1.
1862 in paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of fossils, tracks, burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces, palynomorphs. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science and this article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1862
2.
1865 in paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of fossils, tracks, burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces, palynomorphs. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science and this article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1865
3.
1875 in paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of fossils, tracks, burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces, palynomorphs. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science and this article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1875. Birth of Friedrich von Huene, the well known German paleontologist
4.
1877 in paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of fossils, tracks, burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces, palynomorphs. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science and this article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1877. O. W. Lucas collected the first remains of what would later in the year be named Laelaps trihedrodon from Quarry I of the Saurian Hill at Garden Park, Colorado. Edward Drinker Cope would describe the later in the year in a short paper titled On a carnivorous dinosaurian from the Dakota beds of Colorado. The Dakota beds he references are actually Morrison Formation strata, all of the preceding material has since been lost to science with the exception of 5 broken, partial tooth crowns. Cope concludes the paper with a criticism of his rival O. C. Marshs attempt to rename the Laelaps genus Dryptosaurus because the generic name Laelaps has been used in entomology, however, subsequent researchers have supported Marshs new name. Apatosaurus specimen found with preserved gastroliths,1877 in science Cannon, G. L. Sauropodan gastroliths. On the type and referred material of Laelaps trihedrodon Cope 1877, in Tanke, Darren, and Carpenter, Kenneth. Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, cS1 maint, Uses editors parameter Cope, E. D. On a carnivorous dinosaurian from the Dakota beds of Colorado, sanders F, Manley K, Carpenter K. Gastroliths from the Lower Cretaceous sauropod Cedarosaurus weiskopfae. In, Tanke D. H, Carpenter K, editors, mesozoic vertebrate life, new research inspired by the paleontology of Philip J. Currie. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN,2001
5.
1878 in paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of fossils, tracks, burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces, palynomorphs. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science and this article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1878. O. W. Lucas recovers more material which would be referred to Laelaps trihedrodon from Morrison Formation strata near Garden Park, on the type and referred material of Laelaps trihedrodon Cope 1877. In Tanke, Darren, and Carpenter, Kenneth, bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press
6.
1867 in science
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The year 1867 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below. April – First clear recorded use of the science in English with todays usage as restricted to the natural and physical sciences. Gorse naturalises in New Zealand and soon becomes the worst invasive weed, swiss botanist Simon Schwendener proposes his dual theory of lichens. Rosa La France, the first hybrid tea rose, is cultivated by Jean-Baptiste Guillot, the Big Trees Ranch at Felton, California, is bought by San Francisco businessman Joseph Warren Welch to preserve the giant redwoods from logging. Publication of the first volume of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, at Fountain Point, Michigan, an artesian water spring begins to gush continuously. Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel established in the United States under the directorship of Clarence King, English mathematician Rev. William Allen Whitworth publishes the first edition of his Choice and Chance, An Elementary Treatise on Permutations, Combinations, and Probability. March 16 – First publication of an article by Joseph Lister outlining the discovery of antiseptic surgery, july 17 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established as the first dental school in the United States. Yellow fever kills 3093 in New Orleans, henry Maudsley publishes The Physiology and Pathology of Mind. It will be renamed after its designer, John A. Roebling, february 17 – The first ship passes through the Suez Canal. July 2 – First elevated railroad in the United States begins service in New York, december 14 – Spanish inventor Narcís Monturiol submerges his submarine Ictineo II at Barcelona, demonstrating its chemically-fired anaerobic steam propulsion system. Pierre Michaux invents the front wheel-driven velocipede, the first mass-produced bicycle, copley Medal, Karl Ernst von Baer Wollaston Medal, George Poulett Scrope January 11 – Edward B. January 22 – Gisela Januszewska, Moravian-born public health physician, april 16 – Wilbur Wright, American pioneer aviator. June 11 – Charles Fabry, French optical physicist, october 21 – Aldred Scott Warthin, American cancer geneticist. November 7 – Maria Skłodowska, later Marie Curie, Polish-born physicist, november 26 – Emil von Dungern, German serologist. December 1 – Ignacy Mościcki, chemist and President of Poland, december 26 – John Bradfield, Australian civil engineer. January 16 – William Marsden, English surgeon, february 9 – Filippo de Filippi, Italian zoologist. March 27 – Prideaux John Selby, English ornithologist, may 29 – Margaretta Morris, American entomologist. August 25 – Michael Faraday, English chemist and physicist
7.
