Showing posts with label the. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
THE EPIGONI Greek Mythology Legends
Ten years after these events the sons of the slain heroes, who were called Epigoni, or descendants, resolved to avenge the death of their fathers, and with this object entered upon a new expedition against the city of Thebes.
By the advice of the Delphic oracle the command was intrusted to Alcmæon, the son of Amphiaraus; but remembering the injunction of his father he hesitated to accept this post before executing vengeance on his mother Eriphyle. Thersander, however, the son of Polynices, adopting similar tactics to those of his father, bribed Eriphyle with the beautiful veil of Harmonia, bequeathed to him by Polynices, to induce her son Alcmæon and his brother Amphilochus to join in this second war against Thebes.
Now the mother of Alcmæon was gifted with that rare fascination which renders its possessor irresistible to all who may chance to come within its influence; nor was her own son able to withstand her blandishments. Yielding therefore to her wily representations he accepted the command of the troops, and at the head of a large and powerful army advanced upon Thebes.
Before the gates of the city Alcmæon encountered the Thebans under the command of Laodamas, the son of Eteocles. A fierce battle ensued, in which the Theban leader, after performing prodigies of valour, perished by the hand of Alcmæon.
After losing their chief and the flower of their army, the Thebans retreated behind the city walls, and the enemy now pressed them hard on every side. In their distress they appealed to the blind old seer Tiresias, who was over a hundred years old. With trembling lips and in broken accents, he informed them that they could only save their lives by abandoning their native city with their wives and families. Upon this they despatched ambassadors into the enemys camp; and whilst these were protracting negotiations during the night, the Thebans, with their wives and children, evacuated the city. Next morning the Argives entered Thebes and plundered it, placing Thersander, the son of Polynices (who was a descendant of Cadmus), on the throne which his father had so vainly contested.
Text:
Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome
Author: E.M. Berens
Published: 1880
The Project Gutenberg E-Book
Produced by Alicia Williams, Keith Edkins and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Read more »
By the advice of the Delphic oracle the command was intrusted to Alcmæon, the son of Amphiaraus; but remembering the injunction of his father he hesitated to accept this post before executing vengeance on his mother Eriphyle. Thersander, however, the son of Polynices, adopting similar tactics to those of his father, bribed Eriphyle with the beautiful veil of Harmonia, bequeathed to him by Polynices, to induce her son Alcmæon and his brother Amphilochus to join in this second war against Thebes.
Now the mother of Alcmæon was gifted with that rare fascination which renders its possessor irresistible to all who may chance to come within its influence; nor was her own son able to withstand her blandishments. Yielding therefore to her wily representations he accepted the command of the troops, and at the head of a large and powerful army advanced upon Thebes.
Before the gates of the city Alcmæon encountered the Thebans under the command of Laodamas, the son of Eteocles. A fierce battle ensued, in which the Theban leader, after performing prodigies of valour, perished by the hand of Alcmæon.
After losing their chief and the flower of their army, the Thebans retreated behind the city walls, and the enemy now pressed them hard on every side. In their distress they appealed to the blind old seer Tiresias, who was over a hundred years old. With trembling lips and in broken accents, he informed them that they could only save their lives by abandoning their native city with their wives and families. Upon this they despatched ambassadors into the enemys camp; and whilst these were protracting negotiations during the night, the Thebans, with their wives and children, evacuated the city. Next morning the Argives entered Thebes and plundered it, placing Thersander, the son of Polynices (who was a descendant of Cadmus), on the throne which his father had so vainly contested.
Text:
Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome
Author: E.M. Berens
Published: 1880
The Project Gutenberg E-Book
Produced by Alicia Williams, Keith Edkins and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Collodion Process The Invention of Photography Video Series
Invention of Collodion Process in 5.32 min video created by George Eastman House.
Introduced in 1851, by Frederick Scott Archer, the wet collodion process was a fairly simple, if somewhat cumbersome photographic process. A 2% solution of collodion, bearing a very small percentage of potassium iodide, was poured over a plate of glass, leaving a thin, clear film containing the halide. The plate was then placed in a solution of silver nitrate. When removed from the silver, the collodion film contained a translucent yellow compound of light-sensitive silver iodide. The plate was exposed still wet and then developed by inspection under red light. Once the plate was washed and dried, it was coated with a protective varnish. The collodion process replaced the daguerreotype as the predominant photographic process by the end of the 1850’s. It was eventually replaced in the 1880’s with the introduction of the gelatin silver process.
(This video is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, grant number MA-10-13-0194.)
