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Session #4 - Right Arm • Sleeve Tattoo
Ganesha is one of the best-known and most widely worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon. He is widely revered as the Remover of Obstacles and more generally as Lord of Beginnings and Lord of Obstacles, patron of arts and sciences, and the deva of intellect and wisdom. He is honoured at the start of rituals and ceremonies and invoked as Patron of Letters during writing sessions.
Isabelle Villaire
Magnum Tattooing
2317 S. Division Ave.
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49507
A Leopard 2A4 tank from Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) drives on a black track during EXERCISE MAPLE RESOLVE 21 in the 3rd Canadian Division Support Base Garrison Wainwright Training Area, Alberta on May 6, 2021.
Photo By: Sailor First Class Camden Scott,
Directorate of Army Public Affairs
20210506LFC0010D42
From May 1 to 11, 2021, about 2500 Canadian Armed Forces members are participating in Exercise MAPLE RESOLVE 21 in Wainwright, Alberta. As the premier annual Canadian Army field training event, Ex MAPLE RESOLVE tests soldier skills and abilities within a realistic, complex, and challenging combat environment.
Du 1er au 11 mai 2021, environ 2 500 membres des Forces armées canadiennes participent à l'exercice MAPLE RESOLVE 21 à Wainwright, en Alberta. En tant que principal événement d'entraînement annuel sur le terrain de l'Armée canadienne, l'exercice MAPLE RESOLVE teste les capacités des soldats dans un environnement de combat réaliste, complexe et stimulant.
The energy injector is like 4000 microwave ovens, another innovative design element of this reactor.
They use a process called radio-frequency heating to ignite the nuclear fuel. These antennae outside the tokamak reactor use a specific frequency of radio waves to excite the particles. The radio waves are calibrated to target just the less abundant material, in this case hydrogen ions. Because the hydrogen accounts for a small fraction of the fuel's total density, focusing the radio-frequency heating on the minority ions allows them to reach extreme energy levels. The excited hydrogen ions then slam into the more abundant deuterium ions, and resulting particles fly into the reactor's outer shell, generating heat and electricity.
And then... "Researchers improved the efficiency of this process by adding helium-3 ions to the mix. The new fuel contains less than one percent helium-3. By focusing all the radio-frequency heating on this trace amount of helium-3, the researchers raised the ions to megaelectronvolt (MeV) energies. An electronvolt is the amount of energy gained or lost when a single electron jumps from a point of electric potential to a point one volt higher, a common unit of measurement for fusion experiments. The new results with helium-3 fuel, generating ions that reach megaelectronvolt energies, has never been achieved before, and the increase in ion energy is a full order of magnitude higher than previous efforts." — Popular Mechanics
Before testing the 3-D printed rocket injector, materials engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., performed a computer tomography scan to ensure the part was fabricated according to the design.
Image credit: NASA/MSFC
Read more:
www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/multimedia/gallery/3...
www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/3dprinting.html
More about SLS:
www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/index.html
Space Launch System Flickr photoset:
www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05/sets/72157627559536895/
_____________________________________________
These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Clio started injecting her hormones 3 months ago... But never had an injection as bloody as this one!
After doing this twice in a row, she later started moving the injection site slightly to the outside of the thigh muscle. This put an end to the blood. Nowadays she injects in the butt, anyway.
(1.0" needle for intramuscular thigh injection. Works VERY well, levels-wise, even if they recommend a 1.5" needle for this situation.)
Transition Progress at this point: On hormones since 8/1 (7.5 months); injections since 12/22 (3 months) [18 so far]. Full-time female since 9/15 (6.5 months). Publicly out as trans since 10/11 (5.5 months). Legally female since 12/21 (3 months). 4 transgender group speech therapy classes taken at GW Speech Clinic (since 2/22). Plastic surgery consults continuing. Have seen endo/primary therapist 6X, and 4 other therapists 10X. Weight down to 144lbs (53 down from 197). Hair removal includes 34 electrolysis treatments totaling 26hours; 30 laser hair removal sessions (51 area treatments: 16/15/13/12/8 mouth/goatee/face/neck/armpits, 7 legs/chest, 6 ears/Brazilian); and bi-weekly at-home IPL on arms since 6/17 (9 months). Latisse for eyelash lengthening since 4/17 (11 months). 2 dental implants, Zoom teeth whitening, pierced ears, dyed/layered hair, hypertrophic scars on arms removed. Female wardrobe replacement up to more than 700 items. Total transition expenditures now over $17,800 at this point.
Clio.
injecting estrogen.
bandage, bandaid, blood, hormones, leg, needle, prep pad, syringe, thigh.
upstairs, Clio and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.
March 27, 2018.
... Read my blog at clintjcl at wordpress dot com
... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL at wordpress dot com
Having a new lens to play with, no one to photograph and a pretty flower garland. I headed in to my garden and attempted taking a self portrait.
FINALLY! After days of waiting it's finally arrived. My official bottle of Trump Medical Injectable Bleach! You know it's good when it features one of my favourite quotes from the big man himself "I'm not a doctor but i'm like a person that has good 'you know what" We know you do big fella. Trust us, we know.
In just the days it's taken to move from unsubstantiated claim into production they've even managed to cram in 'added heat and light' and we all know that can only be a good thing when combatting viruses. It even works in under a New York minute. Now that's speedy. Where's my hypodermic? If you want to use it after just let me know...
Cheers
id-iom
Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other orders of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every habitat with the exceptions of air and sea colonization. As of November 2015, at least 45,700 spider species, and 114 families have been recorded by taxonomists. However, there has been dissension within the scientific community as to how all these families should be classified, as evidenced by the over 20 different classifications that have been proposed since 1900.
Anatomically, spiders differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax and abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel. Unlike insects, spiders do not have antennae. In all except the most primitive group, the Mesothelae, spiders have the most centralized nervous systems of all arthropods, as all their ganglia are fused into one mass in the cephalothorax. Unlike most arthropods, spiders have no extensor muscles in their limbs and instead extend them by hydraulic pressure.
Their abdomens bear appendages that have been modified into spinnerets that extrude silk from up to six types of glands. Spider webs vary widely in size, shape and the amount of sticky thread used. It now appears that the spiral orb web may be one of the earliest forms, and spiders that produce tangled cobwebs are more abundant and diverse than orb-web spiders. Spider-like arachnids with silk-producing spigots appeared in the Devonian period about 386 million years ago, but these animals apparently lacked spinnerets. True spiders have been found in Carboniferous rocks from 318 to 299 million years ago, and are very similar to the most primitive surviving suborder, the Mesothelae. The main groups of modern spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appeared in the Triassic period, before 200 million years ago.
A herbivorous species, Bagheera kiplingi, was described in 2008,[5] but all other known species are predators, mostly preying on insects and on other spiders, although a few large species also take birds and lizards. Spiders use a wide range of strategies to capture prey: trapping it in sticky webs, lassoing it with sticky bolas, mimicking the prey to avoid detection, or running it down. Most detect prey mainly by sensing vibrations, but the active hunters have acute vision, and hunters of the genus Portia show signs of intelligence in their choice of tactics and ability to develop new ones. Spiders' guts are too narrow to take solids, and they liquefy their food by flooding it with digestive enzymes and grinding it with the bases of their pedipalps, as they do not have true jaws.
Male spiders identify themselves by a variety of complex courtship rituals to avoid being eaten by the females. Males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their short life spans. Females weave silk egg-cases, each of which may contain hundreds of eggs. Females of many species care for their young, for example by carrying them around or by sharing food with them. A minority of species are social, building communal webs that may house anywhere from a few to 50,000 individuals. Social behavior ranges from precarious toleration, as in the widow spiders, to co-operative hunting and food-sharing. Although most spiders live for at most two years, tarantulas and other mygalomorph spiders can live up to 25 years in captivity.
While the venom of a few species is dangerous to humans, scientists are now researching the use of spider venom in medicine and as non-polluting pesticides. Spider silk provides a combination of lightness, strength and elasticity that is superior to that of synthetic materials, and spider silk genes have been inserted into mammals and plants to see if these can be used as silk factories. As a result of their wide range of behaviors, spiders have become common symbols in art and mythology symbolizing various combinations of patience, cruelty and creative powers. An abnormal fear of spiders is called arachnophobia.
BODY PLAN
Spiders are chelicerates and therefore arthropods.[6] As arthropods they have: segmented bodies with jointed limbs, all covered in a cuticle made of chitin and proteins; heads that are composed of several segments that fuse during the development of the embryo. Being chelicerates, their bodies consist of two tagmata, sets of segments that serve similar functions: the foremost one, called the cephalothorax or prosoma, is a complete fusion of the segments that in an insect would form two separate tagmata, the head and thorax; the rear tagma is called the abdomen or opisthosoma. In spiders, the cephalothorax and abdomen are connected by a small cylindrical section, the pedicel. The pattern of segment fusion that forms chelicerates' heads is unique among arthropods, and what would normally be the first head segment disappears at an early stage of development, so that chelicerates lack the antennae typical of most arthropods. In fact, chelicerates' only appendages ahead of the mouth are a pair of chelicerae, and they lack anything that would function directly as "jaws". The first appendages behind the mouth are called pedipalps, and serve different functions within different groups of chelicerates.
