My Science School

A stadiometer is a device that is used to measure height. It is most commonly found in medical facilities such as doctor’s offices. Stadiometers typically are used for regular medical exams, although they are used for other kinds of tests and experiments as well. A typical model consists of a ruler that is mounted vertically on a wall, with a movable horizontal piece that rests on the head of the person who is being measured. This piece shows the height based on its position on the ruler.

A typical stadiometer will measure in both centimeters and inches, but the number of increments between these can vary among different models. Most models also have a way to lock the headpiece so that an accurate measurement can be recorded. They tend to be made of materials such as aluminum or sturdy plastic.

The price and construction of a stadiometer can vary widely. A typical doctor’s office usually will purchase a simple model and might find that a mechanical device is sufficient. Labs and other research facilities tend to use deluxe, digital models that ensure greater precision.

 

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Acrophobia describes an intense fear of heights that can cause significant anxiety and panic. Some researchTrusted Source suggests acrophobia may be one of the most common phobias.

It’s not unusual to feel some discomfort in high places. For example, you might feel dizzy or nervous when looking down from the top floor of a skyscraper. But these feelings may not cause panic or prompt you to avoid heights altogether.

If you have acrophobia, even thinking about crossing a bridge or seeing a photograph of a mountain and surrounding valley may trigger fear and anxiety. This distress is generally strong enough to affect your daily life.

According to the evolutionary psychology perspective, fears and phobias are innate. That is, people can experience a fear of heights without direct (or indirect) contact with heights. Instead, acrophobia is somehow hardwired so people have this fear before they first come into contact with heights.

Evolutionary psychologists suggest people who are afraid of heights are more likely to escape from this potentially dangerous situation or avoid it altogether. By doing this, they are then more likely to survive and later reproduce, allowing them to pass on their genes. Researchers suggest that as a result, this fear has been passed down from generation to generation.

 

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K2 is located at 28251 ft above sea level, which makes it the second highest mountain in the world, after Mount Everest at 29029 ft. The location of K2 is between Baltistan in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of north Pakistan and the Dafdar Township in Taxkorgan Tajik of Xinjiang, China. K2 is also referred to as Mount Godwin-Austen in honour of Henry Godwin-Austen, an early explorer of the region. Although the name was rejected by the Royal Geographical Society, it is used on several maps and places. K2 is the sole 8000 m peak that has never been reached by anyone from its East Face or during winter time. Being situated towards the north, it is more prone to severe winters. It was George Bell, a climber on the 1953 American Expedition, named K2 as the Savage Mountain after its deadly nature, when he almost slipped from the climb. It is said that out of every four mountaineers who climb the mountain, one person dies. The story of how K2 got its name goes like this. In 1856, a British officer working for the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India reached a small mountain in Kashmir. There, his sight fell on two special peaks more than 200 km away in the Karakoram. He named them K1 and K2, the ‘K’ standing for Karakoram.

 

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Environmental advocacy groups such as Greenpeace have been appealing to the UN's International Seabed Authority (ISA) against giving license to companies to carry out deep-sea mining. Highlighting that the industry is inadequately regulated in a report published last week, Greenpeace has drawn attention to the threats facing the deep-ocean ecosystem from deep-sea mining.

Mining carried out in the ocean floor is called deep-sea mining. It is done to retrieve mineral deposits from 1,400 to 3,700 metres below the ocean's surface using hydraulic pumps.

Rising demand for metals such as copper, nickel, aluminium, manganese, zinc and lithium and the depletion of these metals from terrestrial deposits have resulted in a growing interest in deep-sea mining.

Sixteen international mining companies have contracts to explore the seabed for minerals in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. They have already begun exploring the deep sea - assessing the size, extent of mineral deposits, composition, distribution, and economic value. Together, the ear-marked area for extraction is about 1.5 million km2 of international seabed.

Deep-sea mining particularly targets polymetallic nodules or active and extinct hydrothermal vents, which contain valuable metals. While hydrothermal vents are fissures on the seafloor from which geothermally heated water discharges, polymetallic nodules are potato-sized rock accretions that harbour commercially valuable metals like manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper.

