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Que toxico puede llegar a a ser un beso, intensamente te injecta un veneno tan adictivo como atractivo..
Ese sera tu ultimo beso por amor ya que los otros seran mas que un beso.. una propina o un placer por algo en si, esos besos que se dan por que si, son los verdaderos besos.. los que no tienes motivos para darlos, los que te comes la cabeza por esos besos, si no hubiese de esos besos nose que seria de la lujuria y la pasion.
moririan en rutina, compromiso y obligacion.
Injection du virus en cours #virus #planete #maladie #homme #scientifique #experience #playmobil #retro #vaisseau #decoupage #collage #lyonart
The Grand Canal Docks first opened in 1796. At the time they were the world's largest docks. They fell into decline within just a few decades, due mostly to disuse with the arrival of the railways. The landscape was overwhelmed by Dublin Gas Company's mountains of black coal, along with chemical factories, tar pits, bottle factories and iron foundries. However, bakers and millers maintained business along the southern edge of the inner basin.
By the 1960s, the Grand Canal Docks were almost completely derelict. By 1987, it was decided that Hanover Quay was too toxic to sell. Regeneration began in 1998, when Bord Gáis sold the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) the former gasworks site located in the area between Sir John Rogerson's Quay and Hanover Quay for €19 million. The DDDA spent €52 million decontaminating the land, even though the likely return was estimated at just €40 million. The decontamination took place under the supervision of the Environmental Protection Agency between 2002 and 2006. The process involved constructing an underground wall eight metres deep around the affected area and the contaminated land dug out and removed. By the time the decontamination was finished, an inflated property bubble and increased demand in the area (brought on, in part, by the decision by Google to set up its European headquarters nearby), allowed the authority to sell the land for €300 million. The DDDA injected some of its new wealth into the area's infrastructure including seers, street lighting, and civic spaces.
A number of significant developments have happened since involving the construction of millions worth of real estate, the arrival of several thousand new residents, and the establishment of what is now known as Silicon Docks.
Most of the buildings surrounding Grand Canal Square such as the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, The Marker Hotel, and HQ office development, were developed by McCauley Daye O’Connell Architects. Notable buildings in the Grand Canal Dock area include:
Alto Vetro - The Alto Vetro apartment building was awarded the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland’s (RIAI) Silver Medal for Housing (2007-2008).It was built by the Montevetro developers Treasury Holdings.
Boland's Mill - Boland's Mill was a functioning mill until 2001. The site, including older stone buildings and taller concrete silos, is now derelict. The site is currently undergoing a €150 million reconstruction to become Bolands Quay, accommodating new residences, commercial, retail, and civic spaces.
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre - The Bord Gáis Energy Theatre is the largest theatre in Ireland. It designed by Polish-American architect Daniel Liebeskind. It was opened as the Grand Canal Theatre in 2010 but renamed in March 2012 as part of a paid naming rights agreement.
The Factory - The Factory houses Irish Film and Television Network studios, as well as rehearsal and recording studios where a number of U2's albums were recorded.
Google Docks - The Montevetro building completed in 2010 stands at a height of 67 metres and is currently the tallest commercial building in Dublin. It was sold to Google in January 2011 and subsequently renamed "Google Docks". In 2014, the Google Docks building was joined by an "iconic" curving three-pronged steel and transparent glass footbridge to Google's two office buildings across Barrow Street - Gordon House and Gasworks House. It has been named "Hyperlink".
The Marker Hotel - The Marker Hotel is one of only six of The Leading Hotels of the World in Ireland. It was designed in 2004 by Portuguese architect Manuel Aires Mateus. It opened in 2013, and offers the city’s first rooftop terrace and bar.[
Millennium Tower - Millennium Tower is an apartment building located on the Grand Canal outer basin. At 63 metres in height, it was the tallest storied building in Dublin from 1998 - 2009. [I dislike it].
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, 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.
DESCRIPTION
BODY PLAN
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.[7] 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. 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. 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,[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.
CENTRAL NERVOS 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.
LOCOMOTION
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.
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.
ECOLOGY 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.
SOZIAL 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.
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.
FAMILY TREE
It is now agreed that spiders (Araneae) are monophyletic (i.e., members of a group of organisms that form a clade, consisting of a last common ancestor and all of its descendants). There has been debate about what their closest evolutionary relatives are, and how all of these evolved from the ancestral chelicerates, which were marine animals. The cladogram on the right is based on J. W. Shultz' analysis (2007). Other views include proposals that: scorpions are more closely related to the extinct marine scorpion-like eurypterids than to spiders; spiders and Amblypygi are a monophyletic group. The appearance of several multi-way branchings in the tree on the right shows that there are still uncertainties about relationships between the groups involved.