Spiders and scorpions are members of one chelicerate group, the arachnids. Scorpions' chelicerae have three sections and are used in feeding. Spiders' chelicerae have two sections and terminate in fangs that are generally venomous, and fold away behind the upper sections while not in use. The upper sections generally have thick "beards" that filter solid lumps out of their food, as spiders can take only liquid food.[8] Scorpions' pedipalps generally form large claws for capturing prey, while those of spiders are fairly small appendages whose bases also act as an extension of the mouth; in addition, those of male spiders have enlarged last sections used for sperm transfer.
In spiders, the cephalothorax and abdomen are joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel, which enables the abdomen to move independently when producing silk. The upper surface of the cephalothorax is covered by a single, convex carapace, while the underside is covered by two rather flat plates. The abdomen is soft and egg-shaped. It shows no sign of segmentation, except that the primitive Mesothelae, whose living members are the Liphistiidae, have segmented plates on the upper surface.
CIRCULATION AND RESPIRATION
Like other arthropods, spiders are coelomates in which the coelom is reduced to small areas round the reproductive and excretory systems. Its place is largely taken by a hemocoel, a cavity that runs most of the length of the body and through which blood flows. The heart is a tube in the upper part of the body, with a few ostia that act as non-return valves allowing blood to enter the heart from the hemocoel but prevent it from leaving before it reaches the front end. However, in spiders, it occupies only the upper part of the abdomen, and blood is discharged into the hemocoel by one artery that opens at the rear end of the abdomen and by branching arteries that pass through the pedicle and open into several parts of the cephalothorax. Hence spiders have open circulatory systems. The blood of many spiders that have book lungs contains the respiratory pigment hemocyanin to make oxygen transport more efficient.
Spiders have developed several different respiratory anatomies, based on book lungs, a tracheal system, or both. Mygalomorph and Mesothelae spiders have two pairs of book lungs filled with haemolymph, where openings on the ventral surface of the abdomen allow air to enter and diffuse oxygen. This is also the case for some basal araneomorph spiders, like the family Hypochilidae, but the remaining members of this group have just the anterior pair of book lungs intact while the posterior pair of breathing organs are partly or fully modified into tracheae, through which oxygen is diffused into the haemolymph or directly to the tissue and organs. The trachea system has most likely evolved in small ancestors to help resist desiccation. The trachea were originally connected to the surroundings through a pair of openings called spiracles, but in the majority of spiders this pair of spiracles has fused into a single one in the middle, and moved backwards close to the spinnerets. Spiders that have tracheae generally have higher metabolic rates and better water conservation. Spiders are ectotherms, so environmental temperatures affect their activity.
FEEDING, DIGESTION AND EXCRETION
Uniquely among chelicerates, the final sections of spiders' chelicerae are fangs, and the great majority of spiders can use them to inject venom into prey from venom glands in the roots of the chelicerae. The family Uloboridae has lost its venom glands, and kills its prey with silk instead. Like most arachnids, including scorpions, spiders have a narrow gut that can only cope with liquid food and spiders have two sets of filters to keep solids out. They use one of two different systems of external digestion. Some pump digestive enzymes from the midgut into the prey and then suck the liquified tissues of the prey into the gut, eventually leaving behind the empty husk of the prey. Others grind the prey to pulp using the chelicerae and the bases of the pedipalps, while flooding it with enzymes; in these species, the chelicerae and the bases of the pedipalps form a preoral cavity that holds the food they are processing.
The stomach in the cephalothorax acts as a pump that sends the food deeper into the digestive system. The mid gut bears many digestive ceca, compartments with no other exit, that extract nutrients from the food; most are in the abdomen, which is dominated by the digestive system, but a few are found in the cephalothorax.
Most spiders convert nitrogenous waste products into uric acid, which can be excreted as a dry material. Malphigian tubules ("little tubes") extract these wastes from the blood in the hemocoel and dump them into the cloacal chamber, from which they are expelled through the anus. Production of uric acid and its removal via Malphigian tubules are a water-conserving feature that has evolved independently in several arthropod lineages that can live far away from water, for example the tubules of insects and arachnids develop from completely different parts of the embryo. However, a few primitive spiders, the sub-order Mesothelae and infra-order Mygalomorphae, retain the ancestral arthropod nephridia ("little kidneys"), which use large amounts of water to excrete nitrogenous waste products as ammonia.
CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
The basic arthropod central nervous system consists of a pair of nerve cords running below the gut, with paired ganglia as local control centers in all segments; a brain formed by fusion of the ganglia for the head segments ahead of and behind the mouth, so that the esophagus is encircled by this conglomeration of ganglia. Except for the primitive Mesothelae, of which the Liphistiidae are the sole surviving family, spiders have the much more centralized nervous system that is typical of arachnids: all the ganglia of all segments behind the esophagus are fused, so that the cephalothorax is largely filled with nervous tissue and there are no ganglia in the abdomen; in the Mesothelae, the ganglia of the abdomen and the rear part of the cephalothorax remain unfused.
Despite the relatively small central nervous system, some spiders (like Portia) exhibit complex behaviour, including the ability to use a trial-and-error approach.
Sense organs
EYES
Most spiders have four pairs of eyes on the top-front area of the cephalothorax, arranged in patterns that vary from one family to another. The pair at the front are of the type called pigment-cup ocelli ("little eyes"), which in most arthropods are only capable of detecting the direction from which light is coming, using the shadow cast by the walls of the cup. However, the main eyes at the front of spiders' heads are pigment-cup ocelli that are capable of forming images. The other eyes are thought to be derived from the compound eyes of the ancestral chelicerates, but no longer have the separate facets typical of compound eyes. Unlike the main eyes, in many spiders these secondary eyes detect light reflected from a reflective tapetum lucidum, and wolf spiders can be spotted by torch light reflected from the tapeta. On the other hand, jumping spiders' secondary eyes have no tapeta. Some jumping spiders' visual acuity exceeds by a factor of ten that of dragonflies, which have by far the best vision among insects; in fact the human eye is only about five times sharper than a jumping spider's. They achieve this by a telephoto-like series of lenses, a four-layer retina and the ability to swivel their eyes and integrate images from different stages in the scan. The downside is that the scanning and integrating processes are relatively slow.
There are spiders with a reduced number of eyes, of these those with six-eyes are the most numerous and are missing a pair of eyes on the anterior median line, others species have four-eyes and some just two. Cave dwelling species have no eyes, or possess vestigial eyes incapable of sight.
OTHER SENSES
As with other arthropods, spiders' cuticles would block out information about the outside world, except that they are penetrated by many sensors or connections from sensors to the nervous system. In fact, spiders and other arthropods have modified their cuticles into elaborate arrays of sensors. Various touch sensors, mostly bristles called setae, respond to different levels of force, from strong contact to very weak air currents. Chemical sensors provide equivalents of taste and smell, often by means of setae. Pedipalps carry a large number of such setae sensitive to contact chemicals and air-borne smells, such as female pheromones. Spiders also have in the joints of their limbs slit sensillae that detect forces and vibrations. In web-building spiders, all these mechanical and chemical sensors are more important than the eyes, while the eyes are most important to spiders that hunt actively.
Like most arthropods, spiders lack balance and acceleration sensors and rely on their eyes to tell them which way is up. Arthropods' proprioceptors, sensors that report the force exerted by muscles and the degree of bending in the body and joints, are well understood. On the other hand, little is known about what other internal sensors spiders or other arthropods may have.
LOCMOTION
Each of the eight legs of a spider consists of seven distinct parts. The part closest to and attaching the leg to the cephalothorax is the coxa; the next segment is the short trochanter that works as a hinge for the following long segment, the femur; next is the spider's knee, the patella, which acts as the hinge for the tibia; the metatarsus is next, and it connects the tibia to the tarsus (which may be thought of as a foot of sorts); the tarsus ends in a claw made up of either two or three points, depending on the family to which the spider belongs. Although all arthropods use muscles attached to the inside of the exoskeleton to flex their limbs, spiders and a few other groups still use hydraulic pressure to extend them, a system inherited from their pre-arthropod ancestors. The only extensor muscles in spider legs are located in the three hip joints (bordering the coxa and the trochanter). As a result, a spider with a punctured cephalothorax cannot extend its legs, and the legs of dead spiders curl up. Spiders can generate pressures up to eight times their resting level to extend their legs, and jumping spiders can jump up to 50 times their own length by suddenly increasing the blood pressure in the third or fourth pair of legs. Although larger spiders use hydraulics to straighten their legs, unlike smaller jumping spiders they depend on their flexor muscles to generate the propulsive force for their jumps.
