1.
Ars Electronica
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Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center, which houses the Museum of the Future, Ars Electronica’s activities focus on the interlinkages between art, technology and society. It runs a festival, and manages a multidisciplinary media arts R&D facility known as the Futurelab. It also confers the Prix Ars Electronica awards, Ars Electronica began with its first festival in September 1979. Its founders were Hannes Leopoldseder, Hubert Bognermayr, Herbert W. Franke, the festival was held biennially at first, and annually since 1986. The Prix Ars Electronica was inaugurated in 1987 and has been awarded every year since then, Ars Electronica Linz GmbH was incorporated as a limited company in 1995. The Ars Electronica Center, together with the Futurelab, opened in 1996, funding is provided by the City of Linz, the Province of Upper Austria and the Republic of Austria, in addition to private partners. In 2014 the organization is headed by artistic director Gerfried Stocker, the annual Ars Electronica festival is a gathering of artists, scientists and technologists, intended as a setting for experimentation, evaluation and reinvention. The festival has always exerted a public presence in Linz, mounting large-scale open-air projects and holding lectures, discussions, each year the festival is devoted to a specific theme. The festival in 2014, from 4–8 September, had as its theme C, what it Takes to Change, i. e. ways in which social change and innovation can be promoted. It attracted 579 participants and about 85,000 visitors, a form of concept art, Device Art has been described as. a rebellion of form, taking everyday objects and inverting them to tell you something different. Among the examples exhibited at the 2014 festival were, Otamatone – a musical instrument shaped like a musical note, food Simulator, in which a pressure sensor in the users mouth simulates the sensation of chewing food. Lenticular Bicycle - an old fashioned bicycle with a screen carousel mounted above the handlebars, known as Sustainable Cinema No.2, a robot that performs street begging, made from recycled computer parts, with a voice and robotic hands. Touchy, a camera, devised by the Hong Kong-based artist Eric Suiss. A display called Smart atoms, spaxels version was developed by Ars Electronica Futurelab, the space pixels – automatically controlled drones fitted with LEDs - fly in formation to create apparent three-dimensional objects against the night sky. The Prix Ars Electronica is an award made in several categories, honoring creativity. Award winners are selected by an international expert jury, who may themselves propose candidates. The prize may be awarded to individuals or to teams or organizations, Grover has described the top-ranking award, the Golden Nica, as the Oscar of digital art
2.
Rio de Janeiro
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Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the second-most populous municipality in Brazil and the sixth-most populous in the Americas. The metropolis is anchor to the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, Rio de Janeiro is the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazils third-most populous state. Part of the city has designated as a World Heritage Site, named Rio de Janeiro. Founded in 1565 by the Portuguese, the city was initially the seat of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, later, in 1763, it became the capital of the State of Brazil, a state of the Portuguese Empire. Rio stayed the capital of the pluricontinental Lusitanian monarchy until 1822 and this is one of the few instances in history that the capital of a colonising country officially shifted to a city in one of its colonies. Rio de Janeiro has the second largest municipal GDP in the country, the home of many universities and institutes, it is the second-largest center of research and development in Brazil, accounting for 17% of national scientific output according to 2005 data. The Maracanã Stadium held the finals of the 1950 and 2014 FIFA World Cups, the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, the city is divided into 33 administrative regions. Europeans first encountered Guanabara Bay on 1 January 1502, by a Portuguese expedition under explorer Gaspar de Lemos captain of a ship in Pedro Álvares Cabrals fleet, allegedly the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci participated as observer at the invitation of King Manuel I in the same expedition. The region of Rio was inhabited by the Tupi, Puri, Botocudo, in 1555, one of the islands of Guanabara Bay, now called Villegagnon Island, was occupied by 500 French colonists under the French admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon. Consequently, Villegagnon built Fort Coligny on the island when attempting to establish the France Antarctique colony, Rio de Janeiro was the name of Guanabara Bay. Until early in the 18th century, the city was threatened or invaded by several, mostly French, pirates and buccaneers, such as Jean-François Duclerc, on 27 January 1763, the colonial administration in Portuguese America was moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. The kingdoms capital was transferred to the city, which, thus, as there was no physical space or urban structure to accommodate hundreds of noblemen who arrived suddenly, many inhabitants were simply evicted from their homes. The first printed newspaper in Brazil, the Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, from the colonial period until the first independent decades, Rio de Janeiro was a city of slaves. There was an influx of African slaves to Rio de Janeiro, in 1819. In 1840, the number of slaves reached 220,000 people, the Port of Rio de Janeiro was the largest port of slaves in America. As a political center of the country, Rio concentrated the political-partisan life of the Empire and it was the main stage of the abolitionist and republican movements in the last half of the 19th century. Rio continued as the capital of Brazil after 1889, when the monarchy was replaced by a republic, until the early years of the 20th century, the city was largely limited to the neighbourhood now known as the historic city centre, on the mouth of Guanabara Bay. Expansion of the city to the north and south was facilitated by the consolidation and electrification of Rios streetcar transit system after 1905, though many thought that it was just campaign rhetoric, Kubitschek managed to have Brasília built, at great cost, by 1960
3.
Brazil
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Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. As the worlds fifth-largest country by area and population, it is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to wildlife, a variety of ecological systems. This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a state governed under a constitutional monarchy. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, the country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup détat. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, Brazils current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. The federation is composed of the union of the Federal District, the 26 states, Brazils economy is the worlds ninth-largest by nominal GDP and seventh-largest by GDP as of 2015. A member of the BRICS group, Brazil until 2010 had one of the worlds fastest growing economies, with its economic reforms giving the country new international recognition. Brazils national development bank plays an important role for the economic growth. Brazil is a member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Unasul, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, CPLP. Brazil is a power in Latin America and a middle power in international affairs. One of the worlds major breadbaskets, Brazil has been the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years and it is likely that the word Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology red like an ember, formed from Latin brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a red dye, it was highly valued by the European cloth industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name, early sailors sometimes also called it the Land of Parrots. In the Guarani language, a language of Paraguay, Brazil is called Pindorama
4.