Arachnids lack some features of other chelicerates, including backward-pointing mouths and gnathobases ("jaw bases") at the bases of their legs; both of these features are part of the ancestral arthropod feeding system. Instead, they have mouths that point forwards and downwards, and all have some means of breathing air. Spiders (Araneae) are distinguished from other arachnid groups by several characteristics, including spinnerets and, in males, pedipalps that are specially adapted for sperm transfer.
TAXONOMY
Spiders are divided into two suborders, Mesothelae and Opisthothelae, of which the latter contains two infraorders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae. Nearly 46,000 living species of spiders (order Araneae) have been identified and are currently grouped into about 114 families and about 4,000 genera by arachnologists.
WIKIPEDIA
Taken on December 30th 1966
Ex-LMS Stanier 4P 2-6-4T 42656 at Manchester Central station, on a sunny day in December 1966.
The loco had entered service in 1941, and was withdrawn in May 1967, and scrapped in November. None of the class have survived..
The station finally closed to passegers in May 1969, and remained semi-derelict as a car park for some years, but the trainshed was restored in the 1980s, and today (2024) is the 'Manchester Central' conference and exhibition centre..
Restored from a very-under-exposed magenta-colour-shifted original..
Original slide - property of Robert Gadsdon
BR Standard Class 5 No.73157 gently simmers on shed at Patricroft in early 1968, during the final few months of working steam on British Railways.
Injected with apple juice and Kosmo's meat injection. Rubbed with Kosmo's SPG and Killer Honey Bee. Finished with an apple/habanero glaze. Smoked to 140 degrees internally on a Masterbuilt 1050. Turned out perfect.
I was in Smithville, Ontario ( a sort distance South of Grimsby, Ontario up in the agricultural area atop the Niagara Escarpment) looking for possible images. Sadly, photographically speaking, the town has had a great deal of wealth injected into the local economy and that has, in turn, led to redevelopment of most of the downtown as well as a lot of new housing construction. This economic boom has bypassed the old feed mill located on Mill Street. It is now boarded up and been left pretty much derelict. One of the silos was particularly interesting because it had been neglected long enough that the various paint layers had been eroded and the underlying metal exposed to the weather leading to interesting corrosion patterns of blue and green paint, rust and corrosion scabs. A nice abstract. - JW
(if you want to see my images larger as well as the full text and details, check my Flickr stream, www.flickr.com/photos/jwvraets/ )
Date Taken: 2019-08-14
Tech Details:
Taken using a hand-held Nikon D7100 fitted with an AF-P DX Nikkor 70-300mm 1:4.5-6.3 non-VR lense set to 90mm, ISO180 (Auto ISO), Daylight WB, Shutter priority, f/4.8, 1/500 sec with an EV-0.33 exposure bias. PP in free Open Source RAWTherapee from Nikon RAW/NEF source file: set final size to 9000px wide, apply perspective correction to reduce the keystoning, brighten image by increasing the exposure compensation by EV+0.58, Enable the Graduated Neutral Density/GND tool and rotate it to cover the right side of the frame and darken the right side to balance the tonality of the rest of the image, slightly boos the black level, increase contrast and Chromaticity in L-A-B mode, reduce the Vibrance a bit to tone down paint colours, apply a bit of noise reduction, sharpen (edges only), save. PP in free Open Source GIMP: use the tone curve tool to slightly brighten the image, boost contrast a bit, sharpen, save, scale image to 6000px wide, sharpen slightly, save, add fine black-and-white frame, add bar and text on left, save, scale image to 2048 for posting online, sharpen slightly, save.
Cyclamen stem in seed, sea urchin shell
Glycine (the amino acid, not easy to find), for the crystal at the end of the tip
Time and light
D750, nikkor f/2.8 at f/3.8, 1/6 s, 100 ISO
Stack of 20 pictures
I have waited so long to get shots like these of Platypus, and it's finally paid off. If you want to see a Platypus, go to Eungella, we had trouble not seeing one. Amazing place. Great rainforest swell.
Incidentally, this photo was featured a while ago on the Zoos Victoria ad, which is a nice bit of excitement.
Platypus - Ornythorhynchus Anatinus
Considered to be one of the most bizarre animals in the world, the platypus, when early settlers first saw it, and infact when a specimen was sent back to England, thought is was a very clever hoax. But the Platypus, with a very rubbery and sensitive bill that looks much like a ducks, webbed feet, very thick oilless fur and furry, beaver-like tail is very much real. It is a monotreme (which means 'single hole'), meaning that it is a egg-laying mammal, although it still suckles it's young.
