Today, The Grandma has been reading about Experimental Breeder Reactor I, aresearchreactor, that became one of the world's first electricity-generating nuclear power plants, on a day like today in 1951.
Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) is a decommissioned research reactor and U.S. National Historic Landmark located in the desert about 29 km southeast of Arco, Idaho. Itwas the world's first breeder reactor.
At 1:50 p.m. on December 20, 1951, it became one of the world's first electricity-generating nuclear power plants when it produced sufficient electricity to illuminate four 200-watt light bulbs.
EBR-I subsequently generated sufficient electricity to power its building, and continued to be used for experimental purposes until it was decommissioned in 1964. The museum is open for visitors from late May until early September.
As part of the National Reactor Testing Station (since 2005 Idaho National Laboratory), EBR-I's construction started in late 1949.
The reactor was designed and constructed by a team led by Walter Zinn at the Argonne National Laboratory Idaho site, known as Argonne-West. In its early stages, the reactor plant was referred to as Chicago Pile 4 (CP-4) and Zinn's Infernal Pile.
Installation of the reactor at EBR-I took place in early 1951 (the first reactor in Idaho) and it began power operation on August 24, 1951.
On December 20 of that year, atomic energy was successfully harvested at EBR-1 for the first time. The following day, the reactor produced enough power to light the whole building. The power plant produced 200 kW of electricity out of 1.4 MW of heat generated by the reactor.
The design purpose of EBR-I was not to produce electricity but instead to validate nuclear physics theory that suggested that a breeder reactor should be possible.
In 1953, experiments revealed the reactor was producing additional fuel during fission, thus confirming the hypothesis.
On November 29, 1955, the reactor at EBR-I suffered a partial meltdown during a coolant flow test. The flow test was trying to determine the cause of unexpected reactor responses to changes in coolant flow. It was subsequently repaired for further experiments, which determined that thermal expansion of the fuel rods and the thick plates supporting the fuel rods was the cause of the unexpected reactor response.
Although EBR-I produced the first electricity available in-house, a nearby experimental boiling water reactor plant called BORAX-III (also designed, built, and operated by Argonne National Laboratory) was connected to external loads, powering the nearby city of Arco, Idaho in 1955, the first time a city had been powered solely by nuclear power.
Besides generating the world's first electricity from atomic energy, EBR-I was also the world's first breeder reactor and the first to use plutonium fuel to generate electricity. The world's first electricity from atomic energy was generated 3 years earlier in September 1948 at the X-10 Graphite Reactor at the Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee.
EBR-I's initial purpose was to prove Enrico Fermi's fuel breeding principle, a principle that showed a nuclear reactor producing more fuel atoms than consumed. Along with generating electricity, EBR-I would also prove this principle.
EBR-I used uranium metal fuel and NaK primary coolant. It was in this identical to the initial configuration of the later Dounreay Fast Reactor which first went critical in 1959.
EBR-I was deactivated by Argonne in 1964 and replaced with a new reactor, Experimental Breeder Reactor II.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965 with its dedication ceremony held on August 25, 1966, led by President Lyndon Johnson and Glenn T. Seaborg. It was also declared an IEEE Milestone in 2004.
I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.
Today, The Grandma has returned to Begues to spend a wonderful day with Sara.
They have been talking about communications and technology, and they have remembered Josep Manteca, a local neighbour of Begues and astronomer, who discovered 68325 Asteroid,named Begues in honour to his hometown.
An asteroid is a minor planet of theinner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere.
Of the roughly one million known asteroids the greatest number are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, approximately 2 to 4 AU from the Sun, in the main asteroid belt.
Asteroids are generally classified to be of three types: C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbonaceous, metallic, and silicaceous compositions, respectively. The size of asteroids varies greatly; the largest, Ceres, is almost 1,000 km across and qualifies as a dwarf planet.
The total mass of all the asteroids combined is only 3% that of Earth's Moon. The majority of main belt asteroids follow slightly elliptical, stable orbits, revolving in the same direction as the Earth and taking from three to six years to complete a full circuit of the Sun.