Artist
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An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts or demonstrating an art. The common usage in everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only. The term is used in the entertainment business, especially in a business context, for musicians. Artiste is a variant used in English only in this context, use of the term to describe writers, for example, is valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts like criticism. Wiktionary defines the noun artist as follows, A person who creates art, a person who makes and creates art as an occupation. A person who is skilled at some activity, a person whose trade or profession requires a knowledge of design, drawing, painting, etc. The adjectival Latin form of the word, technicus, became the source of the English words technique, technology, in ancient Greece sculptors and painters were held in low regard, somewhere between freemen and slaves, their work regarded as mere manual labour. The word art derives from the Latin ars, which, although literally defined, means skill method or technique, and conveys a connotation of beauty. During the Middle Ages the word artist already existed in countries such as Italy. An artist was able to do a work better than others, so the skilled excellency was underlined. In this period some artisanal products were more precious and expensive than paintings or sculptures. With the Academies in Europe the gap between fine and applied arts was definitely set, Artist is a descriptive term applied to a person who engages in an activity deemed to be an art. An artist also may be defined unofficially as a person who expresses him- or herself through a medium, the word is also used in a qualitative sense of, a person creative in, innovative in, or adept at, an artistic practice. Art historians and critics define artists as those who produce art within a recognized or recognizable discipline, contrasting terms for highly skilled workers in media in the applied arts or decorative arts include artisan, craftsman, and specialized terms such as potter, goldsmith or glassblower. The term may also be used loosely or metaphorically to denote highly skilled people in any activities, as well— law, medicine, mechanics, or mathematics. Often, discussions on the focus on the differences among artist and technician, entertainer and artisan, fine art and applied art, or what constitutes art. The French word artiste has been imported into the English language where it means a performer, use of the word artiste can also be a pejorative term. The English word artiste has thus a range of meaning than the word artiste in French
5.
Performance art
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Performance art is a performance presented to an audience within a fine art context, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated. The performance can be live or via media, the performer can be present or absent and it can be any situation that involves four basic elements, time, space, the performers body, or presence in a medium, and a relationship between performer and audience. Performance art can happen anywhere, in any type of venue or setting, the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work. Performance art is a contested concept, any single definition of it implies the recognition of rival uses. As concepts like democracy or art, it implies productive disagreement with itself, the meaning of the term in the narrower sense is related to postmodernist traditions in Western culture. The ideal had been an ephemeral and authentic experience for performer, the widely discussed difference, how concepts of visual arts and concepts of performing arts are utilized, can determine the meanings of a performance art presentation. It therefore can include action or spoken word as a communication between the artist and audience, or even ignore expectations of an audience, rather than following a script written beforehand, some kinds of performance art nevertheless can be close to performing arts. Performance artists often challenge the audience to think in new and unconventional ways, break conventions of traditional arts, and break down conventional ideas about what art is. Some artists, e. g. the Viennese Actionists and neo-Dadaists, prefer to use the terms live art, action art, actions, as genres of performance art appear body art, fluxus-performance, happening, action poetry, and intermedia. Performance art activity is not confined to European or American art traditions, notable practitioners can be found in Asia, Performance artists and theorists point to different traditions and histories, ranging from tribal to sporting and ritual or religious events. There are also accounts of Renaissance artists such as itinerant poets putting on performances that could be said to be ancestors of performance art. Western cultural theorists often trace performance art activity back to the beginning of the 20th century, to the Russian constructivists, Futurists, Dada provided a significant progenitor with the unconventional performances of poetry, often at the Cabaret Voltaire, by the likes of Richard Huelsenbeck and Tristan Tzara. Russian Futurist artists could be identified as precursors of performance, such as David Burliuk, abstract expressionism and Action painting preceded the Fluxus movement, Happenings and the emergence of Performance Art. Performance art was anticipated, if not explicitly formulated, by Japans Gutai group of the 1950s, in the late 1960s Earth artists as diverse as Robert Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim, Michael Heizer and Carl Andre created environmental pieces that predict the performance art of the 1970s. Works of conceptual artists in the early 1980s, like Sol LeWitt, who converted mural-style drawing into an act of performance by others, were influenced by Yves Klein and the Earth artists as well. In the 1960s a variety of new works, concepts and the number of artists led to new kinds of performance art. Kaprow had coined the term Happening describing a new artform, at the beginning of the 1960s, a Happening allows the artist to experiment with body motion, recorded sounds, written and spoken texts, and even smells
6.
