar

energy into mechanical work, a horsepower per

square yard of ground surface would be available

under cloudless skies. The expense of collecting

solar energy still prevents its competition with the

usual power sources. Yet, unless the vague promise

of safe thermonuclear power from oceans becomes

realized, solar power must supply the enormous and

growing requirements of posterity within two

centuries. Because the ground sources (coal, oil and

uranium) as they near exhaustion will become more

costly than solar power.

Despite all the attention we give to our hair, and

putting aside the fact that the first synthetic hair

dyes were created in 1907, it has really only been in

the last 50 years or so that hair has been

scientifically studied. Before that, it was deemed too

trivial to be worthy of the attention, but the amount

that scientists can now tell about a person from the

study of their hair, often simply by looking at it

under a microscope, is remarkable. Humans have

around five million body hairs which is as many as

a chimpanzee has, although ours are smaller and

finer. They come in three types. An unborn baby has

a kind of fine down all over its body that begins to

grow about 12 weeks after conception. Normally,

these “lanugo” hairs are shed a few weeks before

birth, although some premature babies are born

with them. After birth and throughout our lives,

humans are covered in short “vellus” hairs just a

centimetre or two long and with little or no pigment.

Finally, the pigmented, thicker hairs that grow in

varying quantities on our heads, groin, armpits,

forearms and legs, and (on men) chests, stomachs

and faces, are “terminal” hairs.

Although the idea of the skyscraper is modern, the

inclination to build upward is not. The Great

Pyramids, with their broad bases, reached heights

unapproached for the next four millennia.But even

the great Gothic cathedrals, crafted of bulky stone

into an aesthetic of lightness and slenderness, are

dwarfed by the steel and reinforced concrete

structures of the 20th century.It was modern

building materials that made the true skyscraper

structurally possible, but it was the mechanical

device of the elevator that made the skyscraper truly

practical.Ironically, it is also the elevator that has

had so much to do with limiting the height of most

tall buildings to about 70 or 80 stories.Above that,

elevator shafts occupy more than 25 percent of the

volume of a tall building, and so the economics of

renting out space argues against investing in greater

height.

Until the early 1960s, the picturesque ruins of

Aphrodisias were scattered in and around the very

pretty village of Geyre, where the houses had been

built largely from remnants of the ancient city. But

the present excavations, which began in 1961, have

now reached such a scale that the village and its

inhabitants have been moved to another site

nearby. Some of the superb sculptures unearthed

are now exhibited in a new museum, which is

located in what was once Geyre’s village square,

while others can be seen around the archaeological

zone, one of the most interesting and beautiful sites

in all of Turkey. Surprisingly, the excavations at

Aphrodisias have unearthed remains of a settlement

dating back to about 5,800 B,C. The site seems to

have been a very ancient shrine of Ishtar, the

fertility goddess of Nineveh and Babylon, who was

one of the predecessors of Aphrodite, the Greek

goddess of love. In fact, the earliest Greek sanctuary

of Aphrodite on this site dates from the sixth

century B,C, and it was from this sanctuary during

the next four centuries that the cult of Aphrodite

spread throughout the Graeco-Roman world.

Strictly speaking the term " avalanche " should be

restricted to falls of snow and ice in mountainous

regions but popular usage has extended its meaning

to cover rock falls and landslips in all environments.

The period of greatest danger from avalanches

proper is during a thaw, when melt-water makes a

good lubricant for the snow and ice banked steeply

against rock faces. The rising cloud of white dust,

the vertical grooves and patches of bare rock formed

by the scouring action, and the dull roar of the

avalanche are all common features of mountains

above the permanent snow line. Rock fragments

may also be carried down, for the recurrent freezing

and thawing of water lodged in joints and crevices

of the rock forms a powerful agent of disintegration.

The action is the same as that which leads to burst

pipes. Freezing causes expansion of the water in the

spaces of a joint and produces a pressure sufficient

to break the rock.

