Which is the first fully solar energy powered airport ?

Cochin International Airport (IATA: COK, ICAO: VOCI) is an international airport situated in the city of Kochi, in the state of Kerala, India. Located at Nedumbassery, about 30 km (19 mi) northeast of Kochi, it is the busiest and largest airport in the state of Kerala. For the financial year 2014-15, Cochin airport is the fourth busiest airport in India in terms of international passenger traffic after Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai ferrying over 3,751,225 passengers and seventh busiest airport in India carrying 6,814,867 passengers. The airport is a primary base for Air India Express operations and is a focus city for Air Asia India, Air India, Indigo, Jet Airways and SpiceJet.

Cochin International Airport is the first in India developed under a public-private partnership (PPP) model and was funded by nearly 10,000 non-resident Indians from 30 countries.

On August 18, 2015 it was the world's first fully solar energy powered airport with the inauguration of the dedicated solar plant.

Which is the only continent without any snowfields ?

Australia - officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is an Oceanian country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.

For about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century,Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages grouped into roughly 250 language groups.After the European discovery of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and initially settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies were established. On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Since federation, Australia has maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy comprising six states and several territories. The population of 23.6 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated in the eastern states and on the coast.

Australia is a developed country and one of the wealthiest in the world, with the world's 12th-largest economy. In 2014 Australia had the world's fifth-highest per capita income.Australia's military expenditure is the world's 13th-largest. With the second-highest human development index globally, Australia ranks highly in many international comparisons of national performance, such as quality of life, health, education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the Pacific Islands Forum.

Where is the largest rift on Earth ?

Africa.

The Great Rift Valley is a name given to the continuous geographic trench, approximately 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) in length, that runs from Lebanon's Beqaa Valley in Asia to Mozambique in South Eastern Africa.The name continues in some usages, although it is today considered geologically imprecise as it combines features that are today regarded as separate, although related, rift and fault systems.

Today, the term is most often used to refer to the valley of the East African Rift, the divergent plate boundary which extends from the Afar Triple Junction southward across eastern Africa, and is in the process of splitting the African Plate into two new separate plates. Geologists generally refer to these incipient plates as the Nubian Plate and the Somali Plate.

Which country is the largest tidal energy producer in the world ?

France.

Tidal power, also called tidal energy, is a form of hydropower that converts the energy obtained from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity.

Although not yet widely used, tidal power has potential for future electricity generation. Tides are more predictable than wind energy and solar power. Among sources of renewable energy, tidal power has traditionally suffered from relatively high cost and limited availability of sites with sufficiently high tidal ranges or flow velocities, thus constricting its total availability. However, many recent  technological developments and improvements, both in design (e.g. dynamic tidal power, tidal lagoons) and turbine technology (e.g. new axial turbines, cross flow turbines), indicate that the total availability of tidal power may be much higher than previously assumed, and that economic and environmental costs may be brought down to competitive levels.

Historically, tide mills have been used both in Europe and on the Atlantic coast of North America. The incoming water was contained in large storage ponds, and as the tide went out, it turned waterwheels that used the mechanical power it produced to mill grain.The earliest occurrences date from the Middle Ages, or even from Roman times.It was only in the 19th century that the process of using falling water and spinning turbines to create electricity was introduced in the U.S. and Europe.

The world's first large-scale tidal power plant is the Rance Tidal Power Station in France, which became operational in 1966. It was the largest tidal power station in terms of power output, before Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station surpassed it. Total harvestable energy from tidal areas close to the coast is estimated to be around 1 terawatt worldwide.

What is the usual shape of an oxbow lake ?

U-shaped

An oxbow lake is a U-shaped body of water that forms when a wide meander from the main stem of a river is cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. This landform is so named for its distinctive curved shape, resembling the bow pin of an oxbow. In Australia, an oxbow lake is known as a billabong, from the indigenous language Wiradjuri. In south Texas, oxbows left by the Rio Grande are called resacas.

The word "oxbow" can also refer to a U-shaped bend in a river or stream, whether or not it is cut off from the main stream.

Geology
An oxbow lake forms when a river creates a meander, due to the river's eroding the bank through hydraulic action, abrasion and erosion. After a long period of time, the meander becomes very curved, and eventually the neck of the meander becomes narrower and the river cuts through the neck during a flood, cutting off the meander and forming an oxbow lake.

The swirls and curves of the previous courses of the Songhua River in northeast China can easily be seen in this satellite photo
When a river reaches a low-lying plain, often in its final course to the sea or a lake, it meanders widely. In the vicinity of a river bend, deposition occurs on the convex bank (the bank with the smaller radius). In contrast, both lateral erosion and undercutting occur on the cut bank or concave bank (the bank with the greater radius.) Continuous deposition on the convex bank and erosion of the concave bank of a meandering river cause the formation of a very pronounced meander with two concave banks getting closer. The narrow neck of land between the two neighboring concave banks is finally cut through, either by lateral erosion of the two concave banks or by the strong currents of a flood. When this happens, a new straighter river channel is created and an abandoned meander loop, called a cutoff, is formed. When deposition finally seals off the cutoff from the river channel, an oxbow lake is formed. This process can occur over a time scale from a few years to several decades and may sometimes become essentially static.

Gathering of erosion products near the concave bank and transporting them to the convex bank is the work of the secondary flow across the floor of the river in the vicinity of a river bend. The process of deposition of silt, sand and gravel on the convex bank is clearly illustrated in point bars.

River flood plains that contain rivers with a highly sinuous platform are populated by longer oxbow lakes than those with low sinuosity. This is because rivers with high sinuosity have larger meanders, and greater opportunity for longer lakes to form. Rivers with lower sinuosity are characterized by fewer cutoffs and shorter oxbow lakes due to the shorter distance of their meanders.

The effect of the secondary flow can be demonstrated using a circular bowl. Partly fill the bowl with water and sprinkle dense particles such as sand or rice into the bowl. Set the water into circular motion with one hand or a spoon. The dense particles quickly sweep into a neat pile in the center of the bowl. This is the mechanism that leads to the formation of point bars and contributes to the formation of oxbow lakes. The primary flow of water in the bowl is circular and the streamlines are concentric with the side of the bowl. However, the secondary flow of the boundary layer across the floor of the bowl is inward toward the center. The primary flow might be expected to fling the dense particles to the perimeter of the bowl, but instead the secondary flow sweeps the particles toward the center.

The curved path of a river around a bend makes the water's surface slightly higher on the outside of the bend than on the inside. As a result, at any elevation within the river, water pressure is slightly greater near the outside of the bend than on the inside. A pressure gradient toward the convex bank provides the centripetal force necessary for each parcel of water to follow its curved path.

The boundary layer that flows along the river floor does not move fast enough to balance the pressure gradient laterally across the river. It responds to this pressure gradient, and its velocity is partly downstream and partly across the river toward the convex bank. As it flows along the floor of the river, it sweeps loose material toward the convex bank. This flow of the boundary layer is significantly different from the speed and direction of the primary flow of the river, and is part of the river's secondary flow.

Do you know about Abraham Harold Maslow ?

Abraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.Maslow was a psychology professor at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a "bag of symptoms."A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Maslow as the tenth most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Biography

Youth
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Maslow was the oldest of seven children and was classed as "mentally unstable" by a psychologist. His parents were first generation Jewish immigrants from Russia who fled from Czarist persecution in the early 20th century.They had decided to live in New York City and in a multiethnic, working-class neighborhood.His parents were poor and not intellectually oriented, but they valued education. It was a tough time for Maslow, as he experienced anti-Semitism from his teachers and from other children around the neighborhood. He had various encounters with anti-Semitic gangs who would chase and throw rocks at him. Maslow and other young people at the time with his background were struggling to overcome such acts of racism and ethnic prejudice in the attempt to establish an idealistic world based on widespread education and monetary justice. The tension outside his home was also felt within it, he rarely got along with his mother, and eventually developed a strong revulsion to her. He is quoted as saying, "What I had reacted to was not only her physical appearance, but also her values and world view, her stinginess, her total selfishness, her lack of love for anyone else in the world – even her own husband and children – her narcissism, her Negro prejudice, her exploitation of everyone, her assumption that anyone was wrong who disagreed with her, her lack of friends, her sloppiness and dirtiness..." He also grew up with few friends other than his cousin Will, and as a result "...grew up in libraries and among books." It was here that he developed his love for reading and learning. He went to Boys High School, one of the top high schools in Brooklyn. Here, he served as the officer to many academic clubs, and became editor of the Latin Magazine. He also edited Principia, the school's Physics paper, for a year. He developed other strengths as well:

As a young boy, Maslow believed physical strength to be the single most defining characteristic of a true male; hence, he exercised often and took up weight lifting in hopes of being transformed into a more muscular, tough-looking guy, however, he was unable to achieve this due to his humble-looking and chaste figure as well as his studiousness.

College and university
Maslow attended the City College of New York after high school. In 1926 he began taking legal studies classes at night in addition to his undergraduate course load. He hated it and almost immediately dropped out. In 1927 he transferred to Cornell, but he left after just one semester due to poor grades and high costs.He later graduated from City College and went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin to study psychology. In 1928, he married his first cousin Bertha, who was still in high school at the time. The pair had met in Brooklyn years earlier. Maslow's psychology training at UW was decidedly experimental-behaviorist. At Wisconsin he pursued a line of research which included investigating primate dominance behavior and sexuality. Maslow's early experience with behaviorism would leave him with a strong positivist mindset.[16] Upon the recommendation of Professor Hulsey Cason, Maslow wrote his master's thesis on "learning, retention, and reproduction of verbal material".Maslow regarded the research as embarrassingly trivial, but he completed his thesis the summer of 1931 and was awarded his master's degree in psychology. He was so ashamed of the thesis that he removed it from the psychology library and tore out its catalog listing. However, Professor Carson admired the research enough to urge Maslow to submit it for publication. Maslow's thesis was published as two articles in 1934.

Academic career
He continued his research at Columbia University, on similar themes. There he found another mentor in Alfred Adler, one of Sigmund Freud's early colleagues. From 1937 to 1951, Maslow was on the faculty of Brooklyn College. His family life and his experiences influenced his psychological ideas. After World War II, Maslow began to question the way psychologists had come to their conclusions, and though he did not completely disagree, he had his own ideas on how to understand the human mind. He called his new discipline humanistic psychology. Maslow was already a 33-year-old father and had two children when the United States entered World War II in 1941. He was thus ineligible for the military. However, the horrors of war instead inspired a vision of peace in him and this led to his groundbreaking psychological studies of self-actualizing people. These studies began with his two mentors, anthropologist Ruth Benedict and Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer, whom he admired both professionally and personally. These two were so accomplished in both realms, and such "wonderful human beings" as well, that Maslow began taking notes about them and their behavior. This would be the basis of his lifelong research and thinking about mental health and human potential[disambiguation needed].He wrote extensively on the subject, borrowing ideas from other psychologists but adding significantly to them, especially the concepts of a hierarchy of needs, metaneeds, metamotivation, self-actualizing persons, and peak experiences. Maslow was a professor at Brandeis University from 1951 to 1969, and then became a resident fellow of the Laughlin Institute in California. In 1967, Maslow had an almost fatal heart attack, and knew his time was limited. Maslow considered himself to be a psychological pioneer. He gave future psychologists a push by bringing to light different paths to ponder. He built the framework that later allowed other psychologists to add in more information. Maslow long believed that leadership should be non-intervening. Consistent with this approach, he rejected a nomination in 1963 to be president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology because he felt that the organization should develop an intellectual movement without a leader.

Death
While jogging, Maslow suffered a severe heart attack and died on June 8, 1970 at the age of 62 in Menlo Park, California.

National Teen Driver Safety Week

National Teen Driver Safety Week (NTDSW) is conducted annually during the third week of October in the United States. It was established by Congress in 2007.

Background of the Teen Driving Problem

Motor vehicle crashes remain the primary cause of death for adolescents.Teen drivers (ages 16 to 19) are involved in fatal crashes at four times the rate of adult drivers (ages 25 to 69). Each year, more than 5,000 teens are killed in motor vehicle crashes.

History of National Teen Driver Safety Week

After a series of tragic crashes involving Pennsylvania high school students, Representatives Charlie Dent (R- PA) and Senator Bob Casey (D- PA) sponsored over 50 co-sponsors to introduce the resolution creating National Teen Driver Safety Week. The initiative was supported by the traffic safety experts at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and State Farm Insurance Companies.

A national survey conducted in 2007 by State Farm and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia provided some facts into the teen driving environment, including that while teens are aware of some driving dangers (such as drinking and driving), they may not realize the risks of other distractions and behaviors, such as fatigued driving, speeding, cell phone use, and driving with multiple teen passengers. The majority of crashes involving young drivers are caused by inexperience and driver error.

Parachute (a national charity focused on Injury Prevention) has launched a campaign to bring National Teen Driver Safety week to Canada with the support of State Farm.

Support for National Teen Driver Safety Week has grown, and the media coverage for this initiative has been overwhelming. Celebrities, including singer/songwriter Jesse McCartney, racecar driver Zach Veach and television personality Oprah Winfrey,[6] have formally endorsed the week, and U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood  acknowledged distracted driving as an epidemic, calling for Americans to turn off their phones while driving, prior to the week’s kickoff in 2010. State and local officials across the country have also implemented programs and campaigns as part of National Teen Driver Safety Week.

Road traffic safety.

Road traffic safety refers to methods and measures for reducing the risk of a person using the road network for being killed or seriously injured. The users of a road include pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, their passengers, and passengers of on-road public transport, mainly buses and trams. Best-practice road safety strategies focus upon the prevention of serious injury and death crashes in spite of human fallibility (which is contrasted with the old road safety paradigm of simply reducing crashes assuming road user compliance with traffic regulations). Safe road design is now about providing a road environment which ensures vehicle speeds will be within the human tolerances for serious injury and death wherever conflict points exist.

As sustainable solutions for all classes of road have not been identified, particularly lowly trafficked rural and remote roads, a hierarchy of control should be applied, similar to best practice Occupational Safety and Health. At the highest level is sustainable prevention of serious injury and death crashes, with sustainable requiring all key result areas to be considered. At the second level is real time risk reduction, which involves providing users at severe risk with a specific warning to enable them to take mitigating action. The third level is about reducing the crash risk which involves applying the road design standards and guidelines (such as from AASHTO), improving driver behaviour and enforcement.

