1.
Pesticide
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Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests or weeds. The most common of these are herbicides which account for approximately 80% of all pesticide use, most pesticides are intended to serve as plant protection products, which in general, protect plants from weeds, fungi, or insects. In general, a pesticide is a chemical or biological agent that deters, incapacitates, kills, or otherwise discourages pests. Target pests can include insects, plant pathogens, weeds, mollusks, birds, mammals, fish, nematodes, although pesticides have benefits, some also have drawbacks, such as potential toxicity to humans and other species. According to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants,9 of the 12 most dangerous, the term includes substances intended for use as a plant growth regulator, defoliant, desiccant, or agent for thinning fruit or preventing the premature fall of fruit. Also used as substances applied to either before or after harvest to protect the commodity from deterioration during storage. Pesticides can be classified by target organism, chemical structure, biopesticides include microbial pesticides and biochemical pesticides. Plant-derived pesticides, or botanicals, have been developing quickly and these include the pyrethroids, rotenoids, nicotinoids, and a fourth group that includes strychnine and scilliroside. Many pesticides can be grouped into chemical families, prominent insecticide families include organochlorines, organophosphates, and carbamates. Organochlorine hydrocarbons could be separated into dichlorodiphenylethanes, cyclodiene compounds, and they operate by disrupting the sodium/potassium balance of the nerve fiber, forcing the nerve to transmit continuously. Their toxicities vary greatly, but they have phased out because of their persistence. Organophosphate and carbamates largely replaced organochlorines, both operate through inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, allowing acetylcholine to transfer nerve impulses indefinitely and causing a variety of symptoms such as weakness or paralysis. Organophosphates are quite toxic to vertebrates, and have in some cases replaced by less toxic carbamates. Thiocarbamate and dithiocarbamates are subclasses of carbamates, prominent families of herbicides include phenoxy and benzoic acid herbicides, triazines, ureas, and Chloroacetanilides. Phenoxy compounds tend to selectively kill broad-leaf weeds rather than grasses, the phenoxy and benzoic acid herbicides function similar to plant growth hormones, and grow cells without normal cell division, crushing the plants nutrient transport system. Many commonly used pesticides are not included in these families, including glyphosate, Pesticides can be classified based upon their biological mechanism function or application method. Most pesticides work by poisoning pests, a systemic pesticide moves inside a plant following absorption by the plant. With insecticides and most fungicides, this movement is usually upward and outward, increased efficiency may be a result
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
House
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Houses use a range of different roofing systems to keep precipitation such as rain from getting into the dwelling space. Houses may have doors or locks to secure the dwelling space, most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain one or more bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. A house may have a dining room, or the eating area may be integrated into another room. Some large houses in North America have a recreation room, in traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock may share part of the house with humans. The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household, most commonly, a household is a family unit of some kind, although households may also be other social groups, such as roommates or, in a rooming house, unconnected individuals. Some houses only have a space for one family or similar-sized group. A house may be accompanied by outbuildings, such as a garage for vehicles or a shed for gardening equipment, a house may have a backyard or frontyard, which serve as additional areas where inhabitants can relax or eat. The English word house derives directly from the Old English Hus meaning dwelling, shelter, home, house, the house itself gave rise to the letter B through an early Proto-Semitic hieroglyphic symbol depicting a house. The symbol was called bayt, bet or beth in various related languages, and became beta, ideally, architects of houses design rooms to meet the needs of the people who will live in the house. Such designing, known as design, has become a popular subject in universities. Feng shui can also mean the aura in or around a dwelling, making it comparable to the real-estate sales concept of indoor-outdoor flow, the square footage of a house in the United States reports the area of living space, excluding the garage and other non-living spaces. The square metres figure of a house in Europe reports the area of the enclosing the home. The number of floors or levels making up the house can affect the square footage of a home, many houses have several large rooms with specialized functions and several very small rooms for other various reasons. These may include an area, a sleeping area, and separate or combined washing. Some larger properties may also feature such as a spa room, indoor pool, indoor basketball court. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock often share part of the house with human beings, most conventional modern houses will at least contain a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. Little is known about the earliest origin of the house and its interior, roman architect Vitruvius theories have claimed the first form of architecture as a frame of timber branches finished in mud, also known as the primitive hut. Philip Tabor later states the contribution of 17th century Dutch houses as the foundation of houses today, as far as the idea of the home is concerned, the home of the home is the Netherlands
4.
Yard (land)
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A yard is an area of land immediately adjacent to a building or a group of buildings. It may be enclosed or open. The word comes from the linguistic root as the word garden and has many of the same meanings. A number of derived words exist, usually tied to a usage or building type. Some may be archaic or in use now. Examples of such words are, courtyard, barnyard, hopyard, graveyard, churchyard, brickyard, prison yard, railyard, junkyard and stableyard. The word yard came from the Anglo-Saxon geard, compare garden, Old Norse garðr, Russian gorod = town, Latin hortus = garden, from Greek χορτος = farm-yard, feeding-place, girdle, and court are other related words from the same root. In Australia portable or mobile yards are sets of steel panels used to build temporary stockyards. In North America and Australasia today, a yard can be any part of a property surrounding or associated with a house or other residential structure, a yard will typically consist mostly of lawn or play area. The yard in front of a house is referred to as a front yard, backyards are generally more private and are thus a more common location for recreation. Yard size varies with population density, in urban centres, many houses have very small or even no yards at all. In the suburbs, yards are generally larger and have room for such amenities as a patio. In modern Britain, the yard is often used for depots and land adjacent to or among workplace buildings. Beef cattle yards for less than 100 head, NSW Department of Primary Industries, State of New South Wales
5.
Park
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A park is an area of natural, semi-natural, or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of areas, rocks, soil, and trees. In North America, many parks have fields for playing such as soccer, baseball and football. Many parks have trails for walking, biking and other activities, some parks are built adjacent to bodies of water or watercourses and may comprise a beach or boat dock area. Often, the smallest parks are in areas, where a park may take up only a city block or less. Urban parks often have benches for sitting and may contain picnic tables, the largest parks can be vast natural areas of hundreds of thousands of square kilometres, with abundant wildlife and natural features such as mountains and rivers. In many large parks, camping in tents is allowed with a permit, many natural parks are protected by law, and users may have to follow restrictions. Large national and sub-national parks are typically overseen by a ranger or a park warden. Large parks may have areas for canoeing and hiking in the months and, in some northern hemisphere countries. The first parks were English deer parks, land set aside for hunting by royalty and they had walls or thick hedges around them to keep game animals in and people out. It was strictly forbidden for commoners to hunt animals in these deer parks and these game preserves evolved into landscaped parks set around mansions and country houses from the sixteenth century onwards. These may have served as hunting grounds but they also proclaimed the owners wealth, an aesthetic of landscape design began in these stately home parks where the natural landscape was enhanced by landscape architects such as Capability Brown. As cities became crowded, the hunting grounds became places for the public. With the Industrial revolution parks took on a new meaning as areas set aside to preserve a sense of nature in the cities, sporting activity came to be a major use for these urban parks. Areas of outstanding natural beauty were also set aside as national parks to prevent their being spoiled by uncontrolled development, in some parks or time periods with high pollen counts, parks tend to be avoided. Park design is influenced by the purpose and audience, as well as by the available land features. A park intended to provide recreation for children may include a playground, a park primarily intended for adults may feature walking paths and decorative landscaping. Specific features, such as riding trails, may be included to support specific activities, the design of a park may determine who is willing to use it
6.
Golf course
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A golf course is the grounds where the game of golf is played. It comprises a series of holes, each consisting of a ground, a fairway, the rough and other hazards. A standard round of golf consists of 18 holes, most courses contain 18 holes, some share fairways or greens, and a subset has nine holes, played twice per round. Par-3 courses consist of nine or 18 holes all of which have a par of three strokes, many older courses are links, often coastal. Courses are private, public, and municipally owned, and typically feature a pro shop, many private courses are found at country clubs. Although a specialty within landscape design or landscape architecture, golf course architecture is considered a field of study. While golf courses often follow the landscape, some modification is unavoidable. This is increasingly the case as new courses are likely to be sited on less optimal land. Bunkers and sand traps are almost always artificial, although other hazards may be natural, the layout of a fairway follows certain traditional principles, such as the number of holes, their par values, and the number of holes of each par value per course. It is also preferable to arrange greens to be close to the tee box of the next hole, to minimize travel distance while playing a round. Combined with the need to all the fairways within what is frequently a compact square or rectangular plot of land. In complex areas, two holes may share the same tee box, fairway, or even green and it is also common for separate tee-off points to be positioned for men, women, and amateurs, each one respectively lying closer to the green. Eighteen-hole courses are traditionally broken down into a front 9 and a back 9. On older courses, the holes may be out in one long loop, beginning and ending at the clubhouse, and thus the front 9 is referred to on the scorecard as out. More recent courses tend to be designed with the front 9, a successful design is as visually pleasing as it is playable. Most golf courses have only par-3, -4, and -5 holes, typical distances for the various holes from standard tees are as follows. Terrain can also be a factor, so that a long downhill hole might be rated par 4 and this compensates for the generally longer distance pro players can put on tee and fairway shots as compared to the average bogey golfer. The game of golf is played in what is called a round and this consists of playing a set number of holes in an order predetermined by the course
7.
Swimming pool
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A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or paddling pool is a structure designed to hold water to enable swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground or built above ground, many health clubs, fitness centers and private clubs, such as the YMCA, have pools used mostly for exercise or recreation. Many towns and cities provide public pools, many hotels have pools available for their guests to use at their leisure. Educational facilities such as universities typically have pools for physical education classes, recreational activities, hot tubs and spas are pools filled with hot water, used for relaxation or hydrotherapy, and are common in homes, hotels, and health clubs. Special swimming pools are used for diving, specialized water sports, physical therapy as well as for the training of lifeguards. Swimming pools may be heated or unheated, the Great Bath at the site of Mohenjo-Daro in modern-day Pakistan was most likely the first swimming pool, dug during the 3rd millennium BC. This pool is 12 by 7 metres, is lined with bricks, ancient Greeks and Romans built artificial pools for athletic training in the palaestras, for nautical games and for military exercises. Roman emperors had private swimming pools in which fish were also kept, the first heated swimming pool was built by Gaius Maecenas of Rome in the 1st century BC. Gaius Maecenas was a rich Roman lord and considered one of the first patrons of arts, ancient Sinhalese built pairs of pools called Kuttam Pokuna in the kingdom of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka in the 4th century BC. They were decorated with flights of steps, punkalas or pots of abundance, Swimming pools became popular in Britain in the mid-19th century. As early as 1837, six indoor pools with diving boards existed in London, the Maidstone Swimming Club in Maidstone, Kent is believed to be the oldest surviving swimming club in Britain. It was formed in 1844, in response to concerns over drownings in the River Medway, the club used to swim in the River Medway, and would hold races, diving competitions and water polo matches. The South East Gazette July 1844 reported an aquatic breakfast party, coffee, the coffee was kept hot over a fire, club members had to tread water and drink coffee at the same time. The last swimmers managed to overturn the raft, to the amusement of 150 spectators, the Amateur Swimming Association was founded in 1869 in England, and the Oxford Swimming Club in 1909. The presence of indoor baths in the area of Merton Street might have persuaded the less hardy of the aquatic brigade to join. So, bathers gradually became swimmers, and bathing pools became swimming pools, in 1939, Oxford created its first major public indoor pool at Temple Cowley. The modern Olympic Games started in 1896 and included swimming races, in the US, the Racquet Club of Philadelphia clubhouse boasts one of the worlds first modern above-ground swimming pools. The first swimming pool to go to sea on an ocean liner was installed on the White Star Lines Adriatic in 1907, the oldest known public swimming pool in America, Underwood Pool, is located in Belmont, Massachusetts
8.
