1.
Ape
–
The simians are the monkeys, cladistically including the apes, the New World monkeys or platyrrhines, and the catarrhine clade consisting of the Old World monkeys and apes. The simian line and the line diverged about 60 million years ago. Forty million years ago, simians from Africa colonized South America, the remaining simians split 25 million years ago into apes and Old World monkeys. Under modern classification, the tarsiers and simians are grouped under the suborder Haplorhini while the strepsirrhines are placed in suborder Strepsirrhini, in anthropoidea, evidences indicate that the Old and the New World primates went through parallel evolution. Primatology, paleoanthropology, and other related fields are split on their usage of the synonymous infraorder names, Simiiformes and Anthropoidea. According to Robert Hoffstetter, the term Simiiformes has priority over Anthropoidea because of the taxonomic term Simii by van der Hoeven, from which it is constructed, dates to 1833. In contrast, Anthropoidea by Mivart dates to 1864, while Simiiformes by Haeckel dates to 1866, Hoffstetter also argued that Simiiformes is also constructed like a proper infraorder name, whereas Anthropoidea ends in -oidea, which is reserved for superfamilies. He also noted that Anthropoidea is too easily confused with anthropoïdes, the simians are split into three distinct groups. The New World monkeys in parvorder Platyrrhini split from the rest of the line about 40 mya. This group split about 25 mya between the Old World monkeys and the apes
2.
Honda
–
Honda Motor Co. Ltd. is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles, aircraft, motorcycles, and power equipment. Honda became the second-largest Japanese automobile manufacturer in 2001, Honda was the eighth largest automobile manufacturer in the world behind General Motors, Volkswagen Group, Toyota, Hyundai Motor Group, Ford, Nissan, and PSA Peugeot Citroën in 2011. Honda was the first Japanese automobile manufacturer to release a luxury brand, Acura. Aside from their automobile and motorcycle businesses, Honda also manufactures garden equipment, marine engines, personal watercraft and power generators. Since 1986, Honda has been involved with artificial intelligence/robotics research and they have also ventured into aerospace with the establishment of GE Honda Aero Engines in 2004 and the Honda HA-420 HondaJet, which began production in 2012. Honda has three joint-ventures in China, in 2013, Honda invested about 5. 7% of its revenues in research and development. Also in 2013, Honda became the first Japanese automaker to be a net exporter from the United States, exporting 108,705 Honda and Acura models, throughout his life, Hondas founder, Soichiro Honda had an interest in automobiles. He worked as a mechanic at the Art Shokai garage, where he tuned cars, in 1937, with financing from his acquaintance Kato Shichirō, Honda founded Tōkai Seiki to make piston rings working out of the Art Shokai garage. After initial failures, Tōkai Seiki won a contract to supply piston rings to Toyota, Honda also aided the war effort by assisting other companies in automating the production of military aircraft propellers. The relationships Honda cultivated with personnel at Toyota, Nakajima Aircraft Company, with a staff of 12 men working in a 16 m2 shack, they built and sold improvised motorized bicycles, using a supply of 500 two-stroke 50 cc Tohatsu war surplus radio generator engines. When the engines ran out, Honda began building their own copy of the Tohatsu engine and this was the Honda A-Type, nicknamed the Bata Bata for the sound the engine made. In 1949, the Honda Technical Research Institute was liquidated for ¥1,000,000, or about US$5,000 today, at about the same time Honda hired engineer Kihachiro Kawashima, and Takeo Fujisawa who provided indispensable business and marketing expertise to complement Soichiro Hondas technical bent. The close partnership between Soichiro Honda and Fujisawa lasted until they stepped down together in October 1973, the first complete motorcycle, with both the frame and engine made by Honda, was the 1949 D-Type, the first Honda to go by the name Dream. Honda Motor Company grew in a time to become the worlds largest manufacturer of motorcycles by 1964. The first production automobile from Honda was the T360 mini pick-up truck, powered by a small 356-cc straight-4 gasoline engine, it was classified under the cheaper Kei car tax bracket. The first production car from Honda was the S500 sports car and its chain-driven rear wheels pointed to Hondas motorcycle origins. Over the next few decades, Honda worked to expand its line and expanded operations. In 1986, Honda introduced the successful Acura brand to the American market in an attempt to ground in the luxury vehicle market
3.
ASIMO
–
Honda began developing humanoid robots in the 1980s, including several prototypes that preceded ASIMO. It was the goal to create a walking robot. E0 was the first bipedal model produced as part of the Honda E series, ts created between 1986 and 1993. This was followed by the Honda P series of robots produced from 1993 through 1997, development began at Hondas Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center in Japan in 1999 and ASIMO was unveiled in October 2000. ASIMO stands 130 cm tall and weighs 54 kg, ASIMO is powered by a rechargeable 51.8 V lithium-ion battery with an operating time of one hour. Switching from a metal hydride in 2004 increased the amount of time ASIMO can operate before recharging. ASIMO has a computer processor that was created by Honda. The computer that controls ASIMOs movement is housed in the robots waist area and can be controlled by a PC, wireless controller, or voice commands. ASIMO has the ability to recognize moving objects, postures, gestures, its environment, sounds and faces. The robot can detect the movements of objects by using visual information captured by two camera eyes in its head and also determine distance and direction. This feature allows ASIMO to follow or face a person when approached, the robot interprets voice commands and human gestures, enabling it to recognize when a handshake is offered or when a person waves or points, and then respond accordingly. ASIMOs ability to distinguish between voices and other sounds allows it to identify its companions, ASIMO is able to respond to its name and recognizes sounds associated with a falling object or collision. This allows the robot to face a person when spoken to or look towards a sound, ASIMO responds to questions by nodding or providing a verbal answer in different languages and can recognize approximately 10 different faces and address them by name. There are sensors that assist in autonomous navigation, the two cameras inside the head are used as a visual sensor to detect obstacles. The lower portion of the torso has ground sensor which comprises one laser sensor, the laser sensor is used to detect ground surface. The infrared sensor with automatic shutter adjustment based on brightness is used to detect pairs of floor markings to confirm the navigable paths of the planned map, the pre-loaded map and the detection of floor markings help the robot to precisely identify its present location and continuously adjusting its position. There are front and rear ultrasonic sensors to sense the obstacles, the front sensor is located at the lower portion of the torso together with the ground sensor. The rear sensor is located at the bottom of the backpack, Hondas work with ASIMO led to further research on Walking Assist™ devices that resulted in innovations such as the Stride Management Assist and the Bodyweight Support Assist
4.
Humanoid robot
–
A humanoid robot is a robot with its body shape built to resemble the human body. The design may be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipedal locomotion, or for other purposes. In general, humanoid robots have a torso, a head, two arms, and two legs, though forms of humanoid robots may model only part of the body, for example. Some humanoid robots also have designed to replicate human facial features such as eyes. Androids are humanoid robots built to resemble humans. Humanoid robots are now used as a tool in several scientific areas. Researchers need to understand the human structure and behavior to build. On the other side, the attempt to the simulation of the body leads to a better understanding of it. Human cognition is a field of study which is focused on how humans learn from sensory information in order to acquire perceptual and this knowledge is used to develop computational models of human behavior and it has been improving over time. It has been suggested that very advanced robotics will facilitate the enhancement of ordinary humans, although the initial aim of humanoid research was to build better orthosis and prosthesis for human beings, knowledge has been transferred between both disciplines. A few examples are, powered leg prosthesis for neuromuscularly impaired, ankle-foot orthosis, biological realistic leg prosthesis and forearm prosthesis. Besides the research, humanoid robots are being developed to perform tasks like personal assistance, where they should be able to assist the sick and elderly. Regular jobs like being a receptionist or a worker of a manufacturing line are also suitable for humanoids. However, the complexity of doing so is immense and they are becoming increasingly popular for providing entertainment too. For example, Ursula, a robot, sings, play music, dances. Several Disney attractions employ the use of animatrons, robots that look, move and these animatrons look so realistic that it can be hard to decipher from a distance whether or not they are actually human. Although they have a look, they have no cognition or physical autonomy. Various humanoid robots and their applications in daily life are featured in an independent documentary film called Plug & Pray
5.
Human
–
Modern humans are the only extant members of Hominina tribe, a branch of the tribe Hominini belonging to the family of great apes. Several of these hominins used fire, occupied much of Eurasia and they began to exhibit evidence of behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago. In several waves of migration, anatomically modern humans ventured out of Africa, the spread of humans and their large and increasing population has had a profound impact on large areas of the environment and millions of native species worldwide. Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression and the exchange of ideas. Humans create complex structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals. These human societies subsequently expanded in size, establishing various forms of government, religion, today the global human population is estimated by the United Nations to be near 7.5 billion. In common usage, the word generally refers to the only extant species of the genus Homo—anatomically and behaviorally modern Homo sapiens. In scientific terms, the meanings of hominid and hominin have changed during the recent decades with advances in the discovery, there is also a distinction between anatomically modern humans and Archaic Homo sapiens, the earliest fossil members of the species. The English adjective human is a Middle English loanword from Old French humain, ultimately from Latin hūmānus, the words use as a noun dates to the 16th century. The native English term man can refer to the species generally, the species binomial Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th century work Systema Naturae. The generic name Homo is a learned 18th century derivation from Latin homō man, the species-name sapiens means wise or sapient. Note that the Latin word homo refers to humans of either gender, the genus Homo evolved and diverged from other hominins in Africa, after the human clade split from the chimpanzee lineage of the hominids branch of the primates. The closest living relatives of humans are chimpanzees and gorillas, with the sequencing of both the human and chimpanzee genome, current estimates of similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA sequences range between 95% and 99%. The gibbons and orangutans were the first groups to split from the leading to the humans. The splitting date between human and chimpanzee lineages is placed around 4–8 million years ago during the late Miocene epoch, during this split, chromosome 2 was formed from two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes. There is little evidence for the divergence of the gorilla, chimpanzee. Each of these species has been argued to be an ancestor of later hominins
6.