Holography
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Holography is the science and practice of making holograms. The hologram itself is not an image and it is usually unintelligible when viewed under diffuse ambient light and it is an encoding of the light field as an interference pattern of seemingly random variations in the opacity, density, or surface profile of the photographic medium. In its pure form, holography requires the use of light for illuminating the subject. A microscopic level of detail throughout the volume of space can be reproduced. Holograms can now also be entirely computer-generated and show objects or scenes that never existed, stage illusions such as Peppers Ghost and other unusual, baffling, or seemingly magical images are also often incorrectly called holograms. The Hungarian-British physicist Dennis Gabor, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971 for his invention and development of the holographic method. His work, done in the late 1940s, was built on pioneering work in the field of X-ray microscopy by other scientists including Mieczysław Wolfke in 1920 and William Lawrence Bragg in 1939. The discovery was a result of research into improving electron microscopes at the British Thomson-Houston Company in Rugby, England. The word holography comes from the Greek words ὅλος and γραφή, early holograms used silver halide photographic emulsions as the recording medium. They were not very efficient as the produced grating absorbed much of the incident light, various methods of converting the variation in transmission to a variation in refractive index were developed which enabled much more efficient holograms to be produced. Several types of holograms can be made, a later refinement, the rainbow transmission hologram, allows more convenient illumination by white light rather than by lasers. Rainbow holograms are used for security and authentication, for example, on credit cards. They are also capable of multicolour-image reproduction, specular holography is a related technique for making three-dimensional images by controlling the motion of specularities on a two-dimensional surface. It works by reflectively or refractively manipulating bundles of light rays, most holograms produced are of static objects but systems for displaying changing scenes on a holographic volumetric display are now being developed. Holograms can also be used to store, retrieve, and process information optically and it was thought that it would be possible to use X-rays to make holograms of very small objects and view them using visible light. Today, holograms with x-rays are generated by using synchrotrons or x-ray free-electron lasers as radiation sources, the reconstruction is then retrieved via computation. Due to the wavelength of x-rays compared to visible light. As free-electron lasers can provide ultrashort and x-ray pulses in the range of femtoseconds which are intense and coherent, in laser holography, the hologram is recorded using a source of laser light, which is very pure in its color and orderly in its composition
7.
Interactive art
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Interactive art is a form of art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some interactive art installations achieve this by letting the observer or visitor walk in, on, most examples of virtual Internet art and electronic art are highly interactive. Some other interactive artworks are considered as immersive as the quality of interaction involve all the spectrum of surrounding stimuli. Though some of the earliest examples of art have been dated back to the 1920s. Since this debut, countless museums and venues have been increasingly accommodating digital and this budding genre of art is continuing to grow and evolve in a somewhat rapid manner through internet social sub-culture, as well as through large scale urban installations. Interactive art is a genre of art in which the viewers participate in some way by providing an input in order to determine the outcome, interactivity as a medium produces meaning. In interactive artworks, both the audience and the work together in dialogue in order to produce a completely unique artwork for each audience to observe. However, not all observers visualize the same picture, because it is interactive art, each observer makes their own interpretation of the artwork and it may be completely different than another observers views. e. More often, we can consider that the work takes its visitor into account, in an increasing number of cases an installation can be defined as a responsive environment, especially those created by architects and designers. C. When Zeuxis tried to unveil the painted curtain, the work takes its meaning from Zeuxis gesture and wouldn’t exist without it. Zeuxis, by its gesture, became part of Parrhasius work and this shows that the specificity of interactive art resides often less in the use of computers than in the quality of proposed situations and the Others involvement in the process of sensemaking. Nevertheless, computers and real time computing made the task easier, some of the earliest examples of interactive art were created as early as the 1920s. An example is Marcel Duchamp’s piece named Rotary Glass Plates, the artwork required the viewer to turn on the machine and stand at a distance of one meter in order to see an optical illusion. The present idea of art began to flourish more in the 1960s for partly political reasons. At the time, many found it inappropriate for artists to carry the only creative power within their works. Those artists who held this view wanted to give the audience their own part of creative process. Aside from the view, it was also current wisdom that interaction. In the 1970s artists began to use new technology such as video and satellites to experiment with live performances and interactions through the direct broadcast of video, Interactive art became a large phenomenon due to the advent of computer based interactivity in the 1990s
8.
Biotechnology
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Depending on the tools and applications, it often overlaps with the fields of bioengineering, biomedical engineering, biomanufacturing, molecular engineering, etc. For thousands of years, humankind has used biotechnology in agriculture, food production, the term is largely believed to have been coined in 1919 by Hungarian engineer Károly Ereky. Modern usage also includes genetic engineering as well as cell and tissue culture technologies, as per European Federation of Biotechnology, biotechnology is the integration of natural science and organisms, cells, parts thereof, and molecular analogues for products and services. Biotechnology also writes on the biological sciences. By contrast, bioengineering is generally thought of as a field that more heavily emphasizes higher systems approaches for interfacing with. Bioengineering is the application of the principles of engineering and natural sciences to tissues, cells and this can be considered as the use of knowledge from working with and manipulating biology to achieve a result that can improve functions in plants and animals. Although not normally what first comes to mind, many forms of human-derived agriculture clearly fit the definition of utilizing a biotechnological system to make products. Indeed, the cultivation of plants may be viewed as the earliest biotechnological enterprise, Agriculture has been theorized to have become the dominant way of producing food since the Neolithic Revolution. Through early biotechnology, the earliest farmers selected and bred the best suited crops, having the highest yields and these processes also were included in early fermentation of beer. These processes were introduced in early Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and India, in brewing, malted grains convert starch from grains into sugar and then adding specific yeasts to produce beer. In this process, carbohydrates in the grains were broken down into alcohols such as ethanol, later other cultures produced the process of lactic acid fermentation which allowed the fermentation and preservation of other forms of food, such as soy sauce. Fermentation was also used in time period to produce leavened bread. Although the process of fermentation was not fully understood until Louis Pasteurs work in 1857, before the time of Charles Darwins work and life, animal and plant scientists had already used selective breeding. Darwin added to body of work with his scientific observations about the ability of science to change species. These accounts contributed to Darwins theory of natural selection, for thousands of years, humans have used selective breeding to improve production of crops and livestock to use them for food. In selective breeding, organisms with desirable characteristics are mated to produce offspring with the same characteristics, for example, this technique was used with corn to produce the largest and sweetest crops. In the early twentieth century scientists gained an understanding of microbiology. Biotechnology has also led to the development of antibiotics, in 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the mold Penicillium
9.