The immediate cause of obesity is the prolonged

consumption of a diet containing more calories than

are needed to provide for the body’s tissue repair,

vital functions and physical activities. In modern

society, food has become very plentiful and

attractive, and the physical effort demanded by

many occupations has diminished. Most people in

civilized communities eat more than they require,

and it is surprising that obesity is not more common

than it is. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that

there exists some unknown mechanism by which

the body is enabled to get rid of the surplus calories

which would otherwise be stored as fat. If there were

not such a mechanism, obesity would be much

more common.

During the past few decades four East Asian

economies – South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and

Hong Kong – have achieved the fastest rates of

economic growth the world has ever seen. In 1962

Taiwan stood between Zaire and the Congo on the

global ranking of income per head: by 1986 its

neighbours were Greece and Malta. In 1962 South

Korea was poorer than Sudan: by 1986 it was richer

than Argentina. Today the four “dragons” account

for 10 per cent of manufactured exports worldwide,

not far short of America’s 12 per cent.

Understanding this miracle is the most urgent task

in development economics. But most economists are

content to cite the dragons as proof of their favourite

theories – whatever those theories may be. Free

marketers point to the dragons’ reliance on private

enterprise, markets and relatively undistorted trade

regimes. Interventionists point with equal

assurance to clever bureaucracies, non-market

allocation of resources and highly distorted trade

regimes.

A growing percentage of the American economy and of

other advanced industrial economies in Europe and Asia

depends on imports and exports. Foreign trade, both

exports and imports, accounts for a little over 25 per cent

of the goods and services produced in the United States,

and even more in countries such as Japan and Germany.

This percentage will grow in the future. The success of

firms today and in the future depends on their ability to

operate globally. Globalization of the world’s industrial

economies greatly enhances the value of information to the

firm and offers new opportunities to businesses. Today,

information systems provide the communication and

analytic power that firms need for conducting trade and

managing businesses on a global scale. Controlling the far-

flung global corporation, which includes communicating

with distributors and suppliers, operating 24 hours a day

in different national environments and servicing local as

well as international reporting needs, is a major business

challenge that requires powerful information system

responses. Globalization and information technology also

bring new threats to domestic business firms; because of

global communication and management systems,

customers now can shop in a worldwide marketplace,

obtaining price and quality information reliably, 24 hours

a day. This phenomenon heightens competition and forces

firms to play in open, unprotected worldwide markets. To

become effective and profitable participants in

international markets, firms need powerful information

and communication systems.

The acronym ‘radar’, for radio detection and

ranging, has been credited to the US Navy, which

used it officially towards the end of 1940, but the

concept of radar is somewhat older. Hertz showed

that metals would reflect electromagnetic waves and

Tesla is said to have suggested using this

phenomenon in a radar-like manner in 1899. A few

years later a German, Christian Hulsmeyer,

received patents for a ship's anti-collision device.

Also many radio engineers and experimenters

observed that passing aircraft or ships interfered

with their experiments. Although these features are

all suggestive of radar, none was actually radar

unless the term is very loosely defined. In the 1930s,

however, several of the major powers became aware

of the military possibilities of radar and work on it

started immediately in the USA, Britain, France,

Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union. By the

end of World War II, military radar, and military

radio navigation aids too, were well developed.

The hygiene hypothesis was first described in 1989

by David P. Strachan, a British epidemiologist, who

noticed that the more children in a family, the lower

the rates of allergies and eczema.Children in large

families tend to exchange colds and other infections

more often than children with fewer siblings, and

this increased exposure to pathogens perhaps

protected these children from allergies. That same

year, Erika von Mutius, an epidemiologist at Munich

University, was looking into the effect of hygiene on

asthma. Children from dirtier East Germany, she

was shocked to find, had dramatically less asthma

than their West German counterparts living in

cleaner, more modern circumstances.The East

German children had likely been exposed to many

more viruses and bacteria.According to the hygiene

hypothesis, exposure in early childhood to

infectious agents programs the immune system to

mount defences against disease-causing viruses,

bacteria and parasites.Better sanitary conditions

deprive the immune system of this training, so the

body fights against harmless particles as if they

were deadly threats. The resulting allergic reaction

leads to the classic signs of asthma. However,

although much data supports the hygiene

hypothesis for allergies, the same cannot be said for

asthma. Contrary to expectations, asthma rates

have increased drastically in urban areas in the US

that are not particularly clean.