George Eastman House, an independent nonprofit museum, is an educational institution that tells the story of photography and motion pictures—media that have changed and continue to change our perception of the world.
Read more »
Introduced in 1851, by Frederick Scott Archer, the wet collodion process was a fairly simple, if somewhat cumbersome photographic process. A 2% solution of collodion, bearing a very small percentage of potassium iodide, was poured over a plate of glass, leaving a thin, clear film containing the halide. The plate was then placed in a solution of silver nitrate. When removed from the silver, the collodion film contained a translucent yellow compound of light-sensitive silver iodide. The plate was exposed still wet and then developed by inspection under red light. Once the plate was washed and dried, it was coated with a protective varnish. The collodion process replaced the daguerreotype as the predominant photographic process by the end of the 1850’s. It was eventually replaced in the 1880’s with the introduction of the gelatin silver process.
(This video is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, grant number MA-10-13-0194.)
George Eastman House, an independent nonprofit museum, is an educational institution that tells the story of photography and motion pictures—media that have changed and continue to change our perception of the world.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Octopus ethology the case of Abdopus aculeatus
Ethology is a discipline that I have been enamored of ever since I first discovered it.
The field started with the studies of animal behavior by Konrad Lorenz, who was interested in "instinctive" behaviors in a variety of species, most of them birds (for a good review of history, see http://apophenia.wdfiles.com/local--files/start/tinbergen.pdf). The goal of ethology is stated in a deceptively simple way: to study the behavior of animals. It seems to me to straddle the junction of zoology and psychology, studying behavior from the perspective of animal biology, much as biological psychology studies human behavior in reference to human biology.
It turns out that ethologists do, in essence, the legwork that allows comparative psychologists to study animal behavior with the hope of generalizing across species. Ethology generates the systematic, cross-taxon descriptions of behavior that comparative psychologists rely on. If you dont know what an animal does, how in the world are you supposed to study it?
The basic structure of an animals behavior is referred to as an ethogram. Ethograms have been developed for a wide variety of species. These are essentially attempts to create a complete catalogue of a species behavior. Ethograms can be quantitative (that is, quantify how much an animal does each activity in its repertoire) or merely descriptive. In some commonly used laboratory species (take the rat, for example) ethology has been largely left by the wayside, due in part to a focus on generalizing experiments to human psychology or biology. This appears, to me, to be very unfortunate, as we risk losing our perspective on what the behaviors we study mean to the animal performing them.
The field started with the studies of animal behavior by Konrad Lorenz, who was interested in "instinctive" behaviors in a variety of species, most of them birds (for a good review of history, see http://apophenia.wdfiles.com/local--files/start/tinbergen.pdf). The goal of ethology is stated in a deceptively simple way: to study the behavior of animals. It seems to me to straddle the junction of zoology and psychology, studying behavior from the perspective of animal biology, much as biological psychology studies human behavior in reference to human biology.
It turns out that ethologists do, in essence, the legwork that allows comparative psychologists to study animal behavior with the hope of generalizing across species. Ethology generates the systematic, cross-taxon descriptions of behavior that comparative psychologists rely on. If you dont know what an animal does, how in the world are you supposed to study it?
The basic structure of an animals behavior is referred to as an ethogram. Ethograms have been developed for a wide variety of species. These are essentially attempts to create a complete catalogue of a species behavior. Ethograms can be quantitative (that is, quantify how much an animal does each activity in its repertoire) or merely descriptive. In some commonly used laboratory species (take the rat, for example) ethology has been largely left by the wayside, due in part to a focus on generalizing experiments to human psychology or biology. This appears, to me, to be very unfortunate, as we risk losing our perspective on what the behaviors we study mean to the animal performing them.
For example, consider the classical learning experiments in rats that use the lever press as an operant response. Ethologists would never have tried to study learning in the rat using a lever-pressing behavior. Rats, if left to their own devices, simply do not tend to press levers! More recently, nose-poking (a very common and easy thing for a rat to do) has gained some popularity as an operant response, and has made this research much easier to conduct as well as more flexible. Knowing the behavioral repertoire of an animal is a prerequisite to understanding any particular behavior in that animal, let alone using it to draw inferences about behavior across species.
The take home point: I like ethology.
I didnt bring up ethology just to rave about it, though. Ive been reading a number of cephalopod ethograms, and wanted to spread them around. Ethograms are interesting to read because they provide a snapshot of a species - they provide some understanding of its biology, its ecology, and its psychology, all in one.
