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Androctonus Australis
''Androctonus australis'', the yellow fat-tailed scorpion, is a hardy desert scorpion from North Africa, Somaliland, the Middle East, Pakistan and India. ''A. australis'', along with '' A. amoreuxi'' and '' Pandinus imperator'', is the most commonly available scorpions found in the exotic animal trade. Hardiness Unlike most other animals that live in deserts, ''Androctonus'' does not dig burrows to protect itself from a sandstorm. Instead, it can withstand sandstorms powerful enough to strip paint off steel, without any apparent damage. The resistance of ''Androctonus'' to sandstorms is suspected to be due to its unusual exoskeleton surface texture. Its armor is covered with dome-shaped granules that are high and across. When this surface texture is translated into other materials it protects them to a certain degree as well, which has led to the possibility of the applicability of imitation surfaces in such objects as aeroplanes and helicopters. Etymology The name ''And ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as . Linnaeus was born in Råshult, the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published the first edition of his ' in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft and many forms of STOL (Short TakeOff and Landing) or STOVL (Short TakeOff and Vertical Landing) aircraft cannot perform without a runway. In 1942, the Sikorsky R-4 became the first helicopter to reach full-scale production.Munson 1968.Hirschberg, Michael J. and David K. Dailey"Sikorsky". ''US and Russian Helicopter Development in the 20th Century'', American Helicopter Society, International. 7 July 2000. Although most earlier designs used more than one main rotor, the configuration of a single main rotor accompanied by a vertical anti-torque tail rotor (i.e. unicopter, not to be confused with the single-blade monocopter) has become the most comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scorpions Of Africa
Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the Order (biology), order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of Chela (organ), grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always ending with a stinger. The evolutionary history of scorpions goes back Silurian, 435 million years. They mainly live in deserts but have adapted to a wide range of environmental conditions, and can be found on all continents except Antarctica. There are over 2,500 described species, with 22 extant (living) families recognized to date. Their Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy is being revised to account for 21st-century genomic studies. Scorpions primarily prey on insects and other invertebrates, but some species hunt vertebrates. They use their pincers to restrain and kill prey, or to prevent their own predation. The Scorpion sting, venomous sting is used for offense and defense. During courtship, the male and female g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invertebrates Of North Africa
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate subphylum Vertebrata. Familiar examples of invertebrates include arthropods, mollusks, annelids, echinoderms and cnidarians. The majority of animal species are invertebrates; one estimate puts the figure at 97%. Many invertebrate taxa have a greater number and variety of species than the entire subphylum of Vertebrata. Invertebrates vary widely in size, from 50 μm (0.002 in) rotifers to the 9–10 m (30–33 ft) colossal squid. Some so-called invertebrates, such as the Tunicata and Cephalochordata, are more closely related to vertebrates than to other invertebrates. This makes the invertebrates paraphyletic, so the term has little meaning in taxonomy. Etymology The word "invertebrate" comes from the Latin word ''vertebra'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buthidae
The Buthidae are the largest family of scorpions, containing about 100 genera and 1339 species as of 2022. A few very large genera (''Ananteris'', ''Centruroides'', '' Compsobuthus'', or '' Tityus'') are known, but a high number of species-poor or monotypic ones also exist. New taxa are being described at a rate of several new species per year. They have a osmopolitandistribution throughout tropical and subtropical environments worldwide. Together with four other families, the Buthidae make up the superfamily Buthoidea. The family was established by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1837. Around 20 species of medically important (meaning potentially lethal to humans) scorpions are known, and all but one of these ('' Hemiscorpius lepturus'') are members of the Buthidae. In dead specimens, the spine beneath the stinger, characteristic for this family, can be observed. List of genera and number of species The following genera are recognised in the family Buthidae: * '' Aegaeobuthus'' Kovarik, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fattail Scorpion
