The Lower Colorado River Valley is the river region of the lower Colorado River of the southwestern United States in North America that rises in the Rocky Mountains and has its outlet at the Colorado River Delta in the northern Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico, between the states of Baja California and Sonora. This north–south stretch of the Colorado River forms the border between the U. S. states of California/Arizona and Nevada/Arizona, between the Mexican states of Baja California/Sonora. It is defined as the region from below Hoover Dam and Lake Mead to its outlet at the northern Gulf of California, it is home to recreation activities from the river, the lakes created by dams and the home of various cities and towns along the river, or associated with the valley region. Five Indian reservations are located in the LCRV: the Chemehuevi, Fort Mojave and Colorado River Indian Reservations; some of the highest absolute air temperatures are recorded in the LCRV. Worldwide, only some deserts found in Africa and in the Middle East stand up with an hotter summer climate on average.

The LCRV is defined by three deserts. The Mojave Desert is in southeast California, southern Nevada, northwest Arizona. To the south is the Sonoran Desert on both sides of the Colorado River; however an ecozone delineation occurs in the transition from Arizona to southeast California. The Lower Colorado River Valley is located in the north, northwestern Sonoran Desert; the LCRV extends about 350 miles from Hoover Dam to the Colorado River Delta. The Sonoran Desert itself is more than twice as extensive north-to-south, about 450 miles in width. Two species, Desert Ironwood- and the Lesser Long-nosed Bat, have geographic ranges identical to the Sonoran Desert, are indicator species of the Sonoran Desert region; the spring flowering of ironwood, the bat species migration arrivals become indicators of annual or multi-year climate trends for regions of the Sonoran Desert. The Lower Colorado River Valley has unique plant communities because it is it is the most arid part of the desert and it has the highest temperatures, in excess of 120 °F during the summer.

The low humidity means that most plants must have mechanisms that deal with severe water loss through evaporation. The soils tend to be typical desert soils and without well-developed organic horizons, plants can only obtain soil water during and soon after the infrequent rains. Dominant plants in the valleys are low shrubs such as Larrea tridentata. Over half of the floral diversity comprises annual species, with higher percentages in drier habitats. Vulnerable species and plant communities include saltbush/wolfberry flats, nightblooming cereus cacti, barrel cactus, Sonoran panicgrass, Acuna cactus; the Lower Colorado River Valley subregion of the Sonoran Desert bioregion has multiple threats. Some major threats include urbanization, clearing of land for agriculture, human occupancy – as a result of imported external resources, camping and camptrailers on BLM land. Other threats include harvesting for fuelwood, etc. of desert ironwood, Olneya tesota, destruction of land by offroad vehicles in sand dunes, harvesting and manipulation of groundwater.

Laughlin, Nevada in Clark County, Nevada Needles, California in San Bernardino County Bullhead City, Arizona Mojave Valley, Arizona Lake Havasu City, Arizona Vidal, California Parker, Arizona Blythe, California Quartzite, Arizona Winterhaven, California in Imperial County, California Yuma, Arizona in Yuma County, Arizona San Luis, Arizona San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora Little. Atlas of United States Trees, Volume 3, Minor Western Hardwoods, Elbert L, 1976, US Government Printing Office. Library of Congress No. 79-653298. Map 103, Olneya tesota

Epsilon Geminorum, formally named Mebsuta, is a star in the constellation of Gemini, on the outstretched right'leg' of the twin Castor. The apparent visual magnitude of +3.06 makes it one of the brighter stars in this constellation. The distance to this star can be determined by parallax measurements, giving a value of 840 light-years, with a margin of error of 40 ly. Ε Geminorum is the star's Bayer designation. It bore the traditional names Melboula or Melucta. Mebsuta has its roots in ancient Arabic where the star Mekbuda were the paws of a lion. Mebsuta comes from a phrase referring to the outstretched paw. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names to catalog and standardize proper names for stars; the WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN. In Chinese, 井宿, meaning Well, refers to an asterism consisting of ε Geminorum, μ Geminorum, ν Geminorum, γ Geminorum, ξ Geminorum, 36 Geminorum, ζ Geminorum and λ Geminorum.

Ε Geminorum itself is known as 井宿五 The spectrum of this star matches a stellar classification of G8 Ib, where the luminosity class of Ib indicates this is a lower luminosity supergiant star. Alternatively, it may be a star that has passed through the asymptotic giant branch stage and possesses a detached shell of dust; the estimated mass of this star is over 19 times the mass of the Sun, it has expanded to a radius measured at around 105–175 times that of the Sun. Since 1943, the spectrum of this star has served as one of the stable anchor points by which other stars are classified. Epsilon Geminorum is radiating around 8,500 times the luminosity of the Sun from its outer atmosphere at an effective temperature of 4,662 K, it is this temperature. A surface magnetic field with a strength of –0.14 ± 0.19 G has been detected on this star. This topologically complex field is most generated by a dynamo formed from the deep convection zone in the star's outer envelope. Epsilon Geminorum lies near the ecliptic, so it can be occulted by the Moon or a planet.

Such an occultation took place on April 8, 1976 by Mars, which allowed the oblateness of the planet's outer atmosphere to be measured. Epsilon Geminorum was occulted by Mercury on June 10, 1940, on September 3, 2015 it was occulted by the asteroid Iphigenia. USS Melucta was a United States Navy Crater class cargo ship named after the star

The 2017–18 Atlantic Coast Conference women's basketball season began with practices in October 2017, followed by the start of the 2017–18 NCAA Division I women's basketball season in November. Conference play started in late December 2017 and will conclude in March with the 2018 ACC Women's Basketball Tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC; the regular season and tournament champions were the Louisville Cardinals. There were no coaching changes prior to the 2017–18 season. However, after the season ended, Erik Johnson resigned as the head coach of Boston College. After the season concluded it was announced that Audra Smith would not be returning as coach of Clemson. Notes: Year at school includes 2017–18 season. Overall and ACC records are through the end the 2016 -- 17 season. NCAA Tournament appearances are from time at current school only. NCAA Final Fours and Championship include time at other schools Below is a table of notable preseason watch lists. Prior to the start of the season, the ACC hosted a media day at the Westin Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina.

At the media day, the head coaches voted on the finishing order of the teams, an All-ACC team, a Preseason Player of the Year, Newcomers to watch. The media day was hosted on October 19, 2017. A selected group of student athletes took questions from the media on this day. At ACC Media Day, the ACC Head Coaches voted on a final finishing order for all ACC teams, as well as a Blue Ribbon Panel; the results are shown below. Note: The Coaches Poll releases a final poll after the NCAA tournament, but the AP Poll does not release a poll at this time; this table summarizes the head-to-head results between teams in conference play. Each team will play 16 conference games, at least 1 against each opponent. Throughout the conference regular season, the Atlantic Coast Conference offices named a Player of the week and a Rookie of the week; the ACC had 5 players selected in the 2018 WNBA draft