Tuesday, March 20, 2008 Norooz of year 3745 (Zartoshti) year 2567 (shahanshahi) year 1387 (khorshidi) (("" Khojasteh Baad "")). Norooz (Nowruz, Nevruz, Newruz, Navruz) in Persian means "New [-year]-day". It is the beginning of the year for the peoples of Iran (Greater Iran, including: Afghanistan, Arran (Republic of Azerbaijan) and Central Asian Republics). It begins precisely with the beginning of spring on vernal equinox, on or about March 21. Tradition takes Norooz as far back as 15,000 years--before the last ice age. King Jamshid (Yima or Yama of the Indo-Iranian lore) symbolizes the transition of the Indo-Iranians from animal hunting to animal husbandry and a more settled life in human history. Seasons played a vital part then. Everything depended on the four seasons. After a sever winter, the beginning of spring was a great occasion with mother nature rising up in a green robe of colorful flowers and the cattle delivering their young. It was the dawn of abundance. Jamshid is said to be the person who introduced Norooz celebrations. Avestan and later scriptures show that Zarathushtra improved, as early as 1725 BCE., the old Indo-Iranian calendar. The prevailing calendar was luni-solar. The lunar year is of 354 days. An intercalation of one month after every thirty months kept the calendar almost in line with the seasons. Zarathushtra, the Founder of the Good Religion, himself an astronomer, founded an observatory and he reformed the calendar by introducing an eleven-day intercalary period to make it into a luni-solar year of 365 days, 5 hours and a fraction. Later the year was made solely a solar year with each month of thirty days. An intercalation of five days was, and a further addition of one day every four years, was introduced to make the year 365 days, 5 hours, and a fraction. Still later, the calendar was further corrected to be a purely solar year of 365 days 5 hr 48 min 45.5 sec. The year began precisely with the vernal equinox every time and therefore, there was no particular need of adding one day every four years and there was no need of a leap year. This was [and still is] the best and most correct calendar produced that far.

Segre Lecture in Physics - Why Are We So Excited About Carbon Nanostructures? MILDRED S. DRESSELHAUS, Institute Professor and Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering, MIT There is much current excitement about the interesting advances in science and the unusual physical properties of carbon nanostructures, particularly carbon nanotubes and graphene, which are both of great interest at the present time. A brief review will be given of the physical underpinnings of carbon nanostructures that were developed over the past 60 years, starting with the electronic structure and physical properties of graphene and graphite, and then moving to graphite intercalation compounds which contained the first carbon nanostructures to be studied experimentally. Liquid carbon studies were precursors to the fullerene family of nanostructures and vapor grown carbon fibers were precursors to carbon nanotubes. Particular emphasis is given to the recent developments in our understanding of the photophysics of carbon nanotubes and graphene, with perspectives on future research directions for these fields and applications that are emerging. http://physics.berkeley.edu/ http://mgm.mit.edu/

The Prophet's Last Sermon It was there that he, while sitting on his camel, delivered his sermon in a loud voice to his people. He began by praising God and thanking Him, and then turning to the people, he said: "O Men, listen well to my words, for I do not know whether I shall meet you again on such an occasion in the future. O Men, your lives and your property shall be inviolate until you meet your Lord. The safety of your lives and of your property shall be as inviolate as this holy day and holy month. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that He will indeed reckon your deeds. Thus do I warn you. Whoever of you is keeping a trust of someone else shall return that trust to its rightful owner. All interest obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer inequity. God has judged that there shall be no interest and that all the interest due to `Abbas ibn `Abd al Muttalib shall henceforth be waived. Every right arising out of homicide in pre-Islamic days is henceforth waived. And the first such right that I waive is that arising from the murder of Rabi'ah ibn al Harith ibn `Abd al Muttalib. O Men, the devil has lost all hope of ever being worshipped in this land of yours. Nevertheless, he still is anxious to determine the lesser of your deeds. Beware of him, therefore, for the safety of your religion. O Men, intercalation or tampering with the calendar is evidence of great unbelief and confirms the unbelievers in their misguidance. They indulge in it one year and forbid it the next in order to make permissible that which God forbade, and to forbid that which God has made permissible. The pattern according to which the time is reckoned is always the same. With God, the months are twelve in number. Four of them are holy. Three of these are successive and one occurs singly between the months of Jumada and Sha'ban. O Men, to you a right belongs with respect to your women and to your women a right with respect to you. It is your right that they not fraternize with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to commit adultery. But if they do, then God has permitted you to isolate them within their homes and to chastise them without cruelty. But if they abide by your right, then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers. Remember that you have taken them as your wives and enjoyed their flesh only under God's trust and with His permission. Reason well, therefore, O Men, and ponder my words which I now convey to you. I am leaving you with the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Prophet. If you follow them, you will never go astray. O Men, harken well to my words. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to your own selves. O God, have I conveyed Your message?" When the Prophet finished his sermon, he dismounted and waited until noon, at which time he performed both the noon and the midafternoon prayers. He then mounted his camel and proceeded to al Sakharat where he recited to the people the concluding divine revelation: "Today I have completed for you your religion, and granted you the last of my blessings. Today I have accepted for you Islam as the religion." [Qur'an, 5:4]