Most spiders that hunt actively, rather than relying on webs, have dense tufts of fine hairs between the paired claws at the tips of their legs. These tufts, known as scopulae, consist of bristles whose ends are split into as many as 1,000 branches, and enable spiders with scopulae to walk up vertical glass and upside down on ceilings. It appears that scopulae get their grip from contact with extremely thin layers of water on surfaces.[8] Spiders, like most other arachnids, keep at least four legs on the surface while walking or running.
SILK PRODUCTION
The abdomen has no appendages except those that have been modified to form one to four (usually three) pairs of short, movable spinnerets, which emit silk. Each spinneret has many spigots, each of which is connected to one silk gland. There are at least six types of silk gland, each producing a different type of silk.
Silk is mainly composed of a protein very similar to that used in insect silk. It is initially a liquid, and hardens not by exposure to air but as a result of being drawn out, which changes the internal structure of the protein. It is similar in tensile strength to nylon and biological materials such as chitin, collagen and cellulose, but is much more elastic. In other words, it can stretch much further before breaking or losing shape.
Some spiders have a cribellum, a modified spinneret with up to 40,000 spigots, each of which produces a single very fine fiber. The fibers are pulled out by the calamistrum, a comb-like set of bristles on the jointed tip of the cribellum, and combined into a composite woolly thread that is very effective in snagging the bristles of insects. The earliest spiders had cribella, which produced the first silk capable of capturing insects, before spiders developed silk coated with sticky droplets. However, most modern groups of spiders have lost the cribellum.
Tarantulas also have silk glands in their feet.
Even species that do not build webs to catch prey use silk in several ways: as wrappers for sperm and for fertilized eggs; as a "safety rope"; for nest-building; and as "parachutes" by the young of some species.
REPRODUCTION AND LIFE CYCLE
Spiders reproduce sexually and fertilization is internal but indirect, in other words the sperm is not inserted into the female's body by the male's genitals but by an intermediate stage. Unlike many land-living arthropods, male spiders do not produce ready-made spermatophores (packages of sperm), but spin small sperm webs on to which they ejaculate and then transfer the sperm to special syringe-like structures, palpal bulbs or palpal organs, borne on the tips of the pedipalps of mature males. When a male detects signs of a female nearby he checks whether she is of the same species and whether she is ready to mate; for example in species that produce webs or "safety ropes", the male can identify the species and sex of these objects by "smell".
Spiders generally use elaborate courtship rituals to prevent the large females from eating the small males before fertilization, except where the male is so much smaller that he is not worth eating. In web-weaving species, precise patterns of vibrations in the web are a major part of the rituals, while patterns of touches on the female's body are important in many spiders that hunt actively, and may "hypnotize" the female. Gestures and dances by the male are important for jumping spiders, which have excellent eyesight. If courtship is successful, the male injects his sperm from the palpal bulbs into the female's genital opening, known as the epigyne, on the underside of her abdomen. Female's reproductive tracts vary from simple tubes to systems that include seminal receptacles in which females store sperm and release it when they are ready.
Males of the genus Tidarren amputate one of their palps before maturation and enter adult life with one palp only. The palps are 20% of male's body mass in this species, and detaching one of the two improves mobility. In the Yemeni species Tidarren argo, the remaining palp is then torn off by the female. The separated palp remains attached to the female's epigynum for about four hours and apparently continues to function independently. In the meantime, the female feeds on the palpless male. In over 60% of cases, the female of the Australian redback spider kills and eats the male after it inserts its second palp into the female's genital opening; in fact, the males co-operate by trying to impale themselves on the females' fangs. Observation shows that most male redbacks never get an opportunity to mate, and the "lucky" ones increase the likely number of offspring by ensuring that the females are well-fed. However, males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their short life spans. Some even live for a while in their mates' webs.
Females lay up to 3,000 eggs in one or more silk egg sacs, which maintain a fairly constant humidity level. In some species, the females die afterwards, but females of other species protect the sacs by attaching them to their webs, hiding them in nests, carrying them in the chelicerae or attaching them to the spinnerets and dragging them along.
Baby spiders pass all their larval stages inside the egg and hatch as spiderlings, very small and sexually immature but similar in shape to adults. Some spiders care for their young, for example a wolf spider's brood cling to rough bristles on the mother's back, and females of some species respond to the "begging" behaviour of their young by giving them their prey, provided it is no longer struggling, or even regurgitate food.
Like other arthropods, spiders have to molt to grow as their cuticle ("skin") cannot stretch. In some species males mate with newly molted females, which are too weak to be dangerous to the males. Most spiders live for only one to two years, although some tarantulas can live in captivity for over 20 years.
SIZE
Spiders occur in a large range of sizes. The smallest, Patu digua from Colombia, are less than 0.37 mm in body length. The largest and heaviest spiders occur among tarantulas, which can have body lengths up to 90 mm and leg spans up to 250 mm.
COLORATION
Only three classes of pigment (ommochromes, bilins and guanine) have been identified in spiders, although other pigments have been detected but not yet characterized. Melanins, carotenoids and pterins, very common in other animals, are apparently absent. In some species, the exocuticle of the legs and prosoma is modified by a tanning process, resulting in brown coloration. Bilins are found, for example, in Micrommata virescens, resulting in its green color. Guanine is responsible for the white markings of the European garden spider Araneus diadematus. It is in many species accumulated in specialized cells called guanocytes. In genera such as Tetragnatha, Leucauge, Argyrodes or Theridiosoma, guanine creates their silvery appearance. While guanine is originally an end-product of protein metabolism, its excretion can be blocked in spiders, leading to an increase in its storage. Structural colors occur in some species, which are the result of the diffraction, scattering or interference of light, for example by modified setae or scales. The white prosoma of Argiope results from hairs reflecting the light, Lycosa and Josa both have areas of modified cuticle that act as light reflectors.
ECOGOGY AND BEHAVIOR
NON-PREDATORY FEEDING
Although spiders are generally regarded as predatory, the jumping spider Bagheera kiplingi gets over 90% of its food from fairly solid plant material produced by acacias as part of a mutually beneficial relationship with a species of ant.
Juveniles of some spiders in the families Anyphaenidae, Corinnidae, Clubionidae, Thomisidae and Salticidae feed on plant nectar. Laboratory studies show that they do so deliberately and over extended periods, and periodically clean themselves while feeding. These spiders also prefer sugar solutions to plain water, which indicates that they are seeking nutrients. Since many spiders are nocturnal, the extent of nectar consumption by spiders may have been underestimated. Nectar contains amino acids, lipids, vitamins and minerals in addition to sugars, and studies have shown that other spider species live longer when nectar is available. Feeding on nectar avoids the risks of struggles with prey, and the costs of producing venom and digestive enzymes.
Various species are known to feed on dead arthropods (scavenging), web silk, and their own shed exoskeletons. Pollen caught in webs may also be eaten, and studies have shown that young spiders have a better chance of survival if they have the opportunity to eat pollen. In captivity, several spider species are also known to feed on bananas, marmalade, milk, egg yolk and sausages.
METHODS OF CAPTURING PREY
The best-known method of prey capture is by means of sticky webs. Varying placement of webs allows different species of spider to trap different insects in the same area, for example flat horizontal webs trap insects that fly up from vegetation underneath while flat vertical webs trap insects in horizontal flight. Web-building spiders have poor vision, but are extremely sensitive to vibrations.
Females of the water spider Argyroneta aquatica build underwater "diving bell" webs that they fill with air and use for digesting prey, molting, mating and raising offspring. They live almost entirely within the bells, darting out to catch prey animals that touch the bell or the threads that anchor it. A few spiders use the surfaces of lakes and ponds as "webs", detecting trapped insects by the vibrations that these cause while struggling.
Net-casting spiders weave only small webs, but then manipulate them to trap prey. Those of the genus Hyptiotes and the family Theridiosomatidae stretch their webs and then release them when prey strike them, but do not actively move their webs. Those of the family Deinopidae weave even smaller webs, hold them outstretched between their first two pairs of legs, and lunge and push the webs as much as twice their own body length to trap prey, and this move may increase the webs' area by a factor of up to ten. Experiments have shown that Deinopis spinosus has two different techniques for trapping prey: backwards strikes to catch flying insects, whose vibrations it detects; and forward strikes to catch ground-walking prey that it sees. These two techniques have also been observed in other deinopids. Walking insects form most of the prey of most deinopids, but one population of Deinopis subrufa appears to live mainly on tipulid flies that they catch with the backwards strike.
Mature female bolas spiders of the genus Mastophora build "webs" that consist of only a single "trapeze line", which they patrol. They also construct a bolas made of a single thread, tipped with a large ball of very wet sticky silk. They emit chemicals that resemble the pheromones of moths, and then swing the bolas at the moths. Although they miss on about 50% of strikes, they catch about the same weight of insects per night as web-weaving spiders of similar size. The spiders eat the bolas if they have not made a kill in about 30 minutes, rest for a while, and then make new bolas. Juveniles and adult males are much smaller and do not make bolas. Instead they release different pheromones that attract moth flies, and catch them with their front pairs of legs.