Atrazine
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Atrazine is an herbicide of the triazine class. Atrazine is used to prevent pre- and postemergence broadleaf weeds in crops such as maize and sugarcane and on turf, such as golf courses and it is one of the most widely used herbicides in US and Australian agriculture. As of 2001, atrazine was the most commonly detected pesticide contaminating drinking water in the United States, studies suggest it is an endocrine disruptor, an agent that can alter the natural hormonal system. EPA started a review in 2013. The EPAs review has been criticized, and the safety of atrazine remains controversial, in the United States as of 2014, atrazine was the second-most widely used herbicide after glyphosate, with 76 million pounds of it applied each year. Atrazine continues to be one of the most widely used herbicides in Australian agriculture and its effect on corn yields has been estimated from 1% to 8%, with 3–4% being the conclusion of one economics review. Effects on sorghum yields have been estimated to be as high as 20%, Atrazine was invented in 1958 in the Geigy laboratories as the second of a series of 1,3, 5-triazines. Atrazine is prepared from cyanuric chloride, which is treated sequentially with ethylamine, like other triazine herbicides, atrazine functions by binding to the plastoquinone-binding protein in photosystem II, which animals lack. Plant death results from starvation and oxidative damage caused by breakdown in the transport process. Oxidative damage is accelerated at high light intensity, atrazines effects in humans and animals primarily involve the endocrine system. Studies suggest that atrazine is an endocrine disruptor that can cause hormone imbalance, Atrazine has been found to act as an agonist of the G protein-coupled estrogen receptor 1. Atrazine was banned in the European Union in 2004 because of its persistent groundwater contamination, Atrazine contamination of surface water has been monitored by the EPA and has consistently exceeded levels of concern in two Missouri watersheds and one in Nebraska. As of 2001, Atrazine was the most commonly detected pesticide in US drinking water, surface water monitoring data from 20 high atrazine use watersheds found peak atrazine levels up to 147 parts per billion, with daily averages in all cases below 10 parts per billion. Atrazine remains in soil for a matter of months and can migrate from soil to groundwater, once in groundwater and it has been detected in groundwater at high levels in some regions of the U. S. where it is used on some crops and turf. The US Environmental Protection Agency expresses concern regarding contamination of surface waters, Atrazine degrades in soil primarily by the action of microbes. The half-life of atrazine in soil ranges from 13 to 261 days, Atrazine biodegradation can occur by two known pathways, Hydrolysis of the C-Cl bond is followed by the ethyl and isopropyl groups, catalyzed by the hydrolase enzymes called AtzA, AtzB, and AtzC. The end product of this process is cyanuric acid, itself unstable with respect to ammonia, the best characterized organisms that use this pathway are of Pseudomonas sp. strain ADP. Dealkylation of the amino groups gives 2-chloro-4-hydroxy-6-amino-1,3, 5-triazine and this path also occurs in Pseudomonas species, as well as a number of bacteria
9.
Glyphosate
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Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant. It is a compound, specifically a phosphonate. It is used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and it was discovered to be an herbicide by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970. Monsanto brought it to market in 1974 under the trade name Roundup, farmers quickly adopted glyphosate, especially after Monsanto introduced glyphosate-resistant Roundup Ready crops, enabling farmers to kill weeds without killing their crops. In 2007, glyphosate was the most used herbicide in the United States agricultural sector and the second-most used in home and garden, government and industry, glyphosate is absorbed through foliage, and minimally through roots, and transported to growing points. It inhibits a plant enzyme involved in the synthesis of three amino acids, tyrosine, tryptophan, and phenylalanine. Therefore, it is only on actively growing plants and is not effective as a pre-emergence herbicide. An increasing number of crops have been engineered to be tolerant of glyphosate which allows farmers to use glyphosate as a postemergence herbicide against weeds. The development of resistance in weed species is emerging as a costly problem. While glyphosate and formulations such as Roundup have been approved by regulatory bodies worldwide, concerns about their effects on humans, many regulatory and scholarly reviews have evaluated the relative toxicity of glyphosate as an herbicide. A meta-analysis published in 2014 identified an increased risk of NHL in workers exposed to glyphosate formulations, glyphosate was first synthesized in 1950 by Swiss chemist Henry Martin, who worked for the Swiss company Cilag. Stauffer Chemical patented the agent as a chemical chelator in 1964 as it binds and removes minerals such as calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, somewhat later, glyphosate was independently discovered at Monsanto in 1970. Monsanto chemists had synthesized about 100 derivatives of aminomethylphosphonic acid as potential water-softening agents, two were found to have weak herbicidal activity, and John E. Franz, a chemist at Monsanto, was asked to try to make analogs with stronger herbicidal activity. Glyphosate was the third analog he made, Franz received the National Medal of Technology in 1987 and the Perkin Medal for Applied Chemistry in 1990 for his discoveries. In 2008, USDA-ARS scientist Stephen O. Duke and Stephen B, Powles, an Australian weed expert — described glyphosate as a virtually ideal herbicide. In 2010 Powles stated, glyphosate is a one in a 100-year discovery that is as important for reliable global food production as penicillin is for battling disease. Glyphosate is an analogue of the natural amino acid glycine. Both the phosphonic acid and carboxylic acid moieties can be ionised and the group can be protonated
10.
Pediatrics
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Pediatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents, and the age limit usually ranges from birth up to 18-21 years of age. A medical practitioner who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician, the word pediatrics and its cognates mean healer of children, they derive from two Greek words, παῖς and ἰατρός. Pediatricians work both in hospitals, particularly working in its specialized subfields such as neonatology, and as primary care physicians. Pediatrics is known as a new modern medicine in the society today, hippocrates, Aristotle, Celsus, Soranus, and Galen, understood the differences in growing and maturing organisms that necessitated different treatment, Ex toto non sic pueri ut viri curari debent. Some of the oldest traces of pediatrics can be discovered in Ancient India where childrens doctors were called kumara bhrtya, sushruta Samhita an ayurvedic text, composed during the sixth century BC contains the text about pediatrics. Another ayurvedic text from this period is Kashyapa Samhita, a second century AD manuscript by the Greek physician and gynecologist Soranus of Ephesus dealt with neonatal pediatrics. Byzantine physicians Oribasius, Aëtius of Amida, Alexander Trallianus, islamic writers served as a bridge for Greco-Roman and Byzantine medicine and added ideas of their own, especially Haly Abbas, Serapion, Avicenna, and Averroes. The Persian scholar and doctor al-Razi published a treatise on diseases among children. The first book about pediatrics was Libellus de aegritudinibus et remediis infantium 1472 and he was born in Germany, where he received his medical training, but later practiced in New York City. The first generally accepted pediatric hospital is the Hôpital des Enfants Malades, in 1852 Britains first pediatric hospital, the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Streets. The first Childrens hospital in Scotland opened in 1860 in Edinburgh, in the US, the first similar institutions were the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, which opened in 1855, and then Boston Childrens Hospital. The body size differences are paralleled by maturation changes, the smaller body of an infant or neonate is substantially different physiologically from that of an adult. Congenital defects, genetic variance, and developmental issues are of concern to pediatricians than they often are to adult physicians. A common adage is that children are not simply little adults, the clinician must take into account the immature physiology of the infant or child when considering symptoms, prescribing medications, and diagnosing illnesses. A major difference between the practice of pediatric and adult medicine is that children, in most jurisdictions and with certain exceptions, the issues of guardianship, privacy, legal responsibility and informed consent must always be considered in every pediatric procedure. Pediatricians often have to treat the parents and sometimes, the family, adolescents are in their own legal class, having rights to their own health care decisions in certain circumstances. The training of pediatricians varies considerably across the world, depending on jurisdiction and university, a medical degree course may be either undergraduate-entry or graduate-entry. The former commonly takes five or six years, and has been usual in the Commonwealth, entrants to graduate-entry courses, usually lasting four or five years, have previously completed a three- or four-year university degree, commonly but by no means always in sciences
11.
Indiana University School of Medicine
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The medical school awarded the Doctor of Medicine degree to its first class in 1907. With 1,404 M. D. students and 168 Ph. D. students in 2016, the School offers several joint-degree programs, including an MD/MBA, MD/MA, MD/MPH, and an NIH-designated Medical Scientist Training Program, a highly competitive subset of MD-PhD programs. For the 2015 entering class, there were 377 students enrolled in the M. D. program, the school is a pioneer in cancer, immunology, alcohol, neuroscience, and diabetes research. The IU School of Medicine is home to the Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center, in the U. S. News & World Report, rankings, the school ranks 47th in the nation for primary care and 45th for research out of about 150 medical schools. The James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health ranked nationally in all ten designated specialties in the U. S. News & World Report. The current dean of the school is Jay L. Hess. The story of the founding of Indiana University School of Medicine begins with a rivalry with Purdue University over possession of the most prestigious school in the state. In March 1903, William Lowe Bryan, the 10th president of Indiana University, the new department was established in May of the same year. May 1904 saw the induction of the School of Medicine into the American Association of American Medical Colleges, however, early founders wished to locate facilities in Indianapolis for a medical school as well. This building was renamed as part of the State College of Physicians and Surgeons, there continued to be rivalry between the Indianapolis medical school and the one at Purdue. Students would carry out the four years of an education in Indianapolis. The separate medical schools in Indiana had now consolidated, marking the second founding of the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Allison Maxwell was named as the first dean and he led the fledgling school through a difficult time, as financial budgets were an issue and the number of faculty had had to be decreased. Dr. Maxwell served his position until 1911, abraham Flexner, renowned American educator whose work helped reform many medical schools, visited IU School of Medicine in November 1909. He noted in his later Flexner Report that, The situation in the state, thanks to the intelligent attitude of the university, distinctly hopeful, though it will take time to work it fully. The Indiana School of Medicine was one of a number of medical schools in the nation at the time to receive a positive evaluation from Flexner. Several key leaders in the IU School of Medicines history were drawn from Johns Hopkins, after Dr. Allison Maxwell, Charles P. Emerson from JHU was named the new dean. In 1912 Willis D. Gatch, who received an M. D. from JHU, Gatch invented the Gatch adjustable hospital bed, which with the aid of a crank the patients head and feet could be raised or lowered
12.
U.S. Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
13.