The Platypus has many touch and electro sensitive receptors in its bill with it pans the creek-, lake- or river-bed for crustaceans and other water living food sources. Tiny electrical currents given off my the bodily goings-on are detected by the bill, allowing the platypus to find food under water when its eyes, ears and even nostrils are closed.
The male also has a venomous spur on his hind feet, about 15mm long, capable of injecting enough venom powerful enough to kill a small dog.
The Platypus also exhibits itself as an example of Bergman's Rule, which talks about how some species, such as the Platypus, reduce in general size as they enter in their distribution more tropical areas.
Head, Body and Tail Length:
370mm-630mm
Weight:
600-3000g
Van Dyck, S, R Strahan. 2008. The Mammals of Australia Third Edition. Reed New Holland.
Materials engineers made this one-piece rocket engine injector in just 40 hours in a sophisticated 3-D printing machine at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center's advanced manufacturing facility. It took months to manufacture the same part by welding multiple parts. These images show an injector as it looked immediately after it was removed from the selected laser melting printer, left, and an injector after inspection and polishing, right.
Image credit: NASA/MSFC
Read more:
www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/multimedia/gallery/3...
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...
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Arsenal (de l'Aéronautique) VB 31 was a French naval fighter aircraft developed shortly after World War II. In January 1947 Arsenal were given a contract to develop a powerful naval fighter for the four French aircraft carriers. Since the modernization of the Aéronavale was pressing, the aircraft had to be developed fast. In order to cut time, the initial concept, the VB 30, was based on the unrealized German Messerschmitt Me 155 project.
The Me 155 naval fighter had been a naval development of the Messerschmitt Bf 109G, intended for the German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, which never saw the light of day. When it was clear that the Me 155 was a dead end, the basic design was developed further into a high altitude interceptor and the project handed over to Blohm & Voss. The resulting, highly modified Bv 155 saw the prototype stage in the late years of WWII, but was never put into service. Years later, though, the Me 155 should surface again: Evolved by Ingenieur-General Vernisse and M. Badie, the VB 30 did not only use many design features of the original Me 155 design, it also heavily drew on the indigenous VB 10 heavy fighter which had been previously under development since WWII.
The VB 30 was more compact than the VB 10, though, even though it had similar proportions. IIt was an all-metal single-seat fighter with a low-wing monoplane, a retractable tailwheel undercarriage and of largely orthodox configuration. The wings had an inverted gull wing shape, in order to shorten the main undercarriage as much as possible, and were foldable. The landing gear retracted inwards, and the tail wheel was retractable, too.
The VB 30's layout resembled much the smaller North American Mustang. The aircraft was powered by a powerful Arsenal 24 H engine which was theoretically capable of 3.400hp – itself a development based on the cylinder blocks of the German Junkers IV12 213 engine. A huge radiator bath for the liquid-cooled engine was located under the fuselage, at the wings’ trailing edge.
The aircraft was heavily armed, with a newly developed, compact 30mm cannon (which would eventually become the famous DEFA cannon), firing through the propeller axis, plus four HS-404 20mm cannons or six 12.7mm machine guns in the wings, outside of the propeller arc. Various ordnance loads, including bombs of up to 500 kg caliber, drop tanks or unguided missiles, could be carried under the fuselage and outer wings.
Unlike the huge, tandem-engined VB 10, the VB 30 was (relatively) more successful, but its career started under misfortunate stars: Just one month after the VB 10 contract was cancelled, the prototype VB 30-01 made its maiden flight on 8th of December 1948. Overall, the aircraft behaved well, but its low speed handling was hampered by the immense torque of the Arsenal 24 H engine and the huge, four-bladed propeller. This problem was eventually countered with an enlarged fin, which earned the type its nickname "Requin" (Shark).
With this and many other detail modifications the aircraft was now called VB 31and cleared for series production, even though it was already apparent that the future of the fighter lay with jet power. A second prototype, the VB 30-02, had been started, but its assembly lagged so much behind that it was eventually finished as the first serial VB 31. Anyway, the development of the VB 31 continued as a safety net for France's nascent jet fighter programs, since it was not clear when pure jets would eventually offer the appropriate performance for carrier use, and when they'd be ready for service.
The VB 31’s development saw several drawbacks, including constant problems with the complicated, liquid-cooled engine, the radiator system and the landing gear. Serial production and service introduction of the VB 31 started slowly and was delayed until January 1951 – by which the French Air Force already had to rely on surplus British and American fighters to tide it over until domestically-produced jet fighters appeared. Time was already working against the VB 31.
