Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome

Some users of mobile handsets have reported feeling several unspecific symptoms during and after its use, such as flaming and tingling feelings in the skin of the head and extremities, fatigue, sleep disturbances, dizziness, loss of mental attention, reaction times and memory retentiveness, headaches, malaise, tachycardia and disturbances of the digestive system. Some researchers, implying a causal relationship, have named this syndrome as a new diagnostic entity, EHS or ES. The World Health Organization prefers to name it “idiopathic environmental intolerance", in order to avoid the insinuation of causation.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

The Vanilla orchid

The main type harvested for vanillin is Vanilla planifolia. Even though it is native to Mexico, it is now extensively grown throughout the tropics. Madagascar is the world's largest producer, Additional sources include Vanilla pompona and Vanilla tahitiensis (grown in Tahiti), though the vanillin satisfied of these species is much less than Vanilla planifolia.

Vanilla grows as a vine, mountaineering up an existing tree, pole, or other support. It can be full-fledged in a wood (on trees), in a plantation (on trees or poles), or in a "shader", in increasing orders of productivity. Left alone, it will produce as high as possible on the support, with few flowers. Every year, growers fold the senior parts of the plant downwards so that the plant stays at heights accessible by a standing human. This also very much stimulate flowering.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Stratosphere

From the Latin word "stratus" meaning a scattering out. The stratosphere extends from the troposphere's 7 to 17 km (23,000 – 60,000 ft) range to about 50 km (160,000 ft). Temperature in crease through height. The stratosphere contains the ozone layer, the division of the Earth's atmosphere which contains comparatively high concentrations of ozone. "Relatively high" means a few parts per million—much higher than the concentrations in the lower atmosphere but still small compare to the main components of the atmosphere. It is frequently located in the lower portion of the stratosphere from approximately 15 to 35 km (50,000 – 115,000 ft) above Earth's surface, although the thickness varies seasonally and geographically.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Yawl

A yawl (from Dutch Jolt) is a two-misted sailing craft similar to a sloop or cutter but with an extra mizzen mast well behind of the main mast, often right on the transom. A small mizzen sail is raise on the mizzen mast.
The yawl is often puzzled with the ketch, which also has two masts with the main mast foremost. The common view is that a ketch has the mizzen mast forward of the rudder post whereas the mizzen on a yawl is aft of the wheel post. This definition is a relatively recent meaning and the historical definition is likely to be quite different.
In practice, on a ketch the main purpose of the mizzen mast is to help push the vessel, while on a yawl it is mostly used for the purposes of trim and balance. In result the mizzen sail of a yawl tends to be smaller, and the mainsail larger, when compared to a ketch of similar size. The mainsail of a yawl will be comparable in size to that of a similarly sized and proportioned sloop.
The yawl was initially developed as a rig for commercial fishing boats, one good example of this being the Sercombe Yawl (a traditional small fishing boat built in Devon). In its heyday, the rig was mainly popular with single-handed sailors, such as circumnavigators Joshua Slocum and Francis Chi Chester. This was mostly due to the remarkable ability of a yawl to be trimmed to follow a compass course exactly despite minor wind shifts. Modern self-steering and navigation aids have made this less important, and the yawl has normally fallen out of favor.