Fattail scorpion or fat-tailed scorpion is the common name given to scorpions of the genus ''Androctonus'', one of the most dangerous groups of scorpion species in the world.Hendrixson, B. E. 2006. Buthid scorpions of Saudi Arabia, with notes on other families (Scorpiones: Buthidae, Liochelidae, Scorpionidae). In W. Büttiker, F. Krupp, I. Nader & W. Schneider (eds.), Fauna of Arabia (pp. in press, ~100 pages). Basel, Switzerland: Karger Libri. The genus was first described in 1828 by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. They are found throughout the semi-arid and arid regions of the Middle East and Africa. They are moderate sized scorpions, attaining lengths of 10 cm (just under 4 in). Their common name is derived from their distinctly fat metasoma, or tail, while the Latin name originates from Greek and means "man killer". Their venom contains powerful neurotoxins and is especially potent. Stings from ''Androctonus'' species are known to cause several human deaths each ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AaTX1
AaTX1 is a scorpion toxin of the α-KTx15 subfamily originally found in the venom of ''Androctonus australis.'' The toxin acts as a specific blocker on Kv4.3 voltage-gated potassium channel, thereby abolishing the A-type potassium currents. Etymology and source AaTX1 is a peptide that can be purified from the venom of ''Androctonus australis''. ''Androctonus australis'' is a fat-tailed desert scorpion distributed over North Africa and the Middle East. AaTX1 represents only 0.007% ( w/v) of ''Androctonus australis'' venom. Chemistry The peptide consists of 37 amino acid residues, which include six cysteines. These cysteines form disulfide bridges, cross-linking the residues along the peptidyl chain. The determined molecular mass of the peptide appears to be approximately 3851 Da. AaTX1 is a member of the α-KTx15 subfamily (α-KTx15-4). This family consists of six peptides, which share high level of sequence similarity: Aa1, AaTX1, AaTX2, AmmTX3, BmTX3 and Discrepin. More ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LD50
In toxicology, the median lethal dose, LD50 (abbreviation for "lethal dose, 50%"), LC50 (lethal concentration, 50%) or LCt50 is a toxic unit that measures the lethal dose of a toxin, radiation, or pathogen. The value of LD50 for a substance is the dose required to kill half the members of a tested population after a specified test duration. LD50 figures are frequently used as a general indicator of a substance's acute toxicity. A lower LD50 is indicative of increased toxicity. The test was created by J.W. Trevan in 1927. The term semilethal dose is occasionally used in the same sense, in particular with translations of foreign language text, but can also refer to a sublethal dose. LD50 is usually determined by tests on animals such as laboratory mice. In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved alternative methods to LD50 for testing the cosmetic drug Botox without animal tests. Conventions The LD50 is usually expressed as the mass of substance administered per unit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Holland Publishers
New Holland Publishers is an English-based international publisher of non-fiction books, founded in 1955. It is a privately held company, with offices in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. History The publishing firm was established as "Holland Press" was on 20 June 1955 in Southwark, London, England, and renamed to New Holland Publishers in 1988. It currently operates offices in London and Chatswood, New South Wales, Australia. The company went through a significant round of redundancies from 2008–2011. In 2013 the company sold US publishing rights to over 200 titles to Bloomsbury Publishing, Bloomsbury; and in 2014 over 1,400 titles to Fox Chapel Publishing of East Petersburg, Pennsylvania. References Book publishing companies based in London Companies based in the London Borough of Southwark Publishing companies established in 1955 1955 establishments in the United Kingdom {{publish-corp-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four verb conjuga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting impo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Economist Group, with its core editorial offices in the United States, as well as across major cities in continental Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In 2019, its average global print circulation was over 909,476; this, combined with its digital presence, runs to over 1.6 million. Across its social media platforms, it reaches an audience of 35 million, as of 2016. The newspaper has a prominent focus on data journalism and interpretive analysis over original reporting, to both criticism and acclaim. Founded in 1843, ''The Economist'' was first circulated by Scottish economist James Wilson to muster support for abolishing the British Corn Laws (1815–1846), a system of import tariffs. Over time, the newspaper's coverage expanded further into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