The primitive Liphistiidae, the "trapdoor spiders" of the family Ctenizidae and many tarantulas are ambush predators that lurk in burrows, often closed by trapdoors and often surrounded by networks of silk threads that alert these spiders to the presence of prey. Other ambush predators do without such aids, including many crab spiders, and a few species that prey on bees, which see ultraviolet, can adjust their ultraviolet reflectance to match the flowers in which they are lurking. Wolf spiders, jumping spiders, fishing spiders and some crab spiders capture prey by chasing it, and rely mainly on vision to locate prey.Some jumping spiders of the genus Portia hunt other spiders in ways that seem intelligent, outflanking their victims or luring them from their webs. Laboratory studies show that Portia's instinctive tactics are only starting points for a trial-and-error approach from which these spiders learn very quickly how to overcome new prey species. However, they seem to be relatively slow "thinkers", which is not surprising, as their brains are vastly smaller than those of mammalian predators.Ant-mimicking spiders face several challenges: they generally develop slimmer abdomens and false "waists" in the cephalothorax to mimic the three distinct regions (tagmata) of an ant's body; they wave the first pair of legs in front of their heads to mimic antennae, which spiders lack, and to conceal the fact that they have eight legs rather than six; they develop large color patches round one pair of eyes to disguise the fact that they generally have eight simple eyes, while ants have two compound eyes; they cover their bodies with reflective hairs to resemble the shiny bodies of ants. In some spider species, males and females mimic different ant species, as female spiders are usually much larger than males. Ant-mimicking spiders also modify their behavior to resemble that of the target species of ant; for example, many adopt a zig-zag pattern of movement, ant-mimicking jumping spiders avoid jumping, and spiders of the genus Synemosyna walk on the outer edges of leaves in the same way as Pseudomyrmex. Ant-mimicry in many spiders and other arthropods may be for protection from predators that hunt by sight, including birds, lizards and spiders. However, several ant-mimicking spiders prey either on ants or on the ants' "livestock", such as aphids. When at rest, the ant-mimicking crab spider Amyciaea does not closely resemble Oecophylla, but while hunting it imitates the behavior of a dying ant to attract worker ants. After a kill, some ant-mimicking spiders hold their victims between themselves and large groups of ants to avoid being attacked.
DEFENSE
There is strong evidence that spiders' coloration is camouflage that helps them to evade their major predators, birds and parasitic wasps, both of which have good color vision. Many spider species are colored so as to merge with their most common backgrounds, and some have disruptive coloration, stripes and blotches that break up their outlines. In a few species, such as the Hawaiian happy-face spider, Theridion grallator, several coloration schemes are present in a ratio that appears to remain constant, and this may make it more difficult for predators to recognize the species. Most spiders are insufficiently dangerous or unpleasant-tasting for warning coloration to offer much benefit. However, a few species with powerful venoms, large jaws or irritant hairs have patches of warning colors, and some actively display these colors when threatened.
Many of the family Theraphosidae, which includes tarantulas and baboon spiders, have urticating hairs on their abdomens and use their legs to flick them at attackers. These hairs are fine setae (bristles) with fragile bases and a row of barbs on the tip. The barbs cause intense irritation but there is no evidence that they carry any kind of venom. A few defend themselves against wasps by including networks of very robust threads in their webs, giving the spider time to flee while the wasps are struggling with the obstacles. The golden wheeling spider, Carparachne aureoflava, of the Namibian desert escapes parasitic wasps by flipping onto its side and cartwheeling down sand dunes.
SOCIAL SPIDERS
A few spider species that build webs live together in large colonies and show social behavior, although not as complex as in social insects. Anelosimus eximius (in the family Theridiidae) can form colonies of up to 50,000 individuals. The genus Anelosimus has a strong tendency towards sociality: all known American species are social, and species in Madagascar are at least somewhat social. Members of other species in the same family but several different genera have independently developed social behavior. For example, although Theridion nigroannulatum belongs to a genus with no other social species, T. nigroannulatum build colonies that may contain several thousand individuals that co-operate in prey capture and share food. Other communal spiders include several Philoponella species (family Uloboridae), Agelena consociata (family Agelenidae) and Mallos gregalis (family Dictynidae). Social predatory spiders need to defend their prey against kleptoparasites ("thieves"), and larger colonies are more successful in this. The herbivorous spider Bagheera kiplingi lives in small colonies which help to protect eggs and spiderlings. Even widow spiders (genus Latrodectus), which are notoriously cannibalistic, have formed small colonies in captivity, sharing webs and feeding together.
WEB TYPES
There is no consistent relationship between the classification of spiders and the types of web they build: species in the same genus may build very similar or significantly different webs. Nor is there much correspondence between spiders' classification and the chemical composition of their silks. Convergent evolution in web construction, in other words use of similar techniques by remotely related species, is rampant. Orb web designs and the spinning behaviors that produce them are the best understood. The basic radial-then-spiral sequence visible in orb webs and the sense of direction required to build them may have been inherited from the common ancestors of most spider groups. However, the majority of spiders build non-orb webs. It used to be thought that the sticky orb web was an evolutionary innovation resulting in the diversification of the Orbiculariae. Now, however, it appears that non-orb spiders are a sub-group that evolved from orb-web spiders, and non-orb spiders have over 40% more species and are four times as abundant as orb-web spiders. Their greater success may be because sphecid wasps, which are often the dominant predators of spiders, much prefer to attack spiders that have flat webs.
ORB WEBS
About half the potential prey that hit orb webs escape. A web has to perform three functions: intercepting the prey (intersection), absorbing its momentum without breaking (stopping), and trapping the prey by entangling it or sticking to it (retention). No single design is best for all prey. For example: wider spacing of lines will increase the web's area and hence its ability to intercept prey, but reduce its stopping power and retention; closer spacing, larger sticky droplets and thicker lines would improve retention, but would make it easier for potential prey to see and avoid the web, at least during the day. However, there are no consistent differences between orb webs built for use during the day and those built for use at night. In fact, there is no simple relationship between orb web design features and the prey they capture, as each orb-weaving species takes a wide range of prey.
The hubs of orb webs, where the spiders lurk, are usually above the center, as the spiders can move downwards faster than upwards. If there is an obvious direction in which the spider can retreat to avoid its own predators, the hub is usually offset towards that direction.
Horizontal orb webs are fairly common, despite being less effective at intercepting and retaining prey and more vulnerable to damage by rain and falling debris. Various researchers have suggested that horizontal webs offer compensating advantages, such as reduced vulnerability to wind damage; reduced visibility to prey flying upwards, because of the back-lighting from the sky; enabling oscillations to catch insects in slow horizontal flight. However, there is no single explanation for the common use of horizontal orb webs.
Spiders often attach highly visible silk bands, called decorations or stabilimenta, to their webs. Field research suggests that webs with more decorative bands captured more prey per hour. However, a laboratory study showed that spiders reduce the building of these decorations if they sense the presence of predators.
There are several unusual variants of orb web, many of them convergently evolved, including: attachment of lines to the surface of water, possibly to trap insects in or on the surface; webs with twigs through their centers, possibly to hide the spiders from predators; "ladder-like" webs that appear most effective in catching moths. However, the significance of many variations is unclear.
In 1973, Skylab 3 took two orb-web spiders into space to test their web-spinning capabilities in zero gravity. At first, both produced rather sloppy webs, but they adapted quickly.
TANGLEWEB SPIDERS (COBWEB SPIDERS)
Members of the family Theridiidae weave irregular, tangled, three-dimensional webs, popularly known as cobwebs. There seems to be an evolutionary trend towards a reduction in the amount of sticky silk used, leading to its total absence in some species. The construction of cobwebs is less stereotyped than that of orb-webs, and may take several days.
OTHER TYPES OF WEBS
The Linyphiidae generally make horizontal but uneven sheets, with tangles of stopping threads above. Insects that hit the stopping threads fall onto the sheet or are shaken onto it by the spider, and are held by sticky threads on the sheet until the spider can attack from below.
EVOLUTION
FOSSIL RECORD
Although the fossil record of spiders is considered poor, almost 1000 species have been described from fossils. Because spiders' bodies are quite soft, the vast majority of fossil spiders have been found preserved in amber. The oldest known amber that contains fossil arthropods dates from 130 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous period. In addition to preserving spiders' anatomy in very fine detail, pieces of amber show spiders mating, killing prey, producing silk and possibly caring for their young. In a few cases, amber has preserved spiders' egg sacs and webs, occasionally with prey attached; the oldest fossil web found so far is 100 million years old. Earlier spider fossils come from a few lagerstätten, places where conditions were exceptionally suited to preserving fairly soft tissues.