Indigenous peoples
–
Groups are usually described as indigenous when they maintain traditions or other aspects of an early culture that is associated with a given region. Not all indigenous peoples share such characteristics, Indigenous societies are found in every inhabited climate zone and continent of the world. Estimates put the population of indigenous peoples from 220 million to 350 million. The adjective indigenous is derived from the Latin word indigena, which is based on the root gen- to be born with a form of the prefix in in. Any given people, ethnic group or community may be described as indigenous in reference to some particular region or location that they see as their tribal land claim. Other terms used to refer to indigenous populations are aboriginal, native, original, james Anaya, former Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, has defined indigenous peoples as living descendants of pre-invasion inhabitants of lands now dominated by others. They are culturally distinct groups that find themselves engulfed by other settler societies born of forces of empire, throughout history, different states designate the groups within their boundaries that are recognized as indigenous peoples according to international or national legislation by different terms. Their ability to influence and participate in the policies that may exercise jurisdiction over their traditional lands. The presence of external laws, claims and cultural mores either potentially or actually act to constrain the practices and observances of an indigenous society. These constraints can be observed even when the society is regulated largely by its own tradition. They may be imposed, or arise as unintended consequence of trans-cultural interaction. They may have an effect, even where countered by other external influences. This definition has some limitations, because the definition applies mainly to pre-colonial populations, the primary impetus in considering indigenous identity comes from the post-colonial movements and considering the historical impacts on populations by the European imperialism. Greek sources of the Classical period acknowledge the existence of indigenous people. These peoples inhabited lands surrounding the Aegean Sea before the subsequent migrations of the Hellenic ancestors claimed by these authors, the disposition and precise identity of this former group is elusive, and sources such as Homer, Hesiod and Herodotus give varying, partially mythological accounts. However, it is clear that cultures existed whose indigenous characteristics were distinguished by the subsequent Hellenic cultures, greco-Roman society flourished between 250 BC and 480 AD and commanded successive waves of conquests that gripped more than half of the globe. The rapid and extensive spread of the various European powers from the early 15th century onwards had an impact upon many of the indigenous cultures with whom they came into contact. The Canary Islands had an indigenous population called the Guanches whose origin is still the subject of discussion among historians, the United Nations estimates that there are over 370 million indigenous people living in over 70 countries worldwide
7.
Morphology (biology)
–
Morphology is a branch of biology dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features. This includes aspects of the appearance, i. e. external morphology, as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs. This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function, Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of gross structure of an organism or taxon and its component parts. The word morphology is from the Ancient Greek don, morphé, meaning form, among other important theorists of morphology are Lorenz Oken, Georges Cuvier, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Richard Owen, Karl Gegenbaur and Ernst Haeckel. In English-speaking countries, the term molecular morphology has been used for time for describing the structure of compound molecules, such as polymers. Comparative Morphology is analysis of the patterns of the locus of structures within the plan of an organism. Functional Morphology is the study of the relationship between the structure and function of morphological features, experimental Morphology is the study of the effects of external factors upon the morphology of organisms under experimental conditions, such as the effect of genetic mutation. Anatomy is a branch of morphology that deals with the structure of organisms, most taxa differ morphologically from other taxa. Typically, closely related taxa differ much less than more distantly related ones, cryptic species are species which look very similar, or perhaps even outwardly identical, but are reproductively isolated. Conversely, sometimes unrelated taxa acquire a similar appearance as a result of convergent evolution or even mimicry, in addition, there can be morphological differences within a species, such as in Apoica flavissima where queens are significantly smaller than workers. A further problem with relying on morphological data is that what may appear, morphologically speaking, the significance of these differences can be examined through the use of allometric engineering in which one or both species are manipulated to phenocopy the other species. Invention and development of microscopy enable the observation of 3-D cell morphology with both spatial and temporal resolution. The dynamic processes of cell morphology which are controlled by a complex system play an important role in varied important biological process, such as immune. Comparative anatomy Insect morphology Morphometrics Neuromorphology Phenetics Phenotype Phenotypic plasticity Plant morphology
8.
Anatomical terms of location
–
Standard anatomical terms of location deal unambiguously with the anatomy of animals, including humans. All vertebrates have the basic body plan – they are strictly bilaterally symmetrical in early embryonic stages. That is, they have left and right halves if divided down the centre. For these reasons, the directional terms can be considered to be those used in vertebrates. By extension, the terms are used for many other organisms as well. While these terms are standardized within specific fields of biology, there are unavoidable, sometimes dramatic, for example, differences in terminology remain a problem that, to some extent, still separates the terminology of human anatomy from that used in the study of various other zoological categories. The vertebrates and Craniata share a heritage and common structure. To avoid ambiguities this terminology is based on the anatomy of each animal in a standard way, for humans, one type of vertebrate, anatomical terms may differ from other forms of vertebrates. Thus what is on top of a human is the head, whereas the top of a dog may be its back, for example, many species are not even bilaterally symmetrical. In these species, terminology depends on their type of symmetry, all descriptions are with respect to the organism in its standard anatomical position, even when the organism in question has appendages in another position. This helps avoid confusion in terminology when referring to the organism in different postures. In humans, this refers to the body in a position with arms at the side. While the universal vertebrate terminology used in medicine would work in human medicine. Many anatomical terms can be combined, either to indicate a position in two axes simultaneously or to indicate the direction of a movement relative to the body, for example, anterolateral indicates a position that is both anterior and lateral to the body axis. There is no limit to the contexts in which terms may be modified to qualify each other in such combinations. Generally the modifier term is truncated and an o or an i is added in prefixing it to the qualified term, where desirable three or more terms may be agglutinated or concatenated, as in anteriodorsolateral. Such terms sometimes used to be hyphenated, but the tendency is to omit the hyphen. There is however little basis for any rule to interfere with choice of convenience in such usage
9.
Forelimb
–
A forelimb is an anterior limb on a terrestrial vertebrates body. For quadrupeds, the foreleg is often used instead. All vertebrate forelimbs are homologous, meaning that they all evolved from the same structures, vertebrate zoology, an introduction to the comparative anatomy, embryology, and evolution of chordate animals
10.
Appendage
–
In invertebrate biology, an appendage is an external body part, or natural prolongation, that protrudes from an organisms body. It is a term that covers any of the homologous body parts that may extend from a body segment. These include antennae, mouthparts, gills, walking legs, swimming legs, sexual organs, typically, each body segment carries one pair of appendages. An appendage which is modified to assist in feeding is known as a maxilliped or gnathopod, all arthropod appendages are variations of the same basic structure, and which structure is produced is controlled by homeobox genes. Changes to these genes have allowed scientists to produce animals with modified appendages, such as legs instead of antennae
11.
Visible spectrum
–
The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called light or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 390 to 700 nm, in terms of frequency, this corresponds to a band in the vicinity of 430–770 THz. The spectrum does not, however, contain all the colors that the human eyes, unsaturated colors such as pink, or purple variations such as magenta, are absent, for example, because they can be made only by a mix of multiple wavelengths. Colors containing only one wavelength are called pure colors or spectral colors. Visible wavelengths pass through the window, the region of the electromagnetic spectrum that allows wavelengths to pass largely unattenuated through the Earths atmosphere. An example of this phenomenon is that clean air scatters blue light more than red wavelengths, the optical window is also referred to as the visible window because it overlaps the human visible response spectrum. The near infrared window lies just out of the vision, as well as the Medium Wavelength IR window. In the 13th century, Roger Bacon theorized that rainbows were produced by a process to the passage of light through glass or crystal. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton discovered that prisms could disassemble and reassemble white light and he was the first to use the word spectrum in this sense in print in 1671 in describing his experiments in optics. The result is red light is bent less sharply than violet as it passes through the prism. Newton divided the spectrum into seven named colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, the human eye is relatively insensitive to indigos frequencies, and some people who have otherwise-good vision cannot distinguish indigo from blue and violet. For this reason, some commentators, including Isaac Asimov, have suggested that indigo should not be regarded as a color in its own right. However, the evidence indicates that what Newton meant by indigo, comparing Newtons observation of prismatic colors to a color image of the visible light spectrum shows that indigo corresponds to what is today called blue, whereas blue corresponds to cyan. In the 18th century, Goethe wrote about optical spectra in his Theory of Colours, Goethe used the word spectrum to designate a ghostly optical afterimage, as did Schopenhauer in On Vision and Colors. Goethe argued that the spectrum was a compound phenomenon. Where Newton narrowed the beam of light to isolate the phenomenon, Goethe observed that a wider aperture produces not a spectrum but rather reddish-yellow, the spectrum appears only when these edges are close enough to overlap. Young was the first to measure the wavelengths of different colors of light, the connection between the visible spectrum and color vision was explored by Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz in the early 19th century
12.