Imam Hakim Omar Khayyam (PBUH) Tells The TRUTH! Birth: 1048 CE Place: Nishapur, Persia (Iran) Name: Abu ol-Fath ebn-Ebrahim 'Omar ol-Khayyami of Nishapur Khayyam means "tent maker" Work: Mathematician Scientist Astronomer Philosopher Poet Major Contributions: Jalali Calendar (more accurate than the Julian, and almost as accurate as the Gregorian intercalation system) Contributions to Algebra (geometric solution of cubic equations) Astronomical tables And the Rubaiyat Death: 1123 CE Place: Nishapur, Persia (Iran) . . ***************************************** ابر آمد و باز بر سر سبزه گریست بی بادهء گلرنگ نمی باید زیست این سبزه که امروز تماشاگه ماست تا سبزهء خاک ما تماشاگه کیست ***************************************** این قافلهّ عمر عجب میگذرد در یاب دمی که با طرب میگذرد ساقی غم فردای حریفان چه خوری پیش آر پیاله را که شب میگذرد Literal: The caravan of life shall always pass Beware that is fresh as sweet young grass Let's not worry about what tomorrow will amass Fill my cup again, this night will pass, alas. Meaning: To be aware of each moment spent Is to live in the now, and be present Worry for morrow shan't make a dent Caring for the now, your mind must be bent. ***************************************** ای چرخ فلک خرابی از کینهء توست بیدادگری شیوهء دیرینهء توست ای خاک اگر سینهء تو بشکافند بس گوهر قیمتی که در سینهء توست ***************************************** . Check "Omar Khayyam" by "Edward J. Fitzgerald" For More Information. . Please, RATE, Favourite and Comment! .

Intercalation

It is the 29th day of the second month!!! A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing one or more extra days (or, in the case of lunisolar calendars, an extra month) in order to keep the calendar year synchronised with the astronomical or seasonal year. For example, in the Gregorian calendar, February would have 29 days in a leap year instead of the usual 28. Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of full days, a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. A year which is not a leap year is called a common year. February 29 is a date that occurs only every four years, and is called leap day. This day is added to the calendar in leap years as a corrective measure, because the earth does not orbit around the sun in precisely 365.000 days. The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. The Roman calendar originated as a lunisolar calendar and named many of its days after the syzygies of the moon: the new moon (Kalendae or calends, hence "calendar") and the full moon (Idus or ides). The Nonae or nones was not the first quarter moon but was exactly one nundinae or Roman market week of nine days before the ides, inclusively counting the ides as the first of those nine days. In 1825, Ideler believed that the lunisolar calendar was abandoned about 450 BC by the decemvirs, who implemented the Roman Republican calendar, used until 46 BC. The days of these calendars were counted down (inclusively) to the next named day, so 24 February was ante diem sextum Kalendas Martii ("the sixth day before the calends of March") often abbreviated a. d. VI Kal. Mar. The Romans counted days inclusively in their calendars, so this was actually the fifth day before March 1 when counted in the modern exclusive manner (not including the starting day).[4] The Republican calendar's intercalary month was inserted on the first or second day after the Terminalia (a. d. VII Kal. Mar., February 23). The remaining days of Februarius were dropped. This intercalary month, named Intercalaris or Mercedonius, contained 27 days. The religious festivals that were normally celebrated in the last five days of February were moved to the last five days of Intercalaris. Because only 22 or 23 days were effectively added, not a full lunation, the calends and ides of the Roman Republican calendar were no longer associated with the new moon and full moon. The Julian calendar, which was developed in 46 BC by Julius Caesar, and became effective in 45 BC, distributed an extra ten days among the months of the Roman Republican calendar. Caesar also replaced the intercalary month by a single intercalary day, located where the intercalary month used to be. To create the intercalary day, the existing ante diem sextum Kalendas Martii (February 24) was doubled, producing ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martii. Hence, the year containing the doubled day was a bissextile (bis sextum, "twice sixth") year. For legal purposes, the two days of the bis sextum were considered to be a single day, with the second half being intercalated, but common practice by 238, when Censorinus wrote, was that the intercalary day was followed by the last five days of February, a. d. VI, V, IV, III and pridie Kal. Mar. (which would be those days numbered 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28 from the beginning of February in a common year), i.e. the intercalated day was the first half of the doubled day. All later writers, including Macrobius about 430, Bede in 725, and other medieval computists (calculators of Easter), continued to state that the bissextum (bissextile day) occurred before the last five days of February. Until 1970, the Roman Catholic Church always celebrated the feast of Saint Matthias on a. d. VI Kal. Mar., so if the days were numbered from the beginning of the month, it was named February 24 in common years, but the presence of the bissextum in a bissextile year immediately before a. d. VI Kal. Mar. shifted the latter day to February 25 in leap years, with the Vigil of St. Matthias shifting from February 23 to the leap day of February 24. Other feasts normally falling on February 25--28 in common years are also shifted to the following day in a leap year (although they would be on the same day according to the Roman notation). The practice is still observed by those who use the older calendars. This was taken from wikipedia