1869 in science
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The year 1869 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. November 4 – The first issue of scientific journal Nature is published in London, march 6 – Dmitri Mendeleev makes a formal presentation of his periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents celluloid, in Albany, hippolyte Mège-Mouriès patents margarine in France as a beef tallow and skimmed milk substitute for butter. Publication of Adolphe Wurtzs Dictionnaire de chimie pure et appliquée begins in Paris, april 6 – The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York. Paul Langerhans discovers the pancreatic islets, friedrich Miescher discovers deoxyribonucleic acid in the pus of discarded surgical bandages. Found in the nuclei of cells, Miescher names it nuclein, alfred Russel Wallace publishes The Malay Archipelago. W. Stanley Jevons publishes The Substitution of Similars and has a Logic Piano constructed to work out problems in symbolic logic. Copley Medal, Henri Victor Regnault Wollaston Medal for Geology, Henry Clifton Sorby February 14 – C. T. R. Wilson, april 8 – Harvey Cushing, American neurosurgeon. July 18 – Maria von Linden, German bacteriologist and zoologist, august 23 – Robert Gunther, English historian of science. October 3 – Robert W. Paul, English pioneer of cinematography, december 16 – Bertha Lamme, American electrical engineer. Helen Boyle, British physician and psychologist, july 22 – John A. Roebling, German American bridge engineer. September 11 – Thomas Graham, Scottish chemist
8.
1869 in architecture
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The year 1869 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings. Construction of Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, designed by Christian Jank, is begun, february 3 - Booths Theatre, New York City, United States. May 12 - Chapel of St Johns College, Cambridge, England, designed by George Gilbert Scott, june - Yasukuni Shrine, Tokyo, Japan. November 6 - Blackfriars Bridge, London, England, november 17 - The modern Suez Canal. The Rotes Rathaus in Berlin, Germany, the Strangeways Prison in Manchester, England. Royal Gold Medal - Karl Richard Lepsius, grand Prix de Rome, architecture, Ferdinand Dutert
9.
1869 in music
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This article is about music-related events in 1869. February 28 - The premiere of Brahms Rinaldo took place in Vienna at a concert of the Akademischer Gesangverein, the composer conducted, with the tenor Gustav Walter, a student chorus numbering 300, and the Court Opera orchestra. April 3 – Edvard Griegs Piano Concerto is premiered at Copenhagens Casino, may 25 – The Vienna State Opera is inaugurated with a performance of Mozarts Don Giovanni. September 22 – Richard Wagners opera Das Rheingold debuts at the Königlich Hof- und Nationaltheater in Munich, approximate date – Start of golden age of flamenco. Tchaikovsky completes the initial version of Romeo and Juliet and it will be revised the next year and in 1880. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Six romances, Op
10.
Paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms evolution and interactions with each other, paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuviers work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term itself originates from Greek παλαιός, palaios, i. e. old, ancient, ὄν, on, i. e. being, creature and λόγος, logos, i. e. speech, thought, study. Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics. The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics, molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. The simplest definition is the study of ancient life, paleontology is one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology, geology, astronomy, cosmology, philology and history itself. This means that it aims to describe phenomena of the past, hence it has three main elements, description of the phenomena, developing a general theory about the causes of various types of change, and applying those theories to specific facts. Sometimes the smoking gun is discovered by an accident during other research. Paleontology lies on the boundary between biology and geology since paleontology focuses on the record of past life but its source of evidence is fossils. In addition paleontology often uses techniques derived from other sciences, including biology, osteology, ecology, chemistry, techniques developed in engineering have been used to analyse how ancient organisms might have worked, for example how fast Tyrannosaurus could move and how powerful its bite was. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised subdivisions, vertebrate paleontology concentrates on fossils of vertebrates, from the earliest fish to the immediate ancestors of modern mammals. Invertebrate paleontology deals with fossils of such as molluscs, arthropods. Paleobotany focuses on the study of plants, but traditionally includes the study of fossil algae. Palynology, the study of pollen and spores produced by plants and protists. Micropaleontology deals with all microscopic fossil organisms, regardless of the group to which they belong, one example is the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria, which hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems. This also caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere, together, these were a prerequisite for the evolution of the most complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular organisms are built
11.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
12.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
13.