Sir Philip Sydney was a 16th-century English poet

and critic.His Defence of Poesy is the only major

work of literary criticism in sixteenth-century

England, a period during which Italy and France

produced large numbers of critical treatises,

heavily influenced by Aristotle’s Poetics.By

contrast, Sydney’s text is highly eclectic, drawing

together aesthetic principles from several traditions

and emphasizing especially those principles that

are of primary importance to the Elizabethans:

ideal imitation, moral teaching and

decorum.Looking back to Aristotle, Sidney defines

poetry as an imitation of nature, but links that

imitation to his view of the poet as maker.The poet

imitates not the real nature we see but rather he

imitates an ideal nature.Sydney also makes large

claims for the didactic role of poetry, following

Horace’s idea that poetry teaches by delighting.

With their magnificent architecture and

sophisticated knowledge of astronomy, and

mathematics, the Maya boasted one of the great

cultures of the ancient world. Although they had not

discovered the wheel and were without metal tools,

the Maya constructed massive pyramids, temples

and monuments of stone both in large cities and in

smaller ceremonial centers throughout the lowlands

of the Yucatan Peninsula, which covers parts of

what are now southern Mexico and Guatemala and

essentially all of Belize. From celestial observatories,

they tracked the progress, for example, of Venus

and developed, a calendar based on a solar year of

365 days. They created their own system of

mathematics, using a base number of 20 with a

concept of zero. And they developed a hieroglyphic

scheme for writing, one that used hundreds of

elaborate signs.

Weeds are plants out of place, either as the wrong

plant in cultivated ground, or as any plant where

none should be. They can cause considerable

financial loss through the cost of their control and

the damage they do to crops. Plants which become

really troublesome as weeds are those which persist

despite man’s efforts to control them. Such

persistency is due to several factors of which

perhaps the most important are prolific seed

production, coupled with the often remarkably long

periods of dormancy of the seed, and the ability of

vegetative parts of some plants to survive

mechanical damage and adverse conditions and to

set up new plants. Weeds may be controlled by

hand, by cultivation and other mechanical means,

by biological means and by chemical weedkillers.

Chemical weedkillers are widely used, either to give

a total kill and suppress all vegetation or to control

weeds selectively in crops.

Morphine, which is given as a painkiller to many

people with cancer, might stimulate the growth of

tumours, say researchers in the US. Their worrying

findings have been questioned by others in the field,

but all agree that further studies are urgently

needed to settle the issue. In test-tube experiments

and in mice, Kalpna Gupta and her colleagues

found that morphine encourages the growth of

blood vessels, known as angiogenesis. The

increased blood supply accelerated the growth of

breast tumours in mice. Although the researchers

have not yet looked for this effect in people, Gupta

warns that morphine could be harmful for patients

with any form of solid tumour that depends on a

healthy blood supply. She stresses that nobody

should yet consider altering their use of morphine

because of her findings. “But clinical studies must

be done,” she says.

Unlike the older forms of occultism, such as magic

and astrology, organized occultism is a modern

phenomenon. Few of the various organized occult

movements have existed for more than 150 years;

some were formed as a belated countermovement to

the Enlightenment, when people began to follow

rational schools of thought. Today’s occult views are

based on the idea that there are events within

nature, as well as within one’s spiritual life, which

seem mysterious and cannot be explained by

science. Examples include extrasensory perceptions

such as telepathy and telekinesis, and haunted

places or people. Believers maintain that these

phenomena stem from unknown powers that can

often be accessed only by some people with special

abilities.

