Molecular cloning

Molecular cloning

Main article: Molecular cloning

Molecular cloning refers to the process of making multiple molecules. Cloning is commonly used to amplify DNA fragments containing whole genes, but it can also be used to amplify any DNA sequence such as promoters, non-coding sequences and randomly fragmented DNA. It is used in a wide array of biological experiments and practical applications ranging from genetic fingerprinting to large scale protein production. Occasionally, the term cloning is misleadingly used to refer to the identification of the chromosomal location of a gene associated with a particular phenotype of interest, such as in positional cloning. In practice, localization of the gene to a chromosome or genomic region does not necessarily enable one to isolate or amplify the relevant genomic sequence. To amplify any DNA sequence in a living organism, that sequence must be linked to an origin of replication, which is a sequence of DNA capable of directing the propagation of itself and any linked sequence. However, a number of other features are needed and a variety of specialised cloning vectors (small piece of DNA into which a foreign DNA fragment can be inserted) exist that allow protein expression, tagging, single stranded RNA and DNA production and a host of other manipulations.
Cloning of any DNA fragment essentially involves four steps^[3]

1. fragmentation - breaking apart a strand of DNA
2. ligation - gluing together pieces of DNA in a desired sequence
3. transfection - inserting the newly formed pieces of DNA into cells
4. screening/selection - selecting out the cells that were successfully transfected with the new DNA

Although these steps are invariable among cloning procedures a number of alternative routes can be selected, these are summarized as a 'cloning strategy'.
Initially, the DNA of interest needs to be isolated to provide a DNA segment of suitable size. Subsequently, a ligation procedure is used where the amplified fragment is inserted into a vector (piece of DNA). The vector (which is frequently circular) is linearised using restriction enzymes, and incubated with the fragment of interest under appropriate conditions with an enzyme called DNA ligase. Following ligation the vector with the

History of technology

The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques, and is similar in many ways to the history of humanity. Background knowledge has enabled people to create new things, and conversely, many scientific endeavors have become possible through technologies which assist humans to travel to places we could not otherwise go, and probe the nature of the universe in more detail than our natural senses allow.
Technological artifacts are products of an economy, a force for economic growth, and a large part of everyday life. Technological innovations affect, and are affected by, a society's cultural traditions. They also are a means to develop and project military power.

Measuring technological progress

Many sociologists and anthropologists have created social theories dealing with social and cultural evolution. Some, like Lewis H. Morgan, Leslie White, and Gerhard Lenski, declare technological progress to be the primary factor driving the development of human civilization. Morgan's concept of three major stages of social evolution (savagery, barbarism, and civilization) can be divided by technological milestones, like fire, the bow, and pottery in the savage era, domestication of animals, agriculture, and metalworking in the barbarian era and the alphabet and writing in the civilization era.
Instead of specific inventions, White decided that the measure by which to judge the evolution of culture was energy. For White "the primary function of culture" is to "harness and control energy." White differentiates between five stages of human development: In the first, people use energy of their own muscles. In the second, they use energy of domesticated animals. In the third, they use the energy of plants (agricultural revolution). In the fourth, they learn to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. In the fifth, they harness nuclear energy. White introduced a formula P=E*T, where E is a measure of energy consumed, and T is the measure of efficiency of technical factors utilizing the energy. In his own words, "culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased". Russian astronomer, Nikolai Kardashev, extrapolated his theory creating the Kardashev scale, which categorizes the energy use of advanced civilizations.
Lenski takes a more modern approach and focuses on information. The more information