Organism
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In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system, such as an animal, plant, fungus, protist, archaeon, or bacterium. All known types of organisms are capable of some degree of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development and homeostasis. An organism consists of one or more cells, when it has one cell it is known as an organism. Most unicellular organisms are of microscopic scale and are thus described as microorganisms. Humans are multicellular organisms composed of trillions of cells grouped into specialized tissues. An organism may be either a prokaryote or a eukaryote, prokaryotes are represented by two separate domains—bacteria and archaea. Eukaryotic organisms are characterized by the presence of a cell nucleus. Fungi, animals and plants are examples of kingdoms of organisms within the eukaryotes, estimates on the number of Earths current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which only about 1.2 million have been documented. More than 99% of all species, amounting to five billion species. In 2016, a set of 355 genes from the last universal ancestor of all living organisms living was identified. The term organism first appeared in the English language in 1703 and it is directly related to the term organization. There is a tradition of defining organisms as self-organizing beings. An organism may be defined as an assembly of molecules functioning as a more or less stable whole that exhibits the properties of life. Dictionary definitions can be broad, using such as any living structure, such as a plant, animal, fungus or bacterium, capable of growth. Many definitions exclude viruses and possible man-made non-organic life forms, as viruses are dependent on the machinery of a host cell for reproduction. A superorganism is an organism consisting of individuals working together as a single functional or social unit. There has been controversy about the best way to define the organism, several contributions are responses to the suggestion that the category of organism may well not be adequate in biology. Viruses are not typically considered to be organisms because they are incapable of autonomous reproduction and this controversy is problematic because some cellular organisms are also incapable of independent survival and live as obligatory intracellular parasites
14.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
15.
Fossil
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Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, such a preserved specimen is called a fossil if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years. The observation that fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or absolute age of the various strata. Like extant organisms, fossils vary in size from microscopic, even single bacterial cells one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic, such as dinosaurs, Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces. These types of fossil are called trace fossils, as opposed to body fossils, finally, past life leaves some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals, these are known as chemofossils or biosignatures. The process of fossilization varies according to type and external conditions. Permineralization is a process of fossilization that occurs when an organism is buried, the empty spaces within an organism become filled with mineral-rich groundwater. Minerals precipitate from the groundwater, occupying the empty spaces and this process can occur in very small spaces, such as within the cell wall of a plant cell. Small scale permineralization can produce very detailed fossils, for permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decay process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil, some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth, other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. This is a form of diagenesis, in some cases the original remains of the organism completely dissolve or are otherwise destroyed. The remaining organism-shaped hole in the rock is called an external mold, if this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is a cast. An endocast or internal mold is formed when sediments or minerals fill the cavity of an organism. This is a form of cast and mold formation. If the chemistry is right, the organism can act as a nucleus for the precipitation of minerals such as siderite, if this happens rapidly before significant decay to the organic tissue, very fine three-dimensional morphological detail can be preserved. Nodules from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, USA, are among the best documented examples of such mineralization, replacement occurs when the shell, bone or other tissue is replaced with another mineral
16.