The New Yorker
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The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It is published by Condé Nast, started as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is now published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the life of New York City. The New Yorker debuted on February 21,1925 and it was founded by Harold Ross and his wife, Jane Grant, a New York Times reporter. Ross wanted to create a humor magazine that would be different from perceivably corny humor publications such as Judge. Ross partnered with entrepreneur Raoul H. Fleischmann to establish the F-R Publishing Company, the magazines first offices were at 25 West 45th Street in Manhattan. Ross edited the magazine until his death in 1951, during the early, occasionally precarious years of its existence, the magazine prided itself on its cosmopolitan sophistication. Ross famously declared in a 1925 prospectus for the magazine, It has announced that it is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque, although the magazine never lost its touches of humor, it soon established itself as a pre-eminent forum for serious fiction literature and journalism. Shortly after the end of World War II, John Herseys essay Hiroshima filled an entire issue, D. Salinger, Irwin Shaw, James Thurber, John Updike, Eudora Welty, Stephen King, and E. B. White. Publication of Shirley Jacksons The Lottery drew more mail than any story in the magazines history. In its early decades, the magazine published two or even three short stories a week, but in recent years the pace has remained steady at one story per issue. Kurt Vonnegut said that The New Yorker has been an instrument for getting a large audience to appreciate modern literature. Vonneguts 1974 interview with Joe David Bellamy and John Casey contained a discussion of The New Yorkers influence, No other art requires the audience to be a performer. You have to count on the readers being a good performer and those writers you mentioned and myself are teaching an audience how to play this kind of music in their heads. Its a learning process, and The New Yorker has been a good institution of the sort needed. They have an audience, and they come out every week, and people finally catch on to Barthelme, for instance. The non-fiction feature articles cover an array of topics. Recent subjects have included eccentric evangelist Creflo Dollar, the different ways in which humans perceive the passage of time, the magazine is notable for its editorial traditions
14.
Syngenta
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Syngenta AG is a global Swiss agribusiness that produces agrochemicals and seeds. As a biotechnology company, it conducts genomic research and it was formed in 2000 by the merger of Novartis Agribusiness and Zeneca Agrochemicals. As of 2014 Syngenta was the world’s largest crop chemical producer, as of 2009 it ranked third in seeds and biotechnology sales. Sales in 2015 were approximately US$13.4 billion, over half of which were in emerging markets, based in Basel, Switzerland, Syngenta was formed in 2000 by the merger of Novartis Agribusiness and Zeneca Agrochemicals. Novartis was formed of the 1996 merger of the three Swiss companies, Geigy, which has roots back to 1758, Sandoz Laboratories which was founded in 1876, and Ciba, founded in 1884. Ciba and Geigy had merged in 1971 and had concentrated mainly on crop protection in its agro division, Zeneca Agrochemicals was part of AstraZeneca, and formerly of Imperial Chemical Industries. ICI was formed in the UK in 1926, two years later, work began at the Agricultural Research Station at Jealotts Hill near Bracknell. In 2004, Syngenta Seeds purchased Garst, the North American corn and soybean business of Advanta, on 5 December 2004, the European Union ended a six-year moratorium when it approved imports of two varieties of genetically modified corn sold by Monsanto and its Swiss rival, Syngenta. In 2005, Syngenta opposed a Swiss ban on genetically engineered organisms, as of 2014 Syngentas main competitors are Monsanto Company, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Bayer CropScience and DuPont Pioneer. In 2014, Monsanto sought to acquire Syngenta for a reported $40 billion, since April 2015 Monsanto and Syngenta had been working with their investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs respectively on a deal. The U. S. Treasury tried to stop the deal for tax inversion, Syngentas Board of Directors rejected an even better offer by Monsanto during August 2015, and Monsanto withdrew from the negotiations on 26 August. This resulted in a group of investors responding by creating the Alliance of Critical Syngenta Shareholders, in a recent interview, Chairman Michel Demaré was asked whether Syngenta could remain independent. He responded, If you have the patience to wait for cycles to materialize and he thereby acknowledged that the company needs to be sold, especially given industry consolidation, which is creating larger competitors. In February 2016, ChemChina offered to purchase the company for $43 billion, Three product lines for seed products include corn and soya, other field crops and vegetables. In 2014, sales from crop protection accounted for US $11.381 billion. Field crop seeds include both hybrid seeds and genetically engineered seeds, some of which enter the food chain and become part of genetically modified food, according to Syngenta, in the US their proprietary triple stack corn seeds expanded to represent around 25 percent of units sold. In 2010, the US EPA approved insecticidal trait stacks including Syngentas AGRISURE VIPTERA™ gene, Syngenta cross-licenses its proprietary genes with Dow AgroSciences and thus is able to include Dows Herculex I and Herculex RW insect resistance traits in its seeds. It sells a VMAX soybean that is resistant to glyphosate herbicide, atrazine is an herbicide of the triazine class
15.
Tyrone Hayes
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He is also an advocate for critical review and regulation of pesticides and other chemicals that may cause adverse health effects. His work has been contested by Syngenta, the Swiss manufacturer of atrazine and it was used as the basis for the settlement of a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Syngenta. Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Hayes spent his childhood studying frogs and lizards, after graduating from Harvard University, Hayes was a technician and freelance consultant from 1990–1992 for Tiburon, California based Biosystems, Inc. In 1997, the consulting firm EcoRisk, Inc. paid Hayes to join a panel of experts conducting studies for Novartis on the herbicide atrazine. When Hayes research found unexpected toxicities for atrazine, he reported them to the panel, however the panel and he wanted to repeat his work to validate it but Novartis refused funding for further research, he resigned from the panel and obtained other funding to repeat the experiments. At a presentation to the U. S, in 2010, Hayes published research in PNAS describing laboratory work showing how exposure to atrazine turned male tadpoles into females with impaired fertility. The EPA and its SAP made recommendations concerning proper study design needed for investigation into this issue. As required by the EPA, Syngenta conducted two experiments under Good Laboratory Practices and inspection by the EPA and German regulatory authorities, a report written in Environmental Science and Technology cites the independent work of researchers in Japan, who were unable to replicate Hayes work. The scientists found no hermaphrodite frogs, no increase in aromatase as measured by aromatase mRNA induction, based on his research findings, Hayes has become an advocate for banning atrazine. According to Hayes, the link between atrazine and altered aromatase and estrogen production has been demonstrated. In fish, frogs, alligators, birds, turtles, rats and human cells, I would not want to be exposed to it, nor do I think it should be released into the environment. He travels and lectures extensively, both to academic, professional and lay audiences and you might say / who cares anyway. If you’re black or Hispanic, you’re more likely to live or work in areas where you’re exposed, aviv reported that Syngenta has criticized Hayes science and conduct in press releases, letters to the editor, and through a formal ethics complaint filed at University of California-Berkeley. Syngenta subsequently stated that many of the documents unsealed in the lawsuits refer to ideas that were never implemented, in 2010 Syngenta forwarded an ethics complaint to the University of California Berkeley, complaining that Hayes had been sending sexually explicit and harassing e-mails to Syngenta scientists. Hayes work was featured in the 2008 documentary film Flow, For Love of Water and he appeared in the 2012 documentary film Last Call at the Oasis. Hayes is the subject of The Frog Scientist, a book for children. He is a National Geographic Society Explorer, ecophysiology Environmental toxicology Environmentalism Pesticides in the United States Elliott, John E. Bishop, Christine A. Morrissey, Christy. McGarity, Thomas O. Wagner, Wendy Elizabeth, bending Science, How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research
16.
DDT in the United States
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The use of DDT in the United States is banned, except for a limited exemption for public health uses. The ban is due in a part to Rachael Carsons 1962 book Silent Spring. DDT is still used in 22 countries, as early as the 1940s, scientists had begun expressing concern over possible hazards associated with DDT, and in the 1950s the government began tightening some of the regulations governing its use. William Shawn, editor of The New Yorker, urged her to write a piece on the subject, the book argued that pesticides, including DDT, were poisoning both wildlife and the environment and were also endangering human health. Along with the passage of the Endangered Species Act, the US ban on DDT is cited by scientists as a factor in the comeback of the bald eagle in the contiguous United States. According to Environmental Protection Agency, some uses of DDT continued under the public health exemption, the federal regimen to regulate pesticides was restructured under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act in October 1972. In a health-related example, in June 1979, the California Department of Health Services was permitted to use DDT to suppress flea vectors of bubonic plague
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Rachel Carson
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Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. Carson began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries and her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U. S. National Book Award, recognition as a gifted writer, and financial security. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea, and the version of her first book. This sea trilogy explores the whole of life from the shores to the depths. Late in the 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation, the result was the book Silent Spring, which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented share of the American people. Although Silent Spring was met with opposition by chemical companies, it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy. It also inspired a grassroots movement that led to the creation of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter, Rachel Carson was born on May 27,1907, on a family farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania, just up the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh. She was the daughter of Maria Frazier and Robert Warden Carson, an avid reader, she also spent a lot of time exploring around her familys 65-acre farm. She began writing stories at age eight, and had her first story published at age ten. She especially enjoyed the St. Nicholas Magazine, the works of Beatrix Potter, and the novels of Gene Stratton Porter, the natural world, particularly the ocean, was the common thread of her favorite literature. Carson attended Springdales small school through tenth grade, then completed school in nearby Parnassus, Pennsylvania. At the Pennsylvania College for Women, as in high school and she originally studied English, but switched her major to biology in January 1928, though she continued contributing to the schools student newspaper and literary supplement. After a summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory, she continued her studies in zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins in the fall of 1929. After her first year of school, Carson became a part-time student, taking an assistantship in Raymond Pearls laboratory. After false starts with pit vipers and squirrels, she completed a project on the embryonic development of the pronephros in fish. She earned a degree in zoology in June 1932. She had intended to continue for a doctorate, but in 1934 Carson was forced to leave Johns Hopkins to search for a teaching position to help support her family
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Bald eagle
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The bald eagle is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle. Its range includes most of Canada and Alaska, all of the contiguous United States and it is found near large bodies of open water with an abundant food supply and old-growth trees for nesting. The bald eagle is a feeder which subsists mainly on fish. It builds the largest nest of any North American bird and the largest tree nests ever recorded for any species, up to 4 m deep,2.5 m wide. Sexual maturity is attained at the age of four to five years, Bald eagles are not actually bald, the name derives from an older meaning of the word, white headed. The adult is brown with a white head and tail. The sexes are identical in plumage, but females are about 25 percent larger than males, the beak is large and hooked. The plumage of the immature is brown, the bald eagle is both the national bird and national animal of the United States of America. The bald eagle appears on its seal, in the late 20th century it was on the brink of extirpation in the contiguous United States. Populations have since recovered and the species was removed from the U. S. governments list of endangered species on July 12,1995 and it was removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in the Lower 48 States on June 28,2007. The plumage of an bald eagle is evenly dark brown with a white head. The tail is long and slightly wedge-shaped. Males and females are identical in coloration, but sexual dimorphism is evident in the species. The beak, feet and irises are bright yellow, the legs are feather-free, and the toes are short and powerful with large talons. The highly developed talon of the toe is used to pierce the vital areas of prey while it is held immobile by the front toes. The beak is large and hooked, with a yellow cere, the adult bald eagle is unmistakable in its native range. The closely related African fish eagle also has a body, white head and tail
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Pesticide regulation in the United States
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Pesticide regulation in the United States is primarily a responsibility of the Environmental Protection Agency. In most countries, pesticides must be approved for sale and use by a government agency, in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for regulating pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Food Quality Protection Act. Studies must be conducted to establish the conditions in which the material is safe to use, the EPA regulates pesticides to ensure that these products do not pose adverse effects to humans or the environment. Pesticides produced before November 1984 continue to be reassessed in order to meet the current scientific, all registered pesticides are reviewed every 15 years to ensure they meet the proper standards. During the registration process, a label is created, the label contains directions for proper use of the material in addition to safety restrictions. Based on acute toxicity, pesticides are assigned to a Toxicity Class, some pesticides are considered too hazardous for sale to the general public and are designated restricted use pesticides. Only certified applicators, who have passed an exam, may purchase or supervise the application of restricted use pesticides, records of sales and use are required to be maintained and may be audited by government agencies charged with the enforcement of pesticide regulations. These records must be available to employees and state or territorial environmental regulatory agencies. The EPA regulates pesticides under two main acts, both of which were amended by the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, FIFRA was passed in 1947 and was a collaboration between the federal government and the chemical industry. It resulted from the increase in production during and after World War II. At that time, the concern about pesticides was related to pesticide efficacy, FIFRA was passed as a “truth in labeling” law. The goal of the legislation was to maintain pesticide standards while allowing new pesticides to enter the market quickly. The 1947 legislation was an example of a triangle, ” made up of the House Committee on Agriculture, the United States Department of Agriculture. The legislation required that pesticide formulas be registered with USDA, the legislation was not intended to enact an active regulatory system, it was to enable the creation of a stable marketplace. The political climate in the US prevented major changes to the due to the public’s relative lack of concern, USDA’s administration of the law. The Delaney House Committee hearings in 1950-51 were the first instance of government hearings concerning pesticide safety, the hearings resulted in two amendments to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, The Pesticides Control Amendment and the Food Additives Amendment. These two amendments resulted in Food and Drug Administration involvement in pesticide regulation, the PCA of 1954 was the first time Congress passed guidance regarding the establishment of safety limits for pesticide residues on food. PCA authorized the FDA to ban pesticides they determined to be if they were sprayed directly on food
20.
