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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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Ion-selective Electrodes
An Ion-selective electrode (ISE) is a transducer (sensor) which converts the activity of a specific ion dissolved in a solution into an electrical potential which can be measured by a voltmeter or pH meter. The voltage is theoretically dependent on the logarithm of the ionic activity, according to the Nernst equation. The sensing part of the electrode is usually made as an ion-specific membrane, along with a reference electrode. Ion-selective electrodes are used in biochemical and biophysical research, where measurements of ionic concentration in an aqueous solution are required, usually on a real time basis.
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  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review
William Freer Bale
William Freer Bale (1911 – 28 June 1982), biophysicist and educator, held key positions in the Atomic Energy Project at the University of Rochester. Pioneer in the study of radon exposure to miners.
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Topic Review
2020
The United Nations has declared 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health. 2020 has been designated as Year of the Nurse and Midwife by the World Health Organization. 2020 has been heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to global social and economic disruption including a major economic recession. Template:Sts -->
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  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Cognitive Ecology of Religion
Cognitive ecology of religion is an integrative approach to studying how religious beliefs covary with social and natural dynamics of the environment. This is done by incorporating a cognitive ecological perspective to cross-cultural god concepts. Religious beliefs are thought to be a byproduct of domain-specific cognitive modules that give rise to religious cognition. The cognitive biases leading to religious belief are constraints on perceptions of the environment, which is part and parcel of a cognitive ecological approach. This means that they not only shape religious beliefs, but they are determinants of how successfully cultural beliefs are transmitted. Furthermore, cognition and behavior are inextricably linked, so the consequences of cultural concepts are associated with behavioral outcomes (i.e., continued interactions with the environment). For religion, behaviors often take the form of rituals and are similarly executed as a consequence of beliefs. Because the religious beliefs distributed in a population are relevant to their behavioral strategies and fine-tuned by natural selection, cross-cultural representations of gods and their characteristics are hypothesized to address ecologically relevant challenges. In other words, religious beliefs are thought to frequently involve solutions, insofar as evolved cognitive equipment can build them, to social and natural environmental problems faced by a given population.
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  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Flying Spaghetti Monster
The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism. Pastafarianism (a portmanteau of pasta and Rastafarianism) is a social movement that promotes a light-hearted view of religion and opposes the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in public schools. According to adherents, Pastafarianism is a "real, legitimate religion, as much as any other". In New Zealand, Pastafarian representatives are authorized to officiate weddings. However, in the United States, a federal judge has ruled that the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" is not a real religion. In August 2018 the Dutch Council of State also ruled that Pastafarianism is not a religion. The "Flying Spaghetti Monster" was first described in a satirical open letter written by Bobby Henderson in 2005 to protest the Kansas State Board of Education decision to permit teaching intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in public school science classes. In the letter, Henderson demanded equal time in science classrooms for "Flying Spaghetti Monsterism", alongside intelligent design and evolution. After Henderson published the letter on his website, the Flying Spaghetti Monster rapidly became an Internet phenomenon and a symbol of opposition to the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. Pastafarian tenets (generally satires of creationism) are presented both on Henderson's Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster website, where he is described as "prophet", and in The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, written by Henderson in 2006. The central belief is that an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. Pirates are revered as the original Pastafarians. Henderson asserts that a decline in the number of pirates over the years is the cause of global warming. The FSM community congregates at Henderson's website to share ideas about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and crafts representing images of it. Because of its popularity and exposure, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is often used as a contemporary version of Russell's teapot—an argument that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon those who make unfalsifiable claims, not on those who reject them. Pastafarianism has received praise from the scientific community and criticism from proponents of intelligent design. Pastafarians have engaged in disputes with creationists, including in Polk County, Florida, where they played a role in dissuading the local school board from adopting new rules on teaching evolution.
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  • 10 Oct 2022
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BUAA Unmanned Helicopter
BUAA unmanned helicopters are Chinese UAVs developed by Beihang University (BUAA), some of which has entered service with Chinese military and governmental establishments.