Binocular vision
–
Binocular vision is vision in which creatures having two eyes use them together. The word binocular comes from two Latin roots, bini for double, and oculus for eye, according to Fahle, having two eyes confers six advantages over having one. It gives a creature a spare eye in one is damaged. It gives a wider field of view and it can give stereopsis in which binocular disparity provided by the two eyes different positions on the head gives precise depth perception. This also allows a creature to break the camouflage of another creature and it allows the angles of the eyes lines of sight, relative to each other, and those lines relative to a particular object to be determined from the images in the two eyes. These properties are necessary for the third advantage and it allows a creature to see more of, or all of, an object behind an obstacle. It gives binocular summation in which the ability to detect faint objects is enhanced, other phenomena of binocular vision include utrocular discrimination, eye dominance, allelotropia, binocular fusion or singleness of vision, and binocular rivalry. Binocular vision helps with performance skills such as catching, grasping and it also allows humans to walk over and around obstacles at greater speed and with more assurance. Optometrists and/or Orthoptists are eyecare professionals who fix binocular vision problems, some animals, usually, but not always, prey animals, have their two eyes positioned on opposite sides of their heads to give the widest possible field of view. Examples include rabbits, buffaloes, and antelopes, in such animals, the eyes often move independently to increase the field of view. Even without moving their eyes, some birds have a 360-degree field of view, other animals that are not necessarily predators, such as fruit bats and a number of primates also have forward-facing eyes. These are usually animals that need fine depth discrimination/perception, for instance, binocular vision improves the ability to pick a chosen fruit or to find, the direction of a point relative to the head is called visual direction, or version. The angle between the line of sight of the two eyes when fixating a point is called the disparity, binocular parallax, or vergence demand. The relation between the position of the two eyes, version and vergence is described by Herings law of visual direction, in animals with forward-facing eyes, the eyes usually move together. Eye movements are either conjunctive, version eye movements, usually described by their type, or they are disjunctive, vergence eye movements. The relation between version and vergence eye movements in humans is described by Herings law of equal innervation, some animals use both of the above strategies. A starling, for example, has laterally placed eyes to cover a wide field of view, a remarkable example is the chameleon, whose eyes appear as if mounted on turrets, each moving independently of the other, up or down, left or right. Nevertheless, the chameleon can bring both of its eyes to bear on an object when it is hunting, showing vergence
13.
Biomechanic
–
Biomechanics is the study of the structure and function of biological systems such as humans, animals, plants, organs, fungi, and cells by means of the methods of mechanics. Biomechanics is closely related to engineering, because it often uses traditional engineering sciences to analyze biological systems, some simple applications of Newtonian mechanics and/or materials sciences can supply correct approximations to the mechanics of many biological systems. Usually biological systems are more complex than man-built systems. Numerical methods are applied in almost every biomechanical study. Research is done in a process of hypothesis and verification, including several steps of modeling, computer simulation. Elements of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, gait analysis, Biomechanics in sports can be stated as the muscular, joint and skeletal actions of the body during the execution of a given task, skill and/or technique. Proper understanding of biomechanics relating to sports skill has the greatest implications on, sports performance, rehabilitation and injury prevention, as noted by Doctor Michael Yessis, one could say that best athlete is the one that executes his or her skill the best. The mechanical analysis of biomaterials and biofluids is usually carried forth with the concepts of continuum mechanics and this assumption breaks down when the length scales of interest approach the order of the micro structural details of the material. One of the most remarkable characteristic of biomaterials is their hierarchical structure, in other words, the mechanical characteristics of these materials rely on physical phenomena occurring in multiple levels, from the molecular all the way up to the tissue and organ levels. Biomaterials are classified in two groups, hard and soft tissues, mechanical deformation of hard tissues may be analysed with the theory of linear elasticity. On the other hand, soft tissues usually undergo large deformations and thus their analysis rely on the strain theory. The interest in continuum biomechanics is spurred by the need for realism in the development of medical simulation, biological fluid mechanics, or biofluid mechanics, is the study of both gas and liquid fluid flows in or around biological organisms. An often studied liquid biofluids problem is that of blood flow in the cardiovascular system. Under certain mathematical circumstances, blood flow can be modelled by the Navier–Stokes equations, in vivo whole blood is assumed to be an incompressible Newtonian fluid. However, this fails when considering forward flow within arterioles. At the microscopic scale, the effects of red blood cells become significant. When the diameter of the vessel is just slightly larger than the diameter of the red blood cell the Fahraeus–Lindquist effect occurs. However, as the diameter of the vessel decreases further
14.
Plantigrade
–
In terrestrial animals, plantigrade locomotion means walking with the toes and metatarsals flat on the ground. It is one of three forms of locomotion adopted by terrestrial mammals, the leg of a plantigrade mammal includes the bones of the upper leg and lower leg. The leg of a digitigrade mammal also includes the metatarsals/metacarpals, the bones that in a human compose the arch of the foot, the leg of an unguligrade mammal also includes the phalanges, the finger and toe bones. Among extinct animals, most early mammals such as pantodonts were plantigrade, a plantigrade foot is the primitive condition for mammals, digitigrade and unguligrade locomotion evolved later. Among archosaurs, the pterosaurs were partially plantigrade, walking on the whole of the hind foot, the primary disadvantage of a plantigrade foot is speed. With more bones and joints in the foot, the leg is shorter and heavier at the far end, which makes it difficult to move rapidly. Plantigrade foot occurs normally in humans in static postures of standing and sitting and it should also occur normally in gait. This would be evident by the observable heel rise
15.
Bipedalism
–
Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs. An animal or machine that moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped /ˈbaɪpɛd/. Types of bipedal movement include walking, running, or hopping, few modern species are habitual bipeds whose normal method of locomotion is two-legged. A larger number of modern species intermittently or briefly use a bipedal gait, several non-archosaurian lizard species move bipedally when running, usually to escape from threats. Many primate and bear species will adopt a bipedal gait in order to reach food or explore their environment, several arboreal primate species, such as gibbons and indriids, exclusively walk on two legs during the brief periods they spend on the ground. Many animals rear up on their hind legs whilst fighting or copulating, some animals commonly stand on their hind legs, in order to reach food, to keep watch, to threaten a competitor or predator, or to pose in courtship, but do not move bipedally. The word is derived from the Latin words bi two and ped- foot, as contrasted with quadruped four feet, limited and exclusive bipedalism can offer a species several advantages. While upright, non-locomotory limbs become free for other uses, including manipulation, flight, digging, even though bipedalism is slower at first, over long distances, it has allowed humans to outrun most other animals according to the endurance running hypothesis. Bipedality in kangaroo rats has been hypothesized to improve locomotor performance, zoologists often label behaviors, including bipedalism, as facultative or obligate. Even this distinction is not completely clear-cut — for example, humans other than infants normally walk and run in biped fashion, but almost all can crawl on hands and knees when necessary. Even if one ignores exceptions caused by some kind of injury or illness, there are many cases, including the fact that normal humans can crawl on hands. This article therefore avoids the terms facultative and obligate, and focuses on the range of styles of locomotion used by various groups of animals. There are a number of states of movement commonly associated with bipedalism, in most bipeds this is an active process, requiring constant adjustment of balance. One foot in front of another, with at least one foot on the ground at any time, one foot in front of another, with periods where both feet are off the ground. Moving by a series of jumps with both feet moving together, the great majority of living terrestrial vertebrates are quadrupeds, with bipedalism exhibited by only a handful of living groups. Humans, gibbons and large birds walk by raising one foot at a time, on the other hand, most macropods, smaller birds, lemurs and bipedal rodents move by hopping on both legs simultaneously. Tree kangaroos are able to walk or hop, most commonly alternating feet when moving arboreally, there are no known living or fossil bipedal amphibians. Many species of lizards become bipedal during high-speed, sprint locomotion, including the worlds fastest lizard, the first known biped is the bolosaurid Eudibamus whose fossils date from 290 million years ago
16.
Science fiction
–
Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a literature of ideas. Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying science fiction is what we point to when we say it, a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography, you do not know what it is, in 1970 or 1971William Atheling Jr. According to science fiction writer Robert A, rod Serlings definition is fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures. Science fiction elements include, A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, a spatial setting or scenes in outer space, on other worlds, or on subterranean earth. Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots, futuristic or plausible technology such as ray guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers. Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws, for time travel, wormholes. New and different political or social systems, e. g. utopian, dystopian, post-scarcity, paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis Other universes or dimensions and travel between them. A product of the budding Age of Reason and the development of science itself. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Keplers work the first science fiction story and it depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earths motion is seen from there. Later, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about a flight to the moon, more examples appeared throughout the 19th century. Wells The War of the Worlds describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry and it is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth. In the late 19th century, the scientific romance was used in Britain to describe much of this fiction. This produced additional offshoots, such as the 1884 novella Flatland, the term would continue to be used into the early 20th century for writers such as Olaf Stapledon. In the early 20th century, pulp magazines helped develop a new generation of mainly American SF writers, influenced by Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine. In 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars, the first of his series of Barsoom novels, situated on Mars
17.