In Ethogram of Abdopus aculeatus (dOrbigny, 1834) (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae): Can behavioural characters inform octopodid taxomony and systematics?, Christine Huffard lays out an ethogram of Abdopus aculeatus, a species of small octopus that lives in indonesia (for videos and a press release on her findings, see this link) In this press release, she mentions how much of our information about octopus behavior comes from a few, rather old sources, and not a diverse and current range of ethological studies, as one might hope for. I find this to be frustratingly true - when you look at the literature on octopus behavior, it seems like many experimental biologists quickly jumped on the octopus as a system to study something (vision, motor control, learning) largely without taking to trouble to investigate and re-investigate its behavior in ecological conditions. The sources that exist on this topic are mainly books, not journal articles - both less accessible and less stringently peer reviewed. Huffards articles are like a breath of fresh air in the world of octopod behavior.
Heres a few pictures of the pretty little guy:
(Figure 2 from Locomotion by Abdopus aculeatus (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae): walking the line between primary and secondary defenses (2006), also by Huffard. The supplementary material for this paper also has a few good videos of A. aculeatus moving about.)
Now comes the big question: what did the study find?
Well, the study does a very good job answering the question: what does this animal do? Huffard found that A. aculeatus is diurnal, both mating and foraging primarily during the day. Like other octopuses, they forage using mainly their tactile sense (although sometimes visually,) groping the substrate to locate prey.
A. aculeatus shows a great variety of body patterns, including really impressive papillae (bumps on the skin that can be made larger or smaller as part of a body pattern) and a variety of color patterns, mainly used for camouflage.
Perhaps the most striking findings are about the social and sexual behavior of A. aculeatus. Octopuses are known for being solitary creatures, but Huffard describes the presence of specific male-male aggressive interactions, usually in the presence of a female. Sometimes, it even appeared that one octopus would try to strangle its opponent by "[wrapping] one arm around the mantle opening of another individual, presumably cutting off ventilation." It was also found that males actively guarded their mate females from other males, whom they often mated repeatedly with over a few days. This is in contrast to the relatively simple meet-and-mate behavior that has been described in other octopus species.
Huffard ends the paper with a discussion of the use of skin components and other behaviors to clarify octopus systematics. She makes the argument that O. cyanea shows certain behavioral similarities to A aculeatus, as well as being closely phylogenetically related, demonstrating that behavior can inform phylogeny. While this is suggestive that behavior might be useful in classifying organisms, I think that it remains to be seen whether this is a reliable way to do it (at least, more reliable than molecular phylogenetics, upon which her argument appears to rest.) The case for this seems like it would fall prey to the problem of convergent evolution, as it appears relatively easy to evolve nearly identical behaviors and morphologies independently, but harder to evolve identical nucleotide sequences independently. Frustrating this issue, she mentions, is the fact that there are no published ethograms for cogeners of A. aculeatus.
Thanks for reading!
The Art of Ancient Thai Massage
HUMAN BODY SYSTEM DIAGRAM :
Believed to be one of the most distinctive methods of massage therapy, Thai massage is both an extraordinary and satisfying experience.
The Art of Ancient Thai Massage
A brief History
Brought to Thailand for more than 2,500 years ago, this type of massage therapy uses a combination of Ancient Chinese and Ancient Indian system of medicine. In the early years of its development, Thai massage was practiced mostly by monks as part of their daily healthy lifestyle. This is believed to be a combination of three vital methods of therapeutic massage that are separately known as Yoga, Shiatsu and the massage method of acupressure.
How Thai Massage Works
Thai massage works on removing blocked metabolic wastes on the sen pathways or energy line all over the body. In this manner, the body will be much healthier as it will withstand any form of disease that will attack the immune system. An imbalanced sen in an individuals body means that it is unhealthy and needs to be realigned in order to regain its natural state.
Thai massage has many various applications unlike most of the common massage methods that are limited to few massage strokes. That is why learning Thai massage requires the student to dedicate more time on studying books that will help them familiarize all of the techniques used on this massage therapy style. Reading books or gathering information through the internet is a good way to start your Thai massages learning. The students must familiarize the human anatomy and the meridian points through diagram books before he or she can begin the actual practice on an individual.
There are many techniques and massage strokes to be studied and familiarize by the student. These include palm presses, thumb presses, thumb and palm circulation, rolling of joints, pulling, stretching and many more. Reflexology is also used as a part of the technique in this massage. It is believed that this technique aids in the complete healing of the human body though it is only focused on the points on the feet area. During a Thai massage, the masseuse begins working with the feet and gradually moving upward of the body till it finishes with the head. This is why the use of reflexology is ideal as it is believed to be the best method in dealing with meridian points located on our feet.
