Earth's water is older than the sun: Likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar space

Date:

September 25, 2014

Source:

Carnegie Institution

Summary:

Water was crucial to the rise of life on Earth and is also important to evaluating the possibility of life on other planets. Identifying the original source of Earth's water is key to understanding how life-fostering environments come into being and how likely they are to be found elsewhere. New work found that much of our solar system's water likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar space.

 

 

Water was crucial to the rise of life on Earth and is also important to evaluating the possibility of life on other planets. Identifying the original source of Earth's water is key to understanding how life-fostering environments come into being and how likely they are to be found elsewhere. New work from a team including Carnegie's Conel Alexander found that much of our Solar System's water likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar space. Their work is published in Science.

Water is found throughout our Solar System. Not just on Earth, but on icy comets and moons, and in the shadowed basins of Mercury. Water has been found included in mineral samples from meteorites, the Moon, and Mars.
Comets and asteroids in particular, being primitive objects, provide a natural "time capsule" of the conditions during the early days of our Solar System. Their ices can tell scientists about the ice that encircled the Sun after its birth, the origin of which was an unanswered question until now.
In its youth, the Sun was surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, the so-called solar nebula, from which the planets were born. But it was unclear to researchers whether the ice in this disk originated from the Sun's own parental interstellar molecular cloud, from which it was created, or whether this interstellar water had been destroyed and was re-formed by the chemical reactions taking place in the solar nebula.
"Why this is important? If water in the early Solar System was primarily inherited as ice from interstellar space, then it is likely that similar ices, along with the prebiotic organic matter that they contain, are abundant in most or all protoplanetary disks around forming stars," Alexander explained. "But if the early Solar System's water was largely the result of local chemical processing during the Sun's birth, then it is possible that the abundance of water varies considerably in forming planetary systems, which would obviously have implications for the potential for the emergence of life elsewhere."
In studying the history of our Solar System's ices, the team -- led by L. Ilsedore Cleeves from the University of Michigan -- focused on hydrogen and its heavier isotope deuterium. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. The difference in masses between isotopes results in subtle differences in their behavior during chemical reactions. As a result, the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium in water molecules can tell scientists about the conditions under which the molecules formed.
For example, interstellar water-ice has a high ratio of deuterium to hydrogen because of the very low temperatures at which it forms. Until now, it was unknown how much of this deuterium enrichment was removed by chemical processing during the Sun's birth, or how much deuterium-rich water-ice the newborn Solar System was capable of producing on its own.
So the team created models that simulated a protoplanetary disk in which all the deuterium from space ice has already been eliminated by chemical processing, and the system has to start over "from scratch" at producing ice with deuterium in it during a million-year period. They did this in order to see if the system can reach the ratios of deuterium to hydrogen that are found in meteorite samples, Earth's ocean water, and "time capsule" comets. They found that it could not do so, which told them that at least some of the water in our own Solar System has an origin in interstellar space and pre-dates the birth of the Sun.
"Our findings show that a significant fraction of our Solar System's water, the most-fundamental ingredient to fostering life, is older than the Sun, which indicates that abundant, organic-rich interstellar ices should probably be found in all young planetary systems," Alexander said.

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Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Carnegie Institution. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Gorilla Glass

Gorilla Glass is the registered trademark for an alkali-aluminosilicate sheet toughened glass manufactured by U.S. glassmaker Corning Inc. Engineered for a combination of thinness, lightness, and damage-resistance, it is used primarily as the cover glass for portable electronic devices including mobile phones, portable media players, laptop computer displays, and some television screens.[1] It is manufactured through immersion in a molten alkaline salt bath using ion exchange to produce compressive residual stress at the surface. This prevents cracks from propagating – for a crack to start, it will first have to overcome this compressive stress.[2]

History.

Corning experimented with chemically strengthened glass in 1960, as part of a "Project Muscle" initiative. Within a few years it had developed a "muscled glass"[3] it named "Chemcor" glass. The product was used until the early 1990s in various commercial and industrial applications, including automotive, aviation and pharmaceutical uses,[3] with particular use in approximately one hundred 1968 Dodge Dart and Plymouth Barracuda racing cars, where minimizing the vehicle's weight is essential.[4] Experimentation was revived in 2005, investigating whether the glass could be made thin enough for use in consumer electronics, and was brought into commercial use when Apple asked Corning for a toughened glass that would eventually go into the iPhone.