Sweden maintained a position of neutrality during

both World Wars and this, in part at least, enabled

her to build up an elaborate structure of welfare

legislation that many larger nations were later to

imitate. The first major step was the establishment,

in 1911, of old-age pensions. Economic prosperity

based on its neutralist policy enabled Sweden,

together with Norway, to pioneer in public health,

housing, and job security programs. Forty-four

years of Socialist government were ended in 1976

with the election of a conservative coalition.

Presently, the Socialists were again returned to

power, only to be ousted in September 1991. The

new coalition of four conservative parties promised

to reduce taxes and cut back on the welfare state

but not alter Sweden’s traditional neutrality. Under

them, in a 1994 referendum, voters approved

joining the European Union. Although supportive of

a European monetary union, Sweden decided not to

adopt the euro when it first appeared in 1999.

During our visit in the summer of 1994 to the

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a region within a 30 km

radius of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, we

were amazed by the diversity of mammals living in

the shadow of the ruined reactor only eight years

after the meltdown. During our excursion through

the woods, we trapped some of the local mice for

examination in a makeshift laboratory. We were

surprised to find that, although each mouse

registered unprecedented levels of radiation in its

bones and muscles, all the animals seemed

physically normal, and many of the females were

carrying normal-looking embryos. We found that

the mice did not have any obvious chromosomal

damage. We wondered whether the absence of

injury could be explained by some sort of adaptive

change, perhaps a more efficient DNA-repair

mechanism, after many prior generations had been

exposed to radiation. But when we transplanted

wild mice from uncontaminated regions into cages

in the Exclusion Zone and then examined their

chromosomes, they were likewise unaffected by the

radiation. In at least this respect, the mice seemed

to have a natural "immunity" to harm from

radiation.

Autism, from the Greek word for “self,” was first

identified as a disorder in 1943. Initially, it was

thought to be a psychological disorder brought on

by cold or unemotional mothers, and curable by

intensive sessions of psychotherapy. During the

1960s, specialists realized that autistics frequently

had epilepsy and abnormal brain scans, which led

to the condition being recognized as a brain disorder

by the 1970s. Autism is now known to be a

hereditary neurological condition, about three times

more common in boys than girls. Usually, autistics

lack the ability to relate normally to other people

and have an anxious desire to maintain a routine,

which evolves with age into intense interests or

obsessions. Many autistic people deliver

monologues on topics while unaware of other

people’s comments or possible discomfort. There are

several related, but different, forms of autism.

Depending on the severity, symptoms can

sometimes be alleviated with carefully controlled

antidepressants, although sufferers typically find it

difficult to function normally in society.

The First World War could be called the War of the

Ottoman Succession. It was, in part, a struggle

between Austria and Russia for domination in the

areas in the Balkans once ruled by the Ottoman

Empire. Its first shots were fired in the former

Ottoman city of Sarajevo. Throughout the summer

and autumn of 1914, as the European powers were

locked in battle, the Ottoman government hesitated.

Finally, at the end of October, against the wishers of

his colleagues, Enver Pasha decided to attack

Russian targets with the new warships in the Black

Sea. His decision led to war across Europe, the

collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the end of

stability in the Middle East. Initially, the alliance

between the Ottoman Empire and the Central

Powers worked well. In the first half of the 20th

century, Germany was not the source of horror that

it later became. Britain, France and Russia were the

enemies to be feared and resented. By comparison,

Germany appeared friendly. The Ottoman

government calculated that its alliance with the

Central Powers would restore the glory of the

empire, help it recover some of the islands lost to

Greece in 1913, and perhaps lead to an extension of

territory in Turkish-speaking central Asia.

Developing markets, historically the domain of

hyperinflation and political manipulation, now

enjoy high surpluses, thanks to record commodity

prices and severe fiscal discipline. Since 2001 these

economies have achieved three times the average

annual per-capita economic growth of their

developed counterparts and now represent a

quarter of global output. Stocks in emerging

markets are causing much excitement among

investors. However, too much excitement invites

peril. Emerging markets have undeniably changed

in the past decade, but lately they are looking

overgrown, and even a minor crisis could send them

tumbling. And while the potential triggers for a fall

have changed, they are still there. As economies in

the developing world get stronger, governments are

getting more assertive and meddling with both

companies and neighbouring countries, increasing

political risk.