Do you have nice dress ? Heart touching photo.

You have dress.. But not soul.
Me have soul.... But not dress.
Wonderful world....
Enjoy every moments. Before the dress get.

What is The Montreal Protocol ?

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (a protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer) is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. It was agreed on 16 September 1987, and entered into force on 1 January 1989, followed by a first meeting in Helsinki, May 1989. Since then, it has undergone eight revisions, in 1990 (London), 1991 (Nairobi), 1992 (Copenhagen), 1993 (Bangkok), 1995 (Vienna), 1997 (Montreal), 1998 (Australia), 1999 (Beijing) and 2007 (Montreal).As a result of the international agreement, the ozone hole in Antarctica is slowly recovering. Climate projections indicate that the ozone layer will return to 1980 levels between 2050 and 2070. Due to its widespread adoption and implementation it has been hailed as an example of exceptional international co-operation, with Kofi Annan quoted as saying that "perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol".In comparison, effective burden sharing and solution proposals mitigating regional conflicts of interest have been among the success factors for the Ozone depletion challenge, where global regulation based on the Kyoto Protocol has failed to do so.[5] In case of the ozone depletion challenge, there was global regulation already being installed before a scientific consensus was established. As well in comparison, lay people and public opinion were more convinced about possible imminent risks.

The two ozone treaties have been ratified by 197 parties, which includes 196 states and the European Union, making them the first universally ratified treaties in United Nations history.

Explain about Golden Temple.

The Harmandir Sahib  and informally referred to as the "Golden Temple", is the holiest Sikh gurdwara located in the city of Amritsar, Punjab, India. The city was founded in 1574 by the fourth Sikh guru, Guru Ram Das. The Harmandir Sahib was designed by the fifth guru, Guru Arjan, who had the cornerstone laid by the Muslim Sufi saint Sai Hazrat Mian Mir on 28 December 1588. Guru Arjan completed the Adi Granth, the holy scripture of Sikhism, in 1604 and installed it in the gurdwara.

There are four doors to get into the Harmandir Sahib, which symbolise the openness of the Sikhs towards all people and religions.The present-day gurdwara was rebuilt in 1764 by Jassa Singh Ahluwalia with the help of other Sikh Misls. In the early nineteenth century, Maharaja Ranjit Singh secured the Punjab region from outside attack and covered the upper floors of the gurdwara with gold, which gives it its distinctive appearance and its English name.

The Harimandir Sahib is considered holy by Sikhs.The holiest text of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib,[8] is present inside the gurdwara during daytime and the holy book goes for Sukhasan during the night time. Its construction was mainly intended to build a place of worship for men and women from all walks of life and all religions to come and worship God equally. Over 100,000 people visit the holy shrine daily for worship, and also partake in the free community kitchen and meal (Langar) that is a hallmark of all Sikh Gurudwaras.

Which is the largest crocodile in the world ?

Gustave is a large male Nile crocodile from Burundi. He is notorious for being a man-eater, and is rumored to have killed as many as 300 humans from the banks of the Ruzizi River and the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika. Though the actual number is difficult to verify, he has obtained near-mythical status and is greatly feared by people in the region.

Gustave was named by Patrice Faye, a herpetologist who has been studying and investigating him since the late 1990s. Much of what is known about Gustave stems from the film Capturing the Killer Croc, which aired in 2004 on PBS. The film documents a capture attempt and study on Gustave.

Since Gustave has not been captured, his exact length and weight is unknown, but in 2002 it was stated that he could be "easily more than 20 feet" (6 m) long, and weigh more than 2,000 pounds (900 kg). Some estimates have put Gustave at 25 feet (7.5 m) or more in length. He was estimated to be around 100 years old in order to achieve such outstanding size; however, further more careful observation of Gustave revealed a complete set of teeth when he opened his mouth. Since a 100-year-old crocodile "should be nearly toothless" (according to the documentary), he was estimated to be "probably no older than 60, and likely, still growing".

Gustave is also known for the three bullet scars on his body. His right shoulder blade was also found to be deeply wounded. Circumstances surrounding the four scars are unknown. Scientists and herpetologists who have studied Gustave claim that his uncommon size and weight impede his ability to hunt the species' usual, agile prey such as fish, antelope and zebra, forcing him to attack larger animals such as hippopotamus, large wildebeest and, to some extent, humans. According to a popular local warning, he is said to hunt and leave his victims' corpses uneaten.The documentary film also stated that since crocodiles can go several months without eating, Gustave could afford to select his prey carefully.

In parts of Asia and Australia saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) of 6 metres (20 ft) long are occasionally reported. In eastern India the Guinness Book of World Records has confirmed the existence of a 7-meter individual.

In Capturing the Killer Croc, Patrice Fey and other scientists attempted to capture Gustave. According to the film, Patrice performed two years of investigations before the attempt. Patrice and his team were given a 2-month time slot for their capture attempt; thereafter a change of government would risk plunging the country into civil war. First, a trap cage weighing a tonne and nearly 9 meters (30 feet) in length was developed. The team then located Gustave and installed and baited the trap, placing a hidden infrared camera inside as well. Several kinds of bait were used, yet none of them attracted Gustave or any other creature. The scientists then installed three giant snares on strategic banks to increase their chances of capture; although smaller crocodiles were caught by the traps, Gustave was not.

In the last week before being forced to leave the country, the team placed a live goat in the cage. Nothing happened until one night, the camera failed due to stormy weather. The next morning, the cage was found partially submerged and the goat had disappeared. The team speculated that the rising waters helped the crocodile to escape, or that the cage had failed, but absent a camera recording, no conclusion could be drawn.

The world's largest book

The world's largest book stands upright, set in stone, in the grounds of the Kuthodaw pagoda (kuthodaw, "royal merit") at the foot of Mandalay Hill in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma). It has 730 leaves and 1460 pages; each page is 107 centimetres (3.51 ft) wide, 153 centimetres (5.02 ft) tall and 13 centimetres (5.1 in) thick. Each stone tablet has its own roof and precious gem on top in a small cave-like structure of Sinhalese relic casket type called kyauksa gu (stone inscription cave in Burmese), and they are arranged around a central golden pagoda.

The pagoda itself was built as part of the traditional foundations of the new royal city which also included a pitakat taik or library for religious scriptures, but King Mindon wanted to leave a great work of merit for posterity meant to last five millennia after the Gautama Buddha who lived around 500 BC. When the British invaded southern Burma in the mid-19th century, Mindon Min was concerned that Buddhist dhamma (teachings) would also be detrimentally affected in the North where he reigned. As well as organizing the Fifth Buddhist council in 1871, he was responsible for the construction in Mandalay of the world's largest book, consisting of 729 large marble tablets with the Tipitaka Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism inscribed on them in gold. One more was added to record how it all came about, making it 730 stone inscriptions in total.