Additionally, with the brooding Indochina War since August 1945, the need for a maritime fighter and fighter-bomber became so dire that the Aéronavale had to order the WWII Vought F4U-7 to fill this specific gap and replace several obsolete types. The XF4U-7 prototype did its test flight on 2 July 1952 with a total of 94 F4U-7s built for the French Navy's Aéronavale (79 in 1952, 15 in 1953), with the last of the batch, the final Corsair built, rolled out on 31 January 1953. With this proven (and cheaper) alternative, only a single batch of 40 VB 31 aircraft (instead of the planned 200!) was eventually built and put into service.
The VB 31 just came in time for the First Indochina War between France’s French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Emperor Báo Dai’s Vietnamese National Army against the Viet Minh, Led by Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap. During this conflict, the French used many different pre Cold War aircraft of World War Two, as well as the new types.The VB 31 were distrubuted between Flotille 3F and 12F, where they replayced Curtiss SB2C Helldivers and Grumman F6F-3 Hellcats, respectively. Flotille 12F pilots arrived in Asia on board of the aircraft carrier 'Arromanches' in early 1952, equipped with both VB 31 and F4U-7 fighters. Both types were deployed from the carrier and also served from Haiphong for CAS and escort duties in the Tonkin area.
The operational era of the VB 31 did not last long, though. The type was powerful, but complicated. The VB 31 also needed much more maintenance than the sturdy Corsair, which could also take more damage and had a considerable larger range. Hence, already in June 1953, all VB 31 were returned to Europe and based at Hyères, where they replaced obsolete F6F-5 Hellcats and were mainly used for training purposes. In the early sixties, with naval jet fighters finally available, the VB 31 were quickly withdrawn and scrapped, being replaced by Sud-Ouest SO-203 'Aquilon' (license-built D.H. Sea Venom) and Dassault Etendard IVM.
General characteristics:
Crew: one, pilot
Length: 11.63 m (38 ft 8 in)
Wingspan: 13.07 m (43 ft 6 in)
Height (peopeller at max. elevation): 4,9 m (16 ft 1 in)
Powerplant:
1 × Arsenal 24 H, 2.260 kW (3.000 hp), driving a four-bladed propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 665 km/h (413 mph)
Range: 1.191 km (740 miles)
Service ceiling: 11.125 m (37.100 ft)
Rate of climb: 10.2 m/s (2008 ft/min)
Armament:
1× 30 mm cannon with 100 RPG, firing through the propeller axis
4× 20 mm HS-404 cannons with 200 RPG or 6×12,7mm machine guns with 250 RPG in the outer wings
1.500kg (3.300 lbs.) of external ordnance, including bombs of of to 454kg (1.000 lbs) calibre, drop tanks or up to eight unguided missiles under the outer wings.
The Kit and its assembly:
I wonder if you recognize the basis for this fantasy airplane? It's actually a modified Bv 155 kit from ART Model/Special Hobby from Russia (Both kits are identical; the ART Model contains an injected clear canopy while the Special Hobby kit offers two vacu canopies, though).
Inspiration struck when I read about the huge VB 10, which has, in its profile view, much resemblance to the Bv 155 - and the latter actually has some naval-friendly features, e .g .the raised cockpit, placed pretty far forward at the wings' leading edge, or the massive landing gear. Since France used some German aircraft after WWII (e.g. Fw 190 for the Air Force and Ju 188 for the Navy), why not create a naval fighter from the Me 155/Bv 155 concept? Well, here it is... the Arsenal VB 31.
For this fantasy conversion, the Bv 155 kit saw major modifications, e. g.:
● The wing span was reduced - from each wing, 4.2cm/1.65" were taken away
● The wings received a new inverted gull wing shape, the cuts came handy
● Outer wings were clipped by 10mm/0,4" each
● Original wing tips were transplanted and re-sculpted to fit
● The rear fuselage was shortened by about 1.3cm/0.5"
● A carburetor intake was added under the nose (from a Hawker Hurricane)
● New horizontal stabilizers from a Grumman Panther (Matchbox)
● Lower position of the horizontal stabilizers
● New landing gear wells had to be cut out, a simple interior was scratch-built
● The landing gear retracts now inwards, original struts and covers were slightly shortened
● New main wheels from a Douglas Skyknight (Matchbox) were used
● New tail wheel (front wheel of a Revell F-16, I guess)
● Modified tail section with an arrestor hook
● The original, extensive exhaust piping between the engine and the turbo charger had to go
● New exhausts at the nose were added (scratch, HO scale roof tiles)
● New propeller from a Matchbox Hawker Tempest was mated with the original spinner
● Cockpit was taken OOB, but a different seat, a pilot and a radio in the rear were added
● Some panel lines had to be re-engraved, due to putty work and/or logical reasons
● Missile hardpoints under the wings come from an F4U
● Antennae were added, accoring to French F4U-7 pictures
There actually was no big plan - I had an idea of what to make from the kit, but modifications came step by step, as the parts fell together and looked or looked not right.