Top 10 World’s Rarest Animals

Top 10 World’s Rarest Animals

In our ever expanding society increasing pollution, torn down forests, and changing terrain are causing serious problems with the environment. But it isn’t just out Ozone that is suffering, and as the years pass more and more animals are being put on the endangered species list, just a few hundred (and sometimes less) away from being completely extinct.
But what about those animals that were rare to begin with? Do they have a chance? Will out children even know what they are? Do we ever know now? Here is a list of the top 10 rarest animals in the world, and some of them you may have never heard of.
The Pinta Island Tortoise – This hard shelled turtle is more then just rare, he is unique. Being the only one remaining alive, he remains the sole survivor of the even diminishing species of Great Galapagos tortoises. Researchers are so desperate to find a female of the species that they are offering $10,000 to anyone who comes forward to offer a chance at saving the Pinta Island tortoise.
The Yangtze River Dolphin – This species of dolphin is found exclusively in China, and given the record expansion of China’s economic and social system, it has caused the Yangtze to become all but extinct as it has to compete for it’s habitat and limited resources of food with an enormous population.
The Vancouver Island Marmot – With only 75 currently listed as surviving in the wild, this little furry resident of the Vancouver mountains is getting some help from local conservationists to try to boost the numbers back up before it’s too late. Luckily, the little guys born raised in captivity are producing great numbers, and so look as though the species will be saved after all
The Seychelles Sheath-tailed Bat – No one is completely sure what is killing off the Sheath-tailed bat, and actually so little is known about their general patterns and behavior that no one knows what to do to increase their numbers either. But with fewer then 100 being reported in their native home of Madagascar, it’s clean something has to be done soon.
The Javan Rhino – The Javan isn’t the only species of Rhino that is quickly dying out, but it is the one that has the fastest reducing numbers, with less then 60 remaining in their native habitats across Indonesia and Vietnam.
The Hispid Hare – Being one of the only hares of it’s kind, the Hispid is a rabbit covered in bristly fur that lives in the Himalayan foothills around Nepal. There are now well under 100 in existence, and the numbers are continuing to decrease, even as conservationists attempt to breed them in captivity, an action that has so far proven unsuccessful.
The Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat – Located in Australia in the more tropical areas of the continent, the Hairy-nosed Wombat’s habitat has been decreasing, and so with it has it’s numbers. With less then 100 counted in the most recent environmental studies, massive funding by the local government has led to a huge conservation effort.
The Dwarf Water Buffalo – This bovine indigenous to the Philippines has seen a shocking reduction in the last hundred years. In the early 1900’s there was an estimated 10,000 alive in the region of Mindoro, and yet in 2002 they had found there to be somewhere between 50 – 200 alive. Illegal poaching still continues as the species dies out.
The Iberian Lynx – This tiny wildcat lives in the Andalusia region of

Mount Everest

Mount Everest (Mount Sagarmāthā (Nepali: सगरमाथा), Tibetan: ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ; Chinese Zhumulangma Peak simplified Chinese: 珠穆朗玛峰; pinyin: Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng), Chajamlangma (Limbu), or Mount Chomolungma) is the world's highest mountain above sea level at 8,848 metres (29,029 ft). It is located in the Himalayas in Asia.
In 1856, the Great Trigonometric Survey of British India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at 29,002 ft (8,840 m). In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon recommendation of Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India at the time, who named it after his predecessor in the post, and former chief, Sir George Everest.^[4] Chomolungma had been in common use by Tibetans for centuries, but Waugh was unable to propose an established local name because Nepal and Tibet were closed to foreigners.
The highest mountain in

Blood Rain in India

The whole world because in India splashy rain blood. Really raining red. The answer is true. This natural phenomenon, actually since the date of July 25 and September 23, 2001, the rain falls down with a wide red. Just cash it makes the world community was shocked. There was what was like this. Moreover, the rain fell in southern India's Kerala region overwhelmingly believe in the greatness of god. It was raining heavily and colored merahdan other colors are yellow, pink and green. Actually, the black rain in Kerala pernahterjadi also concentrated around the beginning of 1896 and several times since then.



At first, the experts argued that it was caused by the impact of venomena hypothetical meteor burst, but from the research conducted by the Indian government knows and they concluded that the rain which fell dikerala air caused by spores from local terrestrial algae productive.

Especially the year 2006 the blood-colored rain came down in southern Kerala India, this is massively covered by media both locally and worldwide. Furthermore, the Indian State governments continued to conduct research on a rare natural phenomenon, the next Godfrey Louis and Santhosh Kumar of Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam proposed research on the controversial hypothesis that the colored particles extraterrestrial cells.

The first rain fell in Kottayam and Idukki districts in the southern region of India. Not only red rain, the first 10 days of rain were reported yellow, green and even black. After 10 days, rainfall intensity subsided until September.

The rain fell only on a limited region and usually only lasts about 20 minutes per rain. The local residents find the clothes dried in the sun turns red like blood. Local residents also reported the sound of explosions and light rain that preceded the explosion is believed to be a meteor.

Rain water samples are taken soon to be investigated by the Indian government and scientists. One of the independent scientists who examined them was Godfrey Louis and Santosh Kumara from the University of Mahatma Gandhi.

