Mar 21, 2012

Insects

Insects (from Latin insectum, a calque of Greek ἔντομον [éntomon], "cut into sections") are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax, and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae. They are among the most diverse groups of animals on the planet, including more than a million described species and representing more than half of all known living organisms. The number of extant species is estimated...

Arthropoda

Arthropoda is the phylum of the greatest in the world of animals and include insects , spiders , shrimp and other similar animals. Arthropods commonly found in marine, freshwater, land and air environments, including various symbiotic and parasitic forms. Nearly 90% of all known species of animals are arthropods. Characteristics that distinguish the phylum arthropods were: body segmented, the segments usually unite into two or three clear areas, segmented limbs in pairs (Originally naming...

Mar 19, 2012

Geography

"The Blue Marble" photograph of Earth, taken from Apollo 17 Geography (from Greek γεωγραφία - geographia, lit. "earth describe-write") is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276-194 BC). Four historical traditions in geographical research are the spatial analysis of natural and human phenomena (geography as a study of distribution), area studies (places and regions), study of man-land relationship, and research...

Mar 7, 2012

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as flowering plants, conifers, ferns, mosses, and green algae, but do not include seaweeds like kelp, nor fungi and bacteria. The group is also called green plants or Viridiplantae in Latin. They obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis using chlorophyll contained in chloroplasts, which gives them their...

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many distinct organs found in land plants. The largest and most complex marine forms are called seaweeds. Though the prokaryotic cyanobacteria (commonly referred to as blue-green algae) were traditionally included...

Agriculture

Agriculture (also called farming or husbandry) is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the development of civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science. Agriculture generally speaking refers to human activities, although it is also...

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Magnoliophyta, also called angiosperms). The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs. Flowers may facilitate outcrossing (fusion of sperm and eggs from different individuals in a population) or allow selfing (fusion of sperm and egg from the same flower). Some flowers produce...

Mar 6, 2012

Fruit

In botany, a fruit is a part of a flowering plant that derives from specific tissues of the flower, mainly one or more ovaries. Fruits are the means by which many plants disseminate seeds. Many plants bearing edible fruits, in particular, have propagated with the movements of humans and animals in a symbiotic relationship as a means for seed dispersal and nutrition, respectively; in fact, humans and many animals have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Fruits account for a substantial...

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant. The formation of the seed completes the process of reproduction in seed plants (started with the development of flowers and pollination), with the embryo developed from the zygote and the seed coat from the integuments of the ovule. Seeds...

Fabaceae

The Fabaceae or Leguminosae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, is a large and economically important family of flowering plants. The group is the third largest land plant family, behind only the Orchidaceae and Asteraceae, with 730 genera and over 19,400 species. The largest genera are Astragalus (over 2,400 species), Acacia (over 950 species), Indigofera (around 700 species), Crotalaria (around 700 species), and Mimosa (around 500 species). Plants of this family are found throughout...

Mar 2, 2012

Viewshed Analysis

A viewshed is an area that is visible from a specific location. Viewshed analyses are a common function of most GIS software. The analysis uses the elevation value of each cell of the DEM to determine visibility to or from a particular cell. The location of this particular cell varies depending on the needs of the analysis. For example, a Viewshed analysis is commonly used to locate communication towers or determining the view from a road. Viewsheds can be calculated using an individual point...

Favorite Blogs