Dew is water in the form of droplets that appears on thin, exposed objects in the morning or evening due to condensation. As the exposed surface cools by radiating its heat, atmospheric moisture condenses at a rate greater than that at which it can evaporate, resulting in the formation of water droplets; when temperatures are low enough, dew takes the form of ice. Because dew is related to the temperature of surfaces, in late summer it forms most on surfaces that are not warmed by conducted heat from deep ground, such as grass, railings, car roofs, bridges. Dew should not be confused with guttation, the process by which plants release excess water from the tips of their leaves. Water vapour will condense into droplets depending on the temperature; the temperature at which droplets form is called the dew point. When surface temperature drops reaching the dew point, atmospheric water vapor condenses to form small droplets on the surface; this process distinguishes dew from those hydrometeors, which form directly in air that has cooled to its dew point, such as fog or clouds.

The thermodynamic principles of formation, are the same. Dew is formed at night. Adequate cooling of the surface takes place when it loses more energy by infrared radiation than it receives as solar radiation from the sun, the case on clear nights. Poor thermal conductivity restricts the replacement of such losses from deeper ground layers, which are warmer at night. Preferred objects of dew formation are thus poor conducting or well isolated from the ground, non-metallic, while shiny metal coated surfaces are poor infrared radiators. Preferred weather conditions include the absence of clouds and little water vapor in the higher atmosphere to minimize greenhouse effects and sufficient humidity of the air near the ground. Typical dew nights are classically considered calm, because the wind transports warmer air from higher levels to the cold surface. However, if the atmosphere is the major source of moisture, a certain amount of ventilation is needed to replace the vapor, condensed; the highest optimum wind speeds could be found on arid islands.

If the wet soil beneath is the major source of vapor, wind always seems adverse. The processes of dew formation do not restrict its occurrence to the outdoors, they are working when eyeglasses get steamy in a warm, wet room or in industrial processes. However, the term condensation is preferred in these cases. A classical device for dew measurement is the drosometer. A small, condenser surface is suspended from an arm attached to a pointer or a pen that records the weight changes of the condenser on a drum. Besides being wind sensitive, this, like all artificial surface devices, only provides a measure of the meteorological potential for dew formation; the actual amount of dew in a specific place is dependent on surface properties. For its measurement, leaves, or whole soil columns are placed on a balance with their surface at the same height and in the same surroundings as would occur thus providing a small lysimeter. Further methods include estimation by means of comparing the droplets to standardized photographs, or volumetric measurement of the amount of water wiped from the surface.

Some of these methods include guttation. Due to its dependence on radiation balance, dew amounts can reach a theoretical maximum of about 0.8 mm per night. In most climates of the world, the annual average is too small to compete with rain. In regions with considerable dry seasons, adapted plants like lichen or pine seedlings benefit from dew. Large-scale, natural irrigation without rainfall, such as in the Atacama Desert and Namib desert, however, is attributed to fog water. In the Negev Desert in Israel, dew has been found to account for half of the water found in three dominant desert species, Salsola inermis, Artemisia sieberi and Haloxylon scoparium. Another effect of dew is its hydration of fungal substrates and the mycelia of species such as Pleated Inkcaps on lawns and Phytophthora infestans which causes blight on potato plants; the book De Mundo described: Dew is moisture minute in composition falling from a clear sky. In Greek mythology, Ersa is the personification of dew. According to the myth, the dew in the morning was created when Eos, goddess of the dawn, cried for her son's death, although he received immortality.

Dew, known in Hebrew as טל, is significant in the Jewish religion for agricultural and theological purposes. On the first day of Passover, the Chazan, dressed in a white kittel, leads a service in which he prays for dew between that point and Sukkot. During the rainy season between December and Passover there are additions in the Amidah for blessed dew to come together with rain. There are many midrashim. In the Biblical Torah or Old Testament, dew is used symbolically in Deuteronomy 32:2: "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, as the showers upon the grass." Several man-made devices such as antique, big stone piles in Ukraine, medieval "dew ponds" in southern England, or volcanic stone covers on

Platinum Weird is a musical collaboration formed in 2004 between Dave Stewart and Kara DioGuardi. It is the subject of an elaborate hoax placing the band in 1974, including a half-hour mockumentary produced for television network VH1 and a series of bogus World Wide Web fan sites and related false documents for the'lost' group. In a 2005 interview, DioGuardi explained that she and Stewart were asked to write songs for The Pussycat Dolls in 2004. Instead, the pair ended up with material. Although the collaboration did not produce the intended Pussycat Dolls songs, Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine encouraged the continuation of the project, longtime DioGuardi partner John Shanks was brought in for album production duties. Stewart confirmed the collaboration in a separate interview. In March 2005, it was reported. MP3 versions of the tracks "Avalanche" and "Happiness" were made available via MySpace. Believing that the unusual combination of an older, well-known artist and a unknown, though successful, writer for much younger performers might not be accepted by the public, they adopted an elaborate back-story conceived by Iovine.