United States Department of Agriculture
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Approximately 80% of USDAs $140 billion budget goes to the Food and Nutrition Service program. The largest component of the FNS budget is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, after the resignation of Thomas Vilsack on January 13,2017 and the departure of President Barack Obama from office on January 20,2017, the acting Secretary of Agriculture is Michael Young. Activities in this include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides healthy food to over 40 million low-income. The USDA also is concerned with assisting farmers and food producers with the sale of crops and it plays a role in overseas aid programs by providing surplus foods to developing countries. This aid can go through USAID, foreign governments, international bodies such as World Food Program, the Agricultural Act of 1949, section 416 and Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, also known as Food for Peace, provides the legal basis of such actions. The USDA is a partner of the World Cocoa Foundation, early in its history, the economy of the United States was largely agrarian. Officials in the government had long sought new and improved varieties of seeds, plants. In 1837 Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, a Yale-educated attorney interested in improving agriculture, became Commissioner of Patents and he began collecting and distributing new varieties of seeds and plants through members of the Congress and agricultural societies. In 1839, Congress established the Agricultural Division within the Patent Office and allotted $1,000 for the collection of agricultural statistics, Ellsworth was called the Father of the Department of Agriculture. In 1849, the Patent Office was transferred to the newly created Department of the Interior, in the ensuing years, agitation for a separate bureau of agriculture within the department or a separate department devoted to agriculture kept recurring. Lincoln called it the peoples department, in the 1880s, varied advocacy groups were lobbying for Cabinet representation. Business interests sought a Department of Commerce and Industry, and farmers tried to raise the Department of Agriculture to Cabinet rank, finally, on February 9,1889, President Grover Cleveland signed a bill into law elevating the Department of Agriculture to Cabinet level. In 1887, the Hatch Act provided for the funding of agricultural experiment stations in each state. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 then funded cooperative extension services in each state to teach agriculture, home economics, with these and similar provisions, the USDA reached out to every county of every state. During the Great Depression, farming remained a way of life for millions of Americans. The Department of Agricultures Bureau of Home Economics, established in 1923, published shopping advice and recipes to stretch family budgets and make food go farther. USDA helped ensure that continued to be produced and distributed to those who needed it, assisted with loans for small landowners. The Department of Agriculture was authorized a budget for Fiscal Year 2015 of $139.7 billion, the Washington Post reports that he said There are days when I have literally nothing to do, he recalled thinking as he weighed his decision to quit
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United States Environmental Protection Agency
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The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2,1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House, the agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Scott Pruitt, the EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D. C. regional offices for each of the ten regions. The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education and it has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U. S. states, EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs. In 2016, the agency had 15,376 full-time employees, more than half of EPAs employees are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists, other employees include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists. Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment. Senator James E. Murray introduced a bill, the Resources and Conservation Act of 1959, the 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson alerted the public about the detrimental effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. In the years following, similar bills were introduced and hearings were held to discuss the state of the environment, in the colloquium, some members of Congress expressed a continuing concern over federal agency actions affecting the environment. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 was modeled on RCA, President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1,1970. The law created the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President, NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The detailed statement would ultimately be referred to as an impact statement. On July 9,1970, Nixon proposed a reorganization that consolidated many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency. After conducting hearings during that summer, the House and Senate approved the proposal, the agency’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, took the oath of office on December 4,1970. In May 2013, Congress renamed the EPA headquarters as the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, the EPA is led by an Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As of 2017 Scott Pruitt is the 14th administrator, each EPA regional office is responsible within its states for implementing the Agencys programs, except those programs that have been specifically delegated to states
22.
National Academy of Sciences
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The National Academy of Sciences is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering, as a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Election to the National Academies is one of the highest honors in the scientific field, members serve pro bono as advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code, … to provide scientific advice to the government whenever called upon by any government department. The Academy receives no compensation from the government for its services, as of 2016, the National Academy of Sciences includes about 2,350 members and 450 foreign associates. It employed about 1,100 staff in 2005, the current members annually elect new members for life. Approximately 200 members have won a Nobel Prize, the National Academy of Sciences is a member of the International Council for Science. Although there is no relationship with state and local academies of science. The National Academies is governed by a 17-member Council, made up of five officers and 12 Councilors, the National Academy of Sciences meets annually in Washington, D. C. which is documented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, its scholarly journal. The National Academies Press is the publisher for the National Academies, since 2004, the National Academy of Sciences has administered the Marian Koshland Science Museum to provide public exhibits and programming related to its policy work. The museums current exhibits focus on change and infectious disease. The National Academy of Sciences maintains multiple buildings around the United States, the building has a neoclassical architectural style and was built by architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. The building was dedicated in 1924 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the building is used for lectures, symposia, exhibitions, and concerts, in addition to annual meetings of the NAS, NAE, and NAM. The 2012 Presidential Award for Math and Science Teaching ceremony was held here on March 5,2014, approximately 150 staff members work at the NAS Building. More than 1,000 National Academies staff members work at The Keck Center of the National Academies at 500 Fifth Street in northwest Washington, the Keck Center provides meeting space and houses the National Academies Press Bookstore. The NAS also maintains conference centers in California and Massachusetts, the J. Erik Jonsson Conference Center located at 314 Quissett Avenue in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is another conference facility. The Act of Incorporation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3,1863, created the National Academy of Sciences, many of the original NAS members came from the so-called Scientific Lazzaroni, an informal network of mostly physical scientists working in the vicinity of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts was to name Agassiz to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, Agassiz was to come to Washington at the governments expense to plan the organization with the others
23.
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
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The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is an agency of the federal government within the U. S. Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The leader of the FWS is the director of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Daniel M. Ashe, of Maryland, bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensic Laboratory Landscape Conservation Cooperatives The vast majority of fish and wildlife habitat is on non-federal lands. The FWS employs approximately 9,000 people and is organized into an administrative office, eight regional offices. Spencer Fullerton Baird was appointed its first commissioner, in 1903, the Fish Commission was reorganized as the United States Bureau of Fisheries. In 1885–1886, the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy was established within the United States Department of Agriculture, in 1896 it became the Division of Biological Survey. Its early work focused on the effect of birds in controlling pests and mapping the geographical distribution of plants. Clinton Hart Merriam headed the Bureau for 25 years and became a figure for improving the scientific understanding of birds. Under Darlings guidance, the Bureau began a legacy of protecting vital natural habitat throughout the country. The USFWS was finally created in 1940, when the Bureaus of Fisheries, however, these exceptions often only apply to Native Americans that are registered with the federal government and are enrolled with a federally recognized tribe. Therefore, many people that wish to practice their religion continue to face persecution. This has become a source of conflict between many tribes and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the USFWS began to incorporate the research of scientists into conservation decisions. Additionally, other natural resource agencies within the United States government, such as the USDA, have taken steps to be inclusive of tribes, native people. This has marked a transition to a relationship of more cooperation rather than the tension between tribes and government agencies seen historically, today, these agencies work closely with tribal governments to ensure the best conservation decisions are made and that tribes retain their sovereignty
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Environmental impact of pesticides
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The impact of pesticides consists of the effects of pesticides on non-target species. Pesticides are chemical preparations used to kill fungal or animal pests, over 98% of sprayed insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target species, because they are sprayed or spread across entire agricultural fields. Runoff can carry pesticides into aquatic environments while wind can carry them to fields, grazing areas, human settlements and undeveloped areas. Other problems emerge from poor production, transport and storage practices, over time, repeated application increases pest resistance, while its effects on other species can facilitate the pests resurgence. Each pesticide or pesticide class comes with a set of environmental concerns. Such undesirable effects have led many pesticides to be banned, while regulations have limited and/or reduced the use of others, over time, pesticides have generally become less persistent and more species-specific, reducing their environmental footprint. In addition the amounts of pesticides applied per hectare have declined, however, the global spread of pesticide use, including the use of older/obsolete pesticides that have been banned in some jurisdictions, has increased overall. The arrival of humans in an area, to live or to conduct agriculture, the use of agricultural chemicals such as fertilizer and pesticides magnify those impacts. While advances in agrochemistry have reduced those impacts, for example by the replacement of long-lived chemicals with those that reliably degrade and these effects are magnified by the use of older chemistries and poor management practices. Shortly thereafter, DDT, originally used to combat malaria, initial studies in industrialized countries focused on acute mortality effects mostly involving birds or fish. Data on pesticide usage remain scattered and/or not publicly available, the common practice of incident registration is inadequate for understanding the entirety of effects. Since 1990, research interest has shifted from documenting incidents and quantifying chemical exposure to studies aimed at linking laboratory, mesocosm, the proportion of effect-related publications has increased. Animal studies mostly focus on fish, insects, birds, amphibians, since 1993, the United States and the European Union have updated pesticide risk assessments, ending the use of acutely toxic organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. Newer pesticides aim at efficiency in target and minimum side effects in nontarget organisms, the phylogenetic proximity of beneficial and pest species complicates the project. One of the challenges is to link the results from cellular studies through many levels of increasing complexity to ecosystems. Pesticides can contribute to air pollution, Pesticide drift occurs when pesticides suspended in the air as particles are carried by wind to other areas, potentially contaminating them. Pesticides that are applied to crops can volatilize and may be blown by winds into nearby areas, weather conditions at the time of application as well as temperature and relative humidity change the spread of the pesticide in the air. As wind velocity increases so does the spray drift and exposure, low relative humidity and high temperature result in more spray evaporating
25.