Convergent evolution
–
Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different lineages. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last common ancestor of those groups, the cladistic term for the same phenomenon is homoplasy. The recurrent evolution of flight is an example, as flying insects, birds. Functionally similar features that have arisen through convergent evolution are analogous, whereas homologous structures or traits have a common origin, bird, bat and pterosaur wings are analogous structures, but their forelimbs are homologous, sharing an ancestral state despite serving different functions. The opposite of convergence is divergent evolution, where related species evolve different traits, convergent evolution is similar to but different from parallel evolution. Many instances of convergent evolution are known in plants, including the development of C4 photosynthesis, seed dispersal by fleshy fruits adapted to be eaten by animals. In morphology, analogous traits arise when different species live in similar ways and/or a similar environment, when occupying similar ecological niches similar problems can lead to similar solutions. The British anatomist Richard Owen was the first to identify the difference between analogies and homologies. In biochemistry, physical and chemical constraints on mechanisms have caused some active site arrangements such as the triad to evolve independently in separate enzyme superfamilies. In his 1989 book Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould argued that if one could rewind the tape of life the same conditions were encountered again, evolution could take a very different course. In cladistics, a homoplasy is a trait shared by two or more taxa for any other than that they share a common ancestry. Taxa which do share ancestry are part of the same clade, homoplastic traits caused by convergence are therefore, from the point of view of cladistics, confounding factors which could lead to an incorrect analysis. In some cases, it is difficult to tell whether a trait has been lost and then re-evolved convergently, or whether a gene has simply been switched off, such a re-emerged trait is called an atavism. From a mathematical standpoint, a gene has a steadily decreasing probability of retaining potential functionality over time. When two species are similar in a character, evolution is defined as parallel if the ancestors were also similar. When the ancestral forms are unspecified or unknown, or the range of traits considered is not clearly specified, the enzymology of proteases provides some of the clearest examples of convergent evolution. These examples reflect the intrinsic chemical constraints on enzymes, leading evolution to converge on equivalent solutions independently and repeatedly, serine and cysteine proteases use different amino acid functional groups as a nucleophile. In order to activate that nucleophile, they orient an acidic, the chemical and physical constraints on enzyme catalysis have caused identical triad arrangements to evolve independently more than 20 times in different enzyme superfamilies
18.
Dinosaur intelligence
–
Dinosaur intelligence has been a point of contention for paleontologists. Non-avian dinosaurs were once regarded as being unintelligent animals but have largely been appraised more generously since the dinosaur renaissance and this new found optimism for dinosaur intelligence has led to highly exaggerated portrayals in pop-cultural works like Jurassic Park. Paleontologists now regard dinosaurs as being very intelligent for reptiles, some have speculated that if the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event had not occurred, the more intelligent forms of small theropods might have eventually evolved human-like levels of intelligence. Popular misconceptions of dinosaur neurology include the concept of a brain in the pelvis of stegosaurs. Traditional comparisons of brain volume to body mass in dinosaurs use the endocast as a proxy for brain volume, however, the brain of the modern reptile genus Sphenodon fills only about half of its endocranial volume. Some paleontologists used this fifty percent estimate in their estimates of dinosaur brain volume, other workers have observed that details on the endocranial surface indicates that some fossil reptiles had brains that occupied a much larger portion of the endocranium. Hans Larsson notes that the transition from reptiles to birds prevents using a set ratio from being a valid approach to estimating the volume of the occupied by a dinosaurs brain. By contrast, Tyrannosaurus lies just outside it in the direction of a more avian proportion, since tyrannosaurs are relatively basal coelurosaurs, this is evidence that the advent of the Coelurosauria marks the beginning of trend in theropod brain enlargement. The brain of Allosaurus fragilis resembled that of the related form Carcharodontosaurus saharicus, the shape resembles that of the modern day crocodile. In 2001, Hans C. E. Larsson published a description of the endocranium of Carcharodontosaurus saharicus, starting from the portion of the brain closest to the tip of the animals snout is the forebrain, which is followed by the midbrain. Larsson found that the midbrain was angled downwards at 45 degrees towards the rear of the animal and this is followed by the hind brain, which was roughly parallel to the forebrain and itself forms a roughly 40 degree angle with the midbrain. Overall, the brain of C. saharicus would have similar to that of a related dinosaur. Tyrannosaurus lies just outside the 95% confidence limits of the nonavian reptile ratio of volume to whole brain volume in the direction of a more avian proportion. This is in contrast to Carcharodontosaurus saharicus and Allosaurus fragilis, which lie firmly within the reptilian range, troodons cerebrum-to-brain-volume ratio was 31. 5% to 63% of the way from a nonavian reptile proportion to a truly avian one. Archaeopteryx had a cerebrum-to-brain-volume ratio 78% of the way to modern birds, one discrepancy is the ratio possessed by the Eocene bird Limosa gypsorum, which was only 63% of the modern bird ratio. Bird intelligence deals with the definition of intelligence and its measurement as it applies to birds, traditionally, birds have been considered inferior in intelligence to mammals, and derogatory terms such as bird brains have been used colloquially in some cultures. The difficulty of defining or measuring intelligence in non-human animals makes the subject difficult for scientific study, anatomically, a bird has a relatively large brain compared to its head size. The visual and auditory senses are well developed in most species, while the tactile, birds communicate using visual signals as well as through the use of calls and song
19.
Homo
–
The genus is between 2 and 3 million years old, taken to emerge with the appearance of Homo habilis. It is derived from the genus Australopithecus, which itself had previously split from the lineage of Pan, taxonomically, Homo is the only genus assigned to the subtribe Hominina which, with the subtribes Australopithecina and Panina, comprise the tribe Hominini. All species of the genus Homo plus those species of the australopithecines that arose after the split from Pan are called hominins, Homo erectus appeared about two million years ago in East Africa and, in several early migrations, it spread throughout Africa and Eurasia. It was likely the first hominin to live in a hunter-gatherer society, the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens or anatomically modern humans emerged about 200,000 years ago in East Africa. DNA analysis provides evidence of interbreeding between archaic and modern humans. See Hominidae for an overview of taxonomy, the Latin noun homō means human being or man in the generic sense of human being, mankind. The binomial name Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus, names for other species of the genus were introduced beginning in the second half of the 19th century. Even today, the genus Homo has not been properly defined, since the early human fossil record began to slowly emerge from the earth, the boundaries and definitions of the genus Homo have been poorly defined and constantly in flux. Because there was no reason to think it would ever have any additional members, the discovery of Neanderthal brought the first addition. The genus Homo was given its name to suggest that its member species can be classified as human. Many such names are now dubbed as synonyms with Homo, including Pithecanthropus, Protanthropus, Sinanthropus, Cyphanthropus, Africanthropus, Telanthropus, Atlanthropus, classifying the genus Homo into species and subspecies is subject to incomplete information and remains poorly done. Some recently extinct species in the genus Homo are only recently discovered, john Edward Gray was an early advocate of classifying taxa by designating tribes and families. Several species, including Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus africanus and these species have morphological features that align them with Homo, but there is no consensus as to which gave rise to Homo. The advent of Homo was traditionally taken to coincide with the first use of stone tools, the emergence of Homo also coincides roughly with the onset of Quaternary glaciation, the beginning of the current ice age. A fossil mandible fragment dated to 2.8 million years ago which may represent a stage between Australopithecus and Homo was discovered in 2015 in Afar, Ethiopia. Some authors would push the development of Homo past 3 Mya, the most salient physiological development between the earlier australopithecine species and Homo is the increase in cranial capacity, from about 450 cm3 in A. garhi to 600 cm3 in H. habilis. Within the genus Homo, cranial capacity again doubled from H. habilis through Homo ergaster or H. erectus to Homo heidelbergensis by 0.6 million years ago, the cranial capacity of H. heidelbergensis overlaps with the range found in modern humans. Homo erectus has often been assumed to have developed anagenetically from Homo habilis from about 2 million years ago
20.
Intelligence
–
Intelligence has been defined in many different ways including as ones capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, planning, creativity and problem solving. It can be generally described as the ability to perceive information. Intelligence is most widely studied in humans, but has also observed in non-human animals. Artificial intelligence is intelligence in machines and it is commonly implemented in computer systems using program software. Within the discipline of psychology, various approaches to intelligence have been adopted. The psychometric approach is especially familiar to the public, as well as being the most researched. Intelligence derives from the Latin verb ability to think intelligere, to comprehend or perceive, a form of this verb, intellectus, became the medieval technical term for understanding, and a translation for the Greek philosophical term nous. Hobbes for example, in his Latin De Corpore, used intellectus intelligit as a example of a logical absurdity. The term intelligence has become less common in English language philosophy. The definition of intelligence is controversial, some groups of psychologists have suggested the following definitions, From Mainstream Science on Intelligence, an op-ed statement in the Wall Street Journal signed by fifty-two researchers. A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and it is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—catching on, making sense of things, Concepts of intelligence are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat different, definitions, Intelligence enables humans to remember descriptions of things and use those descriptions in future behaviors. Intelligence enables humans to experience and think, note that much of the above definition applies also to the intelligence of non-human animals. Although humans have been the focus of intelligence researchers, scientists have also attempted to investigate animal intelligence, or more broadly. These researchers are interested in studying both mental ability in a species, and comparing abilities between species. They study various measures of problem solving, as well as numerical and verbal reasoning abilities, wolfgang Köhlers research on the intelligence of apes is an example of research in this area
21.