Stretching is also a part of Thai massage which closely resembles the Yoga technique. This is done to release tension and relax the body while meditating. This technique is believed to enhance the healing ability of the body as it relaxes all parts of the body after a good stretching. During the stretching process, the patient remains passive allowing the massage therapist to freely move his or her body to get the benefits out of the healing therapy. This therapy is done slowly and carefully by licensed and trained masseuse to avoid any injury to the patients body.
Thai massage requires more physical contact and gets a bit physical as compared to other types of massage therapy that is why it is not recommended for first timers although it is really up to them.
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Quote of the Week
~ Louise Dean
Niño Wrestles the World
The niño of this title sports a pair of tighty whities and not much else. Using his way too active imagination, he casts himself as a luchadore, a professional wrestler popular in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries. Niños opponents are nothing to sneeze at. What I liked best about this book was Morales depiction of these truly scary characters. Theres La Momia de Guanajuato, a zombie-like creature; Cabeza Olmeca, an ancient stone-head sculpture; La Llorona, a ghost, El Extraterrestre, a space alien; and El Chamuco, the devil himself. Niño creatively dispatches his opponents with ease--until, that is, he faces his most fearsome match. Las Hermanitas, his twin sisters, wake from their nap and gleefully attack their big brother.
The bold art offers surprises on every page and the graphic text adds to the excitement. An informative end note explains lucha libre, Mexican professional wrestling, in greater detail. Great fun!
Quote of the Week
"Christmas wont be Christmas without any presents, grumbled Jo, lying on the rug."
--from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Read more »
--from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Quote of the Week
"TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun theyll have with twenty-six. Open your childs imagination. Open a book. "
--Anonymous
Read more »
--Anonymous
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Hiring the Best Makeup Artist on Your Special Day
Every people know the basic of makeup and how to use the items. But wedding is a great day and everything must be set up perfectly. There is a significant difference between DIY makeup and hiring a professional makeup artist. A professional makeup artist like makeup artist Mississauga must have experience since they have trained. Many of us might have a basic question about makeup artist. Why it is called makeup artist? Make up is an art and can make any face looks beautiful.
Mississauga is one of the biggest towns that has high fashion scene. There are huge numbers of professional makeup artist in the city. For bridal makeup, most of us might agree that it is unique when compared with other occasions. It is because all of the brides want a perfect look and because the makeup must bring out her femininity. In wedding, bride has to look perfect and professional makeup artist is the answer to enhance the beauty of the bride.
In order to get a face camera-friendly, makeup is a must for wedding. We all agree that wedding photos are cherished memories. With inefficient makeup, the face of the bride can look patchy and blotchy. Bad makeup can make a good face loses it charm. To bring a glow and sheen to face of the bride, a professional makeup artist is very important so that the photographer can capture the beauty of the bride forever. Beside that hiring professional artist is important, choosing good quality of equipments such as brushes and sponges is also important. Make sure that the equipments are clean and sterilized.
Mississauga is one of the biggest towns that has high fashion scene. There are huge numbers of professional makeup artist in the city. For bridal makeup, most of us might agree that it is unique when compared with other occasions. It is because all of the brides want a perfect look and because the makeup must bring out her femininity. In wedding, bride has to look perfect and professional makeup artist is the answer to enhance the beauty of the bride.
In order to get a face camera-friendly, makeup is a must for wedding. We all agree that wedding photos are cherished memories. With inefficient makeup, the face of the bride can look patchy and blotchy. Bad makeup can make a good face loses it charm. To bring a glow and sheen to face of the bride, a professional makeup artist is very important so that the photographer can capture the beauty of the bride forever. Beside that hiring professional artist is important, choosing good quality of equipments such as brushes and sponges is also important. Make sure that the equipments are clean and sterilized.
To make you perfect in your big day, professional makeup artist is firstly studying your face and trying to find the potential highlight. They highlight your positive facets and tone your drawback. In the process, the professional makeup artist is usually involving a lot of technique and skill. There is no doubt that the experience of the professional makeup artist is unmatched since they have worked with so many people with different types of faces. An experienced makeup artist usually need only a few second to analyze your face before begin to work. Besides that, experienced makeup artists know better the concept of your wedding and they have the ability to match it. It seems that hiring professional makeup artist is a thing to do in your agenda before your special day, wedding day.
Monday, March 9, 2015
How to Reduce the Negative Impact of Smoking
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Smoking is one habit that commonly encountered in everyday life. Men, Women, Old, Young, Poor, Rich, did not escape so addicted to cigarettes. In terms of health, there is no iota of evidence of the benefits of tobacco smoke. But not easy to remove the dependence of this bad habit.