Animal track
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An Animal track is the imprint left behind in soil, snow, mud, or other ground surfaces that an animal walks across. Animal tracks are used by hunters in tracking their prey and by naturalists to identify animals living in a given area. Books are commonly used to identify animal tracks, which may look different based on the weight of the particular animal, tracks can be fossilized over millions of years. It is for this reason we are able to see fossilized dinosaur tracks in some types of rock formations and these types of fossils are called trace fossils since they are a trace of an animal left behind rather than the animal itself. In paleontology, tracks often preserve as sandstone infill, forming a mold of the track
17.
Burrow
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A burrow is a hole or tunnel excavated into the ground by an animal to create a space suitable for habitation, temporary refuge, or as a byproduct of locomotion. Burrows provide a form of shelter against predation and exposure to the elements and can be found in nearly every biome, a wide variety of vertebrates construct or use burrows in many different types of substrate and can range widely in complexity. Mammals are perhaps most well known for burrowing, especially Insectivora like the voracious mole, the rabbit, a member of the family Lagomorpha, is a well-known burrower. There are estimates that a single burrow can occupy a full cubic metre. Great gerbils live in groups in extensive burrows, which can be seen on satellite images. Even the unoccupied burrows can remain visible in the landscape for years, the burrows are distributed regularly, although the occupied burrows appear to be clustered in space. Even Carnivora like the meerkat, and marsupials, are burrowers, the largest burrowing animal is probably the polar bear when it makes its maternity den in snow or earth. Burrows by birds are made in soft soils, some penguins. The Magellanic penguin is an example, constructing burrows along coastal Patagonian regions of Chile, other burrowing birds are puffins, kingfishers, and bee-eaters. Kangaroo mice construct burrows in fine sand, examples of vertebrate burrowing animals include a number of mammals, amphibians, fish, reptiles, and birds. Scabies mites construct their burrows in the skin of the animal or human. Some sea urchins and clams can burrow into rock, the burrows produced by invertebrate animals can be filled actively or passively. Dwelling burrows which remain open during occupation by an organism are filled passively, actively filled burrows, on the other hand, are filled with material by the burrowing organism itself. The establishment of an invertebrate burrow often involves the soaking of surrounding sediment in mucus in order to prevent collapse, examples of burrowing invertebrates are insects, spiders, sea urchins, crustaceans, clams and worms. Burrows are also preserved in the fossil record as a type of trace fossil. Holt Maternity den Sett- a network of badger tunnels
18.
Feces
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Feces or faeces are the solid or semisolid metabolic waste from an animals digestive tract, discharged through the anus or cloaca during a process called defecation. Urine and feces together are called excreta, collected feces has various uses, namely as fertilizer or soil conditioner in agriculture, as a fuel source, or for medicinal purposes. After an animal has digested eaten material, the remains of material are discharged from its body as waste. Although it is lower in energy than the food from which it is derived, feces may retain a large amount of energy and this means that of all food eaten, a significant amount of energy remains for the decomposers of ecosystems. Many organisms feed on feces, from bacteria to fungi to insects such as dung beetles, some may specialize in feces, while others may eat other foods as well. Feces serve not only as a food, but also as a supplement to the usual diet of some animals. Feces and urine, which reflect light, are important to raptors such as kestrels. Seeds also may be found in feces, animals who eat fruit are known as frugivores. An advantage for a plant in having fruit is that animals will eat the fruit and this mode of seed dispersal is highly successful, as seeds dispersed around the base of a plant are unlikely to succeed and often are subject to heavy predation. Provided the seed can withstand the pathway through the system, it is not only likely to be far away from the parent plant. This cycling of matter is known as the biogeochemical cycle, the distinctive odor of feces is due to bacterial action. Gut flora produce compounds such as indole, skatole, and thiols and these are the same compounds that are responsible for the odor of flatulence. Consumption of foods prepared with spices may result in the spices being undigested, the perceived bad odor of feces has been hypothesized to be a deterrent for humans, as consuming or touching it may result in sickness or infection. Human perception of the odor may be contrasted by an animals perception of it, for example. In humans and depending on the individual and the circumstances, defecation may occur daily, extensive hardening of the feces may cause prolonged interruption in the routine and is called constipation. Human fecal matter varies significantly in appearance, depending on diet, normally it is semisolid, with a mucus coating. The brown coloration comes from a combination of bile and bilirubin, in newborn babies, initially fecal matter is yellow-green after the meconium. This coloration comes from the presence of bile alone, throughout the life of an ordinary human, one may experience many types of feces
19.