Evolution
–
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to biodiversity at every level of organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms. In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the LUCA of all living on Earth. The fossil record includes a progression from early biogenic graphite, to microbial mat fossils, existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped both by speciation and by extinction. More than 99 percent of all species that lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. Estimates of Earths current species range from 10 to 14 million, more recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described. In the mid-19th century, Charles Darwin formulated the theory of evolution by natural selection. This teleonomy is the quality whereby the process of natural selection creates and preserves traits that are fitted for the functional roles they perform. The processes by which the changes occur, from one generation to another, are called evolutionary processes or mechanisms, the four most widely recognized evolutionary processes are natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene migration. Natural selection and genetic drift sort variation, mutation and gene migration create variation, consequences of selection can include meiotic drive, nonrandom mating and genetic hitchhiking. In the early 20th century the modern evolutionary synthesis integrated classical genetics with Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection through the discipline of population genetics, the importance of natural selection as a cause of evolution was accepted into other branches of biology. Moreover, previously held notions about evolution, such as orthogenesis, evolutionism, evolutionary computation, a sub-field of artificial intelligence, involves the application of Darwinian principles to problems in computer science. The proposal that one type of organism could descend from another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander, such proposals survived into Roman times. The poet and philosopher Lucretius followed Empedocles in his masterwork De rerum natura, in contrast to these materialistic views, Aristotelianism considered all natural things as actualisations of fixed natural possibilities, known as forms. This was part of a teleological understanding of nature in which all things have an intended role to play in a divine cosmic order. In the 17th century, the new method of modern science rejected the Aristotelian approach, however, this new approach was slow to take root in the biological sciences, the last bastion of the concept of fixed natural types. The biological classification introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1735 explicitly recognized the nature of species relationships. Other naturalists of this time speculated on the change of species over time according to natural laws
22.
American Psychological Association
–
The APA has an annual budget of around $115m. There are 54 divisions of the APA—interest groups covering different subspecialties of psychology or topical areas, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association are sometimes distinguished as the bigger APA and the little APA because of their relative membership sizes. APA is a corporation chartered in the District of Columbia, APAs bylaws describe structural components that serve as a system of checks and balances that ensure democratic process. The organizational entities include, APA President, APAs president is elected by the membership. The president chairs the Council of Representatives and the Board of Directors, during his or her term of office, the president performs such duties as are prescribed in the bylaws. The Board oversees the associations administrative affairs and presents a budget for council approval. The council has authority to set policy and make decisions regarding APAs roughly $60 million annual income. It is composed of elected members from state/provincial/territorial psychological associations, APA divisions, APA Committee Structure, Boards and Committees. Members of boards and committees conduct much of APAs work on a volunteer basis and they carry out a wide variety of tasks suggested by their names. Some have responsibility for monitoring major programs, such as the directorates, the June 2013 GGP update on the recommended changes can be found in the document Good Governance Project Recommended Changes to Maximize Organizational Effectiveness of APA Governance. The suggested changes would change APA from a membership-based, representational structure to a corporate structure and these motions will be discussed and voted upon by Council on July 31,2013 and August 2,2013. State licensing laws specify state specific requirements for the education and training of psychologists leading to licensure, psychologists who are exempted from licensure could include researchers, educators, or general applied psychologists who provide services outside of the health and mental health field. The American Psychological Association Practice Organization and the Education Advocacy Trust and they engage in advocacy on behalf of psychological practitioners and health care consumers and psychology education, respectively. 124th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Denver Colorado 125th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, APA also publishes over 70 other journals encompassing most specialty areas in the field, APAs Educational Publishing Foundation is an imprint for publishing on behalf of other organizations. The APA has also published books under the Magination Press imprint, software for data analysis, videos demonstrating therapeutic techniques, reports. The awards are designed to recognize organizations for their efforts to foster employee health, the award program highlights a variety of workplaces, large and small, profit and non-profit, in diverse geographical settings. Applicants are evaluated on their efforts in the five areas, employee involvement, work-life balance, employee growth and development, health and safety. Awards are given at the local and national level, American Psychological Association Style is a set of rules developed to assist reading comprehension in the social and behavioral sciences
23.
Wonderful Life (book)
–
Wonderful Life, The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History is a 1989 book on the evolution of Cambrian fauna by Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Gould described his later book Full House as a volume to Wonderful Life. Goulds thesis in Wonderful Life was that contingency plays a role in the evolutionary history of life. He based his argument on the well preserved fossils of the Burgess Shale. Gould argues that during this period, just after the Cambrian explosion, however most of these phyla left no modern descendants. Gould proposed that given a chance to rewind the tape of life and let it play again, Gould maintains that, traits that enhance survival during an extinction do so in ways that are incidental and unrelated to the causes of their evolution in the first place. Gould earlier coined the term exaptation to describe fortuitously beneficial traits, Gould regarded Opabinia—an odd creature with five eyes and frontal nozzle—as so important to understanding the Cambrian explosion that he wanted to call his book Homage to Opabinia. Gould wrote, I believe that Whittingtons reconstruction of Opabinia in 1975 will stand as one of the documents in the history of human knowledge. How many other studies have led directly on to a fundamentally revised view about the history of life. We are awestruck by Tyrannosaurus, we marvel at the feathers of Archaeopteryx, but none of these has taught us anywhere near so much about the nature of evolution as a little two-inch Cambrian oddball invertebrate named Opabinia. Wonderful Life quickly climbed the national bestseller lists within weeks of publication and it stimulated wide discussion regarding the nature of progress and contingency in evolution. Goulds controversial thesis was that if the history of life were replayed over again, in his review, the biologist Richard Dawkins wrote that, Wonderful Life is a beautifully written and deeply muddled book. To make unputdownable an intricate, technical account of the anatomies of worms, but the theory that Stephen Gould wrings out of his fossils is a sorry mess. The evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr argued that Gould, made such contingencies a major theme in Wonderful Life, biologist John Maynard Smith wrote, I agree with Gould that evolution is not in general predictable. … Although I agree with Gould about contingency, I find the problem of progress harder, … I do think that progress has happened, although I find it hard to define precisely what I mean. Philosopher Michael Ruse wrote that, Wonderful Life was the best book written by the late Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist and it is … a thrilling story that Gould tells in a way that no one else could equal. Some of the anatomical reconstructions cited by Gould were soon challenged as being incorrect and it was later brought to light by paleontologists Lars Ramskold and Hou Xianguang that Conway Morris reconstruction was inverted upside down, and likely belonged to the modern phylum Onychophora. The ultimate theme of the book is still being debated among evolutionary biologists today, march of Progress Wonderful Life - by Stephen Jay Gould Of tongue worms, velvet worms, and water bears - by Stephen Jay Gould The Cambrian Explosion, Slow-fuse or Megatonnage
24.
Stephen Jay Gould
–
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of science of his generation. Gould spent most of his teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In 1996 Gould was also appointed as the Vincent Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University, Goulds most significant contribution to evolutionary biology was the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which he developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972. The theory proposes that most evolution is characterized by periods of evolutionary stability. The theory was contrasted against phyletic gradualism, the idea that evolutionary change is marked by a pattern of smooth. Most of Goulds empirical research was based on the land snail genera Poecilozonites and he also contributed to evolutionary developmental biology, and received wide praise for his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny. In evolutionary theory he opposed strict selectionism, sociobiology as applied to humans and he campaigned against creationism and proposed that science and religion should be considered two distinct fields whose authorities do not overlap. Gould was known by the public mainly from his 300 popular essays in the magazine Natural History. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named him a Living Legend, Stephen Jay Gould was born and raised in the community of Bayside, a neighborhood of the northeastern section of Queens in New York City. His father Leonard was a stenographer and a World War II veteran in the United States Navy. His mother Eleanor was an artist whose parents were Jewish immigrants living and working in the citys Garment District, when Gould was five years old his father took him to the Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History, where he first encountered Tyrannosaurus rex. I had no idea there were such things—I was awestruck, Gould once recalled and it was in that moment that he decided to become a paleontologist. Raised in a secular Jewish home, Gould did not formally practice religion, when asked directly if he was an agnostic in Skeptic magazine, he responded, If you absolutely forced me to bet on the existence of a conventional anthropomorphic deity, of course Id bet no. But, basically, Huxley was right when he said that agnosticism is the honorable position because we really cannot know. Id be real surprised if there turned out to be a conventional God, though he had been brought up by a Marxist father, he stated that his fathers politics were very different from his own. In describing his own views, he has said they tend to the left of center. According to Gould the most influential political books he read were C. Wright Mills The Power Elite, while attending Antioch College in the early 1960s, Gould was active in the civil rights movement and often campaigned for social justice
25.