The marble was quarried from Sagyin Hill 32 miles (51 km) north of Mandalay, and transported by river to the city. Work began on 14 October 1860 in a large shed near Mandalay Palace. The text had been meticulously edited by tiers of senior monks and lay officials consulting the Tipitaka (meaning "three baskets", namely Vinaya Pitaka, Sutta Pitaka and Abhidhamma Pitaka) kept in royal libraries in the form of peisa or palm leaf manuscripts. Scribes carefully copied the text on marble for stonemasons. Each stone has 80 to 100 lines of inscription on each side in round Burmese script, chiselled out and originally filled in with gold ink. It took a scribe three days to copy both the obverse and the reverse sides, and a stonemason could finish up to 16 lines a day. All the stones were completed and opened to the public on 4 May 1868.

Which is the world's most massive tree, and arguably the largest living organism in the world ?

The giant sequoia is the world's most massive tree, and arguably the largest living organism on Earth.It is neither the tallest extant species of tree (that distinction belongs to the coast redwood),nor is it the widest (that distinction belongs to the baobab tree or Montezuma Cypresses), nor is it the longest-lived (that distinction belongs to the Great Basin bristlecone pine). However, with a height of 286 feet (87 m) or more, a circumference of 113 feet (34 m) or more, an estimated bole volume of up to 52,500 cubic feet (1,487 m3), and an estimated age of 1800–2700 years, the giant sequoia is among the tallest, widest and longest-lived of all organisms on Earth.

Giant sequoias grow in well-defined groves in California mixed evergreen forests, along with other old-growth species such as California incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens). Because most of the neighboring trees are also quite large, it can be difficult to appreciate the size of an individual giant sequoia. The largest giant sequoias are as tall as a 26-story building, and the width of their bases can exceed that of a city street. They grow at such a rate as to produce roughly 40 cubic feet (1.1 m3) of wood each year, approximately equal to the volume of a 50-foot-tall tree one foot in diameter.This makes them among the fastest growing organisms on Earth, in terms of annual increase in mass.

Giant sequoias occur naturally in only one place on Earth—the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, on moist, unglaciated ridges and valleys at an altitude of 5,000 to 8,000 feet (1,524 to 2,438 m) above mean sea level. There are 65–75 groves of giant sequoias in the Sierra Nevada, depending upon the criteria used to define a grove. The northernmost of these groves is Placer County Grove in the Tahoe National Forest, Placer County, California,[10] while the southernmost grove is Deer Creek Grove in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, Tulare County, California. The combined total area of all groves of giant sequoias is approximately 35,600 acres (14,407 ha).

Giant sequoias are in many ways adapted to forest fires. Their bark is unusually fire resistant, and their cones will normally open immediately after a fire.However, fire is also the most serious damaging agent of giant sequoias. Seedlings and saplings are highly susceptible to death or serious injury by fire. Larger giant sequoias are more resistant to fire damage, due to their thick protective layer of nonresinous bark and elevated crowns. However, repeated fires over many centuries may penetrate the bark and destroy the vascular cambium. Nearly all of the larger trees have fire scars, many of which cover a large area of the base of the tree. Older trees are rarely killed by fire alone, but the resulting structural damage may predispose a tree to collapse and fire scars also provide entry for fungi which may cause root disease and heart rot. The resulting decayed wood is then more easily consumed by subsequent fires. The result of this cycle is further structural weakening of the tree, which may eventually lead to its collapse.

Fire scars are thought to be the main cause of dead tops. Although lightning strikes rarely kill mature trees, lightning sometimes knocks out large portions of crowns or ignites dead tops. The most common cause of death in mature giant sequoias is toppling, due to weakening of the roots and lower trunk by fire and decay. The extreme weight of the trees coupled with their shallow root systems contributes to this weakening. Other causative factors include wind, water-softened soils, undercutting by streams, and heavy snow loads in the crowns

The Washington tree, located in the Giant Forest Grove in Sequoia National Park provides a good example of the aforementioned phenomena. This tree was the second largest tree in the world (only the General Sherman tree was larger) until just a few years ago. In September 2003, the tree lost a portion of its crown as a result of a fire caused by a lightning strike. This reduced its height from nearly 255 feet (78 m) to about 229 feet (70 m). The structurally weakened tree partially collapsed in January 2005, as the result of a heavy snow load in the remaining portion of its crown; it is now approximately 115 feet (35 m) tall.

New South China Mall - the largest shopping mall in the world

New South China Mall  in Dongguan, China is the largest shopping mall in the world based on gross leasable area, and ranked second in total area to The Dubai Mall (which has extensive non-shopping space including a zoo, a hotel complex and a theme park).South China Mall opened in 2005 and for several years it had been mostly vacant as very few merchants have ever signed up, leading it to be dubbed a dead mall. In 2015 one CNN story reported that the mall had attracted some tenants after extensive renovations and remodeling of the facility, though large portions remain vacant.

Dongguan, with a population in excess of 10 million, is located in southern China's Guangdong province, about 50 km east of the province's largest city, Guangzhou. The mall was built on land formerly used for farming, in the Wanjiang District of the city. The project was spearheaded by Hu Guirong (Alex Hu), who became a billionaire in the instant noodle industry.

The mall contains sufficient space for as many as 2,350 stores in approximately 659,612 square metres (7,100,000 sq ft) of leasable space and 892,000 square metres (9,600,000 sq ft) of total area.

The mall has seven zones modeled on international cities, nations and regions, including Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Venice, Egypt, the Caribbean, and California. Features include a 25-metre (82 ft) replica of the Arc de Triomphe, a replica of Venice's St Mark's bell tower,a 2.1-kilometre (1.3 mi) canal with gondolas, and a 553-metre (1,814 ft) indoor-outdoor roller coaster.

Since its opening in 2005, the mall has suffered from a severe lack of occupants. Much of the retail space was empty up to 2009, with over 99% of the stores vacant. The only occupied areas were near the entrance where several Western fast food chains are located and a parking structure re-purposed as a kart racing track. A planned Shangri-La Hotel has not been realised. Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Sam Green made a short film about the South China Mall called "Utopia Part 3: the World's Largest Shopping Mall." The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS's documentary series POV.

Originally called "South China Mall", the centre was redubbed as "New South China Mall, Living City" in September 2007.

The mall was formerly owned by Dongguan Sanyuan Yinghui Investment & Development, Hu Guirong's company, but a controlling interest in the mall has been sold to the Founders Group, a division of Beijing University.

The recent makeover was orchestrated by PKU Resources, which took over the property from the original owner Hu Guirong in Dec. 2006

Del Amo Fashion Center- three-level regional luxury shopping mall - History

Del Amo Fashion Center is a three-level regional luxury shopping mall in Torrance, California, United States. It is currently managed and co-owned by Simon Property Group.

With a gross leasable area (GLA) of 2.6 million ft², it is one of the largest shopping malls in the United States. The mall features a food court, several anchor stores, including two Macy's locations, Nordstroms, JCPenney and Sears, more than 200 retailers, multiple full-service restaurants, a fitness center, and an AMC Theatres multiplex.

In 2013, plans were introduced by Simon Property Group for a 200 million dollar complete overhaul of the north side of the mall. A new food court opened in the Fall of 2013, while the newly redesigned "Fashion Wing" on the north side officially debuted in October 2015 with Nordstrom being the new mall anchor.

