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HandWiki is the world's largest wiki-style encyclopedia dedicated to science, technology and computing. It allows you to create and edit articles as long as you have external citations and login account. In addition, this is a content management environment that can be used for collaborative editing of original scholarly content, such as books, manuals, monographs and tutorials.

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Astrooceanography
Astrooceanography is the study of oceans outside planet Earth. Unlike other planetary sciences like astrobiology, astrochemistry and planetary geology, it only began after the discovery of underground oceans in Saturn's Titan and Jupiter's Ganymede. This field remains speculative until further missions reach the oceans beneath the rock or ice layer of the moons. There are many theories about oceans or even ocean worlds of celestial bodies in the Solar System, from oceans made of diamond in Neptune to a gigantic ocean of liquid hydrogen that may exist underneath Jupiter's surface. Early in their geologic histories, Mars and Venus are theorized to have had large water oceans. The Mars ocean hypothesis suggests that nearly a third of the surface of Mars was once covered by water, and a runaway greenhouse effect may have boiled away the global ocean of Venus. Compounds such as salts and ammonia dissolved in water lower its freezing point so that water might exist in large quantities in extraterrestrial environments as brine or convecting ice. Unconfirmed oceans are speculated beneath the surface of many dwarf planets and natural satellites; notably, the ocean of the moon Europa is estimated to have over twice the water volume of Earth. The Solar System's giant planets are also thought to have liquid atmospheric layers of yet to be confirmed compositions. Oceans may also exist on exoplanets and exomoons, including surface oceans of liquid water within a circumstellar habitable zone. Ocean planets are a hypothetical type of planet with a surface completely covered with liquid. Astrooceanography is closely related to Astrobiology, as oceans are expected to have higher chances to house simple forms of life.
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  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Ridiculous
To be ridiculous is to be something which is highly incongruous or inferior, sometimes deliberately so to make people laugh or get their attention, and sometimes unintendedly so as to be considered laughable and earn or provoke ridicule and derision. It comes from the 1540s Latin "ridiculosus" meaning "laughable", from "ridiculus" meaning "that which excites laughter", and from "ridere" meaning "to laugh". "Ridiculous" is an adjective describing "the ridiculous". In common usage, "ridiculousness" is used as a synonym for absurdity or nonsense. From a historical and technical viewpoint, "absurdity" is associated with argumentation and reasoning, "nonsense" with semantics and meaning, while "ridiculous" is most associated with laughter, superiority, deformity, and incongruity. Reductio ad absurdum is a valid method of argument, while reductio ad ridiculum is invalid. Argument by invective declaration of ridiculous is invalid, while arguments involving declarations of nonsense may summarize a cogent semantic problem with lack or meaning or ambiguity. Historically, the ridiculous was central to initial theories of humor and laughter as first put forth by philosopher Thomas Hobbes. It is currently used in the theory of humor to create laughter, shock, parody, or satire. Reactions to the ridiculous have been studied in psychology for its effects on memory, attention, and attitude in social hierarchies. These studies have been applied to the theory of advertisement regarding attention, memory, and alleviation of preexisting negative attitudes toward products. The ridiculous is often contrasted with the sublime, one of extreme inferiority, the other of extreme superiority, and often one can suddenly move from one extreme state to the other.
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  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Xeno Nucleic Acid
Xeno nucleic acid (XNA) is a synthetic alternative to the natural nucleic acids DNA and RNA as information-storing biopolymers that differs in the sugar backbone. As of 2011, at least six types of synthetic sugars have been shown to form nucleic acid backbones that can store and retrieve genetic information. Research is now being done to create synthetic polymerases to transform XNA. The study of its production and application has created a field known as xenobiology. Although the genetic information is still stored in the four canonical base pairs (unlike other nucleic acid analogues), natural DNA polymerases cannot read and duplicate this information. Thus the genetic information stored in XNA is "invisible" and therefore useless to natural DNA-based organisms.
  • 4.1K
  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Instructional Scaffolding
Instructional scaffolding is the support given to a student by an instructor throughout the learning process. This support is specifically tailored to each student; this instructional approach allows students to experience student-centered learning, which tends to facilitate more efficient learning than teacher-centered learning. This learning process promotes a deeper level of learning than many other common teaching strategies. Instructional scaffolding provides sufficient support to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students. These supports may include resource, compelling task, templates and guides, and/or guidance on the development of cognitive and social skills. Instructional scaffolding could be employed through modeling a task, giving advice, and/or providing coaching. These supports are gradually removed as students develop autonomous learning strategies, thus promoting their own cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning skills and knowledge. Teachers help the students master a task or a concept by providing support. The support can take many forms such as outlines, recommended documents, storyboards, or key questions.