International Space Station
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The International Space Station is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit. Its first component launched into orbit in 1998, and the ISS is now the largest man-made body in space, the ISS consists of pressurised modules, external trusses, solar arrays, and other components. ISS components have been launched by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets, the ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon. The ISS maintains an orbit with an altitude of between 330 and 435 km by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the Zvezda module or visiting spacecraft and it completes 15.54 orbits per day. The ISS is the space station to be inhabited by crews, following the Soviet and later Russian Salyut, Almaz. The station has continuously occupied for 16 years and 156 days since the arrival of Expedition 1 on 2 November 2000. This is the longest continuous presence in low Earth orbit. It has been visited by astronauts, cosmonauts and space tourists from 17 different nations, Soyuz has very limited downmass capability. The ISS programme is a joint project among five participating space agencies, NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, the ownership and use of the space station is established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements. The station is divided two sections, the Russian Orbital Segment and the United States Orbital Segment, which is shared by many nations. As of January 2014, the American portion of ISS is being funded until 2024, Roscosmos has endorsed the continued operation of ISS through 2024 but has proposed using elements of the Russian Orbital Segment to construct a new Russian space station called OPSEK. On 28 March 2015, Russian sources announced that Roscosmos and NASA had agreed to collaborate on the development of a replacement for the current ISS. NASA later issued a statement expressing thanks for Russias interest in future co-operation in space exploration. According to the original Memorandum of Understanding between NASA and Rosaviakosmos, the International Space Station was intended to be a laboratory, observatory and factory in low Earth orbit. It was also planned to provide transportation, maintenance, and act as a base for possible future missions to the Moon, Mars. In the 2010 United States National Space Policy, the ISS was given roles of serving commercial, diplomatic. The ISS provides a platform to conduct scientific research, the ISS simplifies individual experiments by eliminating the need for separate rocket launches and research staff
10.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
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The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of Americas largest accredited independent schools of art and design. It is located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois, the school is associated with the museum of the same name, and The Art Institute of Chicago or Chicago Art Institute often refers to either entity. Providing degrees at the undergraduate and graduate levels, SAIC has been recognized by U. S, additionally it is accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board. Its downtown Chicago campus consists of seven buildings located in the vicinity of the AIC building. SAIC is in an partnership with the AIC and share many administrative resources such as design, construction. The campus, located in the Loop, comprises three buildings, the Michigan, the Sharp, and the Columbus. SAIC also owns additional buildings throughout Chicago that are used as student galleries or investments, the institute has its roots in the 1866 founding of the Chicago Academy of Design, which local artists established in rented rooms on Clark Street. It was financed by member dues and patron donations, four years later, the school moved into its own Adams Street building, which was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Because of the financial and managerial problems after this loss, business leaders in 1878 formed a board of trustees. They expanded its mission beyond education and exhibitions to include collecting, in 1882, the academy was renamed the Art Institute of Chicago. The banker Charles L. Hutchinson served as its president until his death in 1924. Chancellor Walter E. Massey served as president from 2010–July 2016, the current president is Elissa Tenny, formerly the schools provost. SAIC also serves as a resource for issues related to the position, the primary mission of the program is to educate and foster a greater understanding and appreciation of contemporary art through discourse. VAP maintains a commitment to ethnic and gender diversity, it has been at the forefront of the movement toward a more socially engaged. Additionally, the Distinguished Alumni Series brings alumni back to the community to present their work, recent alumni speakers include Tania Bruguera, Jenni Sorkin, Kori Newkirk, Maria Martinez-Cañas, Saya Woolfalk, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, and Sanford Biggers to name a few. Sullivan Galleries- Located to the 7th floor of the Sullivan Center at 33 S, with shows and projects often led by faculty or student curators, it is a teaching gallery that engages the exhibition process as a pedagogical model and mode of research. Student Union Galleries - Founded in 1994, The Student Union Galleries is SAICs fully student-run gallery system, paid student directors maintain the galleries with assistance from a faculty adviser. A volunteer student committee assists in maintenance and the selection of exhibitions and they have two locations, The LeRoy Neiman Gallery of the 37 South Wabash Avenue building, and Gallery X of the 280 South Columbus Drive building
11.
University of Wales
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The University of Wales was a confederal university based in Cardiff, Wales, UK. The university was the second largest university in the UK, a federal university similar to the University of London, the University of Wales, UK was in charge of examining students, while its colleges were in charge of teaching. Historically, the University of Wales was the university in Wales until the establishment of the University of Glamorgan in 1992. In recent years, it announced its intention to merge with the University of Wales, Lampeter, Trinity University College, in 2007, the University of Wales changed from a federal structure to a confederal one and many of the constituent colleges became independent universities. As a result of a number of controversies in the late 2000s involving overseas affiliates and student visas and this process is projected to be completed in 2017. Prior to the foundation of the university, these three colleges had prepared students for the examinations of the University of London. A fourth college, Swansea, was added in 1920 and in 1931 the Welsh National School of Medicine was incorporated, in 1967 the Welsh College of Advanced Technology entered the federal university as the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology, also in Cardiff. In 1971 St Davids College, Wales oldest degree-awarding institution, suspended its own degree-awarding powers, a financial crisis in the late eighties caused UWIST and University College Cardiff to merge in 1988, forming the University of Wales College of Cardiff. In 1992 the university lost its position as the university in Wales when the Polytechnic of Wales became the University of Glamorgan. The existing colleges became constituent institutions and the two new member institutions became university colleges, in 2003, both of these colleges became full constituent institutions and in 2004 UWCN received permission from the Privy Council to change its name to the University of Wales, Newport. Cardiff University and the University of Wales College of Medicine merged on 1 August 2004, the merged institution, known as Cardiff University, ceased to be a constituent institution and joined a new category of Affiliated/Linked Institutions. At the same time, the university admitted four new institutions, the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama subsequently left the university in January 2007. In November 2008, Aberystwyth, Bangor and Swansea Universities decided to exercise their right to students to study for their own awarded degrees. In October, the University announced that it would cease validating courses and this led to calls from the vice chancellors of the universities of Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff, Glamorgan and Swansea for the University of Wales to be wound up. It was announced later in October that the University of Wales would be effectively abolished, which itself merged with Swansea Metropolitan University on 1 August 2013. At present, the University of Wales is still functioning in its own right, the administrative office of the University of Wales is located in Cardiffs Civic Centre. It runs a highly rated research centre, the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, the first edition of Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, which has the same status for Welsh as the OED does for English, was completed in 2002, eighty-two years after it had been started. The University of Wales Press was founded in 1922 and publishes around seventy books a year in both English and Welsh, the university also has a study and conference centre at Gregynog, near Newtown
12.
