Live@edu

A free suite of hosted Microsoft services and applications which provides education institutions with a set of hosted collaboration services, communication tools, and mobile, desktop, and web-based applications, as well as data storage capabilities:


Live@edu (website: http://my.liveatedu.com)

Live@edu is a no-cost hosted platform for student communication and collaboration, providing industry-leading services to the global education market. E-mail and calendars with a 10GB inbox, 25GB of additional file storage, document sharing, instant messaging, video chat and mobile e-mail are just part of the feature set. Live@edu provides students with the professional tools to prepare them for college or work from day one. Live@edu is accessible through popular Web browsers for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems — and easy to set up, administer and manage. More than 10,000 schools in more than 130 countries have enrolled in Live@edu, serving tens of millions of students worldwide. More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/liveatedu (source: Microsoft News Center: State University of New York Moves to Microsoft’s Cloud).

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Fars Province

A province of Iran known as the Cultural Capital of Iran:


Fars Province

The center of the Fars Province is Shiraz; Shiraz is known as the city of poets and flowers (one of the must-see cities in the world).

Fars Province - Iran

Several beautiful counties in the Middle East are located in the Fars Province. One of them, known for its natural views and moderate climate, is the Bavanat County.

Bavanat County - Fars Province - Iran

Bavanat County - Fars Province - Iran

The ancient Persians were present in the region from about the 9th century BC, and became the rulers of a large empire under the Achaemenid dynasty in the 6th century BC. The ruins of Persepolis and Pasargadae, two of the four capitals of the Achaemenid Empire, are located in Fars (source: Absolute Astronomy).

The ruins of Persepolis - Fars Province - Iran

Pasargadae, in the Fars Province, was the capital of Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC) and also his last resting place, was a city in ancient Persia, and is today an archaeological site and one of Iran's UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Pasargadae, Tomb of Cyrus the Great - Fars Province - Iran

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Arabian Desert

A vast desert wilderness stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq:


Arabian Desert (or Eastern Desert)

Arabian Desert

The Arabian Desert occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers.

Arabian Desert

The Arabian Desert is one of the most continuous bodies of sand in the world.

Arabian Desert

At least one-third of the desert is covered by sand, including the Rubʿ al-Khali, considered to have one of the most inhospitable climates on Earth. There are no perennial bodies of water, though the Tigris-Euphrates river system lies to the northeast and the Wadi Ḥajr is located to the south, in Yemen. Humans have inhabited the area since Pleistocene times (source: Britannica).

Arabian Desert

The Arabian Desert is third-largest desert in the world.

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Taurus Mountains

A mountain complex in southern Turkey, from which the Euphrates and Tigris descend into Iraq:


Taurus Mountains

Taurus Mountains

Ethnoreligious

An ethnic group of people whose members are also unified by a common religious background:


Ethnoreligious Group

OpenLeaks

Former WikiLeaks staff open new whistle-blower leak service called:


OpenLeaks

The former number two at Wikileaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, launches the next-generation of leaking software called Openleaks, and he will try to fix some of the problems associated with the Wikileaks model, namely centralization. Openleaks will be a conduit of information rather than a publisher of information.

OpenLeaks (Image: openleaks.org)

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Cape Verde

An island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa:


Cape Verde

Cape Verde Flag

Cape Verde

wikiHow

A wiki-based community, consisting of the world's largest and highest quality how-to manuals:



wikiHow

http://www.wikihow.com

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Dielectric Heating

The process in which radio wave or microwave electromagnetic radiation heats a dielectric material:



Dielectric Heating (also called RF Heating, High-Frequency Heating, or Electronic Heating)

Note: Microwave ovens use dielectric heating to cook food.

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Dielectric

An electrical insulator that may be polarized by an applied electric field:



Dielectric

If a dielectric is placed in an electric field then the electric charges do not flow through the material; however, slightly shift from their average equilibrium positions causing dielectric polarization.

