Ancient Remains †Fossil DNA of Former Life

Ancient Remains – Fossil DNA of Former Life News that scientists had recovered actual marrow from a dinosaur fossil aroused much amazement. But the achievement is not a surprise. In fact, it doesnt even set a new record for the oldest pieces of life. Most of us think of fossils as dead things that have been petrified, turned to stone. But that doesnt have to be. The actual bodies of once-living things can escape being petrified for a very long time under the right conditions. A fossil is defined as any evidence of life from the prehistoric or geologic past that is preserved in the Earths crust. A prejudice against preservation may have kept scientists from looking for meat in the ancient bones, but now we know better, and a race is on to find ever-older tissues. Creatures in Ice Ãâ€"tzi, the 5,000-year-old ice man found in an Alpine glacier in 1991, is the best-known example of a frozen fossil. Mammoths and other extinct polar animals are also known from permafrost. These fossils are not as pretty as the food in your freezer, as they undergo a kind of slow mummification in the frozen condition. Its a geologic version of freezer burn in which ice migrates out of the tissues into the surroundings. Frozen bison bones nearly 60,000 years old were analyzed in 2002, yielding DNA fragments and bone proteins that could be compared to existing species. Mammoth hair turns out to be even better than bones for preserving DNA. But Antarctica holds the record in this field, with microbes in deep ice that are 8 million years old. Dried Remains The desert preserves dead matter by desiccation. Ancient humans have been naturally mummified this way, such as the 9,000-year-old Nevadan known as Spirit Cave Man. Older material is preserved by various desert packrats, which have the habit of making piles of plant matter cemented into rock-hard bricks by their viscous urine. When preserved in dry caves, these packrat middens can last tens of thousands of years. The beauty of packrat middens is that they can yield deep environmental data about the American West during the late Pleistocene: vegetation, climate, even the cosmic radiation of the times. Similar middens are being studied in other parts of the world. Even the remains of extinct creatures still exist in dried form. Mammoths are most famous for their permafrost carcasses, but mammoth dung is known from desiccated specimens. Amber Of course Jurassic Park put amber in the public consciousness with its plot based on the idea of retrieving dinosaur DNA from blood-sucking insects trapped in amber. But progress toward that movies scenario is slow and possibly stopped. Lots of different creatures are documented from amber, from frogs and insects to bits of plants. But the published DNA retrievals have not yet been duplicated. Perfect Fossils In a few places plant matter has been preserved in sediment for many millions of years. The Clarkia beds of northern Idaho are between 15 and 20 million years old, putting their origin in the Miocene Epoch. Tree leaves can be split from these rocks still displaying their seasonal colors, green or red. Biochemicals including lignins, flavonoids,  and aliphatic polymers can be extracted from these fossils, and DNA fragments are known from fossil liquidambar, magnolias and tulip trees (Liriodendron). The current champions in this field are the Eocene dawn-redwood forests of Axel Heiberg Island, in the Canadian Arctic. For about 50 million years the stumps, logs, and foliage of these trees have been preserved almost totally unmineralized, thanks to swift burial in conditions that kept oxygen out. Today this fossil wood lies on the ground, ready to pick up and burn. Tourists and coal miners alike threaten this scientific treasure. Dinosaur Marrow Mary Schweitzer, the North Carolina State University professor who documented soft tissues  in Tyrannosaurus rex leg bones, has been exploring biomolecules in ancient fossils for several years. The presence of those in the 68-million-year-old bones was not the oldest of her finds, but actual tissues of this age are unprecedented. The discovery challenges our notions of how fossils form. Surely more examples will be found, perhaps in existing museum specimens. Salt Microbes A startling Nature paper in 2000 reported the revival of bacterial spores from a brine pocket in a salt crystal in a Permian salt bed in New Mexico, some 250 million years old. Naturally, the claim brought criticism: the laboratory or the salt bed was contaminated, and in any case, the DNA of the microbes (the genus Virgibacillus) was too close a match to more recent species. But the discoverers have defended their technique and raised other ​​scenarios  for the DNA evidence. And in the April 2005 Geology they published evidence from the salt itself, showing that it (1) matches what we know of Permian seawater and (2) appears to date from the time of the salts formation, not a later event. For now, this bacillus holds the title of Earths oldest living fossil.