Minitel
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The Minitel was a Videotex online service accessible through telephone lines, and is considered one of the worlds most successful pre-World Wide Web online services. The service was rolled out experimentally in 1978 in Brittany and throughout France in 1982 by the PTT, in February 2009, France Telecom indicated the Minitel network still had 10 million monthly connections. France Telecom retired the service on 30 June 2012, the name Minitel is abbreviated from the French title of Médium interactif par numérisation dinformation téléphonique. Millions of terminals were lent for free to subscribers, resulting in a high penetration rate among businesses. France Télécom estimates that almost 9 million terminals—including web-enabled personal computers —had access to the network at the end of 1999, developed by 10,000 companies, in 1996, almost 26,000 different services were available. Similarly, many of small companies floundered because of an overcrowded market or bad business practices. The messageries roses and other sites were also criticized for their possible use by under-age children. The government chose not to enact coercive measures, however, stating that the regulation of the activities of children was up to parents. The government did however enact a tax on online services. The rates depended on the service called, most services were far cheaper than this maximum and it then paid back part of the sum to the companies operating Minitel servers. In the late 1990s, Minitel connections were stable at 100 million a month plus 150 million online directory inquiries, in 1998, Minitel generated €832 million of revenue, of which €521 million was channelled by France Télécom to service providers. Minitel sales in the late 1990s accounted for almost 15% of sales at La Redoute and 3 Suisses, Frances biggest mail order companies, in 2005, the most popular Minitel application was Teleroute, the online real-time freight exchange, which accounted for nearly 8% of Minitel usage. In 2005, there were 351 million calls for 18.5 million hours of connection, generating €206 million of revenue, There were still six million terminals owned by France Télécom, which had been left with their users in order to avoid recycling problems. The main uses were banking and financial services, which benefit from Minitels security features, France Télécom mentions, as an example of usage, that 12 million updates to personal carte vitale health-care cards were made through Minitel. In 2007, revenue was well over $100 million, in 2010, €30 million in revenues with 85% of those revenues going to service providers. The most popular service of the Minitel was the Annuaire Electronique accessible through the phone number 11, on 18 October 1996, the access to the phone directory changed to 3611. Companies could add up to 3 lines of information and a prehistoric website. Ads to the Minitel phone directory were sold by ODA, today Pages Jaunes Groupe in Sèvres France, in 1991, the Minitel Website for the Paris Sony Stores contained already over 100 pages
13.
Slow-scan television
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Slow Scan television is a picture transmission method used mainly by amateur radio operators, to transmit and receive static pictures via radio in monochrome or color. A literal term for SSTV is narrowband television, analog broadcast television requires at least 6 MHz wide channels, because it transmits 25 or 30 picture frames per second, but SSTV usually only takes up to a maximum of 3 kHz of bandwidth. It is a slower method of still picture transmission, usually taking from about eight seconds to a couple of minutes, depending on the mode used. Since SSTV systems operate on voice frequencies, amateurs use it on shortwave, the concept of SSTV was introduced by Copthorne Macdonald in 1957–58. He developed the first SSTV system using a monitor and a vidicon tube. In those days it seemed sufficient to use 120 lines and about 120 pixels per line to transmit a black-and-white still picture within a 3 kHz phone channel. First live tests were performed on the 11 Meter ham band – which was given to the CB service in the US. In the 1970s, two forms of paper printout receivers were invented by hams, SSTV was used to transmit images of the far side of the Moon from Luna 3. The first space television system was called Seliger-Tral-D and was used aboard Vostok, Vostok was based on an earlier videophone project which used two cameras, with persistent LI-23 iconoscope tubes. Its output was 10 frames per second at 100 lines per frame video signal, Vostok 2 and thereafter used an improved 400-line television system referred to as Topaz. A second generation system was introduced after 1975, a similar concept, also named SSTV, was used on Faith 7 as well as on the early years of the NASA Apollo program. The Faith 7 camera transmitted one frame every two seconds, the Apollo TV cameras used SSTV to transmit images from inside Apollo 7, Apollo 8, and Apollo 9, as well as the Apollo 11 Lunar Module television from the Moon. The SSTV system used in NASAs early Apollo missions transferred ten frames per second with a resolution of 320 frame lines using less bandwidth than a normal TV transmission, the early SSTV systems used by NASA differ significantly from the SSTV systems currently in use by amateur radio enthusiasts today. Commercial systems started appearing in the United States in 1970, after the FCC had legalized the use of SSTV for advanced level amateur radio operators in 1968, SSTV originally required quite a bit of specialized equipment. Usually there was a scanner or camera, a modem to create and receive the characteristic audio howl, the special cathode ray tube would have long persistence phosphors that would keep a picture visible for about ten seconds. The modem would generate audio tones between 1200 and 2300 Hz from picture signals, and picture signals from received audio tones, the audio would be attached to a radio receiver and transmitter. A modern system, having gained ground since the early 1990s, uses a personal computer, the sound card of a PC, with special processing software, acts as a modem. The computer screen provides the output, a small digital camera or digital photos provide the input
14.