In a November 2005 Rolling Stone interview, Stewart started to plant the new story about the group's origin, stating that he conceived of the project in 1973. At that time he disclosed that the project would be accompanied by a short film; this followed a message posted by Catherine Schwartz on her Web site that she was working on two Platinum Weird projects, a video for "Happiness" and what she described as a mockumentary set in the 1970s. Video clips showing Mick Jagger, Adam Levine, Ringo Starr, Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan, Stevie Nicks and others recalling the band were distributed, along with audio tracks said to have come from 1974; the fictional version of Platinum Weird is a partnership between Stewart and a mythical singer/songwriter from New York City named Erin Grace. Erin made a strong impression on numerous artists in the UK, including Stevie Nicks, who emulated her style. After a handful of performances and with an album completed, Erin disappeared. Distraught over the death of Nick Drake, she abruptly ran off with Elton John's boyfriend in late 1974.

Soon afterward, she turned up in Los Angeles, where Don Henley introduced her to Lindsey Buckingham, setting into motion a relationship that would be the inspiration for the Fleetwood Mac Rumours album. Years a young DioGuardi would meet a neighbor in New York, an older hippie woman who became a mentor in her song-writing efforts. In her 2004 meeting with Stewart, DioGuardi found that she knew the words to an old Platinum Weird song, "Will You Be Around", that he was playing on his guitar, she had learned the song from her old neighbor, evidently the lost Erin. In July 2006, VH1 premiered a mockumentary entitled Rock Legends – Platinum Weird, an examination of the band's unusual story, complete with cameo appearances from such rock legends as Mick Jagger, Annie Lennox, Elton John, Ringo Starr, all reminiscing about the former band's short-lived heyday and their impressions of the mysterious Erin Grace. On 5 July 2006, the day Rock Legends: Platinum Weird was shown on VH1, Platinum Weird admitted to the hoax in a Los Angeles Times interview.

Stewart did note that the film was "80% true", with real biographical information mixed into the back-story. In an August 2006 interview, Stewart explained that he did meet a New Yorker in Amsterdam in the 1970s and did write some songs during their brief relationship, she was not, the Erin Grace portrayed in the film. The tracks distributed from platinumweird.com and fan Web sites include "Happiness", "This Guitar", "Lonely Eyes", "If You Believe" and "Picture Perfect New" an interview said to be taped in 1974. This version of "Happiness" is quieter than the earlier MySpace version, sung in a lower register. "This Guitar" appeared on George Harrison's 1975 album Extra Texture. The Platinum Weird release is an alternate recording featuring Harrison on lead vocals. One report states that this track was recorded in 1992, completed with 2006 contributions from Stewart, Dhani Harrison and Mark Hudson; the real Platinum Weird performed at the Recording Academy Honors show on 8 June 2006. This was followed by a 12 June 2006 screening of the film Rock Legends: Platinum Weird in New York, described in Billboard magazine as "a documentary film about a band by that name".

Another report notes that Stewart treated the film "insisting the group did exist." The film, created by Tomorrow's Brightest Minds/Oil Factory and narrated by Dan Aykroyd, does not credit the actors who played Erin, young Dave, or drummer Brian Parfitt, but Dave was played by his own son, Sam. A Platinum Weird EP entitled Will You Be Around was released to iTunes on 4 July 2006. In addition to the title track, it includes "Picture Perfect" and "Lonely Eyes". All three were written by DioGuardi; the group's first album, Make Believe, was released on 10 October 2006 – a set of ten unreleased recordings "from 1974." Best Buy stores in America carried a 2-disc edition of Make Believe featuring the standard 10-track "1974" album, a bonus disc of the 12 2005–2006 recordings. Make Believe Chris Gaines The Dukes of Stratosphear Spinal Tap The Rutles Interview: Platinum Weird's Dave Stewart and Kara DioGuardi Rock Legends: Platinum Weird, offered by Interscope in podcast installments, iTunes format Platinum Weird Fansite with lyrics, videos