The amount of engineering and exertion required to

do work in space came as a surprise in the early

days of the manned space program. For instance,

when the astronauts Eugene Cernan and Thomas

Stafford launched into space aboard Gemini 9 on

June 3rd, 1966, they had no way of knowing that a

nightmare would begin as soon as Cernan began a

space walk. From the moment he emerged from the

capsule, everything Cernan did was much harder

than he had expected. Every weightless movement

triggered an equal, opposite reaction, and he found

himself repeatedly flying out to the end of the

umbilical cord connecting him to the Gemini

capsule and then rebounding in an unexpected

direction. Stafford finally ordered Cernan to forget

about the 10-million-dollar backpack and return to

the capsule. Doing so turned out to be the most

alarming part of the space walk, as Cernan

discovered that his pressurized suit wouldn’t flex

enough to allow him back inside so that operation

alone took him thirty laborious minutes. Then the

struggle to close the hatch was so prolonged and

difficult that Stafford decided he needed to lie, so

the ground crew would not panic. “Coming in, no

problem,” he fibbed as he and Cernan improvized a

lever to force the latch into position. It finally closed.

Haemorrhage is an escape of blood from the vessels

through which it normally circulates. The quantity

lost may be microscopic, or may amount to quite a

large quantity; large haemorrhages usually arise

from a large artery or vein, while bleeding from a

capillary may be shown only by a minute red spot

in the skin. Many haemorrhages are trivial and

require no specific treatment. Examples of these are

such common domestic accidents as cut fingers and

nose bleeds. Others form some of the major

emergencies of medicine.The principles of treatment

are to arrest haemorrhage, to combat shock by

restoring normal blood volume, and to keep the

patient quiet, comfortable and confident.

Narva is a quiet northeastern Estonian town bathed

in sea breezes. Though small, with a population of

just over 72,000, it occupies a large place in Russian

history. It was here in 1700 that, by attacking the

Swedes, who were then in control of much of the

Baltic coast, Russia launched its final campaign in

a centuries-long quest to become a European power.

The battle ended in defeat for the Russians, but the

war did not; by 1721 Russia had conquered the

Baltic territories as far southwest as Riga, the

capital of present-day Latvia, and had built a new

capital, Saint Petersburg, on the Gulf of Finland.

Later in that century, Russia, through a partition

agreement with Austria and Prussia, gained control

of the rest of the Baltics, and would retain them

until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Which European country has the worst record for

shoplifting?. The answer is Britain and she holds

the record now for the second year running,

according to a survey released on September 19th.

Britons not only steal more than their continental

counterparts, they are also less competent

employees on the shop floor, resulting in Britain

having the worst overall rate of retail “ shrinkage ” -

a measure of losses by retailers from theft,

mispricing and other wastage. Continental

Europeans are actually not much better. Shrinkage

is increasing alarmingly in some countries and is

generally on the rise. Denmark is a notable example.

According to one survey, shrinkage there is 9% up

on last year. Shrinkage costs the European

economy a surprisingly large amount, in fact, the

total annual cost has been estimated at around £30

billion which is equivalent to a shocking £80 per

person in the region. That is more than the costs of

the much-higher-profile car crime or domestic

burglary.

On 31 October 1994, a turboprop airliner heading

for Chicago, Illinois, crashed into a soybean field at

Roselawn in Indiana. All 68 people aboard died.

Although the weather was cold and damp that day,

no one could believe it when investigators revealed

that the crash was caused by a buildup of ice on the

wings. Not only did this modern plane have a fully

functional deicing system, but according to US

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) standards,

the Frenchbuilt ATR72 should have had no

problems flying in the cold, damp conditions. The

pilots even knew their craft was icing up and

attempted to clear it, following deicing procedures

exactly.