The oldest known exclusively terrestrial arachnid is the trigonotarbid Palaeotarbus jerami, from about 420 million years ago in the Silurian period, and had a triangular cephalothorax and segmented abdomen, as well as eight legs and a pair of pedipalps. Attercopus fimbriunguis, from 386 million years ago in the Devonian period, bears the earliest known silk-producing spigots, and was therefore hailed as a spider at the time of its discovery. However, these spigots may have been mounted on the underside of the abdomen rather than on spinnerets, which are modified appendages and whose mobility is important in the building of webs. Hence Attercopus and the similar Permian arachnid Permarachne may not have been true spiders, and probably used silk for lining nests or producing egg-cases rather than for building webs. The largest known fossil spider as of 2011 is the araneid Nephila jurassica, from about 165 million years ago, recorded from Daohuogo, Inner Mongolia in China. Its body length is almost 25 mm.
Several Carboniferous spiders were members of the Mesothelae, a primitive group now represented only by the Liphistiidae. The mesothelid Paleothele montceauensis, from the Late Carboniferous over 299 million years ago, had five spinnerets. Although the Permian period 299 to 251 million years ago saw rapid diversification of flying insects, there are very few fossil spiders from this period.
The main groups of modern spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appear in the Triassic well before 200 million years ago. Some Triassic mygalomorphs appear to be members of the family Hexathelidae, whose modern members include the notorious Sydney funnel-web spider, and their spinnerets appear adapted for building funnel-shaped webs to catch jumping insects. Araneomorphae account for the great majority of modern spiders, including those that weave the familiar orb-shaped webs. The Jurassic and Cretaceous periods provide a large number of fossil spiders, including representatives of many modern families.
WIKIPEDIA
Injecting technology into our universe.
A wise operation?
Shot in MIlano looking at north towards the Alps, with Rubinar 1000mm and Canon 5D Mark II (video mode)
Music by John Zorn: The Dreamer - Raksasa.
The stir lances can inject either argon to stir the molten steel, or oxygen which reacts with aluminum added to the bath to create a temperature rise if the molten steel gets too cold to cast. The bath is around 3000 degress fahrenheit which is why the lance that has just been removed is glowing.
Some industrial shots from a steel mill that I am quite amazed at because they are jpgs and not from RAW. I could have gotten more out of them from RAW captures -- but this is more than I expect from a JPG. The shots have been tweaked in Lightroom.
Fujifilm X100.
Please like my Facebook Artists page: entropic remnants photography on facebook Also, please visit the Entropic Remnants website, my Entropic Remnants blog, and my Entropic Remnants YouTube page -- THANKS!
This series of 4 photos show basically how to fry a turkey. This one is the raw turkey injected with butter and cajun seasoning.
A Leopard 2A4 tank from Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) drives on a black track during EXERCISE MAPLE RESOLVE 21 in the 3rd Canadian Division Support Base Garrison Wainwright Training Area, Alberta on May 6, 2021.
Photo By: Sailor First Class Camden Scott,
Directorate of Army Public Affairs
20210506LFC0010D47
From May 1 to 11, 2021, about 2500 Canadian Armed Forces members are participating in Exercise MAPLE RESOLVE 21 in Wainwright, Alberta. As the premier annual Canadian Army field training event, Ex MAPLE RESOLVE tests soldier skills and abilities within a realistic, complex, and challenging combat environment.
Du 1er au 11 mai 2021, environ 2 500 membres des Forces armées canadiennes participent à l'exercice MAPLE RESOLVE 21 à Wainwright, en Alberta. En tant que principal événement d'entraînement annuel sur le terrain de l'Armée canadienne, l'exercice MAPLE RESOLVE teste les capacités des soldats dans un environnement de combat réaliste, complexe et stimulant.
ma79lt topic loool ,,
ALL BY : ME
[ without edit bs el nickname oOo el border]
Hope you like it =)
* seen on EXPLORE
A Leopard 2A4 tank from Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) drives on a black track during EXERCISE MAPLE RESOLVE 21 in the 3rd Canadian Division Support Base Garrison Wainwright Training Area, Alberta on May 6, 2021.
Photo By: Sailor First Class Camden Scott,
Directorate of Army Public Affairs
20210506LFC0010D46
From May 1 to 11, 2021, about 2500 Canadian Armed Forces members are participating in Exercise MAPLE RESOLVE 21 in Wainwright, Alberta. As the premier annual Canadian Army field training event, Ex MAPLE RESOLVE tests soldier skills and abilities within a realistic, complex, and challenging combat environment.
Du 1er au 11 mai 2021, environ 2 500 membres des Forces armées canadiennes participent à l'exercice MAPLE RESOLVE 21 à Wainwright, en Alberta. En tant que principal événement d'entraînement annuel sur le terrain de l'Armée canadienne, l'exercice MAPLE RESOLVE teste les capacités des soldats dans un environnement de combat réaliste, complexe et stimulant.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Russian Civil War (Russian: Гражданская война в России, tr. Grazhdanskaya voyna v Rossii) was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire immediately after the two Russian revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army, fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism led by Vladimir Lenin, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which included diverse interests favoring political monarchism, capitalism and social democracy, each with democratic and anti-democratic variants. In addition, rival militant socialists, notably Makhnovia anarchists and Left SRs, as well as non-ideological Green armies, fought against both the Reds and the Whites.
Thirteen foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the former Allied military forces from the World War with the goal of re-establishing the Eastern Front, and a wide variety of leftover WWI material was transferred. Three foreign nations of the Central Powers also intervened, rivaling the Allied intervention with the main goal of retaining the territory they had received in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
After the revolution the Bolsheviks swept through Russia nearly unopposed. The republic had collapsed after the Soviets were given all political power, leaving no solid resistance to the Reds. In May 1918, the Czech Legion in Russia revolted in Siberia. Reacting to this, the Allies began an intervention in Northern Russia and Siberia. This, combined with the creation of the Provisional All-Russian Government, saw the reduction of the Bolsheviks to most of European Russia and parts of Central Asia. In November, Alexander Kolchak launched a coup to take control of the Russian State, establishing a de facto military dictatorship.
The White Army launched several attacks from the East in March, the South in July, and West in October 1919. One of the hotspots during this period became Estonia and the Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) region. Estonia had cleared its territory of the Red Army by January 1919. Baltic German volunteers captured Riga from the Red Latvian Riflemen on 22 May, but the Estonian 3rd Division defeated the Baltic Germans a month later, aiding the establishment of the Republic of Latvia. This rendered possible another threat to the Red Army—one from Gen. Yudenich, who had spent the summer organizing the Northwestern Army in Estonia with local and British support. In October 1919 he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men. The attack was well-executed, using night attacks and lightning cavalry maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red Army. The Allies gave large quantities of aid to Yudenich, who, however, complained that he was receiving insufficient support. This support even included a mixed bag of six former British tanks, including at least one “male” Mark I tank from 1915 and several modern Mark Vs. They caused panic whenever they appeared, since no tank had been available or even developed in Russia at that time, but due to their small number they had rather a propagandistic effect than actual battle impact.
By 19 October Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of the city. Some members of the Bolshevik central committee in Moscow were willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss of the city and personally organized its defenses. Trotsky himself declared, "It is impossible for a little army of 15,000 ex-officers to master a working-class capital of 700,000 inhabitants." He settled on a strategy of urban defense, proclaiming that the city would "defend itself on its own ground" and that the White Army would be lost in a labyrinth of fortified streets and there "meet its grave".
Trotsky armed all available workers, men and women, ordering the transfer of military forces from Moscow. Within a few weeks the Red Army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered Yudenich three to one. At this point Yudenich, short of supplies, decided to call off the siege of the city and withdrew, repeatedly asking permission to withdraw his army across the border to Estonia. All tanks were abandoned and were quickly pressed into red Army service, sporting huge Red Stars. But, again, their warfare value was rather symbolic and one of these captured tanks (a Mark V “hermaphrodite” is still existing as an exhibit at the Kubinka Tank Museum in Moscow, carrying its post-capture livery.
Units retreating across the border were disarmed and interned by order of the Estonian government, which had entered into peace negotiations with the Soviet Government on 16 September and had been informed by the Soviet authorities of their 6 November decision that, should the White Army be allowed to retreat into Estonia, it would be pursued across the border by the Reds. In fact, the Reds attacked Estonian army positions and fighting continued until a cease-fire went into effect on 3 January 1920. Following the Treaty of Tartu, most of Yudenich's soldiers went into exile. Former Imperial Russian and then Finnish Gen. Mannerheim planned an intervention to help the Whites in Russia capture Petrograd. However, he did not gain the necessary support for the endeavor. Lenin considered it "completely certain, that the slightest aid from Finland would have determined the fate of [the city]".