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Electronegativity

A chemical property that describes the tendency of an atom or a functional group to attract electrons or electrons' density towards itself and thus the tendency to form negative ions:



Electronegativity

Rem: In organic chemistry, a functional group is a specific group of atoms within molecules that are responsible for the characteristic chemical reactions of those molecules.

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Paleolithic Architecture

From 39,000 to 8,000 B.C., the architecture formed by the earliest buildings which were natural caves sometimes with animal skins, thatch, or mud:



Paleolithic Architecture

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Hippocampus

A major component of the brains of humans and other mammals, located in the medial temporal lobe of the brain, which plays important roles in long-term memory and spatial navigation:



Hippocampus

(Image Source: http://brainmind.com/BrainLecture1.html)

The hippocampus plays a vital role in enhancing memory in those who are actively engaged in learning something new. It coordinates with other brain structures to accomplish different tasks, such as recognizing an object one has seen before or remembering its original location (Read more here).

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---

Improve Your Memory (Level 1 of 3)

Improve Your Memory (Level 1 of 3) [Kindle Edition]

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Kelp Forest

Underwater area with a high density of large seaweeds or algae, recognized as one of the most productive and dynamic ecosystems on Earth:



Kelp Forest

Note: Smaller areas of anchored kelp are called kelp beds.

Kelp Forest

The kelp forests off southern California are considered to be some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on the planet, yet a new study indicates that today's kelp beds are less extensive and lush than those in the recent past.

The kelp forest tripled in size from the peak of glaciation 20,000 years ago to about 7,500 years ago, then shrank by up to 70 percent to present day levels, according to the study by Rick Grosberg, professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology and the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis, with Michael Graham of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratory and Brian Kinlan at UC Santa Barbara [Read more here].

Cerebral Achromatopsia

A type of color-blindness, caused by damage to the cerebral cortex of the brain (and not the abnormalities in the cells of the eye's retina), that most of its patients describe seeing the world in shades of gray:



Cerebral Achromatopsia

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Mauritania

An Islamic Republic in North Africa bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest:



Mauritania

Background (Source: CIA, The World Factbook, Mauritania):
Independent from France in 1960, Mauritania annexed the southern third of the former Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara) in 1976 but relinquished it after three years of raids by the Polisario guerrilla front seeking independence for the territory. Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed TAYA seized power in a coup in 1984 and ruled Mauritania with a heavy hand for more than two decades. A series of presidential elections that he held were widely seen as flawed. A bloodless coup in August 2005 deposed President TAYA and ushered in a military council that oversaw a transition to democratic rule. Independent candidate Sidi Ould Cheikh ABDALLAHI was inaugurated in April 2007 as Mauritania's first freely and fairly elected president. His term ended prematurely in August 2008 when a military junta led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel AZIZ deposed him and ushered in a military council government. AZIZ was subsequently elected president in July 2009. The country continues to experience ethnic tensions among its black population (Afro-Mauritanians) and white and black Moor (Arab-Berber) communities, and is having to confront a growing terrorism threat by al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

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Sunspot

The temporary phenomena on the photosphere of the Sun that appear visibly as small dark points:



Sunspot

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Photosphere

The imaginary surface from which the solar light being seen appears to be emitted:



Photosphere

The photosphere is the visible surface of the Sun that we are most familiar with. Since the Sun is a ball of gas, this is not a solid surface but is actually a layer about 100 km thick (very, very, thin compared to the 700,000 km radius of the Sun). When we look at the center of the disk of the Sun we look straight in and see somewhat hotter and brighter regions. When we look at the limb, or edge, of the solar disk we see light that has taken a slanting path through this layer and we only see through the upper, cooler and dimmer regions. This explains the "limb darkening" that appears as a darkening of the solar disk near the limb.



Source: NASA, Solar Physics, The Photosphere.

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Dermatitis

Inflammation of the skin which usually involves swollen, reddened and itchy skin:



Dermatitis

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