The causes of schizophrenia are unknown, although

the disease has a strong genetic component. Studies

of identical twins show that if one twin has

schizophrenia, there is a 50% chance that the other

twin will have it, too. Since identical twins share

identical genes, this indicates that schizophrenia

has an equally strong environmental component,

the nature of which has not been identified. Current

treatments for schizophrenia focus on brain

pathways that use dopamine as a neurotransmitter.

Despite their ability to alleviate symptoms, many of

the drugs used to treat schizophrenia have such

negative side effects that patients frequently stop

taking them. Now that the human genome has been

sequenced, there is a vigorous effort under way to

find the mutant genes that predispose a person to

the disease. This effort includes sequencing DNA

from families with a high incidence of

schizophrenia.

In the last third of the 19th century, new

technologies transformed the face of manufacturing

in Europe, leading to new levels of economic growth

and complex realignments among industry, labour

and national governments. Like Europe’s first

industrial revolution, which began in the late 18th

century and centred on coal, steam and iron, this

“second” industrial revolution relied on innovation

in three key areas: steel, electricity, and chemicals.

For instance, steel, which was harder, stronger and

more malleable than iron, had long been used as a

construction material. But until the mid-nineteenth

century, producing steel cheaply and in large

quantities was impossible. That changed between

the 1850s and 1870s, as new and different

processes for refining and mass-producing alloy

steel revolutionized the metallurgical industry.

Although iron did not disappear overnight, it was

soon eclipsed by soaring steel production. So, steel

began to be used for various purposes. In Britain,

for example, shipbuilders made a quick and

profitable switch to steel construction, and thus

kept their lead in the industry. Germany and the

US, however, dominated the rest of the steel

industry. By 1901, Germany was producing almost

half as much steel as Britain and was able to build

a massive national and industrial infrastructure.

George Vancouver was a British naval explorer who

served as a seaman on Captain Cook’s second

voyage round the world (1772-75) and as a

midshipman on his third voyage (1776-80). He then

saw service in the West Indies. In 1791 he was

placed in charge of an expedition to the northwest

coast of North America to seek for a passage to the

interior of the continent which was rumoured to

exist in those parts. On the outward voyage by the

Cape of Good Hope, a portion of the southwest

coastline of Australia was examined, and Tasmania,

New Zealand and Hawaii were visited. Vancouver

spent three years in carefully surveying portions of

the west coast of North America. He was the first to

circumnavigate Vancouver Island, to which his

name was given by the Spaniards to commemorate

his achievement. The standard of his survey was

exceptionally high and worthy of his old captain,

James Cook; and his voyage practically disproved

the existence of a water-passage to the interior along

these coasts.

The Wireless Museum has several of the earliest

crystal wireless sets from the 1920s which ran on

electromagnetic waves with no external power

source, and were easily made at home. Valve radios,

which came along in the 1930s, needed electricity to

heat up the valves and the museum has both mains

and battery-powered valve radios on display. The

collection also has some rare wartime civilian

receivers — the only type of valve radio

manufactured during the Second World War. This

was by order of the government, because at this time

most manufacturing was focused on the war effort.

There are also plenty of modern day transistor

radios including a collection of novelty radios dating

from the sixties and seventies.

For humans to be able to hear a sound, it must be

both loud enough and within the right frequency

range – as measured by the number of vibrations

per second, or hertz (Hz).The average person is most

sensitive to sounds in the 1,000-5,000 Hz range,

and most lose the ability to hear very high

frequencies (above around 20,000 Hz) with age.Even

so a sizeable proportion of the population do seem

to remain sensitive to the very low frequency

“infrasound”.High-frequency sounds have more

than just audible effects as teenagers in Swindon

discovered in 2006.Tired of having crowds of

youngsters collecting around the town theatre, the

owners installed the Mosquito, a device that emits

sonic energy at very high frequencies.Only the

teenagers could hear it and it forced them to meet

elsewhere.