Asteroids have been historically observed from Earth; the Galileo spacecraft provided the first close observation of an asteroid. Several dedicated missions to asteroids were subsequently launched by NASA and JAXA, with plans for other missions in progress. NASA's NEAR Shoemaker studied Eros, and Dawn observed Vesta and Ceres.
JAXA's missions Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 studied and returned samples of Itokawa and Ryugu, respectively. OSIRIS-REx studied Bennu, collecting a sample in 2020 to be delivered back to Earth in 2023.
NASA's Lucy, launched in 2021, will study eight different asteroids, one from the main belt and seven Jupiter trojans. Psyche, scheduled for launch in 2023, will study a metallic asteroid of the same name.
Near-Earth asteroids can threaten all life on the planet; an asteroid impact event resulted in the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction. Different asteroid deflection strategies have been proposed; the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, was launched in 2021 and intentionally impacted Dimorphos in September 2022, successfully altering its orbit by crashing into it.
Only one asteroid, 4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye. When favorably positioned, 4 Vesta can be seen in dark skies. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the naked eye for a short time.
As of April 2022, the Minor Planet Center had data on 1,199,224 minor planets in the inner and outer Solar System, of which about 614,690 had enough information to be given numbered designations.
In 1772, German astronomer Johann Elert Bode, citing Johann Daniel Titius, published a numerical procession known as the Titius–Bode law, now discredited. Except for an unexplained gap between Mars and Jupiter, Bode's formula seemed to predict the orbits of the known planets.
By 1851, the Royal Astronomical Society decided that asteroids were being discovered at such a rapid rate that a different system was needed to categorize or name asteroids. In 1852, when de Gasparis discovered the twentieth asteroid,Benjamin Valz gave it a name and a number designating its rank among asteroid discoveries, 20 Massalia. Sometimes asteroids were discovered and not seen again. So, starting in 1892, new asteroids were listed by the year and a capital letter indicating the order in which the asteroid's orbit was calculated and registered within that specific year. For example, the first two asteroids discovered in 1892 were labeled 1892A and 1892B. However, there were not enough letters in the alphabet for all of the asteroids discovered in 1893, so 1893Z was followed by 1893AA.
A number of variations of these methods were tried, including designations that included year plus a Greek letter in 1914. A simple chronological numbering system was established in 1925.
Currently all newly discovered asteroids receive a provisional designation (such as 2002 AT4) consisting of the year of discovery and an alphanumeric code indicating the half-month of discovery and the sequence within that half-month. Once an asteroid's orbit has been confirmed, it is given a number, and later may also be given a name (e.g. 433 Eros). The formal naming convention uses parentheses around the number -e.g. (433) Eros- but dropping the parentheses is quite common. Informally, it is also common to drop the number altogether, or to drop it after the first mention when a name is repeated in running text. In addition, names can be proposed by the asteroid's discoverer, within guidelines established by the International Astronomical Union.
The first asteroids to be discovered were assigned iconic symbols like the ones traditionally used to designate the planets. By 1855 there were two dozen asteroid symbols, which often occurred in multiple variants.
The first discovered asteroid, Ceres, was originally considered a new planet. It was followed by the discovery of other similar bodies, which with the equipment of the time appeared to be points of light like stars, showing little or no planetary disc, though readily distinguishable from stars due to their apparent motions. This prompted the astronomer Sir William Herschel to propose the term asteroid,coined in Greek as ἀστεροειδής, or asteroeidēs, meaning star-like, star-shaped,and derived from the Ancient Greek ἀστήρ astērstar, planet. In the early second half of the 19th century, the terms asteroid and planet (not always qualified as minor) were still used interchangeably.
If you were to stand on an asteroid in the main belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter in our solar system, you might be able to see one or two asteroids in the sky, but they would be very far away and very, very small. So you wouldn't have this 'dodging through tons of rocks' business you get in the movies.
Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of one of her closest friends, Joseph de Ca'th Lon.