Fax
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Fax, sometimes called telecopying or telefax, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material, normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The receiving fax machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, early systems used direct conversions of image darkness to audio tone in a continuous or analog manner. Since the 1980s, most machines modulate the audio frequencies using a digital representation of the page which is compressed to quickly transmit areas which are all-white or all-black. Scottish inventor Alexander Bain worked on chemical mechanical fax type devices and he received British patent 9745 on May 27,1843 for his Electric Printing Telegraph. Frederick Bakewell made several improvements on Bains design and demonstrated a telefax machine, the Pantelegraph was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli. He introduced the first commercial service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone. In 1880, English inventor Shelford Bidwell constructed the scanning phototelegraph that was the first telefax machine to scan any two-dimensional original, previously, photographs had been sent over the radio using this process. The Western Union Deskfax fax machine, announced in 1948, was a machine that fit comfortably on a desktop. As a designer for the Radio Corporation of America, in 1924, Richard H. Ranger invented the wireless photoradiogram, or transoceanic radio facsimile, the forerunner of today’s fax machines. A photograph of President Calvin Coolidge sent from New York to London on November 29,1924 became the first photo picture reproduced by transoceanic radio facsimile, commercial use of Ranger’s product began two years later. Also in 1924, Herbert E. Ives of AT&T Corporation transmitted and reconstructed the first color facsimile, around 1952 or so, Finch Facsimile, a highly developed machine, was described in detail in a book, it was never manufactured in quantity. By the late 1940s, radiofax receivers were sufficiently miniaturized to be fitted beneath the dashboard of Western Unions Telecar telegram delivery vehicles, in the 1960s, the United States Army transmitted the first photograph via satellite facsimile to Puerto Rico from the Deal Test Site using the Courier satellite. Radio fax is still in limited use today for transmitting weather charts, in 1964, Xerox Corporation introduced what many consider to be the first commercialized version of the modern fax machine, under the name or Long Distance Xerography. This model was superseded two years later with a unit that would set the standard for fax machines for years to come. Up until this point facsimile machines were expensive and hard to operate. In 1966, Xerox released the Magnafax Telecopiers, a smaller and this unit was far easier to operate and could be connected to any standard telephone line. This machine was capable of transmitting a letter-sized document in about six minutes, the first sub-minute, digital fax machine was developed by Dacom, which built on digital data compression technology originally developed at Lockheed for satellite communication. By the late 1970s, many companies around the world, entered the fax market, very shortly after a new wave of more compact, faster and efficient fax machines would hit the market
15.
Radio-frequency identification
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Radio-frequency identification uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. The tags contain electronically stored information, Passive tags collect energy from a nearby RFID readers interrogating radio waves. Active tags have a power source such as a battery. Unlike a barcode, the tag need not be within the line of sight of the reader, RFID is one method for Automatic Identification and Data Capture. These concerns resulted in standard specifications development addressing privacy and security issues, ISO/IEC18000 and ISO/IEC29167 use on-chip cryptography methods for untraceability, tag and reader authentication, and over-the-air privacy. ISO/IEC20248 specifies a digital data structure for RFID and barcodes providing data, source. This work is done within ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC31 Automatic identification, in 2014, the world RFID market is worth US$8.89 billion, up from US$7.77 billion in 2013 and US$6.96 billion in 2012. This includes tags, readers, and software/services for RFID cards, labels, fobs, the market value is expected to rise to US$18.68 billion by 2026. In 1945, Léon Theremin invented a tool for the Soviet Union which retransmitted incident radio waves with the audio information. Sound waves vibrated a diaphragm which slightly altered the shape of the resonator, similar technology, such as the IFF transponder, was routinely used by the allies and Germany in World War II to identify aircraft as friend or foe. Transponders are still used by most powered aircraft to this day, another early work exploring RFID is the landmark 1948 paper by Harry Stockman. Considerable research and development work has to be done before the basic problems in reflected-power communication are solved. Mario Cardullos device, patented on January 23,1973, was the first true ancestor of modern RFID, the basic Cardullo patent covers the use of RF, sound and light as transmission media. The original business plan presented to investors in 1969 showed uses in transportation, banking, security and medical. An early demonstration of reflected power RFID tags, both passive and semi-passive, was performed by Steven Depp, Alfred Koelle, and Robert Frayman at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1973, the portable system operated at 915 MHz and used 12-bit tags. This technique is used by the majority of todays UHFID and microwave RFID tags, the first patent to be associated with the abbreviation RFID was granted to Charles Walton in 1983. A radio-frequency identification system uses tags, or labels attached to the objects to be identified, two-way radio transmitter-receivers called interrogators or readers send a signal to the tag and read its response. RFID tags can be passive, active or battery-assisted passive
16.
Genetics
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Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in living organisms. It is generally considered a field of biology, but intersects frequently with other life sciences and is strongly linked with the study of information systems. The father of genetics is Gregor Mendel, a late 19th-century scientist, Mendel studied trait inheritance, patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring. He observed that organisms inherit traits by way of discrete units of inheritance and this term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene. Gene structure and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the context of the cell, the organism, genetics has given rise to a number of subfields, including epigenetics and population genetics. Organisms studied within the broad field span the domain of life, including bacteria, plants, animals, genetic processes work in combination with an organisms environment and experiences to influence development and behavior, often referred to as nature versus nurture. The intracellular or extracellular environment of a cell or organism may switch gene transcription on or off, a classic example is two seeds of genetically identical corn, one placed in a temperate climate and one in an arid climate. The word genetics stems from the ancient Greek γενετικός genetikos meaning genitive/generative, the observation that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding. The modern science of genetics, seeking to understand this process, prior to Mendel, Imre Festetics, a Hungarian noble, who lived in Kőszeg before Mendel, was the first who used the word genetics. He described several rules of inheritance in his work The genetic law of the Nature. His second law is the same as what Mendel published, in his third law, he developed the basic principles of mutation. Other theories of inheritance preceded his work, a popular theory during Mendels time was the concept of blending inheritance, the idea that individuals inherit a smooth blend of traits from their parents. Mendels work provided examples where traits were not blended after hybridization. Blending of traits in the progeny is now explained by the action of genes with quantitative effects. Another theory that had some support at that time was the inheritance of acquired characteristics, other theories included the pangenesis of Charles Darwin and Francis Galtons reformulation of pangenesis as both particulate and inherited. Modern genetics started with Gregor Johann Mendel, a scientist and Augustinian friar who studied the nature of inheritance in plants, the importance of Mendels work did not gain wide understanding until the 1890s, after his death, when other scientists working on similar problems re-discovered his research. William Bateson, a proponent of Mendels work, coined the word genetics in 1905, Bateson popularized the usage of the word genetics to describe the study of inheritance in his inaugural address to the Third International Conference on Plant Hybridization in London in 1906. After the rediscovery of Mendels work, scientists tried to determine which molecules in the cell were responsible for inheritance, in 1911, Thomas Hunt Morgan argued that genes are on chromosomes, based on observations of a sex-linked white eye mutation in fruit flies
17.