Decline in amphibian populations
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By 1993, more than 500 species of frogs and salamanders present on all five continents were in decline. Since the 1980s, decreases in amphibian populations, including population crashes, however, many of the causes of amphibian declines are still poorly understood, and the topic is currently a subject of much ongoing research. In the past three decades, declines in populations of amphibians have occurred worldwide, in 2004, the results were published of the first worldwide assessment of amphibian populations, the Global Amphibian Assessment. This found that 32% of species were threatened, at least 43% were experiencing some form of population decrease. As of 2010, the IUCN Red List, which incorporates the Global Amphibian Assessment and subsequent updates, habitat loss, disease and climate change are thought to be responsible for the drastic decline in populations in recent years. Declines have been intense in the western United States, Central America, South America, eastern Australia. While human activities are causing a loss of much of the world’s biodiversity, because amphibians generally have a two-staged life cycle consisting of both aquatic and terrestrial phases, they are sensitive to both terrestrial and aquatic environmental effects. Because their skins are highly permeable, they may be susceptible to toxins in the environment than other organisms such as birds or mammals. Many scientists believe that amphibians serve as canaries in a mine. Declines in amphibian populations were first widely recognized in the late 1980s, among these species, the Golden toad endemic to Monteverde, Costa Rica, featured prominently. It was the subject of research until populations suddenly crashed in 1987. Other species at Monteverde, including the Monteverde Harlequin Frog, also disappeared at the same time, when amphibian declines were first presented as a conservation issue in the late 1980s, some scientists remained unconvinced of the reality and gravity of the conservation issue. Some biologists argued that populations of most organisms, amphibians included, however, since this initial scepticism, biologists have come to a consensus that declines in amphibian populations are a real and severe threat to biodiversity. Numerous potential explanations for amphibian declines have been proposed, most or all of these causes have been associated with some population declines, so each cause is likely to affect in certain circumstances but not others. Many of the causes of amphibian declines are well-understood, and appear to other groups of organisms as well as amphibians. These causes include habitat modification and fragmentation, introduced predators or competitors, introduced species, pollution, pesticide use, however, many amphibian declines or extinctions have occurred in pristine habitats where the above effects are not likely to occur. Artificial lighting has been suggested as another potential cause, insects are attracted to lights making them scarcer within the amphibian habitats. Habitat modification or destruction is one of the most dramatic issues affecting amphibian species worldwide, as amphibians generally need aquatic and terrestrial habitats to survive, threats to either habitat can affect populations
26.
Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
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The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Basin and Range Province. The vast majority of the lies in the state of California. The Sierra runs 400 miles north-to-south, and is approximately 70 miles across east-to-west, the Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty wilderness areas, and two national monuments. These areas include Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks, the character of the range is shaped by its geology and ecology. More than one hundred years ago during the Nevadan orogeny. The range started to uplift four M. A. ago, the uplift caused a wide range of elevations and climates in the Sierra Nevada, which are reflected by the presence of five life zones. Uplift continues due to faulting caused by forces, creating spectacular fault block escarpments along the eastern edge of the southern Sierra. The Sierra Nevada has a significant history, the California Gold Rush occurred in the western foothills from 1848 through 1855. Due to inaccessibility, the range was not fully explored until 1912, the Sierra Nevada lies in Central and Eastern California, with a very small but historically important spur extending into Nevada. West-to-east, the Sierra Nevadas elevation increases gradually from 1,000 feet in the Central Valley to an height of about 10,500 feet at its crest only 50–75 miles to the east. The east slope forms the steep Sierra Escarpment, unlike its surroundings, the range receives a substantial amount of snowfall and precipitation due to orographic lift. The Sierra Nevada stretches from the Susan River and Fredonyer Pass in the north to Tehachapi Pass in the south and it is bounded on the west by Californias Central Valley and on the east by the Basin and Range Province. The geographical boundary between the Sierra and the Cascades is virtually indistinguishable, with the Fredonyer Pass designation being traditional, physiographically, the Sierra is a section of the Cascade-Sierra Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division. The range is drained on its western slope by the Central Valley watershed, the northern third of the western Sierra is part of the Sacramento River watershed, and the middle third is drained by the San Joaquin River. The eastern slope watershed of the Sierra is much narrower, its rivers flow out into the endorheic Great Basin of eastern California and western Nevada. Although none of the eastern rivers reach the sea, many of the streams from Mono Lake southwards are diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct which provides water to Southern California, the height of the mountains in the Sierra Nevada increases gradually from north to south. Between Fredonyer Pass and Lake Tahoe, the range from 5,000 feet to more than 9,000 feet. The crest near Lake Tahoe is roughly 9,000 feet high, farther south, the highest peak in Yosemite National Park is Mount Lyell
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California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
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Threatened species
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Threatened species are any species which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of critical depensation and this quantitative metric is one method of evaluating the degree of endangerment. Species which have not been evaluated, or do not have sufficient data also are not considered threatened by the IUCN, Threatened species are also referred to as a red-listed species, as they are listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Subspecies, populations and stocks may also be classified as threatened and it is the less protected of the two protected categories. The Bay checkerspot butterfly is an example of a threatened subspecies protected under the ESA, for example, the trumpeter swan is threatened in the state of Minnesota, while large populations still remain in Canada and Alaska. The EPBC Act also recognises and protects threatened ecosystems such as plant communities, some species, such as Lewins rail, are not listed as threatened species under the EPBC Act, but they may be recognised as threatened by individual states or territories. Biodiversity Action Plan IUCN Red List Illegal logging Rare species Red and blue-listed Slash-and-burn Threatened fauna of Australia Sharrock, S. and Jones, conserving Europes threatened plants Botanic Gardens Conservation International
29.
Minnesota
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Minnesota is a state in the midwestern and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U. S. state on May 11,1858, the state has a large number of lakes, and is known by the slogan Land of 10,000 Lakes. Its official motto is LÉtoile du Nord, Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 21st most populous of the U. S. Minnesota is known for its progressive political orientation and its high rate of civic participation and voter turnout. Until European settlement, Minnesota was inhabited by the Dakota and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe, in recent decades, immigration from Asia, the Horn of Africa, and Latin America has broadened its historic demographic and cultural composition. Minnesotas standard of living index is among the highest in the United States, Native Americans demonstrated the name to early settlers by dropping milk into water and calling it mnisota. Many places in the state have similar names, such as Minnehaha Falls, Minneiska, Minneota, Minnetonka, Minnetrista, and Minneapolis, a combination of mni and polis, Minnesota is the second northernmost U. S. state. Its isolated Northwest Angle in Lake of the Woods county is the part of the 48 contiguous states lying north of the 49th parallel. The state is part of the U. S. region known as the Upper Midwest and it shares a Lake Superior water border with Michigan and a land and water border with Wisconsin to the east. Iowa is to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota are to the west, with 86,943 square miles, or approximately 2.25 percent of the United States, Minnesota is the 12th-largest state. Minnesota has some of the Earths oldest rocks, gneisses that are about 3.6 billion years old. About 2.7 billion years ago, basaltic lava poured out of cracks in the floor of the primordial ocean, the roots of these volcanic mountains and the action of Precambrian seas formed the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. Following a period of volcanism 1, in more recent times, massive ice sheets at least one kilometer thick ravaged the landscape of the state and sculpted its terrain. The Wisconsin glaciation left 12,000 years ago and these glaciers covered all of Minnesota except the far southeast, an area characterized by steep hills and streams that cut into the bedrock. This area is known as the Driftless Zone for its absence of glacial drift, much of the remainder of the state outside the northeast has 50 feet or more of glacial till left behind as the last glaciers retreated. Gigantic Lake Agassiz formed in the northwest 13,000 years ago and its bed created the fertile Red River valley, and its outflow, glacial River Warren, carved the valley of the Minnesota River and the Upper Mississippi downstream from Fort Snelling. Minnesota is geologically quiet today, it experiences earthquakes infrequently, the states high point is Eagle Mountain at 2,301 feet, which is only 13 miles away from the low of 601 feet at the shore of Lake Superior. Notwithstanding dramatic local differences in elevation, much of the state is a rolling peneplain. Two major drainage divides meet in Minnesotas northeast in rural Hibbing, forming a triple watershed, precipitation can follow the Mississippi River south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Saint Lawrence Seaway east to the Atlantic Ocean, or the Hudson Bay watershed to the Arctic Ocean
30.
Environmental Working Group
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EWG is a non-profit organization whose mission, according to its website, is to use the power of public information to protect public health and the environment. Founded in 1993 by Ken Cook and Richard Wiles, EWG is headquartered in Washington, a sister organization, the EWG Action Fund, is the lobbying arm of the organization and was founded in 2002. EWG works on three main policy or issue areas, toxic chemicals and human health, farming and agricultural subsidies, EWG has created a cosmetics safety database which indexes and scores products based on their ingredients. Their Guide to Pesticides in Produce lists 44 fruits and vegetables based on the number of pesticides that they were found to contain according to United States Department of Agriculture data, a series of studies testing for the presence of chemicals in peoples bodies is known as body burden. The organization has constructed a national database of tap water testing results from public water utilities. Their work has extended to a variety of chemicals, including bisphenol A, perchlorate, mercury, flame retardants. In July 2016 they opposed the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, EWG publishes a database of agricultural subsidies and their recipients. The organization investigates and publishes information regarding oil and gas drilling and mining projects that may pose a threat to human health, Healthy Child Healthy World, a group that empowers parents to take action and protect children from harmful chemicals, merged with EWG in October 2014. Currently, agroindustrially produced strawberries are heading the list, critics of the list have suggested that it significantly overstates the risk to consumers of the listed items, and that the methodology employed in constructing the list lacks scientific credibility. EWG encouraged consumers to look up their cell phones radiation level, in August 2013, EWG released a web page which reviews and tabulates studies showing relationships between mobile phone use and low sperm count and sperm quality. Skin Deep is a cosmetics safety database which pairs ingredients in over 79,000 products against 50 toxicity, the database is intended as a resource for consumers, who can search by ingredient or product when choosing personal care products. In July 2008, the EWG first published an analysis of over 900 sunscreens, the report concluded that only 15% of the sunscreens met the groups criteria for safety and effectiveness. Industry representatives called the 2008 report inaccurate and she expressed further concern saying I would hate to think that there are parents out there not using sunscreen on their kids because of a report like this that is not based on real science. Representatives from Schering-Plough, Johnson & Johnson, and Sun Pharmaceuticals Corp. also reiterated their products safety, in 2009, EWG updated Skin Deep with a report on chemicals in sunscreen, lip balm and SPF lotions. The report states that 3 out of 5 sunscreen products offer inadequate protection from the sun, oxybenzone is among the list that blocks both forms of radiation but has been deemed unsafe by the EWG due to controversy over its potential estrogenic and anti-androgenic effects. In its fourth annual Sunscreen Guide, issued in May 2010, EWG researchers recommended only 39 out of 500 sunscreens available at the time. EWG operates the farm subsidy database, a searchable database of recipients of taxpayer funded agriculture subsidy payments. The information is obtained directly from the United States Department of Agriculture via Freedom of Information Act requests, in the 2007 Farm Bill, EWG is advocating for, Cutting wasteful spending to profitable large farm operations, absentee landlords, ‘hobby’ farmers
31.