Colin Mackenzie was a nineteenth century literary contributor/hack writer, editor and compiler. Between 1849 and 1851 he was the secretary of Charles Cochrane's'National Philanthropic Association.' Mackenzie spent his adult life working in London, England. His interests were wide ranging and his publications reflected this, they were works of non-fiction, including educational and informative works on chemistry, medicine, popular science, history and religion, but he wrote about the'gentlemen's clubs' of London, a'parliamentary pocketbook' with a strong reformist leaning in 1832 and, towards the end of his career, a report on the chronic poverty and famine that scarred Britain and engulfed Ireland in the late 1840s. Mackenzie was born in Edinburgh on the 8th May 1795. Between 1810 and 1814 he studied for a Master of Arts degree at Aberdeen University. In 1814 he travelled down from Scotland to London, enrolling at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals in October of that year to train as a surgeon. Mackenzie never completed his studies, but spent the rest of his life in London, editing and contributing to numerous books and pamphlets.

A baptismal record from Westminster St James for Mackenzie's eldest son Alfred shows that Mackenzie had married his first wife, Ann, by 1818. Ann died at some point in the 1830s and Mackenzie married again in 1846. A ‘Royal Literary Fund’ file on Colin Mackenzie contains a large amount of primary information about Mackenzie’s life; the Royal Literary Fund was a charitable organization dedicated to writers in urgent need of financial assistance, which had Dickens and Thackeray as committee members at various points in its existence. Mackenzie applied for, received financial help from the RLF on five different occasions between 1838 and 1853. Mackenzie died in 1854. Mackenzie's two earliest works, One Thousand Experiments in Chemistry and Five Thousand Receipts in all the Useful and Domestic Arts were by far and away his greatest successes; the accuracy of the information in One Thousand Experiments in Chemistry and the practicality and safety of the experiments were called into question in some book reviews in the journals of the time but One Thousand Experiments in Chemistry proved to be a popular success all the same and was republished 22 times in the 1820s in Britain and America.

Five Thousand Receipts was an greater success. A household economy compendium, filled with recipes for all kinds of concoctions, whether culinary, medicinal or for practical household needs, Five Thousand Receipts went through at least 26 editions between 1823 and 1864 and was successful in America. Mackenzie, made no financial gain whatsoever from his American successes due to the complete absence of copyright protection for publications by British authors in nineteenth century America and this contributed to the hardship that he and his family were to endure in the following decade. Other publications followed on a diverse range of topics, but none were as successful as the earliest works. Mackenzie's RLF applications indicate that he was the author of The Clubs of London, a work, ascribed to Charles Marsh, they include an 1848 letter from prominent publisher of the time Richard Bentley suggesting that Mackenzie consider writing an updated version of the book, a suggestion Mackenzie rejected because of the financial terms of the proposed arrangement.1832 saw the publication of Mackenzie's A Key to Both Houses, although again he was not credited with the authorship on the title page.

There can be no doubt. In early 1834 Mackenzie went to court in London to claim the considerable sum of £457 that he insisted he was owed for the book from bankrupt publisher James Cochrane. Whilst Mackenzie's authorship of A Key to Both Houses was not disputed in the case, the £457 remuneration he claimed for was and in the end Mackenzie was forced to settle for £100; the outcome was disastrous for his family. Mackenzie spent two spells in Whitecross Street Debtors Prison in central London between 1834 and 1838. Around this time, the precise date is uncertain, Mackenzie's first wife, mother of their five children, died. A Key to Both Houses is ostensibly an encyclopedic overview of the British Houses of Parliament and present, written on the eve of the 1832 Reform Act; however the real interest lies in its lengthy footnotes in which Mackenzie is critical of the British parliamentary establishment and supportive of reform and the'people,' whether they be the'London mechanics,' the disenfranchised masses of the'great towns,' the'poor Irish' living under'curfew' or those British and Irish forced off the land by the'enclosure' of the'commons.'

Mackenzie is supportive of a proto-Chartist agenda of'Universal Suffrage, Vote by Ballot and Annual Parliaments.' A Key to Both Houses did make a significant impression on Chartist leader James Bronterre O'Brien, who quoted from it at length and with enthusiastic approval in a letter to the editors of The Northern Star in 1838. Mackenzie contributed to the English edition of Mikhail Zagoskin's The Young Muscovite. Although Frederic Chamier is credited with being the editor of this three volume work, scholars have noted that the British Library copy of the work has'written by Colin Mackenzie, Esq' inscribed on the title page in pencil and in his RLF applications Mackenzie claims that he edited it in'conjunction' with Chamier; the decade after the 1838 publication of The British Museum was a barren one for Mackenzie in terms of published works. In 1846 Mackenzie remarried b