Bible
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The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible also differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books. Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel. This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form
18.
Book of Genesis
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The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The basic narrative expresses the theme, God creates the world and appoints man as his regent. The new post-Flood world is also corrupt, God does not destroy it, instead calling one man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At Gods command Abraham descends from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus. The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, the books author or authors appear to have structured it around ten toledot sections, but modern commentators see it in terms of a primeval history followed by the cycle of Patriarchal stories. In Judaism, the importance of Genesis centers on the covenants linking God to his chosen people. It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, while the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding the entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinging on chapters 6–9, God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh as a day of rest. God creates the first humans Adam and Eve and all the animals in the Garden of Eden but instructs them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A talking serpent portrayed as a creature or trickster, entices Eve into eating it anyway. Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel, Cain kills Abel after God accepts Abels offering but not Cains. Eve bears another son, Seth, to take Abels place, after many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the world becomes corrupted by the sin of man and Nephilim, and God determines to wipe out mankind. First, he instructs the righteous Noah and his family to build a huge boat, then God sends a great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises that he not destroy the world a second time with water with the rainbow as the symbol of his promise. But upon seeing mankind cooperating to build a great tower city, God instructs Abram to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. Abrams name is changed to Abraham and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, because Sarah is old, she tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a second wife. God resolves to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of their people, Abraham protests and gets God to agree not to destroy the cities if 10 righteous men can be found. Angels save Abrahams nephew Lot and his family, but his wife back on the destruction against their command and is turned into a pillar of salt
19.
Morse code
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Morse code is a method of transmitting text information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment. It is named for Samuel F. B, Morse, an inventor of the telegraph. Because many non-English natural languages use more than the 26 Roman letters, each Morse code symbol represents either a text character or a prosign and is represented by a unique sequence of dots and dashes. The duration of a dash is three times the duration of a dot, each dot or dash is followed by a short silence, equal to the dot duration. The letters of a word are separated by an equal to three dots, and the words are separated by a space equal to seven dots. The dot duration is the unit of time measurement in code transmission. To increase the speed of the communication, the code was designed so that the length of each character in Morse varies approximately inversely to its frequency of occurrence in English. Thus the most common letter in English, the letter E, has the shortest code, Morse code is used by some amateur radio operators, although knowledge of and proficiency with it is no longer required for licensing in most countries. Pilots and air controllers usually need only a cursory understanding. Aeronautical navigational aids, such as VORs and NDBs, constantly identify in Morse code, compared to voice, Morse code is less sensitive to poor signal conditions, yet still comprehensible to humans without a decoding device. Morse is, therefore, an alternative to synthesized speech for sending automated data to skilled listeners on voice channels. Many amateur radio repeaters, for example, identify with Morse, in an emergency, Morse code can be sent by improvised methods that can be easily keyed on and off, making it one of the simplest and most versatile methods of telecommunication. The most common signal is SOS or three dots, three dashes, and three dots, internationally recognized by treaty. Beginning in 1836, the American artist Samuel F. B, Morse, the American physicist Joseph Henry, and Alfred Vail developed an electrical telegraph system. This system sent pulses of current along wires which controlled an electromagnet that was located at the receiving end of the telegraph system. A code was needed to transmit natural language using only these pulses, around 1837, Morse, therefore, developed an early forerunner to the modern International Morse code. Around the same time, Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Eduard Weber as well as Carl August von Steinheil had already used codes with varying lengths for their telegraphs. In 1837, William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in England began using a telegraph that also used electromagnets in its receivers
20.
Rabbit
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Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world. There are eight different genera in the classified as rabbits, including the European rabbit, cottontail rabbits. There are many species of rabbit, and these, along with pikas and hares. The male is called a buck and the female is a doe, Rabbit habitats include meadows, woods, forests, grasslands, deserts and wetlands. Rabbits live in groups, and the best known species, the European rabbit, lives in underground burrows, a group of burrows is called a warren. More than half the worlds rabbit population resides in North America and they are also native to southwestern Europe, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, some islands of Japan, and in parts of Africa and South America. They are not naturally found in most of Eurasia, where a number of species of hares are present, rabbits first entered South America relatively recently, as part of the Great American Interchange. Much of the continent has just one species of rabbit, the tapeti, the European rabbit has been introduced to many places around the world. Male rabbits are called bucks, females are called does, an older term for an adult rabbit is coney, while rabbit once referred only to the young animals. Another term for a rabbit is bunny, though this term is often applied informally to rabbits generally, especially domestic ones. More recently, the kit or kitten has been used to refer to a young rabbit. A young hare is called a leveret, this term is sometimes applied to a young rabbit as well. A group of rabbits is known as a colony, or nest, a group of young rabbits with the same parentage is referred to as a litter, and a group of domestic rabbits is sometimes called a herd. Because the rabbits epiglottis is engaged over the soft palate except when swallowing, rabbits have two sets of incisor teeth, one behind the other. This way they can be distinguished from rodents, with which they are often confused, the rabbits long ears, which can be more than 10 cm long, are probably an adaptation for detecting predators. They have large, powerful hind legs, the two front paws have 5 toes, the extra called the dewclaw. The hind feet have 4 toes and they are plantigrade animals while at rest, however, they move around on their toes while running, assuming a more digitigrade form. Unlike some other paw structures of quadruped mammals, especially those of domesticated pets and their nails are strong and are used for digging, along with their teeth, they are also used for defense
21.