Environmental impact

As with all mining operations, deep sea mining raises questions about its potential environmental impact.

The seafloor contains an extensive array of geological features. These remote areas support species that are uniquely adapted to harsh conditions. In fact, many of these species are unknown to science. The mining activity could pose danger to this pristine ecosystem.

Corals, sponges, sea urchins, starfish, jellyfish, squid, octopus, shrimp, and sea cucumbers are some of the known species that inhabit the depths of the oceans. Some of them are slow-growing, so a full recovery after mining could take thousands, if not millions of years - if a recovery is possible at all.

The sediment plumes and waste discharge from mining could trigger algae blooms and introduce toxic metals into marine food chains. This mining waste could also travel through the ocean and put many regions of the ocean under threat.

Light and noise pollution from the mining activity could disrupt a multitude of species attuned to living in the dark and those that use sound to communicate with other members of the species.

 

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Anaerobic bacteria are part of normal flora of human skin and mucosal membranes. The site of anaerobic infection is commonly the site of normal colonization. The spectrum of infections ranges from local abscesses to life-threatening infections. Anaerobic bacteria differ from aerobic bacteria in their oxygen requirement. Oxygen is toxic to anaerobes which can be explained by the absence of enzymes in the anaerobes of catalase, superoxide dismutase, and peroxidase enzymes. Anaerobes are fastidious organisms and are difficult to grow if proper collection and culture methods are not used. The diagnosis requires clinical suspicion and proper microbiological identification.

Anaerobic bacteria are a common cause of infections, some of which can be serious and life-threatening. Because anaerobes are the predominant components of the normal flora of the skin and mucous membranes, they are a common cause of infections of endogenous origin. Because of their fastidious nature, anaerobes are hard to culture and isolate and are often not recovered from infected sites. The administration of delayed or inappropriate therapy against these organisms may lead to failures in eradication of these infections. The isolation of anaerobic bacteria requires adequate methods for collection, transportation and cultivation of clinical specimens. The management of anaerobic infection is often difficult because of the slow growth of anaerobic organisms, which can delay their identification by the frequent polymicrobial nature of these infections and by the increasing resistance of anaerobic bacteria to antimicrobials.

 

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The new Advanced LIGO detectors had just been brought into operation for their first observing run when the very clear and strong signal was captured.

This discovery comes at the culmination of decades of instrument research and development, through a world-wide effort of thousands of researchers, and made possible by dedicated support for LIGO from the National Science Foundation. It also proves a prediction made 100 years ago by Einstein that gravitational waves exist. More excitingly, it marks the beginning of a new era of gravitational wave astronomy – the possibilities for discovery are as rich and boundless as they have been with light-based astronomy.

This first detection is a spectacular discovery: the gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. This collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed.

 

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Coronaviruses are unsegmented single-stranded RNA viruses ranging from 26 to 32 kilobases in length, belonging to the subfamily Coronavirinae of the family Coronaviridae of the order Nidovirales.

In December 2019, 27 patients out of the 41 people admitted to hospitals due to mysterious lung disease, passed through a wet market in Wuhan City. Though the origin of the virus has been traced to the market, the very first human case identified did not go to the market often. Instead, based on SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences, the first case can be traced back to November 2019.

In a study conducted by Canadian scientists, they sequenced nearly 30,000-base genome of the SARS-associated coronavirus, called the Tor2 isolate. They found that the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is only moderately associated with other known coronaviruses, such as the OC43 and the 229E.  

Further, the researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the group of Betacoronaviruses, which are similar to the SARS-CoV from 2002. During that time, it was found that bats of the genus Rhinolophus were the reservoir of the virus. It was also revealed that a palm civet, a long-bodied, short-legged cat-like carnivore of the family Viverridae, was the intermediate host of the virus before it jumped to humans. In 2012, the MERS-CoV also jumped to humans through dromedary camels.

 

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Proteins are essential to life, supporting practically all its functions. They are large complex molecules, made up of chains of amino acids, and what a protein does largely depends on its unique 3D structure. Figuring out what shapes proteins fold into is known as the “protein folding problem”, and has stood as a grand challenge in biology for the past 50 years. In a major scientific advance, the latest version of our AI system AlphaFold has been recognised as a solution to this grand challenge by the organisers of the biennial Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction (CASP). This breakthrough demonstrates the impact AI can have on scientific discovery and its potential to dramatically accelerate progress in some of the most fundamental fields that explain and shape our world.