Powerful math creates 3-D shapes from simple sketches

Date:

August 13, 2014

Source:

University of British Columbia, Faculty of Science

Summary:

A new graphics system that can easily produce complex 3-D shapes from simple professional sketches will be unveiled by computer scientists. The technology has the potential to dramatically simplify how designers and artists develop new product ideas. Converting an idea into a 3-D model using current commercial tools can be a complicated and painstaking process.

 

 

 

new graphics system that can easily produce complex 3-D shapes from simple professional sketches will be unveiled by University of British Columbia computer scientists at the SIGGRAPH 2014 Conference in Vancouver, Canada this week.

The technology has the potential to dramatically simplify how designers and artists develop new product ideas.
Converting an idea into a 3-D model using current commercial tools can be a complicated and painstaking process. UBC researchers developed True2Form, a software algorithm inspired by the work of professional designers, effectively communicating ideas through simple drawings.
"In line-drawings, designers and artists use descriptive curves and informative viewpoints to convey the full shape of an object," says Alla Sheffer, a professor in UBC's Dept. of Computer Science. "Our system mimics the results of human three-dimensional shape inference to lift a sketch curve network into 3-D, while preserving fidelity to the original sketch."
True2Form uses powerful mathematics to interpret artists' strokes automatically lifting drawings off of the page. It produces convincing, complex 3-D shapes computed from individual sketches, automatically corrected to account for inherent drawing inaccuracy.
The software is designed to render a wider range of geometric complexity than current sketch-based modelling frameworks.
Sheffer, her team from UBC, and colleagues from the University of Toronto and INRIA France will present a technical paper on True2Form on Wednesday, August 13 at the Vancouver Convention Centre as part of SIGGRAPH 2014.
 

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Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of British Columbia, Faculty of Science. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

 

'Honeybee' robots replicate swarm behavior

Date:

September 18, 2014

Source:

University of Lincoln

Summary:

Computer scientists have created a low-cost, autonomous micro-robot which in large numbers can replicate the behavior of swarming honeybees.

Computer scientists have created a low-cost, autonomous micro-robot which in large numbers can replicate the behaviour of swarming honeybees

Colias -- named after a genus of butterfly -- is an open-platform system that can be used to investigate collective behaviours and be applied to swarm applications.
Robotic swarms that take inspiration from nature have become a topic of fascination for robotics researchers, whose aim is to study the autonomous behaviour of large numbers of simple robots in order to find technological solutions to common complex tasks.
Due to the hardware complexities and cost of creating robot hardware platforms, current research in swarm robotics is mostly performed by simulation software. However, the simulation of large numbers of these robots in robotic swarm software applications is often inaccurate due to the poor modelling of external conditions.
Colias was created by a team of scientists led by the University of Lincoln, UK, with Tsinghua University in China. It has been proven to be feasible as an autonomous platform -- effectively replicating a honeybee swarm. Its small size (4cm diameter) and fast motion (35cm/s) means it can be used in fast-paced swarm scenarios over large areas.
In comparison to other mobile robots which are utilized in swarm robotic research, Colias is a low-cost platform, costing around £25, making the replication of swarm behaviour in large numbers of robots more feasible and economical for researchers.
Farshad Arvin, from the School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln, was part of the research team which developed Colias.
He said: "The platform must be able to imitate swarm behaviours found in nature, such as insects, birds and fish. Colias has been designed as a complete platform with supporting software development tools for robotics education and research. This concept allows for the coordination of simple physical robots in order to cooperatively perform tasks. The decentralised control of robotic swarms can be achieved by providing well-defined interaction rules for each individual robot. Colias has been used in a bio-inspired scenario, showing that it is extremely responsive to being used to investigate collective behaviours. Our aim was to imitate the bio-inspired mechanisms of swarm robots and to enable all research groups, even with limited funding, to perform such research with real robots."
Long-range infrared proximity sensors allow the robot to communicate with its direct neighbours at a range of 0.5cm to 2m. A combination of three short-range sensors and an independent processor enables the individual robots to detect obstacles.
A similar but more complex mechanism has been found in locust vision, where a specific neuron called the 'lobula giant movement detector' reacts to objects approaching the insects' eyes.
Co-author Professor Shigang Yue, also from Lincoln's School of Computer Science, previously created a computerised system which supports the autonomous navigation of mobile robots based on the locust's unique visual system.
This earlier research, published in the International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems (2013), could provide the blueprint for the development of highly accurate vehicle collision sensors, surveillance technology and even aid video game programming.
The next step for the Colias research team is to work on an extension of the vision module using a faster computer processor to implement bio-inspired vision mechanisms.
Full details of their research have been published in the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems.
The work is supported by the European Union's FP7 project EYE2E, which aims to build international capacity and cooperation in the field of biologically inspired visual neural systems.