The 24 cylinder Arsenal 24 H engine was really under development in France, so it was a neat choice for such a relatively large aircraft. The huge turbocharger bath under the fuselage of the Bv 155 could easily be taken as a radiator bath for the large, liquid-cooled engine, so that no additional adaptations had to be made.
Overall, I wanted to save the elegant lines of the Bv 155. With the reduced wing span the aircraft looks even elegant, IMHO. All in all, and with its slender, inverted gull wings, the VB 31 somehow reminds of the Ju 87 and the later paper Ju 187 development. There's also something IL-2ish to it?
A side note concerning the kit itself: it has nice engraved details and some fine resin parts for the cockpit or the radiators. But wall strength is high (up to 2mm!), the material is somewhat soft and waxy, and fit is mediocre, so expect serious putty work. Not a bad kit, but something for the experienced modeler. Things surely were worse here, since my modifications to wings and fuselage called for even more sculpting.
Painting and markings:
It took some time to settle on a French naval aircraft, since I already have an all dark-blue whif in my collection (the whiffy F1J Sea Mustang). But I had some appropriate decals at hand, and the time frame as well as the potential user offered a good and plausible story behind the VB 31 in Aéronaval service.
Overall, the aircraft was painted in Blue Angels Blue (FS 15050, Testors 1718) and weathered with slightly lighter shades of blue and grey, for a sun-bleached look and in order to emphasize the panel lines. One can argue about this tone: many Aéronavale aircraft look much darker, rather like FS 15042, but I have seen pictures of such bright aircraft - I'd assume that the color standard was not very strict, as long as the aircraft was "dark blue"?
After basic painting the VB 31 looked very bright, so I did some major dry painting with darker/duller shades like Humbrol 67, 77 and 104 to tame things down, and the result is O.K. now.
The interior surfaces were painted in Mid Stone and dry-painted with Chromate Yellow (Humbrol 225 and 81). AFAIK, this is the typical interior finish for Aéronavel aircraft of that time, and it is a nice contrast to the dark and uniform outside.
Most markings come from an F4U-7 decal sheet, some things like the tail rudder Tricolore had to be improvised (comes from a 30 year old Airfix Bristol Blenheim decal sheet!).
Beyond the dry-painted blue and grey hues on the upper surfaces, the model was slightly weathered with exhaust and soot stains and some dry-painted silver on the leading edges. This makes the all-blue aircraft look a bit more lively and is IMHO authentic for Aéronavale fighters of the 50ies, esp. under the harsh climate of South East Asia.
Finally, everything was sealed under a semi-matt varnish (Tamiya Acryllics, rattle can), and some additional matt varnish was applied on the upper surfaces, also for a dull and sun-bleached look.
The kit was built in a week from sprues to pictures, overall a sleek and elegant aircraft with plausible lines - an hommage to the many elegant and innovative aircraft which were developed in France in WWII and later but which are easily overlooked today!
Toyota GR Yaris (XP210) Circuit 4WD (2020-on) Engine 1618ccc G16E-GTS turbo S3 257bhp
Registration Number VA 21 OFN (Worcester)
TOYOTA ALBUM
www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/8258149874/in/set-7215...
The Toyota GR Yaris is a sport compact car manufactured since 2020 by Toyota with assistance from the company's Gazoo Racing (GR) division. It is a three-door hatchback which was designed to meet World Rally Championship (WRC) homologation rules. The GR Yaris is available with four-wheel drive alongside other significant modifications which differentiate it from the five-door XP210-series Yaris, with the rear of the car being based upon the larger E210-series Corolla.
Designed by Shota Ito, Takeo Okuno and Cho Byung-kan, The Gazoo Racing WRT team, led by team principal and 4-time WRC champion Tommi Mäkinen, was heavily involved in the design. The challenge was to build a car that was capable of being equipped to race at WRC events, but also suitable for daily driving. It was felt that unlike the standard Yaris the car needed to be three door, have four-wheel drive, a wider rear track and a double wishbone suspension layout to handle significantly increased torque. The design changes required that the GR Yaris be built on a combination between the front end of the standard Yaris' with the rear of the GA-C platform used by the Corolla, To save weight, the GR Yaris also uses aluminium for the front bonnet, boot lid and door panels. It also uses carbon fibre-reinforced plastic for its roof panel which was formed using the sheet moulding compound method
The production car is powered by a Gazoo Racing-built, turbocharged and direct/port-injected 1.6-litre G16E-GTS three-cylinder engine that produces 257 to 268 hp (261-272 PS) varying due to emissions regulations in certain markets. The engine is mated to a 6-speed V16-series intelligent manual transmission, and GR-Four permanent four-wheel drive system. It has a claimed 0-62 mph (0-100kmph) acceleration time of 5.2 to 5.5 seconds and a top speed of 143mph
Diolch am 85,039,399 o olygfeydd anhygoel, mae pob un yn 90cael ei werthfawrogi'n fawr.