Coprolite
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Coprolites are classified as trace fossils as opposed to body fossils, as they give evidence for the animals behaviour rather than morphology. The name is derived from the Greek words κόπρος and λίθος and they were first described by William Buckland in 1829. Prior to this they were known as fir cones and bezoar stones. They serve a purpose in paleontology because they provide direct evidence of the predation. Coprolites may range in size from a few millimetres to over 60 centimetres, coprolites, distinct from paleofaeces, are fossilized animal dung. Like other fossils, coprolites have had much of their original composition replaced by mineral deposits such as silicates, in the same context, there are the urolites, erosions caused by evacuation of liquid wastes and nonliquid urinary secretions. The fossil hunter Mary Anning had noticed that bezoar stones were found in the abdominal region of ichthyosaur skeletons found in the Lias formation at Lyme Regis. She also noted that if such stones were broken open they often contained fossilized fish bones and scales as well as sometimes bones from smaller ichthyosaurs. It was these observations by Anning that led the geologist William Buckland to propose in 1829 that the stones were fossilized feces and named them coprolites. In one example these fossils can be analyzed for certain minerals that are known to exist in trace amounts in certain species of plant that can still be detected millions of years later. In another example, the existence of proteins in coprolites can be used to pinpoint the existence of cannibalistic behavior in an ancient culture. The recognition of coprolites is aided by their structural patterns, such as spiral or annular markings, by their content, such as undigested food fragments, the smallest coprolites are often difficult to distinguish from inorganic pellets or from eggs. Most coprolites are composed chiefly of calcium phosphate, along with quantities of organic matter. By analyzing coprolites, it is possible to infer the diet of the animal which produced them, coprolites have been recorded in deposits ranging in age from the Cambrian period to recent times and are found worldwide. Some of them are useful as index fossils, such as Favreina from the Jurassic period of Haute-Savoie in France, some marine deposits contain a high proportion of fecal remains. However, animal excrement is easily fragmented and destroyed, so usually has little chance of becoming fossilized, realising their potential as a source of available phosphate once they had been treated with sulphuric acid, he patented an extraction process and set about finding new sources. Very soon, coprolites were being mined on a scale for use as fertiliser due to their high phosphate content. The major area of extraction occurred over the east of England, centred on Cambridgeshire, there is a Coprolite Street near Ipswich docks where the Fisons works once stood
20.
Palynology
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Palynology is the study of dust or particles that are strewn. A classic palynologist analyses particulate samples collected from the air, from water, the condition and identification of those particles, organic and inorganic, give the palynologist clues to the life, environment, and energetic conditions that produced them. Palynology does not include diatoms, foraminiferans or other organisms with siliceous or calcareous exoskeletons, palynology is an interdisciplinary science and is a branch of earth science and biological science, particularly plant science. Stratigraphical palynology is a branch of micropalaeontology and paleobotany, which studies fossil palynomorphs from the Precambrian to the Holocene, early investigators include Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, Gideon Mantell and Henry Hopley White. Quantitative analysis of pollen began with Lennart von Posts published work, although he published in the Swedish language, his methodology gained a wide audience through his lectures. In particular, his Kristiania lecture of 1916 was important in gaining a wider audience, because the early investigations published in the Nordic languages or Scandinavian languages the field of pollen analysis was confined to those countries. The isolation ended with the German publication of Gunnar Erdtmans 1921 thesis, the methodology of pollen analysis became widespread throughout Europe and North America and revolutionized Quaternary vegetation and climate change research. Earlier pollen researchers were Früh, who enumerated many common tree types. There is a study of samples taken from sediments of Swedish lakes by Trybom, Pinus. Georg F. L. Sarauw studied fossil pollen of middle Pleistocene age from the harbour of Copenhagen, a. Weber appear to be among the first to undertake percentage frequency calculations. The term palynology was introduced by Hyde and Williams in 1944, following correspondence with the Swedish geologist Antevs, Hyde and Williams chose palynology on the basis of the Greek words paluno meaning to