Joseph loves Science and Astronomy, and they have been talking about SCORE, the world's first purpose-built communications satellite, that was launched on a day like today in 1958.
SCORE (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment) was the world's first purpose-built communications satellite. Launchedaboard an American Atlas rocket on December 18, 1958, SCORE provided the second test of a communications relay system in space (the first having been provided by the USAF/NASA's Pioneer 1), the first broadcast of a human voice from space, and the first successful use of the Atlas as a launch vehicle. It captured world attention by broadcasting a Christmas message via shortwave radio from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower through an on-board tape recorder.
The satellite was popularly dubbed The Talking Atlas. SCORE, as a geopolitical strategy, placed the United States at an even technological par with the Soviet Union as a highly functional response to the Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 satellites.
The six-month effort was the first endeavor of the then-new AdvancedResearch Projects Agency (ARPA) headed by Roy Johnson, and proved that a small, highly focused and versatile research group with appropriate resources was an ideal method to achieve the scientific and technological advances necessary to succeed in the emerging global space race.
SCORE's technical objectives were two-fold. In addition to showing that an Atlas missile was capable of satellite payload launch, the payload itself was a hundred times more massive than any previous US satellite. The program demonstrated the feasibility of transmitting messages through the upper atmosphere from one ground station to one or more ground stations. The result of the program, which used both real-time and store and forward techniques, was a major scientific breakthrough which proved that active communications satellites could provide a means of transmitting messages from one point to any other on Earth.
The SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting RElay) satellite of US ARMY was a 24.3 metres long, and 3.1 metres diameter Atlas missile used as a platform for the communications relay experiment. The spacecraft body served as antennae. This satellite was to demonstrate the feasibility and explore problems associated with, operation of a satellite communication system. It carried messages on a tape recorder which was used at one point to carry a Christmas greeting from President Eisenhower. The performance was nominal with experiment operation for 12 days, planned orbit lifetime 20 days, actual orbit lifetime 34 days. The tracking beacon operated at 108 MHz.
The SCORE communications package was designed and built by Kenneth Masterman-Smith, a military communication research engineer, along with other personnel with the U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory (SRDL) at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
This first communications satellite experiment consisted of 2 identical communications repeater terminals mounted in the guidance pods along the sides of the launch vehicle. The experiment was to test the feasibility and explore problems associated with, using satellites for communications purposes. No modulation was received on the carrier wave from experiment package no. 1. Voice and teletype messages were sent and returned in real-time, and also from experiment tape recorder no. 2. The tape recorder was loaded with new material 28 times and failure finally was due to battery depletion. The experiment receiver and transmitter operated on 150 and 132 MHz, respectively.
The communications repeater installed on the missile would receive a signal, amplify it, and then retransmit it. Two redundant sets of equipment were mounted in the nose of the SCORE missile. Four antennas were mounted flush with the missile surface, two for transmission and two for reception.
SCORE's other equipment included two tape recorders, each with a four-minute capacity. Any of four ground stations in the southern United States could command the satellite into playback mode to transmit the stored message or into record mode to receive and store a new message. These redundancies proved invaluable as one of the tape recorders malfunctioned and was rendered inoperable during the 12-day mission.
Scientists use satellites to track weather, map ice sheet melting, detect diseases, show ecosystem change... the list goes on and on. I think nearly every scientific field benefits or could benefit from satellite imagery analysis.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about Saturnalia, the ancient Roman festival and holiday in honour of the god Saturn, that is celebrated on a day like today since 497 BC.
Saturnalia is an ancient Roman festival and holiday in honour of the god Saturn, held on 17 December of the Julian calendar and later expanded with festivities through to 23 December.
The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a carnival atmosphere that overturned Roman social norms: gambling was permitted, and masters provided table service for their slaves as it was seen as a time of liberty for both slaves and freedmen alike.
A common custom was the election of a King of the Saturnalia, who gave orders to people, which were followed and presided over the merrymaking. The gifts exchanged were usually gag gifts or small figurines made of wax or pottery known as sigillaria. The poet Catullus called it the best of days.