Thanks for 85,039,399 amazing views, every one is greatly appreciated.
Shot 01.08-2021 exiting the Silverstone Festival 01.08.2021 Ref 149-462
Shots from Fallout 4 (the PC game)
Using post-processing injector ReShade + UBER Fidelity Suite preset + a few Nexus mods.
Bonhams : The Autumn Sale 2020
Estimated : € 120.000 - 180.000
Sold for € 143.750
Autoworld
Brussels - Belgium
September 2020
"The Mercedes 220 SE coupé is a very fine engineering achievement. Not only does it provide fast and economical transports for four and their luggage, but outstanding roadholding and riding qualities make this a car which is a pleasure to drive hard, and one in which it is safe and comfortable to do so. Furthermore, it has superb brakes and a high standard of mechanical refinement." – Autocar.
Mercedes-Benz debuted four new models at the Frankfurt Show in 1959 - the 220 SEb among them - all of which shared the same basic unitary-construction bodyshell and all-round independent suspension. This new 220 family moved Mercedes-Benz's styling into the modern era; longer than their predecessors, these elegant newcomers featured a wider radiator shell, wrap-around windscreen, enlarged rear window and vertically stacked twin headlamps. The new 220 SEb retained the fuel-injected, single-overhead-camshaft engine of the previous 220 SE, though maximum power of the 2,195cc six was increased by five horsepower to 120bhp (DIN). Top speed was now 172km/h with 100km/h attainable in under 14 seconds.
Coupé and Cabriolet models appeared in 1960 and 1961 respectively, minus the already dated-looking tail fins of the saloon. More modern in style, the luxurious 220 SEb Coupé and Cabriolet were better appointed too, being equipped as standard with a rev counter, leather upholstery, and four-speed automatic transmission with floor-mounted gearchange lever. Girling servo-assisted front disc brakes were fitted from the start of production, a benefit not enjoyed by the saloon until 1962. By the time production ceased in October 1965, fewer than 17,000 220 SEb Coupé and Cabriolet models had been manufactured, of which only 2,729 were Cabriolets, and today these stylish and luxuriously equipped Grand Tourers are highly prized.
This superbly restored Mercedes-Benz 220 SEb Cabriolet was delivered new in Germany. A matching-numbers example equipped with the desirable manual 'floor shift' gearbox, the Mercedes was sold new to a member of the United States' armed forces, who, it is presumed, took the car to the USA.
The present owner discovered this 220 SEb Cabriolet while searching for rare spare parts for his Mercedes-Benz 300 Adenauer Cabriolet D. Visiting the classic car fair in Stuttgart in March 2015, he became enchanted by this Mercedes 220 SEb cabriolet, which he considered to be the most perfectly restored vehicle on show. Delivered new in Germany, retaining matching numbers, and restored to concours standard, it met all of the perfectionist owner's exacting criteria and duly became part of his private collection on 1st March 2016. Since then, some 1,000 kilometres have been covered, including a recent trip to the Coppa Classic Concours in Belgium where it won the award for 'Best Restored Car'. Finished in the attractive colour combination of Burgundy with tan interior, and guaranteed to turn heads wherever it goes, this quite exceptional soft-top 4-seat Mercedes is well-documented and offered with all its original books; M-B Datakart; a selection of restoration photographs; and Belgian registration documents.
Cup Moth larvae are often highly ornamented and brightly colored. Two main types can be distinguished: larvae armed with rows of protuberances bearing stinging spines called nettle caterpillars, or non-spined forms where the surface of the larvae may by completely smooth, called gelatine caterpillars. The larvae of this family bear no prolegs on their abdominal segments. The larva attaches itself to the substrate by means of an adhesive ventral surface. The movement is like a slug hence their generic name.
A stinging slug caterpillar (like this one) generally bears warning colouration and stinging hairs. These hairs can inject a venom from poison sacs carried at their base that are used as defensive weapons. Reactions can range from a mild itching to a very painful sting.