Specifications:
Crew: 8 (commander/brakesman, driver, two gearsmen and four gunners)
Weight: 28 long tons (28 t)
Length: 32 ft 6 in (9.91 m) with tail
25 ft 5 in (7.75 m) without
Width: 13 ft 9 in (4.19 m)
Height: 8 ft 2 in (2.49 m)
Fuel capacity: 50 imperial gallons (230 l; 60 US gal)
Suspension: none (26 unsprung rollers)
Armor:
0.24–0.47 in (6–12 mm)
Performance:
Speed: 3.7 mph (6.0 km/h) maximum on even ground
Operational range: 23.6 miles (38.0 km) radius of action, 6.2 hours endurance
Power/weight: 3.7 PS/tonne (2.7 kW/ton)
Engine:
1× Daimler-Knight 6-cylinder sleeve-valve 16-litre petrol engine with 105 hp (78 kW)
Transmission:
Primary gearbox: 2 forward and 1 reverse
Secondary :2 speeds
Armament:
2× Hotchkiss 6 pdr QF gun
3× 7.92 mm Vickers or Hotchkiss air-cooled machine guns
The kit and its assembly:
This became a late/spontaneous entry to the “Captured” group build at whgatifmodellers.com in early 2021, after a deadline extension had been announced. The trigger was a picture of the aforementioned former captured White Army Mark V tank from the Kubinka Tank Museum, which carries a garish (but apparently authentic) livery in bright green and a greenish black, together with prominent Red Stars. I found the paint scheme cool and remembered an Airfix kit of a rhomboid WWI tank in my stash. This turned out to be a male Mark I, advertised as being 1:72, but, in reality, it is a 1:76/00 scale model.
However, the occasion was good to build it, and I started on short notice. I did some legwork and found out that six former British tanks had been delivered to the White Army in Estonia, as described above, and one of them could have been an early Mark I that had not been converted into a transport tank yet, replaced by more modern Marks.
As such the model was built OOB, a very simple affair but with surprisingly good fit and IMHO good surface details. In this case, rivets make sense! :D
The real trouble started on the finish line, when I tried to mount the vinyl tracks. This turned out to be total horror and almost ruined the build. Not only are the tracks markedly too short, by about 5mm, the material is furthermore pretty stiff and felt brittle and unevenly injected, so that I did not dare to stretch the parts for a proper fit. Mounting was furthermore hampered by the tracks’ thickness – bending them around the idler wheels called for calculated force, with imminent risk of breaking, and sticking the PVC tracks to the hull with some kind of glue also escalated. Not only did it take half a tube of superglue to attach them with a snug fit, one track eventually broke during the overnight curing phase, just on a front idler wheel… I was about to trash the model, but in a desperate attempt to save the situation I tried to bend/shape the broken section with heat, glued it into place with even more superglue and bridged the resulting gap (what I also did with the general 5mm gap, just on the underside). While the whole solution is not as pretty as I had hoped for, it’s O.K.
The trailer was kept, even though the White or later Red tanks would not have needed it for better off-road steering – but since the trailer can be raised (a common practice when moving on a street or level, hard ground), I kept it. The only personal modification is an air-cooled machine gun in the front port (left over from a WWI biplane kit) and an open hatch in the “commando bridge” with a 1:76 figure. This is actually a French soldier (from a Matchbox Char B1/FT-17 kit set), slightly modified and with a flag in one hand instead of a rifle – for a patriotic touch.
Painting and markings:
The Kubinka Mark V became the design benchmark, so that the model received a disruptive two-tone scheme consisting of Revell 360 (Fern Green, the “real” tone is even brighter!) and Humbrol 108 (WWI Green, appears a bit brownish in direct contrast with the Fern Green, 66 might have been a better choice?).
The few markings of the tank come from various sources: the Red Stars belong to a Soviet WWII Lend-Lease P-40E, the “02” is actually a “20” and comes from a Soviet T-34/76.
The model was thoroughly weathered in multiple stages, including a black ink washing, dry-brushing, treatment with water colors and finally mineral artist pigments, before a coat of matt acrylic varnish was applied.
The whole build went very quickly, hardware was done in just two days, but the track issues added two more painful days , which, on the other side, were used for the finish. The whole thing look pretty convincing – but it remains close to its real-world benchmark, so that the fictional element of this what-if model is rather small. But the paint scheme still looks cool, and so different from the typical British rhomboid tank liveries from WWI. :D
Here is a link to a very good information source on Schick injector razors - www.safetyrazors.net/schick/schicktech.htm
Playing around with a syringe and needle with the macro lens. I'm used to being on the giving end for these, so seeing it like this is always a concern!
MORE THAN YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SPIDERS!
Spiders are chelicerates and therefore arthropods. As arthropods they have: segmented bodies with jointed limbs, all covered in a cuticle made of chitin and proteins; heads that are composed of several segments that fuse during the development of the embryo. Being chelicerates, their bodies consist of two tagmata, sets of segments that serve similar functions: the foremost one, called the cephalothorax or prosoma, is a complete fusion of the segments that in an insect would form two separate tagmata, the head and thorax; the rear tagma is called the abdomen or opisthosoma.[6] In spiders, the cephalothorax and abdomen are connected by a small cylindrical section, the pedicel. The pattern of segment fusion that forms chelicerates' heads is unique among arthropods, and what would normally be the first head segment disappears at an early stage of development, so that chelicerates lack the antennae typical of most arthropods. In fact, chelicerates' only appendages ahead of the mouth are a pair of chelicerae, and they lack anything that would function directly as "jaws". The first appendages behind the mouth are called pedipalps, and serve different functions within different groups of chelicerates.
Spiders and scorpions are members of one chelicerate group, the arachnids. Scorpions' chelicerae have three sections and are used in feeding. Spiders' chelicerae have two sections and terminate in fangs that are generally venomous, and fold away behind the upper sections while not in use. The upper sections generally have thick "beards" that filter solid lumps out of their food, as spiders can take only liquid food. Scorpions' pedipalps generally form large claws for capturing prey, while those of spiders are fairly small appendages whose bases also act as an extension of the mouth; in addition, those of male spiders have enlarged last sections used for sperm transfer.
In spiders, the cephalothorax and abdomen are joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel, which enables the abdomen to move independently when producing silk. The upper surface of the cephalothorax is covered by a single, convex carapace, while the underside is covered by two rather flat plates. The abdomen is soft and egg-shaped. It shows no sign of segmentation, except that the primitive Mesothelae, whose living members are the Liphistiidae, have segmented plates on the upper surface
Like other arthropods, spiders are coelomates in which the coelom is reduced to small areas round the reproductive and excretory systems. Its place is largely taken by a hemocoel, a cavity that runs most of the length of the body and through which blood flows. The heart is a tube in the upper part of the body, with a few ostia that act as non-return valves allowing blood to enter the heart from the hemocoel but prevent it from leaving before it reaches the front end. However, in spiders, it occupies only the upper part of the abdomen, and blood is discharged into the hemocoel by one artery that opens at the rear end of the abdomen and by branching arteries that pass through the pedicle and open into several parts of the cephalothorax. Hence spiders have open circulatory systems. The blood of many spiders that have book lungs contains the respiratory pigment hemocyanin to make oxygen transport more efficient.
Spiders have developed several different respiratory anatomies, based on book lungs, a tracheal system, or both. Mygalomorph and Mesothelae spiders have two pairs of book lungs filled with haemolymph, where openings on the ventral surface of the abdomen allow air to enter and diffuse oxygen. This is also the case for some basal araneomorph spiders, like the family Hypochilidae, but the remaining members of this group have just the anterior pair of book lungs intact while the posterior pair of breathing organs are partly or fully modified into tracheae, through which oxygen is diffused into the haemolymph or directly to the tissue and organs. The trachea system has most likely evolved in small ancestors to help resist desiccation. The trachea were originally connected to the surroundings through a pair of openings called spiracles, but in the majority of spiders this pair of spiracles has fused into a single one in the middle, and moved backwards close to the spinnerets.[8] Spiders that have tracheae generally have higher metabolic rates and better water conservation. Spiders are ectotherms, so environmental temperatures affect their activity.
Uniquely among chelicerates, the final sections of spiders' chelicerae are fangs, and the great majority of spiders can use them to inject venom into prey from venom glands in the roots of the chelicerae. The family Uloboridae has lost its venom glands, and kills its prey with silk instead. Like most arachnids, including scorpions, spiders have a narrow gut that can only cope with liquid food and spiders have two sets of filters to keep solids out. They use one of two different systems of external digestion. Some pump digestive enzymes from the midgut into the prey and then suck the liquified tissues of the prey into the gut, eventually leaving behind the empty husk of the prey. Others grind the prey to pulp using the chelicerae and the bases of the pedipalps, while flooding it with enzymes; in these species, the chelicerae and the bases of the pedipalps form a preoral cavity that holds the food they are processing.
The stomach in the cephalothorax acts as a pump that sends the food deeper into the digestive system. The mid gut bears many digestive ceca, compartments with no other exit, that extract nutrients from the food; most are in the abdomen, which is dominated by the digestive system, but a few are found in the cephalothorax.