Saturnalia was the Roman equivalent to the earlier Greek holiday of Kronia, which was celebrated during the Attic month of Hekatombaion in late midsummer. It held theological importance for some Romans, who saw it as a restoration of the ancient Golden Age, when the world was ruled by Saturn.
The Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry interpreted the freedom associated with Saturnalia as symbolizing the freeing of souls into immortality. Saturnalia may have influenced some of the customs associated with later celebrations in western Europe occurring in midwinter, particularly traditions associated with Christmas, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and Epiphany.
In particular, the historical western European Christmas custom of electing a Lord of Misrule may have its roots in Saturnalia celebrations.
In Roman mythology, Saturn was an agricultural deity who was said to have reigned over the world in the Golden Age, when humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labour in a state of innocence. The revelries of Saturnalia were supposed to reflect the conditions of the lost mythical age.
The Greek equivalent was the Kronia, which was celebrated on the twelfth day of the month of Hekatombaion, which occurred from around mid-July to mid-August on the Attic calendar.
The Greek writer Athenaeus also cites numerous other examples of similar festivals celebrated throughout the Greco-Roman world, including the Cretan festival of Hermaia in honor of Hermes, an unnamed festival from Troezen in honor of Poseidon, the Thessalian festival of Peloria in honor of Zeus Pelorios, and an unnamed festival from Babylon. He also mentions that the custom of masters dining with their slaves was associated with the Athenian festival of Anthesteria and the Spartan festival of Hyacinthia. The Argive festival of Hybristica, though not directly related to the Saturnalia, involved a similar reversal of roles in which women would dress as men and men would dress as women.
Saturnalia underwent a major reform in 217 BC, after the Battle of Lake Trasimene, when the Romans suffered one of their most crushing defeats by Carthage during the Second Punic War. Until that time, they had celebrated the holiday according to Roman custom (more Romano). It was after a consultation of the Sibylline Books that they adopted Greek rite, introducing sacrifices carried out in the Greek manner, the public banquet, and the continual shouts of io Saturnalia that became characteristic of the celebration.
Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) remembered a time before the so-called Greek elements had been added to the Roman Saturnalia.
Saturn also had a less benevolent aspect. One of his consorts was Lua, sometimes called Lua Saturni (Saturn's Lua) and identified with Lua Mater, Mother Destruction, a goddess in whose honor the weapons of enemies killed in war were burned, perhaps in expiation.
Saturn's chthonic nature connected him to the underworld and its ruler Dīs Pater, the Roman equivalent of Greek Plouton (Pluto in Latin) who was also a god of hidden wealth.
In sources of the third century AD and later, Saturn is recorded as receiving dead gladiators as offerings (munera) during or near the Saturnalia. These gladiatorial events, ten days in all throughout December, were presented mainly by the quaestors and sponsored with funds from the treasury of Saturn.
It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about Arthur C. Clarke, English science-fiction writer, who was born on a day like today in 1917.
Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 1917-19 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, underseaexplorer, and television series host.
He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely regarded as one of the most influential films of all time.
Clarke was a science fiction writer, an avid populariser of space travel, and a futurist of a distinguished ability. He wrote many books and many essays for popular magazines. In 1961, he received the Kalinga Prize, a UNESCO award for popularising science.
Clarke's science and science-fiction writings earned him the moniker Prophet of the Space Age. His science-fiction writings in particular earned him a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, which along with a large readership, made him one of the towering figures of the genre. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov were known as the Big Three of science fiction.
Clarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel. In 1934, while still a teenager, he joined the BIS, British Interplanetary Society.
In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system using geostationary orbits. He was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946 to 1947 and again in 1951–1953.
Clarke immigrated to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1956, to pursue his interest in scuba diving. That year, he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient original Koneswaram Temple in Trincomalee. Clarke augmented his popularity in the 1980s, as the host of television shows such as Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. He lived in Sri Lanka until his death.