The Portrayal of Women In The Arabian Nights

The Portrayal of Women In The Arabian Nights Free Online Research Papers The women in Haddawy’s translation of The Arabian Nights are portrayed as lesser beings on one hand but as princesses on another. Much in the same way as women are treated in the modern day Islamic world. Women are treated as second-class citizens by most of the men in the stories, whereas; if the women do not act according to the men’s wishes they are killed, transformed into other beings or just discarded. In the story of King Shahrayar and Shahzaman, when Shahzaman while preparing to leave his country to visit his brother, finds that his wife â€Å"lying in the arms of one of the kitchen boys†¦his world turned black†. (Haddawy 6) He at once confronts his wife and states, â€Å"No. Women are not to be trusted† (6) at which time he pulls out his sword and kills both his wife and her lover. â€Å"Then he dragged them by the heels and threw them from the top of the palace to the trench below† (6), as if they were trash. Once Shahzaman arrived at his brother’s palace, King Shahrayar welcomed him with open arms and set him up in the guesthouse. Shahrazah was quite embarrassed by what had happened with his wife’s infidelity and felt that he could not express what had happened to him to his brother because he was the King and should not have been betrayed in such a manner. One day while Shahzaman was left behind at the palace he noticed his brother’s wife and his concubines in the garden having sex with slaves. Shahzaman is relieved that this betrayal has not only happened to him but to his brother, the King. Shahzaman, is troubled with what he has seen and under orders from his brother reveals to him what has happened with his wife. King Shahrayar is bothered by the actions of his brother’s wife and praises his brother for killing her, â€Å"Brother, you were fortunate in killing your wife and her lover, who gave you good reason to feel troubled, careworn, and ill† (9). He then goes on to say that if that were to happen to him, â€Å"I would have killed at least a hundred or even a thousand women † (9). But the King was not satisfied with the confession from his brother and demands to know what has changed Shahzaman’s demeanor since the King’s return. Shahzaman is forced to tell his brother, the King what he has witnessed with the King’s own wife and concubines. The form a plot to make the King’s wife believe that they will be leaving the palace for a few days, so that the King can witness this betrayal with his own eyes. Once King Shahrayar and Shahzaman witness this betrayal, they cannot bear to be near any women and decide to venture out on their own. While on their venture they come across a demon whom has his wife locked in a chest that he keeps under the sea. When the demon emerges from the sea to take a nap, his wife finds me to have sex with her. She encounters King Shahrayar and King Shahzaman who are terrified and hiding in a tree and orders them down from the tree to have sex with her. They plead with her to give them a reprieve but she threatens them with awaking her husband, the demon. They oblige her wishes and once they are finished she then orders them to hand over their rings to her, which she puts into a bag that contains 98 other men’s rings. In discussing this encounter with the demon’s wife they conclude that if this woman, who â€Å"is imprisoned in a glass chest, locked her up with four locks and kept in the middle of the sea†(14) cannot be trusted to be faithful than no woman can be trusted. They decide to return to their â€Å"kingdoms and cities, never to marry a woman again† (14). King Shahrayar decides that he is going to sleep with one woman each night and then have her put to death the following morning, therefore preventing himself from being betrayed by another woman. The women in The Arabian Nights are treated as princesses as long as they are young girls or as adults they behave according to their â€Å"masters† wishes. As soon as they betray the wishes of their male counterparts they are disposed of. Research Papers on The Portrayal of Women In The Arabian NightsComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoCanaanite Influence on the Early Israelite ReligionBringing Democracy to AfricaBook Review on The Autobiography of Malcolm XThe Fifth Horseman19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraHonest Iagos Truth through DeceptionHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows EssayAssess the importance of Nationalism 1815-1850 EuropeCapital Punishment

Music appreciation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Music appreciation - Essay Example After that, the musicians came out on the stage and sat down in their assigned positions. Then they started doing some practice moves on their instruments. The concert started once most of the attendees had taken their seats. This concert was divided in three parts, with two breaks in it. The show was really long as it ran for two hours. As the show started, the concert master Martine Verhoeven came out and sat down in her chair. Then, Fang-Ning Lim, the conductor of the overture to â€Å"LaCenerentola,† entered the stage and stood in front of the orchestra. The overture music was very lively, and the violin was performed beautifully. It made people feel relaxed and happy. I feel that violin sounds better when accompanied by piano, than when it is played solo. In the concert, the range of the piano was high. It was euphonious. The piano player was amazing. It felt as if she was the leader of those violin players. Also, the piano performance was like an interlude. In the hall, I saw my instructor James Martin, who was the conductor of the following music show, and Nora Chiang Worbel, the pianist for the concerto. I loved to see my instructor there. He is nice and a handsome man. Then the â€Å" Concerto No. 24 in a minor, K. 491,†which is written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, started. I really like the song written by Mozart as I used to play it on the piano when I was young. This music touches me deeply, not only because of the voice, but also because of the feeling that it brings. It makes me feel peaceful and tranquil. The melody brings great bliss to me. The music took me to a different level of happiness. It made me forget everything around me and my usual mental state of flux disappeared, till the time the music was playing. After that, there was an intermission. After the intermission, â€Å"Symphony no. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 97,† made by Robert Schumann, was played. There are many different movements in this