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Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of Lincoln. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

10 Most Beautiful Villages in Europe

 

 

From the Alps to the Mediterranean, these frozen-in-time European villages will make you appreciate the beauty of taking it slow. Reaching some of these European beauties requires extra effort, yet the rewards are dazzling. Your eyes will thank you.

Hallstatt, Austria

The storybook town of Hallstatt in central Austria enjoys a gorgeous setting on the bank of the Hallstätter See, between the pristine lake and a lush mountain that rises dramatically from the water’s edge. A history of salt mining dating back thousands of years has translated into enduring prosperity for the town, which is most evident in the beautiful square ringed with ivy-covered buildings.

 

Manarola, Italy

Manarola is a small town, a frazione of the comune (municipality) of Riomaggiore, in the province of La Spezia, Liguria, northern Italy. It is the second smallest of the famous Cinque Terre towns frequented by tourists.

 

Bibury, England

The hilly Cotswold region is a designated “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty” in southwestern England, and one of its loveliest villages is Bibury, where verdant meadows abut ancient stone cottages with steep pitched roofs. The River Coln, which bisects the village, teems with trout, but the most scenic area is Arlington Row, a lane of sepia-hued cottages built in the 17th century to house weavers from the nearby Arlington Mill.

Colmar, France

French and German influences commingle in this well-preserved Alsatian village, where local bakeries sell both croissants and kugelhopf, and restaurants specialize in foie gras and sauerkraut (or choucroute). A range of architectural styles, from German Gothic to French Neo-Baroque, can be spotted in the old town, which was spared destruction during World War II—thanks in part to the historical beauty of its cobblestoned lanes, quiet canals, and half-timbered houses.

Reine, Norway

North of the Arctic Circle, Reine is a pretty fishing village in the Lofoten archipelago, an area of starkly beautiful Nordic wilderness, where sapphire bays punctuate fjords and mountains. Many of the bright red fishermen’s cabins (called rorbuer) have been converted into comfortable cottages for visitors that offer direct access to the Norwegian Sea. Settle in for a front-row view of the night sky and its mesmerizing entertainment, from summer’s midnight sun to winter’s northern lights.

Pučiśća, Croatia

The buses and cruises that stop along Croatia’s sunny Dalmatian coast unleash tourists eager to experience the charms of Dubrovnik and the ancient island village of Hvar. Fewer visitors find their way to Pučiśća on the island of Brač. The reward is a seaside village with outsize appeal: white-stone villas with terracotta roofs, narrow cobblestoned alleys, and a stone-paved square. Bask in its relative solitude and the many prime spots for swimming in the turquoise Adriatic Sea.

Telč, Czech Republic

Residents of Telč, a small town in south Moravia, were once quite competitive about the beauty of their homes, as is evident today on the elongated main square, where one building is lovelier than the next. The Baroque- and Renaissance-style façades, featuring high gables painted in pale pastels, now support small shops and cafés. A grand Renaissance-era château and large fish-filled ponds surround the square.

Cong, Ireland

Encircled by streams, the picturesque village of Cong straddles the border between County Mayo and Galway—a region of lakes and vibrantly green meadows dotted with grazing sheep. Cong counts numerous stone bridges, the ruins of a medieval abbey, the occasional thatched-roof cottage, and Ashford Castle, a grand Victorian estate that has been converted into a romantic luxury hotel.

Gruyères, Switzerland

Gruyères is famous for its namesake cheese, whose mild, nutty flavor melts so well in fondue. But few are familiar with the town itself, a medieval hamlet in the upper valley of the Saane River in western Switzerland. A wide, stone-paved street leads up to the magnificent 13th-century Gruyères Castle, with its imposing fortifications and expansive views of the surrounding Alpine foothills.

Bled, Slovenia

This small Alpine town in northwestern Slovenia rings the shore of Lake Bled, whose glacial blue waters surround a tiny island and its small Baroque church. After a two-hour stroll around the lake, hike to the medieval hilltop castle for panoramic views or recharge with a slice of the local specialty: kremšnita, a sugar-topped pastry filled with cream and custard that has been served for decades at the Hotel Park.