Most spiders convert nitrogenous waste products into uric acid, which can be excreted as a dry material. Malphigian tubules ("little tubes") extract these wastes from the blood in the hemocoel and dump them into the cloacal chamber, from which they are expelled through the anus. Production of uric acid and its removal via Malphigian tubules are a water-conserving feature that has evolved independently in several arthropod lineages that can live far away from water,[14] for example the tubules of insects and arachnids develop from completely different parts of the embryo. However, a few primitive spiders, the sub-order Mesothelae and infra-order Mygalomorphae, retain the ancestral arthropod nephridia ("little kidneys"), which use large amounts of water to excrete nitrogenous waste products as ammonia
Most spiders have four pairs of eyes on the top-front area of the cephalothorax, arranged in patterns that vary from one family to another.[8] The pair at the front are of the type called pigment-cup ocelli ("little eyes"), which in most arthropods are only capable of detecting the direction from which light is coming, using the shadow cast by the walls of the cup. However, the main eyes at the front of spiders' heads are pigment-cup ocelli that are capable of forming images. The other eyes are thought to be derived from the compound eyes of the ancestral chelicerates, but no longer have the separate facets typical of compound eyes. Unlike the main eyes, in many spiders these secondary eyes detect light reflected from a reflective tapetum lucidum, and wolf spiders can be spotted by torch light reflected from the tapeta. On the other hand, jumping spiders' secondary eyes have no tapeta. Some jumping spiders' visual acuity exceeds by a factor of ten that of dragonflies, which have by far the best vision among insects; in fact the human eye is only about five times sharper than a jumping spider's. They achieve this by a telephoto-like series of lenses, a four-layer retina and the ability to swivel their eyes and integrate images from different stages in the scan. The downside is that the scanning and integrating processes are relatively slow.
There are spiders with a reduced number of eyes, of these those with six-eyes are the most numerous and are missing a pair of eyes on the anterior median line, others species have four-eyes and some just two. Cave dwelling species have no eyes, or possess vestigial eyes incapable of sight.
As with other arthropods, spiders' cuticles would block out information about the outside world, except that they are penetrated by many sensors or connections from sensors to the nervous system. In fact, spiders and other arthropods have modified their cuticles into elaborate arrays of sensors. Various touch sensors, mostly bristles called setae, respond to different levels of force, from strong contact to very weak air currents. Chemical sensors provide equivalents of taste and smell, often by means of setae. Pedipalps carry a large number of such setae sensitive to contact chemicals and air-borne smells, such as female pheromones. Spiders also have in the joints of their limbs slit sensillae that detect forces and vibrations. In web-building spiders, all these mechanical and chemical sensors are more important than the eyes, while the eyes are most important to spiders that hunt actively.
Like most arthropods, spiders lack balance and acceleration sensors and rely on their eyes to tell them which way is up. Arthropods' proprioceptors, sensors that report the force exerted by muscles and the degree of bending in the body and joints, are well understood. On the other hand, little is known about what other internal sensors spiders or other arthropods may have.
Each of the eight legs of a spider consists of seven distinct parts. The part closest to and attaching the leg to the cephalothorax is the coxa; the next segment is the short trochanter that works as a hinge for the following long segment, the femur; next is the spider's knee, the patella, which acts as the hinge for the tibia; the metatarsus is next, and it connects the tibia to the tarsus (which may be thought of as a foot of sorts); the tarsus ends in a claw made up of either two or three points, depending on the family to which the spider belongs. Although all arthropods use muscles attached to the inside of the exoskeleton to flex their limbs, spiders and a few other groups still use hydraulic pressure to extend them, a system inherited from their pre-arthropod ancestors. The only extensor muscles in spider legs are located in the three hip joints (bordering the coxa and the trochanter). As a result, a spider with a punctured cephalothorax cannot extend its legs, and the legs of dead spiders curl up. Spiders can generate pressures up to eight times their resting level to extend their legs, and jumping spiders can jump up to 50 times their own length by suddenly increasing the blood pressure in the third or fourth pair of legs. Although larger spiders use hydraulics to straighten their legs, unlike smaller jumping spiders they depend on their flexor muscles to generate the propulsive force for their jumps.
Most spiders that hunt actively, rather than relying on webs, have dense tufts of fine hairs between the paired claws at the tips of their legs. These tufts, known as scopulae, consist of bristles whose ends are split into as many as 1,000 branches, and enable spiders with scopulae to walk up vertical glass and upside down on ceilings. It appears that scopulae get their grip from contact with extremely thin layers of water on surfaces. Spiders, like most other arachnids, keep at least four legs on the surface while walking or running.
The abdomen has no appendages except those that have been modified to form one to four (usually three) pairs of short, movable spinnerets, which emit silk. Each spinneret has many spigots, each of which is connected to one silk gland. There are at least six types of silk gland, each producing a different type of silk.
Silk is mainly composed of a protein very similar to that used in insect silk. It is initially a liquid, and hardens not by exposure to air but as a result of being drawn out, which changes the internal structure of the protein. It is similar in tensile strength to nylon and biological materials such as chitin, collagen and cellulose, but is much more elastic. In other words, it can stretch much further before breaking or losing shape.
Some spiders have a cribellum, a modified spinneret with up to 40,000 spigots, each of which produces a single very fine fiber. The fibers are pulled out by the calamistrum, a comb-like set of bristles on the jointed tip of the cribellum, and combined into a composite woolly thread that is very effective in snagging the bristles of insects. The earliest spiders had cribella, which produced the first silk capable of capturing insects, before spiders developed silk coated with sticky droplets. However, most modern groups of spiders have lost the cribellum.
Tarantulas also have silk glands in their feet.
Even species that do not build webs to catch prey use silk in several ways: as wrappers for sperm and for fertilized eggs; as a "safety rope"; for nest-building; and as "parachutes" by the young of some species
Spiders reproduce sexually and fertilization is internal but indirect, in other words the sperm is not inserted into the female's body by the male's genitals but by an intermediate stage. Unlike many land-living arthropods, male spiders do not produce ready-made spermatophores (packages of sperm), but spin small sperm webs on to which they ejaculate and then transfer the sperm to special syringe-like structures, palpal bulbs or palpal organs, borne on the tips of the pedipalps of mature males. When a male detects signs of a female nearby he checks whether she is of the same species and whether she is ready to mate; for example in species that produce webs or "safety ropes", the male can identify the species and sex of these objects by "smell".
Spiders generally use elaborate courtship rituals to prevent the large females from eating the small males before fertilization, except where the male is so much smaller that he is not worth eating. In web-weaving species, precise patterns of vibrations in the web are a major part of the rituals, while patterns of touches on the female's body are important in many spiders that hunt actively, and may "hypnotize" the female. Gestures and dances by the male are important for jumping spiders, which have excellent eyesight. If courtship is successful, the male injects his sperm from the palpal bulbs into the female's genital opening, known as the epigyne, on the underside of her abdomen. Female's reproductive tracts vary from simple tubes to systems that include seminal receptacles in which females store sperm and release it when they are ready.
Males of the genus Tidarren amputate one of their palps before maturation and enter adult life with one palp only. The palps are 20% of male's body mass in this species, and detaching one of the two improves mobility. In the Yemeni species Tidarren argo, the remaining palp is then torn off by the female. The separated palp remains attached to the female's epigynum for about four hours and apparently continues to function independently. In the meantime, the female feeds on the palpless male. In over 60% of cases, the female of the Australian redback spider kills and eats the male after it inserts its second palp into the female's genital opening; in fact, the males co-operate by trying to impale themselves on the females' fangs. Observation shows that most male redbacks never get an opportunity to mate, and the "lucky" ones increase the likely number of offspring by ensuring that the females are well-fed. However, males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their short life spans. Some even live for a while in their mates' webs
Thanks, Wikipedia
Bonhams , les grandes marques du monde au Grand Palais 2019
Châssis N° 30837S111365
Moteur N° 3111365 F0305RF
•V8 culbuté à soupapes en tête, 327 cid (5 358 cm3)
•Injection mécanique Rochester
•arbre à cames à culbuteurs
•Rare et recherché modèle « Fuelie »
•360 ch à 6 000 tr/min
•Transmission manuelle à 4 rapports
•Suspension indépendante à ressorts hélicoïdaux
•Suspension arrière indépendante à ressort à lames transversal
•Freins à tambour aux quatre roues
Le directeur du style GM, Bill Mitchell, avait engagé Peter Brock et Larry Shinoda pour l'habiller d'une carrosserie Sting Ray spécifique et immédiatement reconnaissable. Avec une ceinture de caisse profondément marquée sous les ailes joliment courbées, elle avait des phares escamotables actionnés électriquement qui préservait ses qualités aérodynamiques.
doté du moteur à culbuteurs L84 327/360 ch, de la transmission manuelle à 4 rapports M20, des roues en alliage à blocage central, d'une radio AM à chercheur de fréquence et du différentiel Posi-Traction 3,73:1.
Le bloc moteur est estampillé des numéros de châssis et de moteur conformes à la configuration du 327/360 ch à injection mécanique Rochester alimentée en air par un collecteur d'admission Winters « snowflake » (un flocon est gravé dans la fonte).