Del Amo Fashion Center has evolved from an amalgamation of several developments on the eastern side of the intersection of Hawthorne Boulevard and Carson Street in Torrance, California by Guilford Glazer (#384 on Forbes Richest 400). From 1981 to 1992 it was the largest shopping mall in the US, reaching 3 million ft² in size at its largest. It was eclipsed as the largest with the opening of Mall of America on August 11, 1992.

In 1959, The Broadway opened the first store at what was then the open-air Del Amo Shopping Center south of Carson Street.The actual mall itself, as well as J.C. Penney and Sears, opened in 1961 at the southeast corner of Sepulveda Boulevard and Hawthorne Boulevard. In 1966, Bullock's opened at a small open-air shopping center it had developed north of Carson Street called Fashion Square (Bullock's developed several similarly named Fashion Squares, including ones in Sherman Oaks, La Habra and Santa Ana). I. Magnin, an affiliate of Bullock's opened a store in 1967 at Fashion Square, before the center was acquired in 1971 by Guilford Glazer and a major redevelopment begun.

Overview after the merger of the Del Amo Fashion Square (north) and the Del Amo Center (south).

In 1971, Del Amo Fashion Square, as the center on the north side of Carson Street was now called, reopened as a second mall and included additional anchors Montgomery Ward and Ohrbach's as well as an expanded I. Magnin. Glazer acquired neighboring Del Amo Center in 1978.

In November 1981 the two formerly separate centers were officially merged in the "marriage of the malls" to form the Del Amo Fashion Center, with the opening of a concourse over Carson Street that linked the Del Amo Fashion Square to a new J. W. Robinson's built at the northern end of the Del Amo Center. The existing infrastructure was also renovated at this time and included a food court (the "International Food Court") and a then-state-of-the-art computerized help system. Del Amo became the largest indoor shopping center in the world.

The center continued to evolve over the years as Ohrbach's closed in 1987 and became Swedish style furniture retailer STØR. When STØR went out of business in the early nineties, the property was used as a clearance center for STØR merchandise before being subdivided into Marshall's and TJ Maxx. I. Magnin followed in 1989 with part of their store eventually occupied by Old Navy, while Burlington Coat Factory opened in the basement of the former Del Amo Center. J. W. Robinson's became Robinsons-May in 1993.

In 1996, following the merger of Bullocks and The Broadway into Macy's, the former Bullock's became Macy's Apparel store, while the Macy’s south store (where the Broadway resided) was closed. At first the company attempted to sell the building, but after three years reopened it in July 1999 as a home and furniture gallery, its largest stand-alone home furnishing store in Southern California. The 50,000 square foot ground floor became a Jo-Ann’s fabric and crafts store.

Faced with a change in consumer shopping patterns, the consolidation of the department store industry, the existence of too many malls fragmenting the greater Los Angeles retail marketplace, lack of highway access and competition from the neighboring Nordstrom-anchored South Bay Galleria that opened in 1985, Del Amo began to suffer. Montgomery Ward dealt another blow when it closed following the chain's bankruptcy. This resulted in the closure of an entire wing of the mall.

Which is the largest gland in the body ?

The liver is a vital organ of vertebrates and some other animals.In the human it is located in the upper right quadrant of the abdomen, below the diaphragm. The liver has a wide range of functions, including detoxification of various metabolites, protein synthesis, and the production of biochemicals necessary for digestion.

The liver is a gland and plays a major role in metabolism with numerous functions in the human body, including regulation of glycogen storage, decomposition of red blood cells, plasma protein synthesis, hormone production, and detoxification. It is an accessory digestive gland and produces bile, an alkaline compound which aids in digestion via the emulsification of lipids. The gallbladder, a small pouch that sits just under the liver, stores bile produced by the liver. The liver's highly specialized tissue consisting of mostly hepatocytes regulates a wide variety of high-volume biochemical reactions, including the synthesis and breakdown of small and complex molecules, many of which are necessary for normal vital functions.Estimates regarding the organ's total number of functions vary, but textbooks generally cite it being around 500.

Terminology related to the liver often starts in hepar- or hepat- from the Greek word for liver, hēpar

There is currently no way to compensate for the absence of liver function in the long term, although liver dialysis techniques can be used in the short term.Liver transplantation is the only option for complete liver failure.

Do you know new seven Wonders of the World ?

New7Wonders of the World (2000–2007) was an initiative started in 2000 as a Millennium project to choose Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments. The popularity poll was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber and organized by the New7Wonders Foundation based in Zurich, Switzerland, with winners announced on 7 July 2007 in Lisbon.

The New7Wonders Foundation claimed that more than 100 million votes were cast through the Internet or by telephone. The voting via Internet was limited to one vote for seven monuments per person/identity, via telephone multiple voting was possible, so the poll was considered not scientific. According to John Zogby, founder and current President/CEO of the Utica, New York-based polling organization Zogby International, New7Wonders Foundation drove "the largest poll on record".After supporting the New7Wonders Foundation at the beginning of the campaign, by providing advice on nominee selection, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) by its bylaws having to record all and give equal status to the world heritage sites distanced itself from the undertaking in 2001 and again in 2007.

The New7Wonders Foundation, established in 2001, relied on private donations and the sale of broadcast rights and received no public funding or taxpayers' money. After the final announcement, New7Wonders said it didn't earn anything from the exercise and barely recovered its investment.

The foundation has run two subsequent programs: New7Wonders of Nature, the subject of voting until 2011, and New7WondersCities, which wound up in 2014.

The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century bce; these, later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are now collectively referred to as the Great Wall.Especially famous is the wall built 220–206 bce by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall remains. Since then, the Great Wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced; the majority of the existing wall is from the Ming Dynasty.

Other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, garrison stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and the fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor.

The Great Wall stretches from Dandong in the east, to Lop Lake in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. A comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the Ming walls measure 8,850 km (5,500 mi).This is made up of 6,259 km (3,889 mi) sections of actual wall, 359 km (223 mi) of trenches and 2,232 km (1,387 mi) of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measure out to be 21,196 km (13,171 mi).

Petra  is a historical and archaeological city in the southern Jordanian governorate of Ma'an that is famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system. Another name for Petra is the Rose City due to the color of the stone out of which it is carved.

Established possibly as early as 312 BC as the capital city of the Arab Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan, as well as Jordan's most-visited tourist attraction. It lies on the slope of Jebel al-Madhbah (identified by some as the biblical Mount Hor in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Petra has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.

The site remained unknown to the western world until 1812, when it was introduced by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was described as "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a Newdigate Prize-winning poem by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage". Petra was named amongst the New7Wonders of the World in 2007 and was also chosen by the Smithsonian Magazine as one of the "28 Places to See Before You Die"..

The Colosseum or Coliseum , is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy. Built of concrete and sand,it is the largest amphitheatre ever built and is considered one of the greatest works of architecture and engineering ever.

The Colosseum is situated just east of the Roman Forum. Construction began under the emperor Vespasian in 72 AD, and was completed in 80 AD under his successor and heir Titus. Further modifications were made during the reign of Domitian (81–96).These three emperors are known as the Flavian dynasty, and the amphitheatre was named in Latin for its association with their family name (Flavius).

