[JimBob]

Xerothermic

Said of a hot, dry climate.

 []

[chris]

Yersinia - Yersinia are a class of bacilli linked to a form of food poisoning and also bubonic plague (Y. pestis).

[neilep (OP)]

In broad terms, the zenith is the direction pointing directly above a particular location (perpendicular, orthogonal). Since the concept of being above is itself somewhat vague, scientists define the zenith in more rigorous terms. Specifically, in astronomy, geophysics and related sciences (e.g., meteorology), the zenith at a given point is the local vertical direction pointing away from direction of the force of gravity at that location.

[neilep (OP)]

Absinthe (also absinth) (IPA English: [ˈæbsɪnθ] IPA French: [ap.sɛ̃t]) is a distilled, highly alcoholic, anise-flavored spirit derived from herbs including the flowers and leaves of the medicinal plant Artemisia absinthium, also called grand wormwood. Although it is sometimes incorrectly called a liqueur, absinthe is not bottled with added sugar and is therefore classified as a liquor or spirit.[1]

Absinthe is often referred to as la Fée Verte ('The Green Fairy') because of its coloring — typically pale or emerald green, but sometimes clear or in rare cases rose red. Due to its high proof and concentration of oils, absintheurs (absinthe drinkers) typically add three to five parts ice-cold water to a dose of absinthe, which causes the drink to turn cloudy (called 'louching'); often the water is used to dissolve added sugar to decrease bitterness. This preparation is considered an important part of the experience of drinking absinthe, so much so that it has become ritualized, complete with special slotted absinthe spoons and other accoutrements. Absinthe's flavor is similar to anise-flavored liqueurs, with a light bitterness and greater complexity imparted by multiple herbs.

Absinthe originated in Switzerland as an elixir but is better known for its popularity in late 19th and early 20th century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers whose romantic associations with the drink still linger in popular culture. In its heyday, the most popular brand of absinthe worldwide was Pernod Fils. At the height of this popularity, absinthe was portrayed as a dangerously addictive, psychoactive drug; the chemical thujone was blamed for most of its deleterious effects. By 1915, it was banned in a number of European countries and the United States. Even though it was vilified, no evidence shows it to be any more dangerous than ordinary alcohol.[2] A modern absinthe revival began in the 1990s, as countries in the European Union began to reauthorize its manufacture and sale.




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A reservoir glass filled with
 a naturally colored verte next
 to an absinthe spoon.


I realise this may not be strictly science but I thought I might get away with it based on chemistry and the effect on biology !!

[Karen W.]

Sounds Fair to me!

Black Dwarf = A dead Star that has exhausted all of it's energy.

[iko]

Codon

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/images/evo/codon_GCA.gif

ikod

[Karen W.]

Dawkins,Richard = Author of, The Selfish Gene; The Extended Phenotype; The Blind Watchmaker;  River Out Of Eden; and Cimbing Mount Improbable.

[iko]

Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

http://www.separationsnow.com/FCKeditor/UserFiles/Image/spectroscopyNOW_ezines_2006/Journal_Articles/marmoset_140206.jpg

IL-10 signaling is essential for 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3-mediated inhibition
 of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

Spach KM, Nashold FE, Dittel BN, Hayes CE.
Dept.Nutr.Sciences, College Agricultural & Life Sciences, Univ.Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) results from an aberrant, neuroantigen-specific, T cell-mediated autoimmune response. Because MS prevalence and severity decrease sharply with increasing sunlight exposure, and sunlight supports vitamin D(3) synthesis, we proposed that vitamin D(3) and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) (1,25-(OH)(2)D(3)) may protect against MS.
In support of this hypothesis, 1,25-(OH)(2)D(3) strongly inhibited experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). This inhibition required lymphocytes other than the encephalitogenic T cells. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that 1,25-(OH)(2)D(3) might inhibit EAE through the action of IL-10-producing regulatory lymphocytes. We report that vitamin D(3) and 1,25-(OH)(2)D(3) strongly inhibited myelin oligodendrocyte peptide (MOG(35-55))-induced EAE in C57BL/6 mice, but completely failed to inhibit EAE in mice with a disrupted IL-10 or IL-10R gene.
Thus, a functional IL-10-IL-10R pathway was essential for 1,25-(OH)(2)D(3) to inhibit EAE. The 1,25-(OH)(2)D(3) also failed to inhibit EAE in reciprocal, mixed bone marrow chimeras constructed by transferring IL-10-deficient bone marrow into irradiated wild-type mice and vice versa. Thus, 1,25-(OH)(2)D(3) may be enhancing an anti-inflammatory loop involving hemopoietic cell-produced IL-10 acting on brain parenchymal cells and vice versa.
If this interpretation is correct, and humans have a similar bidirectional IL-10-dependent loop, then an IL-10-IL-10R pathway defect could abrogate the anti-inflammatory and neuro-protective functions of sunlight and vitamin D(3). In this way, a genetic IL-10-IL-10R pathway defect could interact with an environmental risk factor, vitamin D(3) insufficiency, to increase MS risk and severity.

J Immunol. 2006 Nov 1;177(9):6030-7.

[neilep (OP)]

 Faraday Michael, FRS (September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867) was an English chemist and physicist (or natural philosopher, in the terminology of that time) who contributed significantly to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. He established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena.

Some historians of science refer to him as the best experimentalist in the history of science. It was largely due to his efforts that electricity became viable for use in technology. The SI unit of capacitance, the farad, is named after him, as is the Faraday constant, the charge on a mole of electrons (about 96,485 coulombs). Faraday's law of induction states that a magnetic field changing in time creates a proportional electromotive force.

He held the post of Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Faraday was the first, and most famous, holder of this position to which he was appointed for life.


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[Karen W.]