Locomotore E645 alla testa di un convoglio d'agenzia per turisti tedeschi effettuato con carrozze TUI in cui sono intercalate delle carrozze letti e cuccette DB di rinforzo e carri DDm per auto al seguito.

Potassium intercalated graphite at 60 K

Marble 3 is now done don't worry about the lack of activity, time is running away from me these days... and i've recieved the other challenges you sent, i'll post them intercalated with this one...

Potassium intercalated graphite at 10 K

Modern Olympics After the initial success, the Olympics struggled. The celebrations in Paris (1900) and St. Louis (1904) were overshadowed by the World's Fair exhibitions in which they were included. The 1906 Intercalated Games (so-called because they were the second games held within the IIIrd Olympiad) were held in Athens, as the first of an alternating series of Athens-held Olympics. Although originally the IOC recognised and supported these games, they are currently not recognised by the IOC as Olympic Games, which has given rise to the explanation that they were intended to mark the 10th anniversary of the modern Olympics. The 1906 Games again attracted a broad international field of participants—in 1904, 80% had been American—and great public interest, thereby marking the beginning of a rise in popularity and size of the Games. From the 241 participants from 14 nations in 1896, the Games grew to nearly 11,100 competitors from 202 countries at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The number of competitors at the Winter Olympics is much smaller than at the Summer Games; at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin Italy, 2,633 athletes from 80 countries competed in 84 events. The Olympic Games are one of the world's largest media events. In Sydney in 2000, there were over 16,000 broadcasters and journalists, and an estimated 3.8 billion viewers watched the games on television sourse : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games

intercalate

Bleomycin is a popular DNA-reactive anticancer agent. This animation consists of three parts, 1) the first is a simple backdrop that shows DNA and the drug in the nucleus environment focusing on the areas of interest, allowing the instructor time to go over some basics such as structure characteristics of DNA and Bleomycin. 2) the second consists of Bleomycin intercalating into DNA, the bisthiazole tail inserts into the helix area and then is positioned to produce free hydroxyl radicals. 3) the final segment shows how the drug in the presence of ferric ion and oxygen undergoes a dynamic action to form extremely reactive hydroxyl radical in situ and degrade the sugar structure of DNA. This action results in loss of genetic information necessary for DNA replication in cancer cells (and some normal cells!). Created by: Kevin McConeghy Kevin McConeghy Student Technology Assistant Pharmacy Class of 2010 Dr. Bongsup Cho - URI Pharmacy ProfessorDr. Bongsup Cho Professor of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences College of Pharmacy

Non-Coating: Stress is accumulated in die surface with repetition of Heat by teeming molten Al (Expanding) and Cooling by die lubricant ( Shrinkage ) occurring Heat Cracks. Coating: Insulation effects of Intercalated minute air in slight roughness die surface ( tongued and grooved face ) by coating controls expanding and shrinking to prevent Heat Cracks occurred.

DigInfo - (http://movie.diginfo.tv) At Nanotech 2008, Nissei Bio in collaboration with Dr. Norio Nishi of Hokkaido University displayed their DNA filter which uses extracted DNA from Salmon milt to create water and air purifiers. Salmon milt is often discarded by fisheries but contains the necessary double stranded DNA used for the construction of the DNA filter. These filters are very good at reducing the amount of intercalating compounds in the air which are very dangerous when inhaled. DNA filters cut down at least twice as much harmful carcinogens as carbon filters and can be used for cigarette filters, air conditioners, air purifiers and masks. Also useful for water purification, DNA filters can reduce the dioxins and heavy metal ions in water.

Simple (and totally unrealistic) simulation of C60 fullerene intercalated with four argon atoms. The atoms are colored according to a force field gradient. The argon spheres size corresponds to van der Waals radius. Performed in real-time using Biodesigner software and GAFF force field.

Non-Coating: Underfill is occurred in product when molten Al contacts cooled die surface and cooling down to reduce liquid flow. Coating: Insulation effects of Intercalated minute air in slight roughness die surface ( tongued and grooved face ) by coating keeps liquid temperature and flow to prevent Underfill occurred.

this video shows a microfluidic chip separating double stranded DNA (phiX 174, Hae III digest). it is shown in real time. you can see an injection in a few channels, the separation and an on-column reaction with intercalating dye (sybr green) for detection reasons.