sprinkle and pale meaning dust. Pollen analysis advanced rapidly in this due to advances in optics. Much of the science was revised by Johannes Iversen and Knut Fægri in their textbook on the subject, palynomorphs are broadly defined as organic-walled microfossils between 5 and 500 micrometres in size. They are extracted from sedimentary rocks and sediment cores both physically, by treatment and wet sieving, and chemically, by chemical digestion to remove the non-organic fraction. Palynomorphs may be composed of material such as chitin, pseudochitin and sporopollenin. Palynomorphs that have a taxonomy description are sometimes referred to as palynotaxa, palynomorphs form a geological record of importance in determining the type of prehistoric life that existed at the time the sedimentary formation was laid down. As a result, these microfossils give important clues to the climatic conditions of the time. Their paleontological utility derives from an abundance numbering in millions of cells per gram in organic marine deposits, palynomorphs, however, generally have been destroyed in metamorphic or recrystallized rocks
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Residue (chemistry)
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In chemistry residue is whatever remains or acts as a contaminant after a given class of events. Residue may be the material remaining after a process of preparation, separation, or purification, such as distillation, evaporation and it may also denote the undesired by-products of a chemical reaction. Toxic chemical residues, wastes or contamination from other processes, are a concern in food safety, for example, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have guidelines for detecting chemical residues that are possibly dangerous to consume. Residue may refer to an atom or a group of atoms that forms part of a molecule, in biochemistry and molecular biology, a residue refers to a specific monomer within the polymeric chain of a polysaccharide, protein or nucleic acid. One might say, This protein consists of 118 amino acid residues or The histidine residue is considered to be basic because it contains an imidazole ring. Note that a residue is different from a moiety, which, a residue might be one amino acid in a polypeptide or one monosaccharide in a starch molecule
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Science
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Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations, disciplines which use science, like engineering and medicine, may also be considered to be applied sciences. However, during the Islamic Golden Age foundations for the method were laid by Ibn al-Haytham in his Book of Optics. In the 17th and 18th centuries, scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of physical laws, over the course of the 19th century, the word science became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself as a disciplined way to study the natural world. It was during this time that scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, Science in a broad sense existed before the modern era and in many historical civilizations. Modern science is distinct in its approach and successful in its results, Science in its original sense was a word for a type of knowledge rather than a specialized word for the pursuit of such knowledge. In particular, it was the type of knowledge which people can communicate to each other, for example, knowledge about the working of natural things was gathered long before recorded history and led to the development of complex abstract thought. This is shown by the construction of calendars, techniques for making poisonous plants edible. For this reason, it is claimed these men were the first philosophers in the strict sense and they were mainly speculators or theorists, particularly interested in astronomy. In contrast, trying to use knowledge of nature to imitate nature was seen by scientists as a more appropriate interest for lower class artisans. A clear-cut distinction between formal and empirical science was made by the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, although his work Peri Physeos is a poem, it may be viewed as an epistemological essay on method in natural science. Parmenides ἐὸν may refer to a system or calculus which can describe nature more precisely than natural languages. Physis may be identical to ἐὸν and he criticized the older type of study of physics as too purely speculative and lacking in self-criticism. He was particularly concerned that some of the early physicists treated nature as if it could be assumed that it had no intelligent order, explaining things merely in terms of motion and matter. The study of things had been the realm of mythology and tradition, however. Aristotle later created a less controversial systematic programme of Socratic philosophy which was teleological and he rejected many of the conclusions of earlier scientists. For example, in his physics, the sun goes around the earth, each thing has a formal cause and final cause and a role in the rational cosmic order. Motion and change is described as the actualization of potentials already in things, while the Socratics insisted that philosophy should be used to consider the practical question of the best way to live for a human being, they did not argue for any other types of applied science