They collected more than 120 reports from local residents and collect samples of red rain water from areas along 100 km. The first time they thought that the red particles are particles in the water-borne sand of the desert Arabs.

This never happened in July 1968 where the sand from the Sahara carried by the wind to cause red rain in England. But they found that the red elements in the water is not a grain of sand, but the living cells.

The composition of these cells consisted of 50% Carbon, 45% oxygen and 5% other elements such as iron and sodium, consistent with the other components of biological cells, and cells were also dividing. The cell was between 30-10 micrometers in diameter with a thick cell wall and has a variation in membrane nanostructure.

But there is no identifiable nucleus. Each cubic meter of samples taken, there are 100 grams of red elements. So when summed, then from July to September there were 50 tons of spilled red particles to Earth.

At the University of Sheffield, UK, an expert named Milton Wainwright microbiologically confirmed that the red elements are living cells. This is stated because Wainwright had found the DNA of the cell elements, although he has not managed to extract it.

Because of the red particles are living cells, the scientists theorized that particles that are blood red. According to them, possibly meteorite exploded in the air had been massacred a group of bats in the air. But this theory was rejected because of lack of evidence that supports such as bat wings who fell to earth.

By linking between the sound of explosions and light rain that preceded it, Louis put forward the theory that the red cells are extra-terrestrial beings. Louis concluded that the red material came from a comet entering the earth's atmosphere and exploded over the skies of India.

A study conducted by doctoral students from Queen's University, Ireland named Patrick McCafferty find a record of history linking colored rain with meteor explosion.

McCafferty analyzed 80 reports of colored rains, 20 reports of water turned into blood, and 68 examples of similar phenomena like black rain, milk or honey rain that falls from the sky.

36 percent of those samples was connected with the

Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system (OS) market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of OSs. The ensuing rise of stock in the company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) made an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Microsoft would come to dominate other markets as well, notably the office suite market with Microsoft Office.
Primarily in the 1990s, critics contend the company used monopolistic business practices and anti-competitive strategies including refusal to deal and tying, put unreasonable restrictions in the use of its software, and used misrepresentative marketing tactics; both the U.S. Department of Justice and European Commission found the company in violation of antitrust laws.

Rafflesia Flower

Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic flowering plants. It contains approximately 27 species (including four incompletely characterized species as recognized by Willem Meijer in 1997), all found in southeastern Asia, on the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, and the Philippines.
Rafflesia was found in the Indonesian rain forest by an Indonesian guide working for Dr. Joseph Arnold in 1818, and named after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the leader of the expedition. It was discovered even earlier by Louis Deschamps in Java between 1791 and 1794, but his notes and illustrations, seized by the British in 1803, were not available to western science until 1861.^{[citation needed]}
The plant has no stems, leaves or true roots. It is an endoparasite of vines in the genus Tetrastigma (Vitaceae), spreading its absorptive organ, the haustorium, inside the tissue of the vine. The only part of the plant that can be seen outside the host vine is the five-petaled flower. In some species, such as Rafflesia arnoldii, the flower may be over 100 centimetres (39 in) in diameter, and weigh up to 10 kilograms (22 lb). Even the smallest species, R. baletei, has 12 cm diameter flowers. The flowers look and smell like rotting flesh, hence its local names which translate to "corpse flower" or "meat flower" (but see below). The vile smell that the flower gives off attracts insects such as flies, which transport pollen from male to female flowers. Most species have separate male and female flowers, but a few have bisexual flowers. Little is known about seed dispersal. However, tree shrews and other forest mammals apparently eat the fruits and disperse the seeds. Rafflesia is an official state flower of Indonesia, also Sabah state in Malaysia, as well as for the Surat Thani Province, Thailand.
The name "corpse flower" applied to Rafflesia is confusing because this common name also refers to the Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) of the family Araceae. Moreover, because Amorphophallus has the world's largest unbranched inflorescence, it is sometimes mistakenly credited as having the world's largest flower. Both Rafflesia and Amorphophallus are flowering plants, but they are still distantly related. Rafflesia arnoldii has the largest single flower of any flowering plant, at least when one judges this by weight. Amorphophallus titanum has the largest unbranched inflorescence, while the Talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera) forms the largest branched inflorescence, containing thousands of flowers; this plant is monocarpic, meaning that individuals die after flowering.