The Colosseum could hold, it is estimated, between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators, having an average audience of some 65,000; it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology. The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine.

Although partially ruined because of damage caused by earthquakes and stone-robbers, the Colosseum is still an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome. It is one of Rome's most popular tourist attractions and has also links to the Roman Catholic Church, as each Good Friday the Pope leads a torchlit "Way of the Cross" procession that starts in the area around the Colosseum.

The Colosseum is also depicted on the Italian version of the five-cent euro coin.

The Colosseum

The Colosseum's original Latin name was Amphitheatrum Flavium, often anglicized as Flavian Amphitheater. The building was constructed by emperors of the Flavian dynasty, following the reign of Nero.This name is still used in modern English, but generally the structure is better known as the Colosseum. In antiquity, Romans may have referred to the Colosseum by the unofficial name Amphitheatrum Caesareum (with Caesareum an adjective pertaining to the title Caesar), but this name may have been strictly poetic as it was not exclusive to the Colosseum; Vespasian and Titus, builders of the Colosseum, also constructed an amphitheater of the same name in Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli).

Chichen Itza "at the mouth of the well of the Itza") was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Terminal Classic period. The archaeological site is located in Tinúm Municipality, Yucatán State, Mexico.

Chichen Itza was a major focal point in the Northern Maya Lowlands from the Late Classic (c. AD 600–900) through the Terminal Classic (c. AD 800–900) and into the early portion of the Postclassic period (c. AD 900–1200). The site exhibits a multitude of architectural styles, reminiscent of styles seen in central Mexico and of the Puuc and Chenes styles of the Northern Maya lowlands. The presence of central Mexican styles was once thought to have been representative of direct migration or even conquest from central Mexico, but most contemporary interpretations view the presence of these non-Maya styles more as the result of cultural diffusion.

Chichen Itza was one of the largest Maya cities and it was likely to have been one of the mythical great cities, or Tollans, referred to in later Mesoamerican literature. The city may have had the most diverse population in the Maya world, a factor that could have contributed to the variety of architectural styles at the site.

The ruins of Chichen Itza are federal property, and the site’s stewardship is maintained by Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National Institute of Anthropology and History). The land under the monuments had been privately owned until 29 March 2010, when it was purchased by the state of Yucatán.

Chichen Itza is one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico; an estimated 1.2 million tourists visit the ruins every year.

Machu Picchu (in hispanicized spelling, Spanish pronunciation:  or Machu Pikchu (Quechua machu old, old person, pikchu peak; mountain or prominence with a broad base which ends in sharp peaks, "old peak", pronunciation  is a 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. It is located in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District in Peru.

It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Sacred Valley which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas" (a title more accurately applied to Vilcabamba), it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.

The Incas built the estate around 1450, but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of what the structures originally looked like. By 1976, 30% of Machu Picchu had been restored, restoration continues today.Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Inti Watana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows.

The Taj Mahal  from Persian and Arabic, "crown of palaces", pronounced  is a white marble mausoleum located on the southern bank of the Yamuna River in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (reigned 1628–1658) to house the tomb of his favorite wife of three, Mumtaz Mahal.

Construction of the mausoleum was essentially completed in 1643 but work continued on other phases of the project for an additional ten years. The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be around 32 million Indian rupees, which in 2015 would be valued at around 52.8 billion Indian rupees ($827 million US). The construction project employed around 20,000 artisans under the guidance of a board of architects led by Ustad Ahmad Lahauri. The domed marble tomb is part of an integrated complex consisting of gardens and two red-sandstone buildings surrounded by a crenellated wall on three sides.The Taj Mahal is regarded by many as the best example of Mughal architecture and is widely recognized as "the jewel of Muslim art in India". It is one of the world’s most celebrated structures and a symbol of India’s rich history. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, the Taj Mahal attracts some 3 million visitors a year. On 7 July 2007 it was declared one of the Seven winners of New7Wonders of the World (2000–2007) initiative in Lisbon.

Christ the Redeemer is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, created by French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by the Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with the French engineer Albert Caquot. The face was created by the Romanian artist Gheorghe Leonida. The statue is 30 metres (98 ft) tall, not including its 8-metre (26 ft) pedestal, and its arms stretch 28 metres (92 ft) wide . The statue weighs 635 metric tons (625 long, 700 short tons), and is located at the peak of the 700-metre (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio. A symbol of Christianity across the world, the statue has also become a cultural icon of both Rio de Janeiro and Brazil, and is listed as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone, and was constructed between 1922 and 1931.

Do you know about Chichen Itza ?

Chichen Itza  was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Terminal Classic period. The archaeological site is located in Tinúm Municipality, Yucatán State, Mexico.

Chichen Itza was a major focal point in the Northern Maya Lowlands from the Late Classic (c. AD 600–900) through the Terminal Classic (c. AD 800–900) and into the early portion of the Postclassic period (c. AD 900–1200). The site exhibits a multitude of architectural styles, reminiscent of styles seen in central Mexico and of the Puuc and Chenes styles of the Northern Maya lowlands. The presence of central Mexican styles was once thought to have been representative of direct migration or even conquest from central Mexico, but most contemporary interpretations view the presence of these non-Maya styles more as the result of cultural diffusion.

Chichen Itza was one of the largest Maya cities and it was likely to have been one of the mythical great cities, or Tollans, referred to in later Mesoamerican literature.The city may have had the most diverse population in the Maya world, a factor that could have contributed to the variety of architectural styles at the site.

The ruins of Chichen Itza are federal property, and the site’s stewardship is maintained by Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National Institute of Anthropology and History). The land under the monuments had been privately owned until 29 March 2010, when it was purchased by the state of Yucatán.

Chichen Itza is one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico; an estimated 1.2 million tourists visit the ruins every year.

What is Hippocratic Corpus ?

The Hippocratic Corpus , or Hippocratic Collection, is a collection of around 60 early Ancient Greek medical works strongly associated with the physician Hippocrates and his teachings. Even though considered as a singular corpus that represents Hippocratic medicine, they vary (sometimes significantly) in content, age, style, and are largely of unknown authorship.

Of the texts in the corpus, none is proven to be by Hippocrates himself.The works of the corpus range from Hippocrates' time and school to many centuries later and rival points of view. Franz Zacharias Ermerins identifies the hands of at least nineteen authors in the Hippocratic Corpus.However, the varied works of the corpus have gone under Hippocrates' name since antiquity. The corpus may be the remains of a library of Cos, or a collection compiled in the third century B.C. in Alexandria. It was not, however, only the Coan school of Ancient Greek medicine that contributed to it; the Cnidian did, too. Only a fraction of the Hippocratic writings have survived. The lost medical literature is sometimes referred to in the surviving treatises, as at the beginning of Regimen. Some Hippocratic works are known only in translation. "Hippocratic" texts survive in Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Latin.

Dates and groupings

The majority of the works in the Hippocratic Corpus date from the Classical period, the last decades of the 5th century BC and the first half of the 4th century BC. Among the later works, The Law, On the Heart, On the Physician, and On Sevens are all Hellenistic, while Precepts and On Decorum are from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.