Food and Drug Administration
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The Food and Drug Administration is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments. As of 2017, 3/4th of the FDA budget is funded by the pharmaceutical companies due to the Prescription drug user fee act and these include regulating lasers, cellular phones, condoms and control of disease on products ranging from certain household pets to sperm donation for assisted reproduction. The FDA is led by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, appointed by the President with the advice, the Commissioner reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Dr. Robert M. Califf, MD is the current commissioner, who took over in February 2016 for Dr. Stephen Ostroff, the FDA has its headquarters in unincorporated White Oak, Maryland. The agency also has 223 field offices and 13 laboratories located throughout the 50 states, the United States Virgin Islands, in 2008, the FDA began to post employees to foreign countries, including China, India, Costa Rica, Chile, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. The site was renamed from the White Oak Naval Surface Warfare Center to the Federal Research Center at White Oak, the first building, the Life Sciences Laboratory, was dedicated and opened with 104 employees on the campus in December 2003. Only one original building from the facility was kept. All other buildings are new construction, the project is slated to be completed by 2017, assuming future Congressional funding While most of the Centers are located in the Washington, D. C. The Office of Regulatory Affairs is considered the eyes and ears of the agency, the Office of Regulatory Affairs is divided into five regions, which are further divided into 20 districts. Districts are based roughly on the divisions of the federal court system. Each district comprises a main office and a number of Resident Posts. ORA also includes the Agencys network of laboratories, which analyze any physical samples taken. Though samples are usually food-related, some laboratories are equipped to analyze drugs, cosmetics, the Office of Criminal Investigations was established in 1991 to investigate criminal cases. Unlike ORA Investigators, OCI Special Agents are armed, and dont focus on aspects of the regulated industries. In many cases, OCI pursues cases involving Title 18 violations, OCI Special Agents often come from other criminal investigations backgrounds, and work closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Assistant Attorney General, and even Interpol. OCI receives cases from a variety of sources—including ORA, local agencies, OCI is a smaller branch, comprising about 200 agents nationwide. The FDA frequently works with federal agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs and Border Protection. Often local and state government agencies also work with the FDA to provide regulatory inspections, the FDA regulates more than US$1 trillion worth of consumer goods, about 25% of consumer expenditures in the United States
32.
Apple
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The apple tree is a deciduous tree in the rose family best known for its sweet, pomaceous fruit, the apple. It is cultivated worldwide as a tree, and is the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe, and were brought to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek, Apple trees are large if grown from seed. Generally apple cultivars are propagated by grafting onto rootstocks, which control the size of the resulting tree, There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples, resulting in a range of desired characteristics. Different cultivars are bred for various tastes and uses, including cooking, eating raw, trees and fruit are prone to a number of fungal, bacterial and pest problems, which can be controlled by a number of organic and non-organic means. In 2010, the genome was sequenced as part of research on disease control. Worldwide production of apples in 2014 was 84.6 million tonnes, the apple is a deciduous tree, generally standing 1.8 to 4.6 m tall in cultivation and up to 12 m in the wild. When cultivated, the size, shape and branch density are determined by rootstock selection, the leaves are alternately arranged dark green-colored simple ovals with serrated margins and slightly downy undersides. Blossoms are produced in spring simultaneously with the budding of the leaves, the 3 to 4 cm flowers are white with a pink tinge that gradually fades, five petaled, with an inflorescence consisting of a cyme with 4–6 flowers. The central flower of the inflorescence is called the king bloom, it opens first, the fruit matures in late summer or autumn, and cultivars exist with a wide range of sizes. Commercial growers aim to produce an apple that is 7.0 to 8.3 cm in diameter, due to market preference. Some consumers, especially those in Japan, prefer a larger apple, while apples below 5.7 cm are generally used for making juice and have little market value. The skin of ripe apples is generally red, yellow, green, pink, the skin may also be wholly or partly russeted i. e. rough and brown. The skin is covered in a layer of epicuticular wax. The exocarp is generally pale yellowish-white, though pink or yellow also occur. The original wild ancestor of Malus pumila was Malus sieversii, found growing wild in the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, in strains without recent admixture the contribution of the latter predominates. It had about 57,000 genes, the highest number of any plant genome studied to date and this new understanding of the apple genome will help scientists in identifying genes and gene variants that contribute to resistance to disease and drought, and other desirable characteristics
33.
Strawberry
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The garden strawberry is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus Fragaria. It is cultivated worldwide for its fruit, the fruit is widely appreciated for its characteristic aroma, bright red color, juicy texture, and sweetness. It is consumed in quantities, either fresh or in such prepared foods as preserves, fruit juice, pies, ice creams, milkshakes. Artificial strawberry flavorings and aromas are also used in many products like lip gloss, candy, hand sanitizers, perfume. Cultivars of Fragaria × ananassa have replaced, in production, the woodland strawberry. Technically, the strawberry is an accessory fruit, meaning that the fleshy part is derived not from the plants ovaries. Each apparent seed on the outside of the fruit is one of the ovaries of the flower. The first garden strawberry was grown in Brittany, France during the late 18th century, prior to this, wild strawberries and cultivated selections from wild strawberry species were the common source of the fruit. The strawberry fruit was mentioned in ancient Roman literature in reference to its medicinal use, the French began taking the strawberry from the forest to their gardens for harvest in the 14th century. Charles V, Frances king from 1364 to 1380, had 1,200 strawberry plants in his royal garden, in the early 15th century western European monks were using the wild strawberry in their illuminated manuscripts. The strawberry is found in Italian, Flemish, and German art, the entire strawberry plant was used to treat depressive illnesses. By the 16th century references of cultivation of the strawberry became more common, people began using it for its supposed medicinal properties and botanists began naming the different species. In England the demand for regular strawberry farming had increased by the mid-16th century, the combination of strawberries and cream was created by Thomas Wolsey in the court of King Henry VIII. Instructions for growing and harvesting strawberries showed up in writing in 1578, by the end of the 16th century three European species had been cited, F. vesca, F. moschata, and F. viridis. The garden strawberry was transplanted from the forests and then the plants would be propagated asexually by cutting off the runners, two subspecies of F. vesca were identified, F. sylvestris alba and F. sylvestris semperflorens. The introduction of F. virginiana from Eastern North America to Europe in the 17th century is an important part of history because this gave rise to the modern strawberry. The new species gradually spread through the continent and did not become completely appreciated until the end of the 18th century, when a French excursion journeyed to Chile in 1712, it introduced the strawberry plant with female flowers that resulted in the common strawberry that we have today. The Mapuche and Huilliche Indians of Chile cultivated the female strawberry species until 1551 when the Spanish came to conquer the land, in 1765, a European explorer recorded the cultivation of F. chiloensis, the Chilean strawberry
34.
Grape
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A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus Vitis. Grapes can be fresh as table grapes or they can be used for making wine, jam, juice, jelly, grape seed extract, raisins, vinegar. Grapes are a type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of the grape began 6, 000–8,000 years ago in the Near East. Yeast, one of the earliest domesticated microorganisms, occurs naturally on the skins of grapes, the earliest archeological evidence for a dominant position of wine-making in human culture dates from 8,000 years ago in Georgia. The oldest known winery was found in Armenia, dating to around 4000 BC, by the 9th century AD the city of Shiraz was known to produce some of the finest wines in the Middle East. Thus it has proposed that Syrah red wine is named after Shiraz. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics record the cultivation of grapes, and history attests to the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians. The growing of grapes would later spread to regions in Europe, as well as North Africa. Vitis vinifera cultivars were imported for that purpose, Grapes are a type of fruit that grow in clusters of 15 to 300, and can be crimson, black, dark blue, yellow, green, orange, and pink. White grapes are actually green in color, and are derived from the purple grape. Mutations in two genes of white grapes turn off production of anthocyanins, which are responsible for the color of purple grapes. Anthocyanins and other pigment chemicals of the family of polyphenols in purple grapes are responsible for the varying shades of purple in red wines. Grapes are typically an ellipsoid shape resembling a prolate spheroid, most grapes come from cultivars of Vitis vinifera, the European grapevine native to the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Vitis riparia, a vine of North America, is sometimes used for winemaking. It is native to the entire Eastern U. S. Vitis rotundifolia, the muscadines, used for jams and wine, are native to the Southeastern United States from Delaware to the Gulf of Mexico. Vitis amurensis is the most important Asian species, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization,75,866 square kilometers of the world are dedicated to grapes. Approximately 71% of world production is used for wine, 27% as fresh fruit
35.
Celery
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Celery is a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae that has been cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity. Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves, depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, leaves, or hypocotyl are eaten and used in cooking. Celery seed is used as a spice, its extracts are used in medicines. Celery leaves are pinnate to bipinnate with rhombic leaflets 3–6 cm long, the flowers are creamy-white, 2–3 mm in diameter, and are produced in dense compound umbels. The seeds are ovoid to globose,1. 5–2 mm long. Modern cultivars have been selected for solid petioles, leaf stalks, a celery stalk readily separates into strings which are bundles of angular collenchyma cells exterior to the vascular bundles. The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek se-ri-no, celery was described by Carl Linnaeus in Volume One of his Species Plantarum in 1753. Wild celery, Apium graveolens var. graveolens, grows to 1 m tall, by the 19th century, the season for celery had been extended, to last from the beginning of September to late in April. In North America, commercial production of celery is dominated by the cultivar called Pascal celery, Gardeners can grow a range of cultivars, many of which differ from the wild species, mainly in having stouter leaf stems. They are ranged under two classes, white and red, the stalks grow in tight, straight, parallel bunches, and are typically marketed fresh that way, without roots and just a little green leaf remaining. The stalks are eaten raw, or as an ingredient in salads, or as a flavoring in soups, stews, in Europe, another popular variety is celeriac, Apium graveolens var. rapaceum, grown because its hypocotyl forms a large bulb, white on the inside. The bulb could be kept for months in winter and mostly serves as an ingredient in soup. It can also be ground up and used in salads, the leaves are used as seasoning, the small, fibrous stalks find only marginal use. Leaf celery or Chinese celery, Apium graveolens var. secalinum, is a cultivar from East Asia, the wild form of celery is known as smallage. It has a stalk with wedge-shaped leaves, the whole plant having a coarse, earthy taste. The stalks are not usually eaten, but the leaves may be used in salads, with cultivation and blanching, the stalks lose their acidic qualities and assume the mild, sweetish, aromatic taste particular to celery as a salad plant. Harvesting occurs when the size of celery in a field is marketable, due to extremely uniform crop growth. The petioles and leaves are removed and harvested, celery is packed by size, under optimal conditions, celery can be stored for up to seven weeks between 0 to 2 °C
36.