Although most people think of smoking as a habit reasonable, but in fact smoking is not just a habit, because cigarettes contain substances such as nicotine and carbon monoxide that can make people addicted and want to constantly smoking.
Nicotine as an alkaloid has many negative effects, including increased blood pressure and heart rate.
Tips on Reducing the Impact of Cigarette
In several recent studies found an herbal therapy that can reduce the negative effects of nicotine, which is a banana. In this yellow-skinned fruit contained substances that are useful to the body, such as potassium, potassium, vitamin B6 and B12.
Potassium is used by autonomic nerves to control the heart rate, brain function, and other important physiological processes. Potassium is also shown to help lower blood pressure. In addition, these substances also play a major role in the function of nerve and muscle contraction deyut. Besides the advantage of potassium, vitamin B6 and B12 in bananas also have a very big role because it is able to neutralize the negative effects of nicotine in the body.
To benefit from these bananas, we should not take it home. Choose ripe bananas, because younger digested, so the fruit sugar in bananas naturally converted into glucose rapidly into the bloodstream diabsorsi.
Eat some bananas on a regular basis to reduce the negative effects of nicotine in cigarettes. Hopefully useful.
Top 10 Busiest Ports in the World
There are numerous ports from around the world. They are located on coasts or shores and contain one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land.
Here are the world’s busiest ports by cargo tonnage…
10.) Busan
– South Korea
– South Korea
Image Source
Busan Port in Busan Metropolitan City, which is formerly spelled Pusan, is a port in South Korea. This Korean port is regarses as the 10th busiest port in the world receiving 243.5 million tonnes of cargo every year.
9.) Port of Hong Kong
– China
– China
Image Source
The Port of Hong Kong is the 9th busiest port in the world in terms of cargo tonnage receiving 245.4 million tonnes of cargo annually. It is located by the South China Sea. It is also one of the world’s busiest in terms of shipping movement and passengers carried.
8.) Qinghuangdao
– China
– China
Image Source
With 248.9 million tonnes of cargo every year, the Port of Qinghuangdao is the 8th busiest port in the world in terms of cargo tonnage. This seaport is located on the Bohai Sea in the vicinity of Qinghuangdao City in the province of Hebei, China.
7.) Qingdao
– China
– China
Image Source
The 7th busiest port in the world with 265 million tones of cargo every year is the Port of Qingdao. This busy seaport is located on the Yellow Sea in the vicinity of Qingdao in the province of Shandong, China.
6.) Tianjin
– China
– China
Image Source
The Port of Tianjin is the 6th busiest port in the world receiving 309.4 million tonnes annually. This port is the largest port in Northern China and the main maritime gateway to the country’s capital – Beijing. It is located on the western shore of the Bohai Bay in the estuary of the Haihe River. It also holds the distinction of being the largest man-made port in mainland China, and maybe the largest in the world. It covers 107 square kilometers of land, with a total quay shoreline of over 21.5 km and 101 production berths in 2009. It is formerly known as the Port of Tanggu.
5.) Guangzhou
– China
– China 
Image Source
With 343.2 million tones of cargoes, the Port of Guangzhou is the world’s 5th busiest port by cargo tonnage. It is the main seaport of the City of Guangzhou in the provinve of Guangdong, China. It is currently the largest comprehensive port in South China.
4.) Ningbo
– China
– China 
Image Source
The Port of Ningbo in China is the world’s 4th busiest container port receiving 344 million tonnes of cargoes every year. It is one of the most important and busiest ports in mainland China and is located in the province of Zhejiang.
3.) Rotterdam
– Netherlands
– Netherlands
Image Source
The Port of Rotterdam is the 3rd busiest port in the world with an annual shipping tonnage of 401.1 million tonnes cargoes. This port is the largest in Europe and is located in Rotterdam City in South Holland, Netherlands.
2.) Singapore
– Singapore
– Singapore 
Image Source
The 2nd busiest container port in the world is the Port of Singapore. This Southeast Asian port receives 483.6 million tonnes of cargo annually. This port is currently the busiest port in the world in terms of total shipping tonnage.
1.) Shanghai 
– China
– China 
Image Source
With 561.1 million tonnes of cargo entering the Port of Shanghai, it is indeed the world’s busiest port in terms of cargo tonnage. It is located in the vicinity of Shanghai and comprises a deep-sea port and a river port. Shanghai Port overtook Singapore Port in 2010 to become the busiest container port in the world.
Seven of the 10 busiest ports in the world are located in China. Of the 10, 9 are from Asia and only one from Europe.
See also
Top 10 Most Beautiful Ports in the World
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