In 1994, Professor John Moult and Professor Krzysztof Fidelis founded CASP as a biennial blind assessment to catalyse research, monitor progress, and establish the state of the art in protein structure prediction. It is both the gold standard for assessing predictive techniques and a unique global community built on shared endeavour. Crucially, CASP chooses protein structures that have only very recently been experimentally determined (some were still awaiting determination at the time of the assessment) to be targets for teams to test their structure prediction methods against; they are not published in advance. Participants must blindly predict the structure of the proteins, and these predictions are subsequently compared to the ground truth experimental data when they become available. We’re indebted to CASP’s organisers and the whole community, not least the experimentalists whose structures enable this kind of rigorous assessment.

The main metric used by CASP to measure the accuracy of predictions is the Global Distance Test (GDT) which ranges from 0-100. In simple terms, GDT can be approximately thought of as the percentage of amino acid residues (beads in the protein chain) within a threshold distance from the correct position. According to Professor Moult, a score of around 90 GDT is informally considered to be competitive with results obtained from experimental methods.

In the results from the 14th CASP assessment, released today, our latest AlphaFold system achieves a median score of 92.4 GDT overall across all targets. This means that our predictions have an average error (RMSD) of approximately 1.6 Angstroms, which is comparable to the width of an atom (or 0.1 of a nanometer). 

 

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Streptococcus is a genus of gram-positive coccus (plural cocci) or spherical bacteria that belongs to the family Streptococcaceae, within the order Lactobacillales (lactic acid bacteria), in the phylum Firmicutes.Cell division in streptococci occurs along a single axis, so as they grow, they tend to form pairs or chains that may appear bent or twisted. This differs from staphylococci, which divide along multiple axes, thereby generating irregular, grape-like clusters of cells. Most streptococci are oxidase-negative and catalase-negative, and many are facultative anaerobes (capable of growth both aerobically and anaerobically).

Group A strep causes

• Strep throat - a sore, red throat. Your tonsils may be swollen and have white spots on them.


• Scarlet fever - an illness that follows strep throat. It causes a red rash on the body.


• Impetigo - a skin infection


• Toxic shock syndrome


• Cellulitis and necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease)

Group B strep can cause blood infections, pneumonia and meningitis in newborns. A screening test during pregnancy can tell if you have it. If you do, intravenous (IV) antibiotics during labor can save your baby's life. Adults can also get group B strep infections, especially if they are 65 or older or already have health problems. Strep B can cause urinary tract infections, blood infections, skin infections and pneumonia in adults.

 

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When we talk about tectonic or lithospheric plates, we mean the sections into which the lithosphere is cracked. The surface of the Earth is divided into 7 major and 8 minor plates. The largest plates are the Antarctic, Eurasian, and North American plates.

The mechanism by which tectonic plates move is still a subject of much debate among Earth scientists. The Earth is dynamic thanks to its internal heat, which comes from deep within the mantle from the breakdown of radioactive isotopes. It was long thought that this resulted in convection currents in the mantle which were responsible for the movement of tectonic plates across the Earth’s surface – indeed this is still the most common idea illustrated in many textbooks and on the internet. However, this theory is now largely out of favour, with modern imaging techniques unable to identify mantle convection cells that are sufficiently large to drive plate movement. Some plate models show that two thirds of the Earth’s surface move faster than the underlying mantle so there appears to be little or no evidence that convection currents in the mantle move plates (apart maybe from some very small plates in unusual circumstances).

Where slab pull is not the main plate driver, ‘ridge push’ is another possibility. As the lithosphere formed at divergent plate margins is hot, and less dense than the surrounding area it rises to form oceanic ridges. The newly-formed plates slide sideways off these high areas, pushing the plate in front of them resulting in a ridge-push mechanism.

 

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The amygdaloid body is also known as the amygdaloid nucleus. This is an oval structure located within the temporal lobe of the human brain. The structure is a small part of the brain and is closely associated with the hypothalamus, cingulated gyrus, and hippocampus.