Peach
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The peach is a deciduous tree native to the region of Northwest China between the Tarim Basin and the north slopes of the Kunlun Shan mountains, where it was first domesticated and cultivated. It bears an edible fruit called a peach or a nectarine. The specific epithet refers to its widespread cultivation in Persia. It belongs to the genus Prunus which includes the cherry, apricot, almond and plum, the peach is classified with the almond in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by the corrugated seed shell. Peach and nectarines are the species, even though they are regarded commercially as different fruits. The Peoples Republic of China is the worlds largest producer of peaches, Prunus persica grows to 4–10 m tall and 6 in. in diameter. The leaves are lanceolate, 7–16 cm long, 2–3 cm broad, the flowers are produced in early spring before the leaves, they are solitary or paired,2. 5–3 cm diameter, pink, with five petals. The fruit has yellow or whitish flesh, an aroma. The flesh is very delicate and easily bruised in some cultivars, the single, large seed is red-brown, oval shaped, approximately 1. 3–2 cm long, and is surrounded by a wood-like husk. Peaches, along with cherries, plums and apricots, are stone fruits, there are various heirloom varieties, including the Indian peach, which arrives in the latter part of the summer. Cultivated peaches are divided into clingstones and freestones, depending on whether the flesh sticks to the stone or not, Peaches with white flesh typically are very sweet with little acidity, while yellow-fleshed peaches typically have an acidic tang coupled with sweetness, though this also varies greatly. Both colors often have red on their skin. The scientific name persica, along with the word peach itself, the Ancient Romans referred to the peach as malum persicum Persian apple, later becoming French pêche, hence the English peach. The scientific name, Prunus persica, literally means Persian plum, fossil endocarps with characteristics indistinguishable from those of modern peaches have been recovered from late Pliocene deposits in Kunming, dating to 2.6 million years ago. In the absence of evidence that the plants were in other ways identical to the modern peach, until recently, it was believed that the cultivation started circa 2000 BC. Nevertheless, the recent evidence indicates that domestication occurred as early as 6000 BC in Zhejiang Province of China, the oldest archaeological peach stones are from the Kuahuqiao site. Archaeologists point at the Yangzi River valley as the place where the selection for favorable peach varieties likely took place. Peaches were mentioned in Chinese writings as far back as the 10th century BC and were a fruit of kings
37.
Spinach
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Spinach is an edible flowering plant in the family Amaranthaceae native to central and western Asia. Its leaves are eaten as a vegetable and it is an annual plant growing to 30 cm tall. Spinach may survive over winter in temperate regions, the flowers are inconspicuous, yellow-green, 3–4 mm in diameter, maturing into a small, hard, dry, lumpy fruit cluster 5–10 mm across containing several seeds. Common spinach, S. oleracea, was considered to be in the family Chenopodiaceae, but in 2003. Within the family Amaranthaceae sensu lato, Spinach belongs to subfamily Chenopodioideae, the English word spinach dates to the late 14th century, and is from espinache, of uncertain origin. The traditional view derives it from O. Prov, Spinach is thought to have originated in ancient Persia. It is not known by whom, or when, spinach was introduced to India, but the plant was introduced to ancient China. The earliest available record of the plant was recorded in Chinese. In AD827, the Saracens introduced spinach to Sicily, Spinach became a popular vegetable in the Arab Mediterranean and arrived in Spain by the latter part of the 12th century, where it was called raʼīs al-buqūl, the chieftain of leafy greens. Spinach was also the subject of a treatise in the 11th century by Ibn Ḥajjāj. The prickly-seeded form of spinach was known in Germany by no later than the 13th century, Spinach is mentioned in the first known English cookbook, the Forme of Cury, where it is referred to as spinnedge and/or spynoches. Smooth-seeded spinach was described in 1552, Spinach was supposedly the favourite vegetable of Catherine de Medici. Dishes served on a bed of spinach are known as Florentine, during World War I, wine fortified with spinach juice was given to French soldiers weakened by hemorrhage. In a 100 g serving providing only 23 calories, spinach has a high value, especially when fresh, frozen, steamed. It is a source of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, magnesium, manganese, iron. Spinach is a source of the B vitamins riboflavin and vitamin B6, vitamin E, calcium, potassium. Spinach, along with green, leafy vegetables, contains an appreciable amount of iron attaining 21% of the Daily Value in a 100 g amount of raw spinach. For example, the United States Department of Agriculture states that a 100 g serving of cooked spinach contains 3.57 mg of iron, in addition to preventing absorption and use, high levels of oxalates remove iron from the body
38.
Avocado
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The avocado is a tree that is native to South Central Mexico, classified as a member of the flowering plant family Lauraceae. Avocado also refers to the fruit, which is botanically a large berry containing a single seed. Avocados are commercially valuable and are cultivated in tropical and Mediterranean climates throughout the world and they have a green-skinned, fleshy body that may be pear-shaped, egg-shaped, or spherical. Avocado trees are partially self-pollinating and are propagated through grafting to maintain a predictable quality and quantity of the fruit. The native, undomesticated variety is known as a criollo, and is small, with black skin. It probably coevolved with extinct megafauna, the oldest evidence of avocado use was found in a cave located in Coxcatlán, Puebla, Mexico, that dates to around 10,000 BC. The avocado tree also has a history of cultivation in Central and South America. A water jar shaped like an avocado, dating to AD900, was discovered in the city of Chan Chan. The earliest known account of the avocado in Europe is that of Martín Fernández de Enciso in 1519 in his book. The first written record in English of the use of the avocado was by Hans Sloane in a 1696 index of Jamaican plants. The plant was introduced to Indonesia in 1750, Brazil in 1809, South Africa and Australia in the late 19th century, and the Levant in 1908. The word avocado comes from the Spanish aguacate, which in turn comes from the Nahuatl word āhuacatl, sometimes the Nahuatl word was used with the meaning testicle, probably because of the likeness between the fruit and the body part. The modern English name is not etymologically related to the similar-sounding Spanish word abogado, meaning lawyer, the earliest known written use in English is attested from 1697 as avogato pear, a term which was later corrupted as alligator pear. Because the word sounded like advocate, several languages reinterpreted it to have that meaning. In other Central American and Caribbean Spanish-speaking countries, it is known by the Mexican name, while South American Spanish-speaking countries use a Quechua-derived word, the fruit is sometimes called an avocado pear or alligator pear. The Nahuatl ahuacatl can be compounded with words, as in ahuacamolli, meaning avocado soup or sauce. In the United Kingdom, the term avocado pear is still sometimes misused as applied when avocados first became available in the 1960s. It is known as fruit in parts of India and goes by the name bơ in Vietnamese
39.
Cucumber
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Cucumber is a widely cultivated plant in the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. It is a vine that bears cucumiform fruits that are used as vegetables. There are three varieties of cucumber, slicing, pickling, and seedless. Within these varieties, several cultivars have been created, in North America, the term wild cucumber refers to plants in the genera Echinocystis and Marah, but these are not closely related. The cucumber is originally from South Asia, but now grows on most continents, many different types of cucumber are traded on the global market. The cucumber is a vine that roots in the ground and grows up trellises or other supporting frames, wrapping around supports with thin. The plant may also root in a medium and will sprawl along the ground if it does not have supports. The vine has large leaves form a canopy over the fruits. The fruit of cultivars of cucumber is roughly cylindrical, but elongated with tapered ends. Botanically speaking, the cucumber is classified as a pepo, a type of berry with a hard outer rind. Much like tomato and squash, it is perceived, prepared. Cucumber fruits are more than 90% water. A few cultivars of cucumber are parthenocarpic, the blossoms creating seedless fruit without pollination, pollination for these cultivars degrades the quality. In the United States, these are grown in greenhouses. In Europe, they are outdoors in some regions. Most cucumber cultivars, however, are seeded and require pollination, thousands of hives of honey bees are annually carried to cucumber fields just before bloom for this purpose. Cucumbers may also be pollinated by bumblebees and several other bee species, most cucumbers that require pollination are self-incompatible, so pollen from a different plant is required to form seeds and fruit. Some self-compatible cultivars exist that are related to the Lemon cultivar, symptoms of inadequate pollination include fruit abortion and misshapen fruit
40.
Sweet corn
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Sweet corn is a variety of maize with a high sugar content. Sweet corn is the result of a naturally occurring mutation in the genes which control conversion of sugar to starch inside the endosperm of the corn kernel. Unlike field corn varieties, which are harvested when the kernels are dry and mature, sweet corn is picked when immature and prepared and eaten as a vegetable, rather than a grain. Since the process of maturation involves converting sugar to starch, sweet corn stores poorly and must be fresh, canned, or frozen, before the kernels become tough. Sweet corn occurs as a mutation in field corn and was grown by several Native American tribes. The Iroquois gave the first recorded sweet corn to European settlers in 1779 and it soon became a popular food in southern and central regions of the United States. Open pollinated cultivars of sweet corn started to become widely available in the United States in the 19th century. Two of the most enduring cultivars, still today, are Country Gentleman. It is significant for being the first successful single-cross hybrid and the first specifically developed for disease resistance, the fruit of the sweet corn plant is the corn kernel, a type of fruit called a caryopsis. The ear is a collection of kernels on the cob, because corn is a monocot, there is always an even number of rows of kernels. The ear is covered by tightly wrapped leaves called the husk, silk is the name for the pistillate flowers, which emerge from the husk. The husk and silk are removed by hand, before boiling but not necessarily before roasting, in Brazil, sweet corn cut off from the cobs is generally eaten with peas. The kernels are boiled or steamed, in Europe, China, Korea, Japan and India, they are often used as a pizza topping, or in salads. Corn on the cob is a corn cob that has been boiled, steamed, or grilled whole. Creamed corn is sweet corn served in a milk or cream sauce, sweet corn can also be eaten as baby corn. In the United States, sweet corn is eaten as a vegetable, or on the cob, usually served with butter. It can be found in Tex-Mex cooking in chili, tacos, when corn is mixed with lima beans it is called succotash. Sweet corn is one of the most popular vegetables in the United States, fresh, canned and frozen sweet corn rank among the top ten vegetables in value and per capital consumption
41.