View my other images of Limacodid Caterpillars from China (Beijing and Yunnan) in my photostream, HERE.
You will notice I have given each individual a descriptive superhero-style name in the title of the image. This species has been dubbed "Triple Streak" for a multitude of variations on its green, blue and red longitudinal markings. This is for my own reference mainly because practically none of these caterpillars are identified (maybe even ever formally) and this will allow me to group the growing number of images I have into their like-kinds including the various instars I have captured. The names will be included as tags.
Pu'er, Yunnan, China
The Opel Diplomat is a luxury car manufactured by Opel. Opel's top-ranging models were traditionally the Admiral and Kapitän, introduced in 1938 and 1937 respectively.
In 1964, these models were joined, in the so-called "KAD" (Kapitän, Admiral, Diplomat) range, by the new Opel Diplomat. Essentially the three were badge-engineered versions of the same new vehicle.
In March 1969, Opel introduced a new line of KAD models with new bodies and a more sophisticated chassis with a De Dion tube rear axle. These cars were slightly smaller than their predecessors. While the lesser models (Opel Kapitän and Admiral) were also available with a carburetted 2.8 l-inline six, the Diplomat could be had with either a fuel-injected version of this engine (Diplomat E) or with Chevrolet´s 327-V8 (Diplomat V8), now coupled to a 3-speed Turbo-Hydramatic.
The new body was a typical General Motors style and bore a strong resemblance to the contemporary Statesman of Australia.
The Diplomat V-8 was hoped to compete with Mercedes' new 350 and 450 SE; from May 1973 Opel even offered a long-wheelbase version of the V-8 to keep up with Mercedes' SEL models.
(Wikipedia)
Stream of red liquid injected through the needle of a syringe isolated on white.
Hello! All photo my own and I am selling photo via microstock agency. You also can sell. Click link below for my portfolio or for sell you own photos.
Hello! All photo my own and I am selling photo via microstock agency. You also can sell. Click link below for my portfolio or for sell you own photos.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
2160p (DSR)
ENB + SMAA Injector
Fatalis Noclip Mod / Gibbed's Burger Menu
Timestop • Freecam • FOV • Hide Hud
Small girl inject the Teddy Bear by doctor toy set on the bed in bedroom, Kid, occupation, future, job and health care concept
"Remember Me" (Dontnod, 2013): Rendered at 3840x2160, CeeJay.dk's SweetFX v1.4 with Boulotaur2024’s Injector (settings by Omnipotus), Film Grain Filter removed (texmod), Fixed Camera (freecammode). In the 'ExampleAdriftGfxConfig' file, 'SuperSampleCount' is set to '2'. Image cropped to 2405x1288.
The fuel-injected Escort XR3i was intended to compete with the Volkswagen Golf in the 'hot hatch' market during the 80s - personally, I'd pick the XR3i every time.
Those Cloverleaf alloys have got to be one of the best designed wheels ever. Shame this ones lost its original numberplates though.
Sea Cadets Classic Car Rally, March 2013.
MB799.
Volvo P 1800 S (1969).
White body, detailed trim tampo, ringed disc wheels and chrome base.
Escala 1/61.
5-Pack Classic Rides No. 12.
Matchbox / Mattel Inc.
© 2009.
Made in Thailand.
Año 2011.
More info about this model:
www.bamca.org/cgi-bin/vars.cgi?mod=MB799&var=12
www.bamca.org/cgi-bin/packs.cgi?page=5packs&id=2011p5clr
All versions in:
www.bamca.org/cgi-bin/vars.cgi?mod=MB799
matchbox.wikia.com/wiki/Volvo_P1800S_(1969)
Post Lesney 1-75 and Mattel Matchbox 1-100 in:
www.chezbois.com/non_corgi/matchboxpostlesney_home.htm
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Volvo P1800
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Volvo P1800 is a two-door, two-passenger, front-engine, rear-drive sports car manufactured and marketed by Volvo Cars as a coupe (1961-73) and shooting-brake (1972-73).
While the P1800 was more of a stylish touring car rather than a sports car when it came to its speed capabilities, the P1800 first became popular when it was featured as the main car driven by Roger Moore in the hit television series The Saint which aired from 1962-1969.
The P1800 featured styling by Pietro Frua and mechanicals derived from Volvo's Amazon/122 series."
In 1998, a P1800 was certified as the highest mileage private vehicle driven by the original owner in non-commercial service — having exceeded three million miles (over 4.8 million km) as of 2013."
(...)
"The project was originally started in 1957 because Volvo wanted a sports car to compete in the US & European markets, despite the fact that their previous attempt, the P1900, had failed to take off with only 68 cars sold.