Primate
–
A primate is a mammal of the order Primates. In taxonomy, primates include two distinct lineages, strepsirrhines and haplorhines, Primates arose from ancestors that lived in the trees of tropical forests, many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging three-dimensional environment. Most primate species remain at least partly arboreal, with the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent except for Antarctica, most primates live in tropical or subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa and Asia. Based on fossil evidence, the earliest known true primates, represented by the genus Teilhardina, an early close primate relative known from abundant remains is the Late Paleocene Plesiadapis, c. Molecular clock studies suggest that the branch may be even older. The order Primates was traditionally divided into two groupings, prosimians and anthropoids. Prosimians have characteristics more like those of the earliest primates, and include the lemurs of Madagascar, lorisoids, simians include monkeys, apes and hominins. Simians are divided into two groups, catarrhine monkeys and apes of Africa and Southeast Asia and platyrrhine or New World monkeys of South, catarrhines consist of Old World monkeys, gibbons and great apes, New World monkeys include the capuchin, howler and squirrel monkeys. Humans are the only extant catarrhines to have spread successfully outside of Africa, South Asia, New primate species are still being discovered. More than 25 species were described in the decade of the 2000s. Considered generalist mammals, primates exhibit a range of characteristics. Some primates are primarily terrestrial rather than arboreal, but all species possess adaptations for climbing trees, locomotion techniques used include leaping from tree to tree, walking on two or four limbs, knuckle-walking, and swinging between branches of trees. Primates are characterized by large brains relative to other mammals, as well as a reliance on stereoscopic vision at the expense of smell. These features are developed in monkeys and apes and noticeably less so in lorises. Three-color vision has developed in some primates, most also have opposable thumbs and some have prehensile tails. Many species are dimorphic, differences include body mass, canine tooth size. Primates have slower rates of development than other similarly sized mammals and reach maturity later, depending on the species, adults may live in solitude, in mated pairs, or in groups of up to hundreds of members. The relationships among the different groups of primates were not clearly understood until relatively recently, for example, ape has been used either as an alternative for monkey or for any tailless, relatively human-like primate
26.
Crow
–
A crow is a bird of the genus Corvus. The term crow is used both as part of the name of many species, and collectively for all of Corvus
27.
Dolphin
–
Dolphins are a widely distributed and diverse group of aquatic mammals. They are a grouping within the order Cetacea, excluding whales and porpoises. The dolphins comprise the extant families Delphinidae, Platanistidae, Iniidae, and Pontoporiidae, there are 40 extant species of dolphins. Dolphins, alongside other cetaceans, belong to the clade Cetartiodactyla with even-toed ungulates and their closest living relatives are the hippopotamuses, having diverged about 40 million years ago. Dolphins range in size from the 1.7 m long and 50 kg Mauis dolphin to the 9.5 m and 10 t killer whale, several species exhibit sexual dimorphism, in that the males are larger than females. They have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers, though not quite as flexible as seals, some dolphins can travel at 55.5 km/h. Dolphins use their conical shaped teeth to capture fast moving prey and they have well-developed hearing which is adapted for both air and water and is so well developed that some can survive even if they are blind. Some species are adapted for diving to great depths. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in the cold water, although dolphins are widespread, most species prefer the warmer waters of the tropic zones, but some, like the right whale dolphin, prefer colder climates. Dolphins feed largely on fish and squid, but a few, like the killer whale, feed on large mammals, male dolphins typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer months and females bear all the responsibility for raising them, mothers of some species fast and nurse their young for a relatively long period of time. Dolphins produce a variety of vocalizations, usually in the form of clicks, Dolphins are sometimes hunted in places like Japan, in an activity known as dolphin drive hunting. Besides drive hunting, they face threats from bycatch, habitat loss. Dolphins have been depicted in cultures worldwide. Dolphins occasionally feature in literature and film, as in the film series Free Willy, Dolphins are sometimes kept in captivity and trained to perform tricks, but breeding success has been poor and the animals often die within a few months of capture. The most common dolphins kept are killer whales and bottlenose dolphins, the name is originally from Greek δελφίς, dolphin, which was related to the Greek δελφύς, womb. The animals name can therefore be interpreted as meaning a fish with a womb, the name was transmitted via the Latin delphinus, which in Medieval Latin became dolfinus and in Old French daulphin, which reintroduced the ph into the word. The term mereswine has also historically been used, the term dolphin can be used to refer to, under the parvorder Odontoceti, all the species in the family Delphinidae and the river dolphin families Iniidae, Pontoporiidae, Lipotidae and Platanistidae
28.
Canadian Museum of Nature
–
The Canadian Museum of Nature is Canadas national natural history and natural sciences museum in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Its four main collections, which were started by the Geological Survey of Canada in 1856 and now include ca.14.6 million specimens, include Botany, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology. The exhibits and main programmes are housed in the Victoria Memorial Museum Building in Ottawa, nearly 85% of the specimens displayed in the gallery are genuine fossils. The Canadian Museum of Nature is one of only a handful of museums in North America to display mostly original fossil material, vale Earth Gallery - minerals and rocks, and how geological forces have shaped our planet. Mammal Gallery - Canadas wild animals, including mounts of grizzly bears, polar bears, bison, moose, caribou, pronghorns and cougars. RBC Blue Water Gallery - a blue whale skeleton, exhibits about life found in marine and fresh water environments, bird Gallery - nearly 500 mounts of 450 species of Canadian birds, multimedia experiences and interactive displays. Nature Live - live insects, arachnids and slugs, stone Wall Gallery - changing displays of art and photography about natural science. Landscapes of Canada Gardens - an outdoor exhibit with zones representing three different ecosystems of Canada, Arctic tundra, boreal forest and prairie grasslands. The Canada Goose Arctic Gallery -- a new permanent gallery -- will open in June,2017, the goal of this gallery is to enhance and transform people’s understanding of the Arctic and its importance to Canada in the 21st century. Collections-based scientific research has been a component of the museum since its inception. Today, research at the museum is focused in two centres of expertise, the Centre for Species Discovery and Change and the Centre for Arctic Knowledge. Each of the four main collections have several subcollections, Botany Geological Collections Palaeontology Zoology From 1972-2005 the museum published the scientific journal Syllogeus. The Natural Heritage Campus in Gatineau, Quebec, opened in 1997 and it is the 76 hectare site of the museums administrative operations and its extensive research and collections facility. The campus is not open to the public except for an annual Open House that showcases its 14.6 million specimens, its research labs, the library, however, does allow visitors. The Canadian Museum of Nature has its origins in the Geological Survey of Canada, nearly 150 years later, on July 1,1990, the museum became a Crown Corporation by an Act of Parliament. The Museums Act was a significant event in the history of the museum, the neighbourhood became known as Stewarton and residential development started in the area during the 1870s. The construction of the building involved the importing of 300 skilled stonemasons from Scotland, the architectural style is sometimes described as Scottish baronial. Ewart was sent to Britain to study the architecture of Hampton Court and Windsor Castle, the unstable site forced some workers to stop working, as shifting foundations in the basement shot bricks and stones out from the walls, hitting some construction workers
29.
Ottawa
–
Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It stands on the bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, the two form the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area and the National Capital Region. The 2016 census reported a population of 934,243, making it the fourth-largest city in Canada, the City of Ottawa reported that the city had an estimated population of 960,754 as of December 2015. Founded in 1826 as Bytown, and incorporated as Ottawa in 1855, the city name Ottawa was chosen in reference to the Ottawa River nearby, the name of which is derived from the Algonquin Odawa, meaning to trade. The city is the most educated in Canada, and is home to a number of post-secondary, research, and cultural institutions, including the National Arts Centre, Ottawa also has the highest standard of living in the nation and low unemployment. It ranked second out of 150 worldwide in the Numbeo quality of life index 2014–2015, with the draining of the Champlain Sea around ten thousand years ago the Ottawa Valley became habitable. The area was used for wild harvesting, hunting, fishing, trade, travel. The Ottawa river valley has archaeological sites with arrow heads, pottery, the area has three major rivers that meet, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years. The Algonquins called the Ottawa River Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning Great River or Grand River, Étienne Brûlé, the first European to travel up the Ottawa River, passed by Ottawa in 1610 on his way to the Great Lakes. Three years later, Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls of the area and about his encounters with the Algonquins, the early explorers and traders were later followed by many missionaries. The first maps of the area used the word Ottawa to name the river, philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first settlement in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from Ottawa in Hull. He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, set about to create a community called Wrightsville. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City, the following year, the town would soon be named after British military engineer Colonel John By who was responsible for the entire Rideau Waterway construction project. Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of todays Parliament Hill and he also laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighbourhoods named Upper Town west of the canal and Lower Town east of the canal. Similar to its Upper Canada and Lower Canada namesakes, historically Upper Town was predominantly English speaking and Protestant whereas Lower Town was predominantly French, Irish, bytowns population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was being completed in 1832. In 1855 Bytown was renamed Ottawa and incorporated as a city, William Pittman Lett was installed as the first city clerk guiding it through 36 years of development. On New Years Eve 1857, Queen Victoria, as a symbolic, in reality, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had assigned this selection process to the Executive Branch of the Government, as previous attempts to arrive at a consensus had ended in deadlock
30.