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  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Societal Benefit Areas
The Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs) are eight environmental fields of interest, all of which relate to climate, around which the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) project is exerting its efforts. These include: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Sustainability, Disaster Resilience, Energy and Mineral Resources Management, Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture, Infrastructure and Transport Management, Public Health Surveillance, Sustainable Urban Development, and Water Resources Management around which a preliminary hierarchical vocabulary has been created. One of the aims of GEOSS is to implement a proper system of Earth monitoring and to render information deriving from this process available to a global range of users. Currently, the hierarchical vocabulary structuring these societal benefit categories and their subcategories are available only in English. However, translations have been created for French, Spanish and Italian versions by Claudia Cialone and Kristin Stock of the Centre for Geospatial Science (CGS) at the University of Nottingham, UK, with input from a number of people from the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) in Italy, the University of Zaragoza and the European Union Joint Research Centre (JRC). Translations have also been accomplished for a Slovenian version of the SBAs by the Biotehnical faculty of the University of Ljubljana, SI.
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  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Pittsburgh Refrigerator Cat
The Pittsburgh Refrigerator Cat, Refrigerator Cat, Cold Storage Cat or Eskimo Cat is repeated as fact in many cat books. However, this never existed as a breed. Although Refrigerator Cats are frequently described as a lost longhaired breed, the reports describe them as thick-furred.
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  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Samasource
Samasource employs low-income workers in developing countries to classify data, among other tech work. Samasource mission is to expand opportunity for low-income individuals through the digital economy. One of the first organizations to engage in impact sourcing, Samasource trains workers in basic computer skills and pays a local living wage for their labor. Additionally, Samasource provides health and wellness education, professional skills development, a scholarship program to assist with continuing education costs, and a program to provide micro loans and mentorship to aspiring entrepreneurs. Some of Samasource's clients include Walmart, Google, General Motors and Microsoft. Samasource has offices in San Francisco, California , New York, The Hague, Costa Rica, Montreal , Nairobi, Kenya, Kampala, Uganda and Gulu, Uganda. The organization currently owns and operates delivery centers in Nairobi and Gulu, Uganda, and partners with additional delivery centers in India . Samasource previously had paid workers in Haiti, Pakistan , Ghana, and South Africa .
  • 2.7K
  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Vilabouly Complex, Laos
The Vilabouly Complex is an archaeological site that is located in the Savannakhet Province in Laos which holds copper smelting and copper mining during the Iron Age. The Vilabouly Complex is significant since it puts archaeologists in a predicament of when did the origin of bronze metallurgy begin in Southeast Asia. It was estimated that the site was around 400BC - AD 500 as well as 1000 - 400BC reaching both the Iron Age and Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. The site contained a lead signature that followed copper, bronze alloys, and bronze which signifies a massive source of material that can benefit metallurgy in the region. By this, the Vilabouly Complex will hold all the power of the region since it has all the resources to advance their technology during the Bronze and Iron Ages. The Vilabouly Complex and the region contained such mining sites such as Dragon Field, Peun Balo, Tengkham South D, Khanong A2, and the Malachite Cave. These sites all refer to the Iron Age but Peun Balo revealed mining in the Bronze Age continuing the predicament for Archaeologists. Research like this is vital for the Vilabouly Complex to find and understand the exact date to when the people of Southeast Asia are trading metals, and sharing mining techniques. There are also other sites in region such as the Prachan Valley that shared a lot of similarities to that of the Vilabouly Complex revealing continuities for the Southeast Asian people.
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  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Osmium-168
Osmium (76Os) has seven naturally occurring isotopes, five of which are stable: 187Os, 188Os, 189Os, 190Os, and (most abundant) 192Os. The other natural isotopes, 184Os, and 186Os, have extremely long half-life (1.12×1013 years and 2×1015 years, respectively) and for practical purposes can be considered to be stable as well. 187Os is the daughter of 187Re (half-life 4.56×1010 years) and is most often measured in an 187Os/188Os ratio. This ratio, as well as the 187Re/188Os ratio, have been used extensively in dating terrestrial as well as meteoric rocks. It has also been used to measure the intensity of continental weathering over geologic time and to fix minimum ages for stabilization of the mantle roots of continental cratons. However, the most notable application of Os in dating has been in conjunction with iridium, to analyze the layer of shocked quartz along the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary that marks the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. There are also 30 artificial radioisotopes, the longest-lived of which is 194Os with a half-life of six years; all others have half-lives under 94 days. There are also nine known nuclear isomers, the longest-lived of which is 191mOs with a half-life of 13.10 hours. All isotopes and nuclear isomers of osmium are either radioactive or observationally stable, meaning that they are predicted to be radioactive but no actual decay has been observed.
  • 538
  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Shambhala Training
Shambhala Training is a secular approach to meditation developed by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa and his students. It is based on what Trungpa calls Shambhala Vision, which sees enlightened society as not purely mythical, but as realizable by people of all faiths through practices of mindfulness/awareness, non-aggression, and sacred outlook. He writes: The Shambhala Training teachings cover art, society, and politics and the goal of creating an enlightened society. That goal is presented as not solely a social and political process, but one requiring individuals to develop an awareness of the basic goodness and inherent dignity of themselves, of others, and of the everyday details of the world around them. This is facilitated by cultivating gentleness and bravery. Shambhala Training is currently administered worldwide by Shambhala International. The Satdharma community offers a comparable "Shambhala Education" course of training in Ojai, California.
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  • 01 Nov 2022
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