Monday, September 24, 2007

Krill fishery

Krill fishery is the profitable fishery of krill, small shrimp-like marine animals that live in the oceans world-wide. Estimates for how much krill there is vary wildly, depending on the methodology used. They range from 125–725 million tones of biomass globally. The total global harvest of krill from all fisheries amounts to 150 – 200,000 tones annually, mainly Antarctic krill (Euphausia superb) and North Pacific krill (E. Pacifica).

Krill are rich in protein (40% or more of dry weight) and lipids (about 20% in E. superb). Their exoskeleton amounts to some 2% of dry weight of chitin. They also contain traces of a wide array of hydrolytic enzymes such as proteases, carbohydrates, nucleases and phospholipids, which are intense in the digestive gland in the cephalothoraxes of the krill.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Abiotic pollination

It occurs when pollination is mediated without the participation of other organisms. For illustration, anemophily is pollination by wind. This form of pollination is very common in grasses, most conifers, and a lot of deciduous trees. Hydrophily is pollination by water and occurs in aquatic plants which let go their seeds directly into the surrounding water. About 80% of all plant pollination is biotic, of the 20% of abiotically pollinated species, 98% is by wind and 2% by water

Monday, September 10, 2007

Stratosphere

From the Latin word "stratus" meaning a scattering out. The stratosphere extends from the troposphere's 7 to 17 km (23,000 – 60,000 ft) range to about 50 km (160,000 ft). Temperature in crease through height. The stratosphere contains the ozone layer, the division of the Earth's atmosphere which contains comparatively high concentrations of ozone. "Relatively high" means a few parts per million—much higher than the concentrations in the lower atmosphere but still small compare to the main components of the atmosphere. It is frequently located in the lower portion of the stratosphere from approximately 15 to 35 km (50,000 – 115,000 ft) above Earth's surface, although the thickness varies seasonally and geographically.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Software tools

Software tools for distributed processing include standard APIs such as MPI and PVM, and open source-based software solutions such as Beowulf and openMosix which make easy the creation of a supercomputer from a collection of ordinary workstations or servers. Technology like ZeroConf (Rendezvous/Bonjour) can be used to make ad hoc computer clusters to for specialized software such as Apple's shake compositing application. An easy programming language for supercomputers leftovers an open research topic in computer science.