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Elephantomyia brevipalpa
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Elephantomyia brevipalpa is an extinct species of crane fly in the family Limoniidae. The species is known from the Middle Eocene Baltic amber deposits in the Baltic Sea region of Europe. The species is one of six described from Baltic amber, Elephantomyia brevipalpa is known from the holotype specimen, collection number MB. J.337, along with two further adults which are preserved as inclusions in transparent Baltic amber. As of 2015, two of the specimens were included in the collections of the University of Göttingen, while the third was housed at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Baltic amber is recovered from fossil bearing rocks in the Baltic Sea region of Europe, estimates of the age date between 37 million years old, for the youngest sediments and 48 million years old. This age range straddles the middle Eocene, ranging from near the beginning of the Lutetian to the beginning of the Pribonian. E. brevipalpa is one of six crane fly species in the genus Elephantomyia described from the Baltic amber, the others being E. baltica, E. bozenae, E. irinae, E. longirostris, and E. pulchella. All six species are placed into the Elephantomyia subgenus Elephantomyia based on the lack of tibial spurs, the species was moved to the genus Limnobiorhynchus in 1860 by Carl Robert Osten-Sacken, and later moved by Osten-Sacken again, this time to the genus Elephantomyia. The fossil was reexamined and the species redescribed in 2015 by paleoentomologist Iwona Kania of the University of Rzeszów, who examined the holotype and the two additional specimens. The E. brevipalpa type specimen and one of the specimens are preserved males, while the third specimen is a female that is approximately 5.1 mm long. The head has a rostrum that is 2.86 mm long, as half the length of the fore-wing, the rostrum has notably short palpus at the tip. Each palpus is composed of four segments, totaling less than half the length of the lobes on the rostrum. The third segment is an elongate cylinders while the fourth is very short, the antennae are small, composed of an elongated scape and widened pedicle. As the flagellomeres progress from the base to the tip of the antennae they change from squat, the basal flagellomeres have no setae, while three setae are found on flagellomeres 6 and 7. Flagellomeres 8 through 11 have two elongated setae, and the apical flagellomere has four very elongate setae, the wings are 4.68 mm long with a pale brown pterostigma that is oval in shape and further towards the wing base then in other Baltic amber species. The Rs vein, as designated by the Comstock–Needham system, is as one third the length of the connected R2+3+4 vein. Media related to Elephantomyia brevipalpa at Wikimedia Commons
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Hermann Loew
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Friedrich Hermann Loew was a German entomologist who specialised in the study of Diptera, an order of insects including flies, mosquitoes, gnats and midges. He described many species and was the first specialist to work on the Diptera of the United States. Hermann Loew was born in Weissenfels, Saxony a short distance south of Halle, the Loew family, though not wealthy, was well-placed. Loews father was a functionary for the Department of Justice of the Duchy of Saxony who later became a Geheimer Regierungsrath of Prussia, between 1817 and 1829 Loew attended first the Convent school of Rossleben, then the University of Halle-Wittenberg, graduating in mathematics, philology and natural history. Recognizing his abilities as a mathematician, the university, on his graduation, in 1830 he went to Berlin and gave lessons in different higher grade schools including the Kadetten-Schule military school. Here he was tutor to Prince Biron heir to the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. In 1834 Loew was appointed teacher at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Posen, known today as St. John Cantius High School in Poznań, Poland where he taught mathematics. In the same year he married the daughter of senior preacher Ehricht, several of Loews pupils at Posen became scientific celebrities, the most notable being the philosopher Kuno Fischer and the mathematicians Leo Königsberger and Lazarus Immanuel Fuchs. That they became such, gifted though they were, must have been due to Loews extraordinary abilities, in 1841-2 Loew accompanied Heinrich Kiepert, a celebrated geographer, and August Schoenborn to the Near East. The results of this trip were later partly communicated to Hermann Carl Conrad Burmeister, and to Alexander von Humboldt, August Schoenborn, philologist and geographer, was also a