Pineapple
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The pineapple is a tropical plant with an edible multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries, also called pineapples, and the most economically significant plant in the Bromeliaceae family. Pineapples may be cultivated from a cutting of the fruit, possibly flowering in 5-10 months. Pineapples do not ripen significantly after harvest, pineapples can be consumed fresh, cooked, juiced, or preserved. They are found in an array of cuisines. The fiber is used as a component for wallpaper and other furnishings. The word pineapple in English was first recorded to describe the organs of conifer trees. When European explorers discovered this tropical fruit in the Americas, they called them pineapples, other members of the Ananas genus are often called pine, as well, in other languages. In Spanish, pineapples are called piña, or ananá, the pineapple is a herbaceous perennial, which grows to 1.0 to 1.5 m tall, although sometimes it can be taller. In appearance, the plant has a short, stocky stem with tough, when creating its fruit, it usually produces up to 200 flowers, although some large-fruited cultivars can exceed this. Once it flowers, the fruits of the flowers join together to create what is commonly referred to as a pineapple. After the first fruit is produced, side shoots are produced in the axils of the main stem. These may be removed for propagation, or left to produce additional fruits on the original plant, commercially, suckers that appear around the base are cultivated. It has 30 or more long, narrow, fleshy, trough-shaped leaves with sharp spines along the margins that are 30 to 100 cm long, surrounding a thick stem, in the first year of growth, the axis lengthens and thickens, bearing numerous leaves in close spirals. After 12 to 20 months, the stem grows into an inflorescence up to 15 cm long with over 100 spirally arranged, trimerous flowers. Flower colors vary, depending on variety, from lavender, through light purple to red, the ovaries develop into berries, which coalesce into a large, compact, multiple fruit. The fruit of a pineapple is arranged in two interlocking helices, eight in one direction,13 in the other, each being a Fibonacci number. The pineapple carries out CAM photosynthesis, fixing carbon dioxide at night and storing it as the acid malate, seed formation needs pollination, but the presence of seeds harms the quality of the fruit. In Hawaii, where pineapple is cultivated on an agricultural scale, certain bat-pollinated wild pineapples open their flowers only at night
42.
Cabbage
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Cabbage or headed cabbage is a leafy green or purple biennial plant, grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the cabbage, B. oleracea var. oleracea. Cabbage heads generally range from 0.5 to 4 kilograms, smooth-leafed firm-headed green cabbages are the most common, with smooth-leafed red and crinkle-leafed savoy cabbages of both colors seen more rarely. Under conditions of long sunlit days such as are found at high latitudes in summer. Some records are discussed at the end of the history section and it is difficult to trace the exact history of cabbage, but it was most likely domesticated somewhere in Europe before 1000 BC, although savoys were not developed until the 16th century. By the Middle Ages, it had become a prominent part of European cuisine, cabbage is prone to several nutrient deficiencies, as well as to multiple pests, and bacterial and fungal diseases. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that production of cabbage. Almost half of these crops were grown in China, where Chinese cabbage is the most popular Brassica vegetable, cabbages are prepared in many different ways for eating. They can be pickled, fermented for dishes such as sauerkraut, steamed, stewed, sautéed, braised, cabbage is a good source of vitamin K, vitamin C and dietary fiber. Contaminated cabbage has been linked to cases of illness in humans. Cabbage is a member of the genus Brassica and the mustard family, several other cruciferous vegetables are considered cultivars of B. oleracea, including broccoli, collard greens, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi and sprouting broccoli. All of these developed from the wild cabbage B. oleracea var. oleracea, the varietal epithet capitata is derived from the Latin word for having a head. B. oleracea and its derivatives have hundreds of names throughout the world. Cabbage was originally used to refer to forms of B. oleracea. A related species, Brassica rapa, is commonly named Chinese, napa or celery cabbage and it is also a part of common names for several unrelated species. These include cabbage bark or cabbage tree and cabbage palms, which include several genera of palms such as Mauritia, Roystonea oleracea, Acrocomia, the original family name of brassicas was Cruciferae, which derived from the flower petal pattern thought by medieval Europeans to resemble a crucifix. The word brassica derives from bresic, a Celtic word for cabbage, many European and Asiatic names for cabbage are derived from the Celto-Slavic root cap or kap, meaning head. The late Middle English word cabbage derives from the word caboche and this in turn is a variant of the Old French caboce
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National Pesticide Information Center
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It is funded through a cooperative agreement that is competitively awarded to an eligible applicant every 3–5 years. The National Pesticide Information Center was previously known as the National Pesticide Telecommunication Network, the service was later expanded to the general public. In the mid 1980s the NPIC moved to Texas Tech University, in 1995 the program was moved to Oregon State University and the name was later changed to the National Pesticide Information Center in 2001. In 2010 NPIC began using social media platforms and currently maintains profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, YouTube, in 2012 NPIC developed an Insect Repellent Locator Mobile App. In 2013 NPIC developed several mobile Apps including, Mobile Access to Pesticides and Labels, Pesticide Education & Search Tool, the National Pesticide Information Center does not have regulatory authority in relation to pesticides. Pesticide regulatory agencies in states are delegated primary enforcement responsibilities for pesticide violations by the U. S. EPA. However, in addition to being reported to state regulators, pesticide incidents involving people, pets, wildlife, or the environment can be reported to the NPIC. Incident reports collected by the NPIC, which exclude personally identifiable information, are provided to the U. S. EPA through scheduled reporting and by request from U. S. EPA and partner agencies. A veterinary incident reporting portal is available to professional veterinary staff seeking to report a pesticide incident involving an animal
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Chitosan
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Chitosan /ˈkaɪtəsæn/ is a linear polysaccharide composed of randomly distributed β--linked D-glucosamine and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. It is made by treating the chitin shells of shrimp and other crustaceans with an alkaline substance, chitosan has a number of commercial and possible biomedical uses. It can be used in agriculture as a treatment and biopesticide. In winemaking, it can be used as a fining agent, in industry, it can be used in a self-healing polyurethane paint coating. In medicine, it may be useful in bandages to reduce bleeding and as an antibacterial agent, more controversially, chitosan has been asserted to have use in limiting fat absorption, which would make it useful for dieting, but there is evidence against this. Other uses of chitosan that have been researched include use as a dietary fiber. Chitosan is produced commercially by deacetylation of chitin, which is the element in the exoskeleton of crustaceans. The degree of deacetylation can be determined by NMR spectroscopy, on average, the molecular weight of commercially produced chitosan is between 3800 and 20,000 Daltons. A common method for the synthesis of chitosan is the deacetylation of chitin using sodium hydroxide in excess as a reagent, the reaction occurs in two stages under first-order kinetic control. Activation energy for the first step is higher than the second and this reaction pathway, when allowed to go to completion yields up to 98% product. The amino group in chitosan has a pKa value of ~6.5, which leads to a protonation in acidic to neutral solution with a density dependent on pH. This makes chitosan water-soluble and a bioadhesive which readily binds to negatively charged surfaces such as mucosal membranes, chitosan enhances the transport of polar drugs across epithelial surfaces, and is biocompatible and biodegradable. It is not approved by FDA for drug delivery though, purified quantities of chitosans are available for biomedical applications. Chitosan and its derivatives, such as trimethylchitosan, have used in nonviral gene delivery. Oligomeric derivatives are relatively nontoxic and have good gene delivery properties, the cellular targets are the plasma membrane and nuclear chromatin. Subsequent changes occur in cell membranes, chromatin, DNA, calcium, MAP Kinase, oxidative burst, reactive species, callose pathogenesis-related genes. Since 1986, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has regulated chitosan for agricultural use, the natural biocontrol active ingredients, chitin/chitosan, are found in the shells of crustaceans, such as lobsters, crabs, and shrimp, and many other organisms, including insects and fungi. It is one of the most abundant biodegradable materials in the world, degraded molecules of chitin/chitosan exist in soil and water
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Environmental issues in the United States
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Despite taking hundreds of measures, the rate of environmental issues is increasing rapidly instead of reducing. Both Conservationism and Environmentalism appeared in political debates during the Progressive Era in the early 20th century, the laissez-faire position held that owners of private property—including lumber and mining companies, should be allowed to do anything they wished for their property. The Conservationists, led by President Theodore Roosevelt and his close ally Gifford Pinchot, said that the approach was too wasteful. In any case, they noted, most of the resources in the western states were already owned by the federal government. The best course of action, they argued, was a plan devised by national experts to maximize the long-term economic benefits of natural resources. Environmentalism was the position, led by John Muir. Muirs passion for nature made him the most influential American environmentalist, Muir preached that nature was sacred and humans are intruders who should look but not develop. He founded the Sierra Club and remains an icon of the environmentalist movement and he was primarily responsible for defining the environmentalist position, in the debate between Conservation and environmentalism. Environmentalism preached that nature was almost sacred, and that man was an intruder and it allowed for limited tourism, but opposed automobiles in national parks. It strenuously opposed timber cutting on most public lands, and vehemently denounced the dams that Roosevelt supported for water supplies, electricity, especially controversial was the Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National Park, which Roosevelt approved, and which supplies the water supply of San Francisco. The United States is the second largest emitter, after China, the energy policy of the United States is widely debated, many call on the country to take a leading role in fighting global warming. The U. S. is one of two countries that has not signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. Since about 86% of all types of energy used in the United States are derived from fossil fuel consumption it is linked to greenhouse gas emissions. The production and transport of fossil fuels are also tied to significant environmental issues, the last of the passenger pigeons died in 1914 after being the most common bird in North America. They were killed as both a source of food and because they were a threat to farming, saving the bald eagle, the national bird of the U. S. from extinction was a notable conservation success. As of 13 December,2016, the International Union for the Conservation of Natures Red List shows the United States has 1,514 species on its Threatened list. Invasive species are a significant problem, some of the most notable being zebra mussels, Burmese pythons, kudzu, brown tree snakes, economic damages are estimated at $120 billion per year. Forest fires and construction is leading to deforestation, the timbaland forests are on the verge of extinction due to continuous extraction
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Environment of the United States
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The environment of the United States comprises diverse biotas, climates, and geologies. Environmental regulations and the movement have emerged to respond to the various threats to the environment. More than 400 mammal,700 bird,500 reptile and amphibian, wetlands, such as the Florida Everglades, are the base for much of this diversity. Around 14,000 species of fungi were listed by Farr, Bills, Chamuris, still, this list only included terrestrial species. It did not include lichen-forming fungi, fungi on dung, freshwater fungi, with habitats ranging from tropical to Arctic, U. S. plant life is very diverse. The country has more than 17,000 identified native species of flora, the countrys ecosystems include thousands of nonnative exotic species that often harm indigenous communities of living things. Following World War II, the Wests cities experienced an economic, the population growth, mostly in the Southwest, has strained water and power resources, with water diverted from agricultural uses to major population centers, such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles. According to the California Department of Water Resources, if more supplies are not found by 2020, residents will face a water shortfall nearly as great as the amount consumed today. The lower 48 states can be divided into roughly five physiographic provinces, the American cordillera, the Canadian Shield, the platform, the coastal plain. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, in 1872, the worlds first national park was established at Yellowstone. Another fifty-seven national parks and hundreds of federally managed parks. Wilderness areas have been established around the country to ensure protection of pristine habitats. Altogether, the U. S. government regulates 1,020,779 square miles,28. 8% of the total land area. Protected parks and forestland constitute most of this, as with many other countries there are a number of environmental issues in the United States. Topical issues include the Arctic Refuge drilling controversy and the Bush Administration stance on climate change, the United States maintains hundreds of national parks as well as several preservation areas, such as in the Florida Everglades. S. Environmental and occupational health regulation Watershed Central Neimark, Peninah, Mott, the environmental debate a documentary history, with timeline, glossary, and appendices. Environmental and Renewable Energy Innovation Potential Among the States, State Rankings, factors Affecting States Ranking on the 2007 Forbes List of Americas Greenest States. Applied Research Project, Texas State University, environment at the Pew Charitable Trust