Troodon
–
It includes at least one species, Troodon formosus, though many fossils, possibly representing several species have been classified in this genus. These species ranged widely, with remains recovered from as far north as Alaska and as far south as Wyoming and even possibly Texas. Discovered in 1855, T. formosus was among the first dinosaurs found in North America, the genus name is Greek for wounding tooth, referring to the teeth, which were different from those of most other theropods known at the time of their discovery. The teeth bear prominent, apically oriented serrations and these wounding serrations, however, are morphometrically more similar to those of herbivorous reptiles, and suggest a possibly omnivorous diet. A partial Troodon skeleton has been discovered with preserved puncture marks, Troodon were small dinosaurs, up to 0.9 metres in height,2.4 metres in length, and up to 50 kilograms in mass. The largest specimens are comparable in size to Deinonychus and Unenlagia and they had very long, slender hind limbs, suggesting that these animals were able to run quickly. They had large, retractable sickle-shaped claws on the second toes and their eyes were very large, and slightly forward facing, giving Troodon some degree of depth perception. Troodon had some of the largest known brains of any dinosaur group, Troodons cerebrum-to-brain-volume ratio was 31. 5% to 63% of the way from a nonavian reptile proportion to a truly avian one. Troodon had bony cristae supporting their tympanic membranes that were ossified at least in their top, the rest of the cristae were either cartilaginous or too delicate to be preserved. The metotic strut of Troodon was enlarged from side-to-side, similar to Dromaeosaurus and primitive birds like Archaeopteryx, the name was originally spelled Troödon by Joseph Leidy in 1856, which was officially amended to its current status by Sauvage in 1876. The type specimen of Troodon has caused problems with classification, as the genus is based only on a single tooth from the Judith River Formation. Troodon has historically been a highly unstable classification and has been the subject of numerous conflicting synonymies with similar theropod specimens, the Troodon tooth was originally classified as a lacertilian by Leidy, but reassigned as a megalosaurid dinosaur by Nopcsa in 1901. In 1924, Gilmore suggested that the tooth belonged to the herbivorous pachycephalosaur Stegoceras, the classification of Troodon as a pachycephalosaur was followed for many years, during which the family Pachycephalosauridae was known as Troodontidae. In 1945, Charles Mortram Sternberg rejected the possibility that Troodon was a due to its stronger similarity to the teeth of other carnivorous dinosaurs. With Troodon now classified as a theropod, the family Troodontidae could no longer be used for the dinosaurs, so Sternberg named a new family for them. The first specimens currently assigned to Troodon that were not teeth were found by Sternberg in the early 1930s, in the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta. The first was named Stenonychosaurus inequalis by Sternberg in 1932, based on a foot, fragments of a hand, a remarkable feature of these remains was the enlarged claw on the second toe, which is now recognized as characteristic of early paravians. Sternberg initially classified Stenonychosaurus as a member of the family Coeluridae, the second, a partial lower jaw bone, was described by Gilmore as a new species of lizard which he named Polyodontosaurus grandis
31.
Troodontidae
–
Troodontidae is a family of bird-like theropod dinosaurs. During most of the 20th century, troodontid fossils were few and scrappy and they have therefore been allied, at various times, more recent fossil discoveries of complete and articulated specimens, have helped to increase understanding about this group. Troodontids are a group of small, bird-like, gracile maniraptorans, all troodontids have unique features of the skull, such as large numbers of closely spaced teeth in the lower jaw. Troodontids have sickle-claws and raptorial hands, and some of the highest non-avian encephalization quotients, the largest troodontid was Troodon, and the smallest was Anchiornis, which is also the smallest known non-avian dinosaur. They had unusually long compared to other theropods, with a large, curved claw on their retractable second toes. However, the sickle-claws of troodontids were not as large or recurved as in their relatives, in at least one troodontid, Borogovia, the second toe could not be held far off the ground at all and the claw was straight, not curved or sickle-like. Troodontids had unusually large brains among dinosaurs, comparable to those of living flightless birds and their eyes were also large, and pointed forward, indicating that they had good binocular vision. The ears of troodontids were also unusual among theropods, having enlarged middle ear cavities, the placement of this cavity near the eardrum may have aided in the detection of low-frequency sounds. In some troodontids, ears were also asymmetrical, with one ear placed higher on the skull than the other, the specialization of the ears may indicate that troodontids hunted in a manner similar to owls, using their hearing to locate small prey. Some suggest that the large size is reminiscent of the teeth of extant iguanine lizards. In contrast, a few species, such as Byronosaurus, had numbers of needle-like teeth. Other morphological characteristics of the teeth, such as the form of the denticles. The proportions of the metatarsals, tarsals and unguals of troodontids appear indicative of their having nimbler and this suggests an ecological separation from the slower but more powerful Dromaeosauridae. Many troodontid nests, including eggs that contain fossilized embryos, have been described, hypotheses about troodontid reproduction have been developed from this evidence. A few troodont fossils, including specimens of Mei and Sinornithoides, demonstrate that these animals roosted like birds and these fossils, as well as numerous skeletal similarities to birds and related feathered dinosaurs, support the idea that troodontids probably bore a bird-like feathered coat. The discovery of several fully feathered, primitive troodontids lend support to this, in 2004, Mark Norell and colleagues described two partial troodontid skulls found in a nest of oviraptorid eggs in the Djadokhta Formation of Mongolia. The nest is quite certainly that of an oviraptorosaur, since an oviraptorid embryo is preserved inside one of the eggs. The two partial skulls were first described by Norell et al. as dromaeosaurids, but reassigned to the troodontid Byronosaurus after further study
32.
Stenonychosaurus
–
It includes at least one species, Troodon formosus, though many fossils, possibly representing several species have been classified in this genus. These species ranged widely, with remains recovered from as far north as Alaska and as far south as Wyoming and even possibly Texas. Discovered in 1855, T. formosus was among the first dinosaurs found in North America, the genus name is Greek for wounding tooth, referring to the teeth, which were different from those of most other theropods known at the time of their discovery. The teeth bear prominent, apically oriented serrations and these wounding serrations, however, are morphometrically more similar to those of herbivorous reptiles, and suggest a possibly omnivorous diet. A partial Troodon skeleton has been discovered with preserved puncture marks, Troodon were small dinosaurs, up to 0.9 metres in height,2.4 metres in length, and up to 50 kilograms in mass. The largest specimens are comparable in size to Deinonychus and Unenlagia and they had very long, slender hind limbs, suggesting that these animals were able to run quickly. They had large, retractable sickle-shaped claws on the second toes and their eyes were very large, and slightly forward facing, giving Troodon some degree of depth perception. Troodon had some of the largest known brains of any dinosaur group, Troodons cerebrum-to-brain-volume ratio was 31. 5% to 63% of the way from a nonavian reptile proportion to a truly avian one. Troodon had bony cristae supporting their tympanic membranes that were ossified at least in their top, the rest of the cristae were either cartilaginous or too delicate to be preserved. The metotic strut of Troodon was enlarged from side-to-side, similar to Dromaeosaurus and primitive birds like Archaeopteryx, the name was originally spelled Troödon by Joseph Leidy in 1856, which was officially amended to its current status by Sauvage in 1876. The type specimen of Troodon has caused problems with classification, as the genus is based only on a single tooth from the Judith River Formation. Troodon has historically been a highly unstable classification and has been the subject of numerous conflicting synonymies with similar theropod specimens, the Troodon tooth was originally classified as a lacertilian by Leidy, but reassigned as a megalosaurid dinosaur by Nopcsa in 1901. In 1924, Gilmore suggested that the tooth belonged to the herbivorous pachycephalosaur Stegoceras, the classification of Troodon as a pachycephalosaur was followed for many years, during which the family Pachycephalosauridae was known as Troodontidae. In 1945, Charles Mortram Sternberg rejected the possibility that Troodon was a due to its stronger similarity to the teeth of other carnivorous dinosaurs. With Troodon now classified as a theropod, the family Troodontidae could no longer be used for the dinosaurs, so Sternberg named a new family for them. The first specimens currently assigned to Troodon that were not teeth were found by Sternberg in the early 1930s, in the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta. The first was named Stenonychosaurus inequalis by Sternberg in 1932, based on a foot, fragments of a hand, a remarkable feature of these remains was the enlarged claw on the second toe, which is now recognized as characteristic of early paravians. Sternberg initially classified Stenonychosaurus as a member of the family Coeluridae, the second, a partial lower jaw bone, was described by Gilmore as a new species of lizard which he named Polyodontosaurus grandis
33.
Bird vocalization
–
Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs are the sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs are distinguished by function from calls, the distinction between songs and calls is based upon complexity, length, and context. Songs are longer and more complex and are associated with courtship and mating, still others require song to have syllabic diversity and temporal regularity akin to the repetitive and transformative patterns that define music. It is generally agreed upon in birding and ornithology which sounds are songs and which are calls, Bird song is best developed in the order Passeriformes. Some groups are nearly voiceless, producing only percussive and rhythmic sounds, such as the storks, in some manakins, the males have evolved several mechanisms for mechanical sound production, including mechanisms for stridulation not unlike those found in some insects. Song is usually delivered from prominent perches, although some species may sing when flying, the production of sounds by mechanical means as opposed to the use of the syrinx has been termed variously instrumental music by Charles Darwin, mechanical sounds and more recently sonation. With aseasonal irregular breeding, both sexes must be brought into breeding condition and vocalisation, especially duetting, serves this purpose, the high frequency of female vocalisations in the tropics, Australia and Southern Africa may also relate to very low mortality rates producing much stronger pair-bonding and territoriality. The avian vocal organ is called the syrinx, it is a structure at the bottom of the trachea. The syrinx and sometimes a surrounding air sac resonate to sound waves that are made by membranes past which the bird forces air, the bird controls the pitch by changing the tension on the membranes and controls both pitch and volume by changing the force of exhalation. It can control the two sides of the trachea independently, which is how some species can produce two notes at once, scientists hypothesize that bird song has evolved through sexual selection, and experiments suggest that the quality of bird song may be a good indicator of fitness. Experiments also suggest that parasites and diseases may directly affect song characteristics such as song rate, the song repertoire also appears to indicate fitness in some species. The ability of birds to hold and advertise territories using song also demonstrates their fitness. Communication through bird calls can be individuals of the same species or even across species. Mobbing calls are used to recruit individuals in an area where an owl or other predator may be present, the alarm calls of most species, on the other hand, are characteristically high-pitched, making the caller difficult to locate. Individual birds may be enough to identify each other through their calls. Many birds that nest in colonies can locate their chicks using their calls, calls are sometimes distinctive enough for individual identification even by human researchers in ecological studies. Many birds engage in duet calls, in some cases, the duets are so perfectly timed as to appear almost as one call
34.