Gluons-The quanta of color charge that binds the quarks into nucleons.

[iko]

Heinrich Hertz      (1857-1894)

              
http://www.nrao.edu/whatisra/images/hertz_tm.jpg
http://www.nrao.edu/whatisra/images/hertz_expt_tm.jpg
http://earlyradiohistory.us/1901hz2.gif

In 1888, Heinrich Hertz built an apparatus that could transmit and receive electromagnetic waves of about 5 meters in length. He used a coil to generate a high voltage spark between two electrodes which served as a transmitter. The detector was a loop of wire with a small gap.
A spark at the transmitter produces electromagnetic waves that travel to the detector, producing a spark in the gap.  He showed that the waves were polarized, and that they could interfere with each other, just as predicted by theory.

from:  National Radio Astronomy Observatory
       http://www.nrao.edu/whatisra/hist_prehist.shtml

[neilep (OP)]

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS (9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) (IPA: [ˈɪzəmbɑ(ɹ)d ˈkɪŋdəm brʊˈnɛl]), was an English engineer. He is best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges.

Though Brunel's projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering problems. During his short career, Brunel achieved many engineering "firsts", including assisting in the building of the first tunnel under a navigable river and development of the first propeller-driven ocean-going iron ship, which was at the time also the largest ship ever built.[1]

Brunel suffered several years of ill health, with kidney problems, before succumbing to a stroke at the age of 53. Brunel was said to smoke up to 40 cigars a day, and get by on only four hours of sleep a night.

In 2006, a major programme of events celebrated his life and work on the bicentenary of his birth under the name Brunel 200.[2]




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The Clifton Suspension
Bridge spans the Avon Gorge,
 linking Clifton in Bristol
to Leigh Woods in North Somerset.

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

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The Maidenhead Railway
 Bridge, at the time the
 largest span for a brick
 arch bridge.


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The Royal Albert
Bridge, seen from
Saltash railway station.

[Karen W.]

Julian Day: A count of the days, starting from 12 noon on Jan. 1rst 4713 BC. Julian days are used by variable star observers, and for the reckonings of phenomena which extend over very long periods of time.

[iko]

Kernicterus

         
http://rwjms.umdnj.edu/kernicterus/images/image005.jpg
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dd/images/homeunit.jpg
http://escuela.med.puc.cl/paginas/Cursos/tercero/AnatomiaPatologica/Imagenes_AP/fotos744-750/750.jpg

Jaundice

About 60% of newborn infants in the United States are jaundiced, that is they look yellow. Jaundice is the yellow coloring of the skin and other tissues. Jaundice can often be seen well in the sclera, the "whites" of the eyes, which look yellow. Many many babies look jaundiced (60%), but they are not deeply jaundiced, not jaundiced below the abdomen, and they act OK - they nurse, they aren't too sleepy, they have normal muscle tone, their cry is normal, they don't arch their backs.

Kernicterus

Kernicterus is a form of brain damage caused by excessive jaundice. The substance which causes jaundice, bilirubin, is so high that it can move out of the blood into brain tissue. When babies begin to be affected by excessive jaundice, when they begin to have brain damage, they become excessively lethargic. They are too sleepy, and they are difficult to arouse - either they don't wake up from sleep easily like a normal baby, or they don't wake up fully, or they can't be kept awake. They have a high-pitched cry, and decreased muscle tone, becoming hypotonic or floppy) with episodes of increased muscle tone (hypertonic) and arching of the head and back backwards. As the damage continues, they may develop fever, may arch their heads back into a very contorted position known as opisthotonus or retrocollis.

from:   http://www.kernicterus.org/

Phototherapy is routinely used
to treat moderate hyperbilirubinemia

Emergency treatment to lower bilirubin
and prevent kernicterus and its sequelae
in very severe cases of newborn jaundice
is a simple transfusion procedure called
blood-exchange or exchange transfusion.

ikod

[neilep (OP)]

 Lovell , Sir Alfred Charles Bernard         OBE PhD FRS (born 31 August 1913, Oldland Common, Bristol) is a British physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first Director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980.


Born in Oldland Common, Bristol, he studied physics at the University of Bristol, obtaining a Ph.D. in 1936. He worked in the cosmic ray research team at the University of Manchester until the outbreak of World War II, during which he worked for the TRE developing radar systems to be installed in aircraft, for which he received an OBE in 1946.

He attempted to continue cosmic ray work with an ex-military radar unit and following interference from trams on Manchester's Oxford Road moved to Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey in Cheshire, an outpost of the university's botany department. He was able to show that radar echoes could be obtained from daytime meteor showers. With university funding he constructed the then-largest steerable radio telescope in the world, which now bears his name - the Lovell Telescope. Nearly 50 years later, it remains one of the foremost radio telescopes in the world.

He was knighted in 1961 for his important contributions to the development of radio astronomy, and has a secondary school named after him in his home village of Oldland Common Bristol.[1] A building on the QinetiQ site in Malvern is also named after him.



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[Karen W.]

Meiosis = The type of cell division that creates reproductive cells, in which genetic material is shuffled by recombination.

[neilep (OP)]

Narcolepsy is a neurological condition most characterized by Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS), episodes of sleep and disorder of REM or rapid eye movement sleep. It is a type of dyssomnia.

[Karen W.]

Organic Chemistry = The chemistry of carbon compounds.

[iko]

Phototherapy

from neonatal jaundice to psoriasis,
cutaneous GVHD and vitamin D deficiency...

           
http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/myers/phototherapy.jpg
http://www.npl.co.uk/publications/news/opticalrm/issue16/new_high_dose_uva1_therapy_system..jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38157000/jpg/_38157237_300beach.jpg

ikod   [^]

[JimBob]

Quar - a Welch word for sandstone