Some of the earliest works of the corpus (mid-fifth century) are connected to the Cnidian school: On Diseases II–III and the early layer within On the Diseases of Women I–II and On Sterile Women. Prorrhetics I is also mid-fifth century.In the second half of the fifth century, a single author likely produced the treatises On Airs, Waters, Places; Prognostics; Prorrhetics II; and On the Sacred Disease.Other fifth-century works include On Fleshes, Epidemics I and III (ca. 410 BC), On Ancient Medicine, On Regimen in Acute Diseases, and Polybus' On the Nature of Man/Regimen in Health (410–400 BC).

At the end of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth century, one author likely wrote Epidemics II–IV–VI and On the Humors. The coherent group of surgical treatises (On Fractures, On Joints, On Injuries of the Head, Surgery, Mochlicon) is of similar date.

The gynecological treatises On the Nature of the Woman, On the Diseases of Women, Generation, On the Nature of the Child, and On Sterile Women constitute a closely related group. Hermann Grensemann  identified five layers of material in this group, from the mid-fifth century to the mid-fourth century.The oldest stratum is found in On the Nature of the Woman and On the Diseases of Women II.Generation and On the Nature of the Child constitute a single work by a late-fifth-century author,who may also be identified as the author of On Diseases IV and of sections of On the Diseases of Women I.The latest layer is On Sterile Women, which was composed after the other gynecological treatises were in existence.

A single fourth-century author probably wrote On Fistulae and On Hemorrhoids.

Do you know about Gynaecology ?

Gynaecology or gynecology is the medical practice dealing with the health of the female reproductive systems (vagina, uterus and ovaries) and the breasts. Literally, outside medicine, it means "the science of women". Its counterpart is andrology, which deals with medical issues specific to the male reproductive system.

Almost all modern gynaecologists are also obstetricians (see obstetrics and gynaecology). In many areas, the specialties of gynaecology and obstetrics overlap.

Etymology

The word "gynaecology" comes from the Greek γυνή gyne. "woman" and -logia, "study."

History

The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus is the oldest known medical text of any kind. Dated to about 1800 B.C., it deals with women's complaints—gynaecological diseases, fertility, pregnancy, contraception, etc. The text is divided into thirty-four sections, each section dealing with a specific problem and containing diagnosis and treatment; no prognosis is suggested. Treatments are non surgical, comprising applying medicines to the affected body part or swallowing them. The womb is at times seen as the source of complaints manifesting themselves in other body parts.

The Hippocratic Corpus contains several gynaecological treatises dating to the 5th/4th centuries BC. The gynaecological treatise Gynaikeia by Soranus of Ephesus (1st/2nd century AD) is extant (together with a 6th-century Latin paraphrase by Muscio, a physician of the same school). He was the chief representative of the school of physicians known as the "Methodists".

J. Marion Sims is widely considered the father of modern gynaecology. Now criticized for the short comings. He developed some of his techniques by operating on slaves, many of whom were not given anesthesia.

Do you know about Magnolia ?

Mongolia is a landlocked country in east-central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. While they do not share a border, Mongolia is separated from Kazakhstan by only 36.76 kilometres (22.84 mi). Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to about 45% of the population. Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic.

The area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the Turkic Khaganate, and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, and his grandson Kublai Khan conquered China to establish the Yuan dynasty. After the collapse of the Yuan, the Mongols retreated to Mongolia and resumed their earlier pattern of factional conflict, except during the era of Dayan Khan and Tumen Zasagt Khan. In the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism began to spread in Mongolia, being further led by the Manchu-founded Qing dynasty, which absorbed the country in the 17th century. By the early 1900s, almost one-third of the adult male population were Buddhist monks.

During the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongols established the Temporary Government of Khalkha on November 30, 1911. This was before the abdication of the last Qing emperor and the establishment of the Republic of China. On December 29, 1911 Mongolia declared independence from the Qing dynasty; the National Revolution of 1911 ended over 200 years of Qing rule, though it was not until the Revolution of 1921 that de facto independence from the Republic of China was firmly established.

Shortly thereafter, the country came under the control of the Soviet Union, which had aided its independence from China. In 1924 the Mongolian People's Republic was declared as a Soviet satellite state.[12] After the anti-Communist revolutions of 1989, Mongolia conducted its own peaceful democratic revolution in early 1990. This led to a multi-party system, a new constitution of 1992, and transition to a market economy.

At 1,564,116 square kilometres (603,909 sq mi), Mongolia is the 19th largest and one of the most sparsely populated independent countries in the world, with a population of around 3 million people. It is also the world's second-largest landlocked country. The country contains very little arable land, as much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south.

Approximately 30% of the population is nomadic or semi-nomadic; horse culture is still integral. The majority of its population are Buddhists. The non-religious population is the second largest group. Islam is the dominant religion among ethnic Kazakhs. The majority of the state's citizens are of Mongol ethnicity, although Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west. Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization in 1997 and seeks to expand its participation in regional economic and trade groups.

The Matterhorn -mountain of the Alps

The Matterhorn  is a mountain of the Alps, straddling the main watershed and border between Switzerland and Italy. It is a huge and near-symmetrical pyramidal peak in the Monte Rosa area of the Pennine Alps, whose summit is 4,478 metres (14,692 ft) high, making it one of the highest summits in the Alps and Europe. The four steep faces, rising above the surrounding glaciers, face the four compass points and are split by the Hörnli, Furggen, Leone and Zmutt ridges. The mountain overlooks the Swiss town of Zermatt in the canton of Valais to the north-east and the Italian town of Breuil-Cervinia in the Aosta Valley to the south. Just east of the Matterhorn is the Theodul Pass, the main passage between the two valleys on its north and south sides and a trade route since the Roman Era.

The Matterhorn was studied by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in the late eighteenth century, who was followed by other renowned naturalists and artists such as John Ruskin in the nineteenth century. Remaining still unclimbed after most of the other great Alpine peaks were climbed, the Matterhorn became the subject of an international competition for the summit. The first ascent of the Matterhorn was finally made in 1865 from Zermatt by a party led by Edward Whymper but ended disastrously when four of its members fell to their deaths on the descent. That climb and disaster, portrayed in several films, marked the end of the golden age of alpinism. The north face was not climbed until 1931, and is amongst the three biggest north faces of the Alps, known as the ‘The Trilogy’. The west face, which is the highest of the four, was completely climbed only in 1962. It is estimated that over 500 alpinists have died on the Matterhorn since the first climb in 1865, making it one of the deadliest peaks in the world.

The Matterhorn is mainly composed of gneisses from the Dent Blanche nappe, lying over ophiolites and sedimentary rocks of the Penninic nappes, the gneisses being originally fragments of the African Plate before the Alpine orogeny. The current shape of the mountain is the result from the cirque erosion due to multiple glaciers diverging from the peak, such as the Matterhorn Glacier at the base of the north face, forming a horn.

Sometimes referred to as the Mountain of Mountains, the Matterhorn has become an iconic emblem of the Swiss Alps and the Alps in general. Since the end of the 19th century, when railways were built in the area, it has attracted increasing numbers of visitors and climbers. Each year a large number of mountaineers try to climb the Matterhorn from the Hörnli Hut via the northeast Hörnli ridge, the most popular route to the summit, with a large number of trekkers as well, undertaking the 10-day long circuit around the mountain. The Matterhorn is part of the Swiss Federal Inventory of Natural Monuments since 1983.