The amygdala is an important part of the brain, which assists in responses of fear and pleasure. The abnormal working of the amygdaloid body can lead to various clinical conditions including developmental delay, depression, anxiety, and autism.

A simple view of the information processing through the amygdala follows as- the amygdala sends projections to the hypothalamus, the dorsomedial thalamus, the thalamic reticular nucleus, the nuclei of the trigeminal nerve and the facial nerve, the ventral tegmental area, the locus coeruleus, and the laterodorsal tegmental nucleus. The basolateral amygdala projects to the nucleus accumbens, including the medial shell.

The amygdala is also involved in the modulation of memory consolidation. Following any learning event, the long-term memory for the event is not formed instantaneously. Rather, information regarding the event is slowly assimilated into long-term (potentially lifelong) storage over time, possibly via long-term potentiation. Recent studies suggest that the amygdala regulates memory consolidation in other brain regions. Also, fear conditioning, a type of memory that is impaired following amygdala damage, is mediated in part by long-term potentiation.

 

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The Arecibo Telescope was primarily used for research in radio astronomy, atmospheric science, and radar astronomy, as well as for programs that search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Scientists wanting to use the observatory submitted proposals that were evaluated by independent scientific referees. NASA also used the telescope for near-Earth object detection programs. The observatory, funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with partial support from NASA, was managed by Cornell University from its completion in 1963 until 2011, after which it was transferred to a partnership led by SRI International. In 2018, a consortium led by the University of Central Florida assumed operation of the facility.

Since its completion in November 1963, the Telescope had been used for radar astronomy and radio astronomy, and had been part of the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) program. It was also used by NASA for Near-Earth object detection. Since around 2006, NSF funding support for the telescope had waned as the Foundation directed funds to newer instruments, though academics petitioned to the NSF and Congress to continue support for the telescope. Numerous hurricanes, including Hurricane Maria, had damaged parts of the telescope, straining the reduced budget.

Two cable breaks, one in August 2020 and a second in November 2020, threatened the structural integrity of the support structure for the suspended platform and damaged the dish. The NSF determined in November 2020 that it was safer to decommission the telescope rather than to try to repair it, but the telescope collapsed before a controlled demolition could be carried out. The remaining support cables from one tower failed around 7:56 a.m. local time on December 1, 2020, causing the receiver platform to fall into the dish and collapsing the telescope.

In late 2020, Wanda Vázquez Garced, then governor of Puerto Rico signed an executive order for $8 million for the removal of debris and for the design of a new observatory to be built in its place. The governor stated reconstruction of the observatory is a "matter of public policy". The executive order also designated the area as a history site.

 

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The ASKAP telescope makes images of radio signals from the sky, allowing astronomers to view the Universe at wavelengths that our eyes cannot see. It is a type of radio telescope known as an ‘interferometer’. This means it uses many antennas acting together as one large telescope. In our case, ASKAP has 36 dish antennas spread out over six kilometres in outback Western Australia.

ASKAP's key feature is its wide field of view, generated by its unique chequerboard Phased Array Feed (PAF) receivers. Together with specialised digital systems, a PAF creates 36 separate (simultaneous) beams on the sky which are mosaicked together into a large single image. This gives ASKAP the ability to rapidly survey large areas of the sky – making it one of the world's fastest survey radio telescopes. ASKAP will help to answer some of the most fundamental questions of 21st century astronomy and astrophysics involving dark matter, dark energy, the nature of gravity, the origins of the first stars, the evolution of galaxies and the properties of magnetic fields in space.

ASKAP is located at CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia (WA). The MRO is about 700 kilometres north of Perth in the Murchison Shire, on the traditional lands of the Wajarri Yamaji. Situated in Mid West WA, the Shire covers an area of 49,500 square kilometers and has a population of 120 people.

This remote location is ideal for radio astronomy as there is minimal interference from Earth-based radio transmissions. In the same way that it is necessary for us to avoid city-lights when we’re looking up at the stars, radio telescopes must avoid other radio communication networks that disrupt the signals being received from space.  

 

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