Hints of gravitational waves in the stars

Date:

September 22, 2014

Source:

American Museum of Natural History

Summary:

Scientists have shown how gravitational waves -- invisible ripples in the fabric of space and time that propagate through the universe -- might be 'seen' by looking at the stars. The new model proposes that a star that oscillates at the same frequency as a gravitational wave will absorb energy from that wave and brighten, an overlooked prediction of Einstein's 1916 theory of general relativity. The study contradicts previous assumptions about the behavior of gravitational waves.

Scientists have shown how gravitational waves -- invisible ripples in the fabric of space and time that propagate through the universe -- might be "seen" by looking at the stars. The new model proposes that a star that oscillates at the same frequency as a gravitational wave will absorb energy from that wave and brighten, an overlooked prediction of Einstein's 1916 theory of general relativity. The study, which was published today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, contradicts previous assumptions about the behavior of gravitational waves.

"It's pretty cool that a hundred years after Einstein proposed this theory, we're still finding hidden gems," said Barry McKernan, a research associate in the Museum's Department of Astrophysics, who is also a professor at CUNY's Borough of Manhattan Community College; a faculty member at CUNY's Graduate Center; and a Kavli Scholar at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Gravitational waves can be thought of like the sound waves emitted after an earthquake, but the source of the "tremors" in space are energetic events like supernovae (exploding stars), binary neutron stars (pairs of burned-out cores left behind when stars explode), or the mergers of black holes and neutron stars. Although scientists have long known about the existence of gravitational waves, they've never made direct observations but are attempting to do so through experiments on the ground and in space. Part of the reason why detection is difficult is because the waves interact so weakly with matter. But McKernan and his colleagues from CUNY, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Institute for Advanced Study, and Columbia University, suggest that gravitational waves could have more of an effect on matter than previously thought.
The new model shows that stars with oscillations -- vibrations -- that match the frequency of gravitational waves passing through them can resonate and absorb a large amount of energy from the ripples.
"It's like if you have a spring that's vibrating at a particular frequency and you hit it at the same frequency, you'll make the oscillation stronger," McKernan said. "The same thing applies with gravitational waves."
If these stars absorb a large pulse of energy, they can be "pumped up" temporarily and made brighter than normal while they discharge the energy over time. This could provide scientists with another way to detect gravitational waves indirectly.
"You can think of stars as bars on a xylophone -- they all have a different natural oscillation frequency," said co-author Saavik Ford, who is a research associate in the Museum's Department of Astrophysics as well as a professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY; a faculty member at CUNY's Graduate Center; and a Kavli Scholar at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. "If you have two black holes merging with each other and emitting gravitational waves at a certain frequency, you're only going to hit one of the bars on the xylophone at a time. But because the black holes decay as they come closer together, the frequency of the gravitational waves changes and you'll hit a sequence of notes. So you'll likely see the big stars lighting up first followed by smaller and smaller ones."
The work also presents a different way to indirectly detect gravitational waves. From the perspective of a gravitational wave detector on Earth or in space, when a star at the right frequency passes in front of an energetic source such as merging black holes, the detector will see a drop in the intensity of gravitational waves measured. In other words, stars -- including our own Sun -- can eclipse background sources of gravitational waves.
"You usually think of stars as being eclipsed by something, not the other way around," McKernan said.
The researchers will continue to study these predictions and try to determine how long it would take to observe these effects from a telescope or detector.

Amazing macro-photography of individual snowflakes

snowflakes on the open balcony of my house, mostly on glass surface, lighted by an LED flashlight from the opposite side of the glass, and sometimes in natural light, using dark woolen fabrics as background."



 

Solar system also shows signs of windy weather

Date:

September 22, 2014

Source:

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Summary:

Astronomers have observed what may be the first-ever signs of windy weather around a T Tauri star, an infant analog of our own Sun. This may help explain why some T Tauri stars have disks that glow weirdly in infrared light while others shine in a more expected fashion.

 

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have observed what may be the first-ever signs of windy weather around a T Tauri star, an infant analog of our own Sun. This may help explain why some T Tauri stars have disks that glow weirdly in infrared light while others shine in a more expected fashion.

 

T Tauri stars are the infant versions of stars like our Sun. They are relatively normal, medium-size stars that are surrounded by the raw materials to build both rocky and gaseous planets. Though nearly invisible in optical light, these disks shine in both infrared and millimeter-wavelength light.