Gregory S. Paul
–
Gregory Scott Paul is an American freelance researcher, author and illustrator who works in paleontology, and more recently has examined sociology and theology. He is best known for his work and research on theropod dinosaurs and his detailed illustrations, Pauls recent research on the interactions of religion and society has received international press and media coverage. Paul helped pioneer the new look of dinosaurs in the 1970s, through a series of dynamic ink drawings and oil paintings he was among the first professional artists to depict them as active, warm-blooded and – in the case of the small ones – feathered. Many later dinosaur illustrations are a reflection of his anatomical insights or even an imitation of his style. This tendency is stimulated by his habit of constantly redrawing older work to let it reflect the latest finds, much of it is in black-and-white, in ink or colored pencil. He was inspired by classic paleoartists such as Charles R. Knight, among the magazines his art has appeared in are, Time, Smithsonian, Discover, Scientific American, Equinox and Natural History. From 1977 to 1984, Paul was a research associate and illustrator for Robert Bakker in the Earth. Paul lacks a formal degree in paleontology, but has participated in field expeditions and has authored or co-authored over 30 scientific papers. Paul proposed that some of the bird-like feathered theropods were winged fliers, and that others were secondarily flightless, Paul proposed the controversial thermoregulatory concept of terramegathermy, which argues that only animals with high basal metabolic rates can exceed one tonne on land. The theropod Cryptovolans pauli is named after him in recognition of his predictions about feathered, sellacoxa pauli is named after him to recognize his recent work in iguanodont research. Pauls designs of the great pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus northropi were instrumental in building AeroVironments half-scale robot star of the 1986 IMAX movie On the Wing and it also influenced dinosaur designs for the film. The Complete Illustrated Guide to Dinosaur Skeletons, Only available in Japan for a short time, the Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, The work is 320 pages covering 735 species with over six hundred of Pauls illustrations. Gregory S. Pauls Dinosaur Coffee Table Book, A large-format hardbound collection of colour works, many pieces are revised works in progress to reflect new evidence, and are pictured next to the original works. Paul was also editor of The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs and he concludes that less religious first world societies generally have low social dysfunction. This effect appears to be so consistent that it may prevent nations from being highly religious while enjoying good internal socioeconomic conditions and these conclusions are in line with other sociological research such as Pippa Norris and Ronald Ingelharts Sacred and Secular and Phil Zuckermans Society Without God. His research is not in line with works from John Micklethwait and Adrian Woodbridge, or research from Peter L. Berger and Philip Jenkins. Pauls paper goes on to conclude that religion is not universal, that there is no well developed God gene, the study was covered by the senior science editor at Newsweek who observed that the brain may indeed be predisposed to supernatural beliefs. But that predisposition may need environmental input to be fully realized, an article in USA Today presents contrasting views on Pauls conclusions
35.
Android (robot)
–
An android is a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to look and act like a human, especially one with a body having a flesh-like resemblance. Historically, androids remained completely within the domain of science fiction where they are seen in film. Only recently have advancements in technology allowed the design of functional. The word was coined from the Greek root ἀνδρ-, man, while the term android is used in reference to human-looking robots in general, a robot with a female appearance can also be referred to as a gynoid. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest use to Ephraim Chambers Cyclopaedia, the term android appears in US patents as early as 1863 in reference to miniature human-like toy automatons. The term android was used in a modern sense by the French author Auguste Villiers de lIsle-Adam in his work Tomorrows Eve. This story features an artificial humanlike robot named Hadaly, as said by the officer in the story, In this age of Realien advancement, who knows what goes on in the mind of those responsible for these mechanical dolls. Although Karel Čapeks robots in R. U. R, —the play that introduced the word robot to the world—were organic artificial humans, the word robot has come to primarily refer to mechanical humans, animals, and other beings. The term android can mean one of these, while a cyborg would be a creature that is a combination of organic. The word android was used in Star Trek, The Original Series episode What Are Little Girls Made Of. The abbreviation andy, coined as a pejorative by writer Philip K. Dick in his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. has seen some further usage, authors have used the term android in more diverse ways than robot or cyborg. In some fictional works, the difference between a robot and android is only their appearance, with androids being made to look like humans on the outside, in other stories, authors have used the word android to mean a wholly organic, yet artificial, creation. Other fictional depictions of androids fall somewhere in between, several projects aiming to create androids that look, and, to a certain degree, speak or act like a human being have been launched or are underway. In 2006, Kokoro Co. developed a new DER2 android, the height of the human body part of DER2 is 165 cm. DER2 can not only change its expression but also move its hands and feet, the air servosystem which Kokoro Co. developed originally is used for the actuator. As a result of having an actuator controlled precisely with air pressure via a servosystem, DER2 realized a slimmer body than that of the former version by using a smaller cylinder. Outwardly DER2 has a more beautiful proportion, compared to the previous model, DER2 has thinner arms and a wider repertoire of expressions. Once programmed, it is able to choreograph its motions and gestures with its voice, the Intelligent Mechatronics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Kobayashi at the Tokyo University of Science, has developed an android head called Saya, which was exhibited at Robodex 2002 in Yokohama, Japan
36.
Gynoid
–
A fembot is a humanoid robot that is gendered feminine. It is also known as a gynoid, though this term is more recent, fembots appear widely in science fiction film and art. As more realistic humanoid robot design is possible, they are also emerging in real-life robot design. The portmanteau fembot was popularized by the television series The Bionic Woman in the episode Kill Oscar and later used in the Austin Powers films, robotess is the oldest female-specific term, originating in 1921 from the same source as the term robot. A gynoid is anything that resembles or pertains to the human form. Though the term refers to robotic humanoids regardless of apparent gender. Because of this prefix, many read Android as referring to male-styled robots, the term gynoid was used by Gwyneth Jones in her 1985 novel Divine Endurance to describe a robot slave character in a futuristic China, that is judged by her beauty. Gynoid is also used in American English medical terminology as a shortening of the term gynecoid, not only did the servo motor and platform have to be ‘interiorized’, but the body needed to be slender, both extremely difficult undertakings. Examples of female robots include, Project Aiko, an attempt at producing a female android. People also react to fembots in ways that may be attributed to gender stereotypes and this research has been used to elucidate gender cues, clarifying which behaviors and aesthetics elicit a stronger gender-induced response. Gynoids may be eroticized, and some such as Aiko include sensitivity sensors in their breasts. The fetishization of gynoids in real life has been attributed to male desires for custom-made passive women, however, some science fiction works depict them as femme fatale that fight the establishment or are rebellious. Robot sex partners may become commonplace in the future, Female robots as sexual devices have also appeared, with early constructions being crude. The first was produced by Sex Objects Ltd, a British company and it was called simply 36C, from her chest measurement, and had a 16-bit microprocessor and voice synthesiser that allowed primitive responses to speech and push button inputs. In 1983, a busty female robot named Sweetheart was removed from a display at the Lawrence Hall of Science after a petition was presented claiming it was insulting to women. The robots creator, Clayton Bailey, a professor of art at California State University, Hayward called this censorship, artificial women have been a common trope in fiction and mythology since the writings of the ancient Greeks. This has continued with modern fiction, particularly in the genre of science fiction, the character of Annalee Call in Alien, Resurrection is a rare example of a non-sexualized gynoid. A long tradition exists in literature of depictions of a type of ideal woman
37.
Avatar (computing)
–
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the users alter ego or character. An icon or figure representing a person in a video game, Internet forum. It may take either a form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums. Avatar images have also referred to as picons in the past. It can also refer to a text found on early systems such as MUDs. The term avatar can also refer to the personality connected with the name, or handle. Common avatars may be Internet memes, the word avatar originates in Hinduism, where it stands for the descent of a deity in a terrestrial form. The earliest use of the avatar in a computer game was the 1979 PLATO role-playing game Avatar. The use of the avatar for the on-screen representation of the user was coined in 1985 by Richard Garriott for the computer game Ultima IV. In this game, Garriott desired the players character to be his earth self manifested into the virtual world, Garriott did this because he wanted the real player to be responsible for the characters in game actions due to the ethical parables he designed into the story. Only if you were playing yourself Garriott felt, could you be judged based on your characters actions, the term avatar was also used in 1986 by Chip Morningstar in Lucasfilms online role-playing game Habitat. Another early use of the term was in the pen and paper role-playing game Shadowrun, in Norman Spinrads novel Songs from the Stars, the term avatar is used in a description of a computer generated virtual experience. In the story, humans receive messages from an alien galactic network that wishes to share knowledge, the humans build a galactic receiver that describes itself, The galactic receiver is programmed to derive species specific full sensory input data from standard galactic meaning code equations. By controlling your sensorium input along species specific parameters galactic songs astral back-project you into approximation of total involvement in artistically recreated broadcast realities, the use of avatar to mean online virtual bodies was popularised by Neal Stephenson in his cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. In Snow Crash, the avatar was used to describe the virtual simulation of the human form in the Metaverse. Some forums allow the user to upload an image that may have been designed by the user or acquired from elsewhere. Other forums allow the user to select an avatar from a preset list or use an algorithm to extract one from the users homepage. Some avatars are animated, consisting of a sequence of images played repeatedly