professor at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Posen, and author of Latin school books. Humboldt was of course the author of the chattily readable Kosmos, an account of the universe. Many other countries were visited en route including Turkey and Asia Minor, in 1848 Loew was elected to the German Parliament in Frankfurt am Main. Elected to the first German Parliament when 40 years old, Loew resisted the separatist longings of the Poles from his outpost near the frontier of Poland. He belonged to Heinrich von Gagerns Imperial Party, a grouping which fostered Liberalism in Germany, disillusioned by failure to realise German unity and distressed by the death of his 21-year-old daughter from the plague, in 1850, Loew left politics. In 1850 he was appointed director of the royal Realschule Mesritz, due to the efforts of Loew, the Mesritz Realschule was later to become a gymnasium. While at Mesritz Loew gave up politics so as not to be in conflict with the educational department, severe health problems between 1851 and 1854 forced retirement. In 1868 he received a pension and took up the study of Diptera full-time after moving to Guben, here he worked incessantly on Diptera. In 1870 he was elected city councillor and vice-president of the city council in Guben, only three of his seven children survived him
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Carl Robert Osten-Sacken
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Carl Robert Osten-Sacken or Carl-Robert Romanovich, Baron von der Osten-Sacken was a Russian diplomat and entomologist. He served as the Russian consul general in New York City during the American Civil War and he worked on the taxonomy of flies in general and particularly of the family Tipulidae. Robert Osten-Sacken took an interest in insects at the age of eleven through the influence of Joseph N. Schatiloff and he developed an early interest in entomology specialising in Diptera and especially the Tipulidae. In 1862 Osten-Sacken published, with assistance from Hermann Loew, “Catalogue of the described Diptera of North America” in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, a later edition of this work appeared in 1878, as Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, No.270. His work on the Tipulidae included a classification of the family and he also studied insect galls and worked on the Tabanidae. Asteroid 335 Roberta is named in his honour, a subspecies of North American snake, Thamnophis sauritus sackeni, was named in his honour by Robert Kennicott in 1859. Manuscript collection at the Natural History Museum
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Eocene
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The Eocene Epoch, lasting from 56 to 33.9 million years ago, is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. As with other periods, the strata that define the start and end of the epoch are well identified. The name Eocene comes from the Ancient Greek ἠώς and καινός, the Eocene epoch is conventionally divided into early, middle, and late subdivisions. The corresponding rocks are referred to as lower, middle, the Ypresian stage constitutes the lower, the Priabonian stage the upper, and the Lutetian and Bartonian stages are united as the middle Eocene. The Eocene Epoch contained a variety of different climate conditions that includes the warmest climate in the Cenozoic Era. During this period of time, little to no ice was present on Earth with a difference in temperature from the equator to the poles. Following the maximum was a descent into an icehouse climate from the Eocene Optimum to the Eocene-Oligocene transition at 34 million years ago. During this decrease ice began to reappear at the poles, greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide and methane, played a significant role during the Eocene in controlling the surface temperature. For the early Eocene there is discussion on how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere. This is due to numerous proxies representing different atmospheric carbon dioxide content, for contrast, today the carbon dioxide levels are at 400 ppm or 0. 04%. At about the beginning of the Eocene Epoch the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere more or less doubled. During the early Eocene, methane was another gas that had a drastic effect on the climate. In comparison to carbon dioxide, methane has much effect on temperature as methane is ~34 times more effective per molecule than carbon dioxide on a 100-year scale. Most of the methane released to the atmosphere during this period of time would have been from wetlands, swamps, the atmospheric methane concentration today is 0. 000179% or 1.79 ppmv. Due to the climate and sea level rise associated with the early Eocene, more wetlands, more forests. Comparing the early Eocene production of methane to current levels of atmospheric methane, biogenic production of methane produces carbon dioxide and water vapor along with the methane, as well as yielding infrared radiation
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. PMID 25706127.