Malgré un surcoût de 430,40 $, les clients de Corvette 1963 achetèrent 2 610 L84, soit 12,1% de la production totale de la Corvette 1963, en principe équipée de la transmission manuelle à 4 rapports facturée, elle, 180,30 $.
A Leopard 2A4 tank from Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) drives across a road during EXERCISE MAPLE RESOLVE 21 in the 3rd Canadian Division Support Base Garrison Wainwright Training Area, Alberta on May 6, 2021.
Photo By: Sailor First Class Camden Scott,
Directorate of Army Public Affairs
20210506LFC0010D43
From May 1 to 11, 2021, about 2500 Canadian Armed Forces members are participating in Exercise MAPLE RESOLVE 21 in Wainwright, Alberta. As the premier annual Canadian Army field training event, Ex MAPLE RESOLVE tests soldier skills and abilities within a realistic, complex, and challenging combat environment.
Du 1er au 11 mai 2021, environ 2 500 membres des Forces armées canadiennes participent à l'exercice MAPLE RESOLVE 21 à Wainwright, en Alberta. En tant que principal événement d'entraînement annuel sur le terrain de l'Armée canadienne, l'exercice MAPLE RESOLVE teste les capacités des soldats dans un environnement de combat réaliste, complexe et stimulant.
The latest Injector Dynamics "test mule" is this 2007 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 in Grabber Orange. This 800+ HP beast is boosted by a Whipple supercharger, supported by Eibach remote-reservoir coilovers, and fitted with 19 inch Forgeline one piece forged monoblock GA1R wheels finished in Silver. See more at: www.forgeline.com/customer_gallery_view.php?cvk=792
The Main Injector tunnel, from a proton's perspective.
Initial blurring effect achieved with low ISO, an ND filter, and zooming the lens during a slow shutter speed. Additional radial blur added in Photoshop CS6.
Injection time! Believe it or not, I injected a never-before overmold. Keep an eye out for it!
Any guesses as to what it was? Of course if I told you, use your noggin' and don't guess. ;)
Replaced the old photo - no, the mold in the photo is not what I overmolded.
Citroën CX 2400 GTi ( 1977-1983 ).
Matrícula española.
"La Citroën CX est une grande routière française produite à 1,2 million d'exemplaires dans l'usine nouvellement créée d'Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis). Elle a remporté le trophée européen de la voiture de l'année en 1975.
La CX qui est commercialisée en Europe entre 1974 et 1991 est, avec la Citroën Axel, la dernière automobile conçue entièrement par Citroën."
(...)
Conception générale
"Héritière du rôle de pionnier de Citroën dans cette technologie, la CX est naturellement une traction avant. Chargée de reprendre le flambeau de la légendaire DS, elle lui emprunte sa suspension hydropneumatique par bras transversaux superposés et bras tirés à l'arrière." (...)
"Le style très original de la CX est dû à Robert Opron qui s'était inspiré du prototype BLMC 1800 du carrossier Pininfarina datant de la fin des années soixante."
(...)
Historique
(...)"Pour le millésime 1977, le moteur 2,3 litres à carburateur supplante le 2,2 litres et donne naissance à la CX 2400. En mai 1977, l'injection électronique fait son apparition sur la nouvelle CX 2400 GTI à tendance sportive (128 ch, 13 CV, 191 km/h). Elle est dotée d'une boîte de vitesses à cinq rapports et se démarque par les sièges avant à appuie-têtes intégrés, les projecteurs additionnels antibrouillard et les encadrements de vitres noirs. Les jantes en alliage léger optionnelles généralement choisies seront rapidement de série. La version GTI adoptera un becquet arrière pour 1981 et des jantes en cotes millimétriques pour pneus Michelin TRX pour 1982."(...)
Sources:
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_CX
www.elcitroencx.org/Portada.asp
generationcx.chez.com/lesgrandesdates.htm
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Robert Opron
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Robert Opron (born 22 February 1932) is a French automotive designer, trained as an architect, and noted for designs from the 1960s through the 1980s for Simca, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Ligier, Renault – and Citroën, where he became Responsable de Style, head of the design department, in 1962.
Opron was one of twenty-five designers nominated for the 1999 Car Designer of the Century competition."
(...)
Design work
- Simca Fulgur (1958), concept car.
- Citroën SM (1970), a sports car with a Maserati engine and Kammback. The SM was Motor Trend Car of the Year in 1972.
- Citroën GS (1970).
- Citroën CX (1974) and was European Car of the Year in 1975.
- Alpine A310 (1976 facelift).
- Renault Fuego (1980).
- Renault 9 (1981) was European Car of the Year in 1982.
- Renault 11 (1983).
- Renault 25 (1984).
The estrogen levels have been extremely poor, so Clio made moves to switch to injectable estrogen, which is safer and more effective. And today is the first day she can finally inject! Clio wanted to get help, so we went over to Puppy's and Clio got drunk before being able to handle her first injection. It ended up taking her a couple weeks to learn to do them herself. Clio is not crazy about needles!
NEEDLE GEEKERY: (Imagine this read in the voice of William S. Burroughs.) We do our injections every 5 days, aiming for 7mg of estradiol valerate. That means injecting .35mL, given that our concentration is 20mg/ml. We do intramuscular (IM) injections in the thigh, with a mere 1.0" needle, instead of the recommended 1.5" needle. We get away with the smaller needle due to being slim.
First, we wash our hands in the sink, all fancy-like. Then we gather all 3 (sometimes 2) needles, a band-aid, an alcohol swab, and open *everything* up. Then we decide where to inject. We use the alcohol swab to swab off the tops of the ampules we going to draw from, as well as the part of our body we are going to inject in.
Needle 1 of 3: We inject about 0.4ml air into the ampule to maintain pressure. We draw estrogen using the standard 21g needle that came with our 100-pack of syringes. Lots of air bubbles, as it is suspended in oil, unlike most injectibles that are suspended in water. It's kind of a pain in the ass, and hard to get an exact amount. Especially with the fact that we're going to pop this needle off. Thus, you have to suck what is in the needle tip in, if you don't want to waste the drug you are injecting. It can be like 0.05mL! We pop off our needle.
[Needle 2 of 3: Although we were not currently injecting progesterone at the time of the picture, we later started doing that, so we then would have to pop on a filter needle, because that stuff came from a glass ampule, and you need to draw through a filter needle to ensure that you don't inject microparticles of glass into your muscle, which could give you cysts. We draw our progesterone into the mix, though the amount for P isn't as precise, as it's effects are more indirect, and its price very cheap. But proper injectable progesterone administration requires gluteal injection to last 3.5 days, and just throwing it on top our normal estrogen injection really only keeps us good for 1.0 days. Then, after that, we would pop off the filter needle.]
Needle 3 of 3: We pop on a 25g needle: This is a much thinner, more painless needle. It would be suuuuper annoying to draw through a 25g needle--Like trying to scuba dive using a coffee straw for oxygen. But for injecting in, it's not so bad. It only takes about 5 seconds to inject. Anyway, we pop on an injection needle: 1.0" for IM injection, 1.5" if doing gluteal injection. We shove the needle in. We only aspirate and pull out to check for blood for gluteal injections; for IM thigh injections, it's so statistically unlikely, that we choose not to worry about it. The biggest consequence would be ruining a few day's supply of estrogen. We inject the stuff, and not too fast. We wait a few seconds. We pull the needle out. We grab a band-aid and put it on, occasionally re-using the alcohol swab from earlier, if things get bloody. We dispose of the sharps & blood in a sealable container, drop the rest in the recycle bin, and put everything back into our kit boxes.
Transition Progress at this point: On hormones since 8/1 (4.75 months). Dosage doubled for 1.75 months, which brought T down to 19. But E was still a miserably low 50. So Clio started injections today! Full-time female since 9/15 (3 months). Publicly out as trans since 10/11 (2.5 months). Legally female, federally, since 12/21 (1 day). Boobs sore/growing since 9/4 (3.5 months). Had seen endo/primary therapist 5X, and secondary therapists 8X. Weight down to 142lbs (55 down from 197). Hair removal includes 25 electrolysis treatments totaling 19.25 hours; 27 laser hair removal sessions (45 area treatments: 14/13/12/10 mouth/goatee/face/neck, 7 leg/chest/armpit, 5 Brazilian/ear); and bi-weekly at-home IPL on arms since 6/17 (6 months). Latisse for eyelash lengthening since 4/17 (8 months). 2 dental implants. Pierced ears. Dyed/layered hair (no haircuts since 1/2015--2.75yrs). Female wardrobe replacement was up to 419 items. Total transition expenditures were over $13,000 at this point.
Delestrogen, estradiol, estradiol valerate, injectable estrogen, injection needles, supplies, syringes.
HRT. LuerLok. trans. trans milestone.
upstairs, Clio and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.
December 22, 2017.
... Read my blog at clintjcl at wordpress dot com
... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASLat wordpress dot com