 

"The material in the disk of a T Tauri star usually, but not always, emits infrared radiation with a predictable energy distribution," said Colette Salyk, an astronomer with the National Optical Astronomical Observatory (NOAO) in Tucson, Ariz., and lead author on a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal. "Some T Tauri stars, however, like to act up by emitting infrared radiation in unexpected ways."

 

To account for the different infrared signature around such similar stars, astronomers propose that winds may be emanating from within some T Tauri stars' protoplanetary disks. These winds could have important implications for planet formation, potentially robbing the disk of some of the gas required for the formation of giant Jupiter-like planets, or stirring up the disk and causing the building blocks of planets to change location entirely. These winds have been predicted by astronomers, but have never been clearly detected.

 

Using ALMA, Salyk and her colleagues looked for evidence of a possible wind in AS 205 N -- a T Tauri star located 407 light-years away at the edge of a star-forming region in the constellation Ophiuchus, the Snake Bearer. This star seems to exhibit the strange infrared signature that has intrigued astronomers.

 

With ALMA's exceptional resolution and sensitivity, the researchers were able to study the distribution of carbon monoxide around the star. Carbon monoxide is an excellent tracer for the molecular gas that makes up stars and their planet-forming disks. These studies confirmed that there was indeed gas leaving the disk's surface, as would be expected if a wind were present. The properties of the wind, however, did not exactly match expectations.

 

This difference between observations and expectations could be due to the fact that AS 205 N is actually part of a multiple star system -- with a companion, dubbed AS 205 S, that is itself a binary star.

 

This multiple star arrangement may suggest that the gas is leaving the disk's surface because it's being pulled away by the binary companion star rather than ejected by a wind.

 

"We are hoping these new ALMA observations help us better understand winds, but they have also left us with a new mystery," said Salyk. "Are we seeing winds, or interactions with the companion star?"

 

The study's authors are not pessimistic, however. They plan to continue their research with more ALMA observations, targeting other unusual T Tauri stars, with and without companions, to see whether they show these same features.

 

T Tauri stars are named after their prototype star, discovered in 1852 -- the third star in the constellation Taurus whose brightness was found to vary erratically. At one point, some 4.5 billion years ago, our Sun was a T Tauri star.

Computers 1,000 times faster? Quick-change materials break silicon speed limit for computers

Source:

 

University of Cambridge

Summary:

Faster, smaller, greener computers, capable of processing information up to 1,000 times faster than currently available models, could be made possible by replacing silicon with materials that can switch back and forth between different electrical states.

 

 

 

 

 

Faster, smaller, greener computers, capable of processing information up to 1,000 times faster than currently available models, could be made possible by replacing silicon with materials that can switch back and forth between different electrical states.

The present size and speed limitations of computer processors and memory could be overcome by replacing silicon with 'phase-change materials' (PCMs), which are capable of reversibly switching between two structural phases with different electrical states -- one crystalline and conducting and the other glassy and insulating -- in billionths of a second.

Modelling and tests of PCM-based devices have shown that logic-processing operations can be performed in non-volatile memory cells using particular combinations of ultra-short voltage pulses, which is not possible with silicon-based devices.

In these new devices, logic operations and memory are co-located, rather than separated, as they are in silicon-based computers. These materials could eventually enable processing speeds between 500 and 1,000 times faster than the current average laptop computer, while using less energy. The results are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The processors, designed by researchers from the University of Cambridge, the Singapore A*STAR Data-Storage Institute and the Singapore University of Technology and Design, use a type of PCM based on a chalcogenide glass, which can be melted and recrystallized in as little as half a nanosecond (billionth of a second) using appropriate voltage pulses.

The calculations performed by most computers, mobile phones and tablets are carried out by silicon-based logic devices. The solid-state memory used to store the results of such calculations is also silicon-based. "However, as demand for faster computers continues to increase, we are rapidly reaching the limits of silicon's capabilities," said Professor Stephen Elliott of Cambridge's Department of Chemistry, who led the research.

The primary method of increasing the power of computers has previously been to increase the number of logic devices which they contain by progressively reducing the size of the devices, but physical limitations for current device architectures mean that this is quickly becoming nearly impossible to continue.

Currently, the smallest logic and memory devices based on silicon are about 20 nanometres in size -- approximately 4000 times thinner than a human hair -- and are constructed in layers. As the devices are made ever smaller in order to increase their numbers on a chip, eventually the gaps between the layers will get so small that electrons which are stored in certain regions of flash non-volatile memory devices will be able to tunnel out of the device, resulting in data loss. PCM devices can overcome this size-scaling limit since they have been shown to function down to about two nanometres.