The Matterhorn has two distinct summits, both situated on a 100 metres (330 ft) long rocky ridge: the Swiss summit with a height of 4,477.5 metres (14,690 ft) on the east and the Italian summit with a height of 4,476.4 metres (14,686 ft) on the west. Their names originated from the first ascents, not for geographic reasons, as both are located on the border. In August 1792, the Genevan geologist and explorer Horace Bénédict de Saussure made the first measurement of the Matterhorn's height, using a 50-foot-long chain spread out on the Theodul glacier and a sextant. He calculated a height of 4,501.7 metres (14,769 ft). In 1868 the Italian engineer Felice Giordano measured a height of 4,505 metres (14,780 ft) by means of a mercurial barometer, which he had taken up to the summit. The Dufour map, which was afterwards followed by the Italian surveyors, gave 4,482 metres (14,705 ft) as the height of the Swiss summit.A 1999 survey, part of the TOWER project (Top of the World Elevations Remeasurement), using Global Positioning System technology has been made, allowing the height of the Matterhorn to be measured to within one centimetre accuracy, and its changes to be tracked. The result was 4,477.54 metres (14,690 ft).

The topographic prominence of the Matterhorn is 1,042 metres (3,419 ft) as the ridge connecting it with a higher summit (in this case the Weisshorn, which is the culminating point of the range west of the Mattertal valley) sinks to a height of 3,436 metres (11,273 ft) at the Col Durand, a saddle between the Pointe de Zinal and the Mont Durand.The topographic isolation is 13.9 kilometres (8.6 mi) as the nearest point of higher elevation is the one-metre (3 ft 3 in) higher Western Lyskamm.

Considering mountains with a topographic prominence of at least 300 metres (980 ft), the Matterhorn is the sixth highest summit in the Alps and Europe outside the Caucasus Mountains. It is also the fifth highest summit of both Valais and Switzerland and the third highest summit of both the Aosta Valley and Italy.Locally, it is the third highest summit in the municipality of Zermatt[24] and the highest summit in the municipality of Valtournenche. On the official International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation list of Alpine four-thousanders, which also includes subsidiary summits of higher mountains such as the nearby Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn is the 12th highest summit in the Alps

The Sundarbans -natural region comprising southern Bangladesh

The Sundarbans  is a natural region comprising southern Bangladesh and a small part in Eastern India. It is the largest single block of tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world. The Sundarbans covers approximately 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi) most of which is in Bangladesh with the remainder in India. The Sundarbans is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sundarbans South, East and West are three protected forests in Bangladesh. This region is densely covered by mangrove forests, and is the largest reserves for the Bengal tiger. The Sundarbans National Park is a National Park, Tiger Reserve, and a Biosphere Reserve located in the Sundarbans delta in the Indian state of West Bengal.A total 245 genera and 334 plant species were recorded by David Prain in 1903.While most of the mangroves in other parts of the world are characterised by members of the Rhizophoraceae, Avicenneaceae or Combretaceae, the mangroves of Bangladesh are dominated by the Malvaceae and Euphorbiaceae.Dominant flora includes:

The Sundarbans flora is characterised by the abundance of sundari (Heritiera fomes), gewa (Excoecaria agallocha), goran (Ceriops decandra) and keora (Sonneratia apetala) all of which occur prominently throughout the area. The characteristic tree of the forest is the sundari (Heritiera littoralis), from which the name of the forest had probably been derived. It yields a hard wood, used for building houses and making boats, furniture and other things. New forest accretions is often conspicuously dominated by keora (Sonneratia apetala) and tidal forests. It is an indicator species for newly accreted mudbanks and is an important species for wildlife, especially spotted deer (Axis axis). There is abundance of dhundul or passur (Xylocarpus granatum) and kankra (Bruguiera gymnorrhiza) though distribution is discontinuous. Among palms, Poresia coaractata, Myriostachya wightiana and golpata (Nypa fruticans), and among grasses spear grass (Imperata cylindrica) and khagra (Phragmites karka) are well distributed.

The varieties of the forests that exist in Sundarbans include mangrove scrub, littoral forest, saltwater mixed forest, brackish water mixed forest and swamp forest. Besides the forest, there are extensive areas of brackish water and freshwater marshes, intertidal mudflats, sandflats, sand dunes with typical dune vegetation, open grassland on sandy soils and raised areas supporting a variety of terrestrial shrubs and trees. Since Prain's report there have been considerable changes in the status of various mangrove species and taxonomic revision of the man-grove flora. However, very little exploration of the botanical nature of the Sundarbans has been made to keep up with these changes. Differences in vegetation have been explained in terms of freshwater and low salinity influences in the Northeast and variations in drainage and siltation. The Sundarbans has been classified as a moist tropical forest demonstrating a whole mosaic of seres, comprising primary colonisation on new accretions to more mature beach forests. Historically vegetation types have been recognised in broad correlation with varying degrees of water salinity, freshwater flushing and physiography.

The Sundarbans provides a unique ecosystem and a rich wildlife habitat. According to the 2015 tiger census, the Sundarbans have about 170 tigers (106 in Bangladesh and 64 in India). Although previous rough estimates had suggested much higher figures close to 300, the 2011 census provided the first ever scientific estimate of tigers from the area Tiger attacks are frequent in the Sundarbans. Between 0 and 50 people are killed each year.

There is much more wildlife here than just the endangered Royal Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). Most importantly, mangroves are a transition from the marine to freshwater and terrestrial systems, and provide critical habitat for numerous species of small fish, crabs, shrimps and other crustaceans that adapt to feed and shelter, and reproduce among the tangled mass of roots, known as pneumatophores, which grow upward from the anaerobic mud to get the supply of oxygen. Fishing cats, macaques, wild boars, common grey mongooses, foxes, jungle cats, flying foxes, pangolins, and spotted deer are also found in abundance in the Sundarbans.

A 1991 study has revealed that the Bangladeshi part of the Sundarbans supports diverse biological resources including at least 150 species of commercially important fish, 270 species of birds, 42 species of mammals, 35 reptiles and 8 amphibian species. This represents a significant proportion of the species present in Bangladesh (i.e. about 30% of the reptiles, 37% the birds and 34% of the mammals) and includes a large number of species which are now extinct elsewhere in the country. Two amphibians, 14 reptiles, 25 aves and five mammals are endangered.The Sundarbans is an important wintering area for migrant water birds and is an area suitable for watching and studying avifauna.

The management of wildlife is restricted to, firstly, the protection of fauna from poaching, and, secondly, designation of some areas as wildlife sanctuaries where no extraction of forest produce is allowed and where the wildlife face few disturbances. Although the fauna of Bangladesh have diminished in recent times and the Sundarbans has not been spared from this decline, the mangrove forest retains several good wildlife habitats and their associated fauna. Of these, the tiger and dolphin are target species for planning wildlife management and tourism development. There are high profile and vulnerable mammals living in two contrasting environments, and their statuses and management are strong indicators of the general condition and management of wildlife. Some of the species are protected by legislation, notably by the Bangladesh Wildlife (Preservation) Order, 1973 (P.O. 23 of 1973).