Green fluorescent protein
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The green fluorescent protein is a protein composed of 238 amino acid residues that exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to light in the blue to ultraviolet range. Although many other organisms have similar green fluorescent proteins, GFP traditionally refers to the protein first isolated from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. The GFP from A. victoria has an excitation peak at a wavelength of 395 nm. Its emission peak is at 509 nm, which is in the green portion of the visible spectrum. The fluorescence quantum yield of GFP is 0.79, the GFP from the sea pansy has a single major excitation peak at 498 nm. In cell and molecular biology, the GFP gene is used as a reporter of expression. GFP can be introduced into animals or other species through transgenic techniques, and maintained in their genome, to date, GFP has been expressed in many species, including bacteria, yeasts, fungi, fish and mammals, including in human cells. Tsien, Osamu Shimomura, and Martin Chalfie were awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on 10 October 2008 for their discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein. In the 1960s and 1970s, GFP, along with the separate luminescent protein aequorin, was first purified from Aequorea victoria, in A. victoria, GFP fluorescence occurs when aequorin interacts with Ca2+ ions, inducing a blue glow. Some of this luminescent energy is transferred to the GFP, shifting the overall color towards green, however, its utility as a tool for molecular biologists did not begin to be realized until 1992 when Douglas Prasher reported the cloning and nucleotide sequence of wtGFP in Gene. The funding for this project had run out, so Prasher sent cDNA samples to several labs. The lab of Martin Chalfie expressed the coding sequence of wtGFP, with the first few amino acids deleted, in cells of E. coli and C. elegans. Frederick Tsujis lab independently reported the expression of the recombinant protein one month later, remarkably, the GFP molecule folded and was fluorescent at room temperature, without the need for exogenous cofactors specific to the jellyfish. The first reported crystal structure of a GFP was that of the S65T mutant by the Remington group in Science in 1996, one month later, the Phillips group independently reported the wild-type GFP structure in Nature Biotechnology. These crystal structures provided vital background on chromophore formation and neighboring residue interactions, researchers have modified these residues by directed and random mutagenesis to produce the wide variety of GFP derivatives in use today. Due to the potential for widespread usage and the needs of researchers. The first major improvement was a point mutation reported in 1995 in Nature by Roger Tsien. This matched the spectral characteristics of commonly available FITC filter sets, a 37 °C folding efficiency point mutant to this scaffold, yielding enhanced GFP, was discovered in 1995 by the laboratories of Thastrup and Falkow
22.
Gene
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A gene is a locus of DNA which is made up of nucleotides and is the molecular unit of heredity. The transmission of genes to an offspring is the basis of the inheritance of phenotypic traits. These genes make up different DNA sequences called genotypes, genotypes along with environmental and developmental factors determine what the phenotypes will be. Most biological traits are under the influence of polygenes as well as gene–environment interactions, genes can acquire mutations in their sequence, leading to different variants, known as alleles, in the population. These alleles encode slightly different versions of a protein, which cause different phenotypical traits, usage of the term having a gene typically refers to containing a different allele of the same, shared gene. Genes evolve due to natural selection or survival of the fittest of the alleles, the concept of a gene continues to be refined as new phenomena are discovered. For example, regulatory regions of a gene can be far removed from its coding regions, some viruses store their genome in RNA instead of DNA and some gene products are functional non-coding RNAs. The existence of discrete inheritable units was first suggested by Gregor Mendel, from 1857 to 1864, in Brno, he studied inheritance patterns in 8000 common edible pea plants, tracking distinct traits from parent to offspring. He described these mathematically as 2n combinations where n is the number of differing characteristics in the original peas, although he did not use the term gene, he explained his results in terms of discrete inherited units that give rise to observable physical characteristics. This description prefigured the distinction between genotype and phenotype, charles Darwin developed a theory of inheritance he termed pangenesis, from Greek pan and genesis / genos. Darwin used the term gemmule to describe hypothetical particles that would mix during reproduction, de Vries called these units pangenes, after Darwins 1868 pangenesis theory. In 1909 the Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen shortened the name to gene, advances in understanding genes and inheritance continued throughout the 20th century. Deoxyribonucleic acid was shown to be the repository of genetic information by experiments in the 1940s to 1950s. In the early 1950s the prevailing view was that the genes in a chromosome acted like discrete entities, indivisible by recombination, collectively, this body of research established the central dogma of molecular biology, which states that proteins are translated from RNA, which is transcribed from DNA. This dogma has since shown to have exceptions, such as reverse transcription in retroviruses. The modern study of genetics at the level of DNA is known as molecular genetics, in 1972, Walter Fiers and his team at the University of Ghent were the first to determine the sequence of a gene, the gene for Bacteriophage MS2 coat protein. The subsequent development of chain-termination DNA sequencing in 1977 by Frederick Sanger improved the efficiency of sequencing, an automated version of the Sanger method was used in early phases of the Human Genome Project. The theories developed in the 1930s and 1940s to integrate molecular genetics with Darwinian evolution are called the evolutionary synthesis