The man behind the project was an engineering consultant to Volvo, Helmer Petterson, who in the 1940s was responsible for the Volvo PV444.
The design work was done by Helmer's son Pelle Petterson, who worked at Pietro Frua at that time. Volvo insisted it was an Italian design by Frua and only in 2009 officially recognized that Pelle Petterson designed it.
The Italian Carrozzeria Pietro Frua design firm (then a recently acquired subsidiary of Ghia) built the first three prototypes between September 1957 and early 1958, (...)"
- P1800
"The engine was the B18 (B for the Swedish word for gasoline: Bensin; 18 for 1800 cc displacement) with dual SU carburettors, producing 100 hp (75 kW). This variant (named B18B) had a higher compression ratio than the slightly less powerful twin-carb B18D used in the contemporary Amazon 122S, as well as a different camshaft.(..."
- 1800S
"As time progressed, Jensen had problems with quality control, so the contract was ended early after 6,000 cars had been built.
In 1963 production was moved to Volvo's Lundby Plant in Gothenburg and the car's name was changed to 1800S (S standing for Sverige, or in English : Sweden).
The engine was improved with an additional 8 hp (6 kW). In 1966 the four-cylinder engine was updated to 115 PS (85 kW). Top speed was 175 km/h (109 mph).
In 1969 the B18 engine was replaced with the 2-litre B20B variant of the B20 giving 118 bhp (89 kW), though it kept the designation 1800S."
- 1800E
"For 1970 numerous changes came with the fuel-injected 1800E, which had the B20E engine with Bosch D-Jetronic fuel injection and a revised camshaft, and produced 130 bhp (97 kW) without sacrificing fuel economy.
Top speed was around 190 km/h (118 mph) and acceleration from 0–100 km/h (0–62.1 mph) took 9.5 seconds.
In addition, the 1970 model was the first 1800 with four-wheel disc brakes; until then the 1800 series had front discs and rear drums."
- 1800ES
"Volvo introduced its final P1800 variant, the 1800ES, in 1972 as a two-door station wagon with a frameless, all-glass tailgate.
The final design was chosen after two prototypes had been built by Sergio Coggiola and Pietro Frua.
Frua's prototype, Raketen ("the Rocket", on the right), is located in the Volvo Museum.
Both Italian prototypes were considered too futuristic, and instead in-house designer Jan Wilsgaard's proposal was accepted.
The ES engine was downgraded to 125 bhp (92 kW) by reducing the compression ratio with a thicker head gasket (engine variant B20F); although maximum power was slightly down the engine was less "peaky" and the car's on-the-road performance was actually improved.
The ES's rear backrest folded down to create a long flat loading area. As an alternative to the usual four-speed plus overdrive manual transmission, a Borg-Warner three-speed automatic was available in the 1800ES.
With stricter American safety and emissions standards looming for 1974, Volvo did not see fit to spend the considerable amount that would be necessary to redesign the small-volume 1800 ES.
Only 8,077 examples of the ES were built in its two model years."
(....)
-------------------
Volvo P1800
Manufacturer
Volvo Cars
Production
1961–1973
39,407 notch coupé
8,077 sports estate
Assembly
West Bromwich, England (Jensen Motors, 1961–62)
Torslanda, Sweden (1963–1973)
Gothenburg, Sweden (1963–1973)
Designer
Pelle Petterson
ClassSports car (S)
Body style
2-door coupe
3-door sports estate
Layout
FR layout
Related
Volvo Amazon
Engine
1,778 cc B18 I4
1,986 cc B20B/E/F I4
Transmission
4-speed M40 manual
4-speed M41 manual with Laycock overdrive
3-speed Borg-Warner 35 automatic
Dimensions
Wheelbase
2,450 mm (96.5 in)
Length
4,350–4,400 mm (171.3–173.2 in)
Width
1,700 mm (66.9 in)
Height
1,280–1,285 mm (50.4–50.6 in)
Curb weight
1,130–1,175 kg (2,491–2,590 lb)
Predecessor
Volvo P1900
Successor
Volvo 480 (1800ES)
Volvo Concept Coupe (spiritual)
Lost in the fury of a psychedelic attack, Nunchuk stands confused. The phoenix passes over him, then seemingly melts into the form of Shadow Tracker.
Nunchuk holds himself, feeling a piercing pain tear through his abdomen as Shadow Tracker lands on the ground beyond the Joe ninja. Shadow Tracker turns to face Nuchuk as the Joe ninja realises that he has been stabbed! Nunchuk grips his side as if he were able to squeeze the searing agony away. He stumbles as Shadow Tracker turns and walks away from the ninja, leaving the Joe for dead.