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Topic Review
Albert Odyssey (Super Famicom Game)
Albert Odyssey (アルバートオデッセイ, Arubaato Odessei) is a tactical role-playing video game developed and published by Sunsoft and released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in Japan in March 1993. The game features strategy-based combat in addition to traditional role-playing game elements in two-dimensional environments. It is the first game in the Albert Odyssey series, and was followed by two sequels, Albert Odyssey 2: Jashin no Taidou in 1994, and Albert Odyssey in 1996. On June 12, 1996, Albert Odyssey was made available as a full game download on the Satellaview add-on as BS Albert Odyssey (BSアルバートオデッセイ, BS Arubaato Odessei), and the original Albert Odyssey was re-released for Satellaview in March 1998. Players assume the role of Albert, the young heroic swordsman who lives in a fantasy world filled with monsters and mythical creatures. While much of the world remains in relative peace following a great war many years before, a military faction led by the dark magician Globus has emerged to conquer the newly pacified nations and expand their empire. With the help of Albert's friends as well as hired mercenaries, the player must travel the world and eventually confront Golbus and his forces to prevent another large-scale conflict.
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Topic Review
Proto-Hmong–Mien
Proto-Hmong–Mien (Chinese: 原始苗瑶语) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Hmong–Mien languages. The date of proto-Hmong-Mien has been estimated to be about 2500 BP by Sagart, Blench, and Sanchez-Mazas. It has been estimated to about 4243 BP by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP), however, ASJP is not widely accepted among historical linguists as an adequate method to establish or evaluate relationships between language families. Lower-level reconstructions include Proto-Hmongic and Proto-Mienic.
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  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Homology
In biology, homology is similarity due to shared ancestry between a pair of structures or genes in different taxa. A common example of homologous structures is the forelimbs of vertebrates, where the wings of bats and birds, the arms of primates, the front flippers of whales and the forelegs of four-legged vertebrates like dogs and crocodiles are all derived from the same ancestral tetrapod structure. Evolutionary biology explains homologous structures adapted to different purposes as the result of descent with modification from a common ancestor. The term was first applied to biology in a non-evolutionary context by the anatomist Richard Owen in 1843. Homology was later explained by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in 1859, but had been observed before this, from Aristotle onwards, and it was explicitly analysed by Pierre Belon in 1555. In developmental biology, organs that developed in the embryo in the same manner and from similar origins, such as from matching primordia in successive segments of the same animal, are serially homologous. Examples include the legs of a centipede, the maxillary palp and labial palp of an insect, and the spinous processes of successive vertebrae in a vertebral column. Male and female reproductive organs are homologous if they develop from the same embryonic tissue, as do the ovaries and testicles of mammals including humans. Sequence homology between protein or DNA sequences is similarly defined in terms of shared ancestry. Two segments of DNA can have shared ancestry because of either a speciation event (orthologs) or a duplication event (paralogs). Homology among proteins or DNA is inferred from their sequence similarity. Significant similarity is strong evidence that two sequences are related by divergent evolution from a common ancestor. Alignments of multiple sequences are used to discover the homologous regions. Homology remains controversial in animal behaviour, but there is suggestive evidence that, for example, dominance hierarchies are homologous across the primates.
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  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Two Medicine Formation
The Two Medicine Formation is a geological formation, or rock body, in northwestern Montana and southern Alberta that was deposited between 83.5 ± 0.7 Ma and 70.6 ± 3.4 Ma (million years ago), during Campanian (Late Cretaceous) time. It crops out to the east of the Rocky Mountain Overthrust Belt, and the western portion (about 600 metres or 2,000 feet thick) of this formation is folded and faulted while the eastern part, which thins out into the Sweetgrass Arch, is mostly undeformed plains. Below the formation are the nearshore (beach and tidal zone) deposits of the Virgelle Sandstone, and above it is the marine Bearpaw Shale. Throughout the Campanian, the Two Medicine Formation was deposited between the western shoreline of the Late Cretaceous Interior Seaway and the eastward advancing margin of the Cordilleran Overthrust Belt. The Two Medicine Formation is mostly sandstone, deposited by rivers and deltas.
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