An alternative for increasing processing speed without increasing the number of logic devices is to increase the number of calculations which each device can perform, which is not possible using silicon, but the researchers have demonstrated that multiple calculations are possible for PCM logic/memory devices.

First developed in the 1960s, PCMs were originally used in optical-memory devices, such as re-writable DVDs. Now, they are starting to be used for electronic-memory applications and are beginning to replace silicon-based flash memory in some makes of smartphones.

The PCM devices recently demonstrated to perform in-memory logic do have shortcomings: currently, they do not perform calculations at the same speeds as silicon, and they exhibit a lack of stability in the starting amorphous phase.

However, the Cambridge and Singapore researchers found that, by performing the logic-operation process in reverse -- starting from the crystalline phase and then melting the PCMs in the cells to perform the logic operations -- the materials are both much more stable and capable of performing operations much faster.

The intrinsic switching, or crystallization, speed of existing PCMs is about ten nanoseconds, making them suitable for replacing flash memory. By increasing speeds even further, to less than one nanosecond (as demonstrated by the Cambridge and Singapore researchers in 2012), they could one day replace computer dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), which needs to be continually refreshed, by a non-volatile PCM replacement.

In a silicon-based system, information is shuffled around, costing both time and energy. "Ideally, we'd like information to be both generated and stored in the same place," said Dr Desmond Loke of the Singapore University of Technology and Design, the paper's lead author. "Silicon is transient: the information is generated, passes through and has to be stored somewhere else. But using PCM logic devices, the information stays in the place where it is generated."

"Eventually, what we really want to do is to replace both DRAM and logic processors in computers by new PCM-based non-volatile devices," said Professor Elliott. "But for that, we need switching speeds approaching one nanosecond. Currently, refreshing of DRAM leaks a huge amount of energy globally, which is costly, both financially and environmentally. Faster PCM switching times would greatly reduce this, resulting in computers which are not just faster, but also much 'greener'."

The 15 Craziest Things In Nature You Won’t Believe Actually Exist

Mother Nature is beautiful and amazing because we can see many amazing stuff like these 15 things that you won’t believe they actually exist. All these places are real. It is hard to believe in that, but that is true.

1. Volcanic lightning aka “dirty thunderstorms.”

2. Frozen air bubbles in Abraham Lake.

3. Underground natural springs in Mexico.

4. Giant crystal cave in Nacia, Mexico.

5. Shimmering shores of Vaadhoo, Maldives.

6. Reflective salt flats in Bolivia.

7. Light pillars over Moscow.

8. Natural salt water fountain off the coast of Oregon.

9. Beautiful sandstone formations in Arizona.

10. Rainbow Eucalyptus trees in Kailua, Hawaii.

11. The Blood Falls in Antartica.

12. Spiderweb cocooned trees in Pakistan.

13. Giant clouds over Beijing.

14.  The underwater forest of Lake Kaindy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15. Lake Hillier, Australia

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Mac stands for and its origin

  

 

1. mac

   mak/

   noun

   Britishinformal

   noun: mac; plural noun: macs; noun: mack; plural noun: macks

   1. a mackintosh.

   Origin

   early 20th century: abbreviation.

   Mac¹

   mak/

   noun

   trademark

   noun: Mac; plural noun: Macs

   1. a type of personal computer.

   Origin

   

   1980s: from Macintosh, the brand name of a range of computers manufactured by Apple Inc.; the range was named after a variety of dessert apple (see McIntosh).

   Mac²

   mak/

   noun

   North Americaninformal

   noun: Mac

   1. a form of address for a man whose name is unknown to the speaker.

      "haven't seen you for a while, Mac"

   Origin

   

   early 17th century (originally a form of address to a Scotsman): from Mac-, a patronymic prefix in many Scots and Irish surnames.

   Use over time for: mac

   

What is Android

android

ˈandrɔɪd/

noun

noun: android; plural noun: androids; noun: Android

1. 1.

   (in science fiction) a robot with a human appearance.

   "there were no android security guards to stop him"
2. 2.

   trademark

   an open-source operating system used for smartphones and tablet computers.

   "I have an Android phone and I like it a lot"

Origin

early 18th century: from modern Latin androides, from andro- + -oid.

Use over time for: android