Clarke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka. He was knighted in 1998 and was awarded Sri Lanka's highest civil honour, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005.
Clarke was born in Minehead, Somerset, England, and grew up in nearby Bishops Lydeard. As a boy, he lived on a farm, where he enjoyed stargazing, fossil collecting, and reading American science-fiction pulp magazines. He received his secondary education at Huish school in Taunton. Some of his early influences included dinosaur cigarette cards, which led to an enthusiasm for fossils starting about 1925.
Clarke attributed his interest in science fiction to reading three items: the November 1928 issue of Amazing Stories in 1929; Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon in 1930; and The Conquest of Space by David Lasser in 1931.
During the Second World War from 1941 to 1946, he served in the Royal Air Force as a radar specialist and was involved in the early-warning radar defence system, which contributed to the RAF's success during the Battle of Britain.
After the war, he attained a first-class degree in mathematics and physics from King's College London. After this, he worked as assistant editor at Physics Abstracts. Clarke then served as president of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946 to 1947 and again from 1951 to 1953.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Clarke presented his television programmes Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers,and Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe.
His books on space travel usually included chapters about other aspects of science and technology, such as computers and bioengineering. He predicted telecommunication satellites (albeit serviced by astronauts in space suits, who would replace the satellite's vacuum tubes as they burned out).
His many predictions culminated in 1958 when he began a series of magazine essays which eventually became Profiles of the Future, published in book form in 1962. A timetable up to the year 2100 describes inventions and ideas including such things as a global library for 2005. The same work also contained Clarke's First Law and text that became Clarke's three laws in later editions.
In a 1959 essay, Clarke predicted global satellite TV broadcasts that would cross national boundaries indiscriminately and would bring hundreds of channels available anywhere in the world. He also envisioned a personal transceiver, so small and compact that every man carries one.
Clarke described a global computer network similar to the modern World Wide Web in a 1964 presentation for the BBC's Horizon programme, predicting that, by the 21st century, access to information and even physical tasks such as surgery could be accomplished remotely and instantaneously from anywhere in the world using internet and satellite communication.
Today, The Grandma has started a new formation with Sara in Begues, a beautiful town in Baix Llobregat.
Begues is a municipality in the comarca of Baix Llobregat in Catalonia.
It is situated in the south-west of the comarca, and its municipal territory covers most of the Garraf massif including the peaks of el Montau and La Morella.
Sara and The Grandma have been talking about computing, communications and nature, and they have been discussing about the convenience of progressing without destroying nature and educating in nature and human values.
Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub is a biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
The biome is generally characterized by dry summers and rainy winters, although in some areas rainfall may be uniform. Summers are typically hot in low-lying inland locations but can be cool near colder seas. Winters are typically mild to cool in low-lying locations but can be cold in inland and higher locations. All these ecoregions are highly distinctive, collectively harboring 10% of the Earth's plant species.
The Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome mostly occurs in, but not limited to, the Mediterranean climate zones, in the mid-latitudes:
-The Mediterranean Basin
-The Chilean Matorral
-The California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of California and the Baja California Peninsula
The biome is not limited to the Mediterranean climate zone. It can also be present in other climate zones (which typically border the Mediterraneanclimate zone), such as the drier regions of the oceanic and humid subtropical climates, and as well as the lusher areas of the semi-arid climate zone. Non-Mediterranean climate regions that would feature Mediterranean vegetation include the Nile River Valley in Egypt (extending upstream along the riverbanks), parts of the Eastern Cape in South Africa, southeastern Australia, southeastern Azerbaijan, southeastern Turkey, far northern Iraq, the Mazandaran Province in Iran, Central Italy, parts of the Balkans (including Northern Greece), as well as Northern and Western Jordan.
Vegetation types range from forests to woodlands, savannas, shrublands, and grasslands; mosaic habitat landscapes are common, where differing vegetation types are interleaved with one another in complex patterns created by variations in soil, topography, exposure to wind and sun, and fire history. Much of the woody vegetation in Mediterranean-climate regions is sclerophyll, which means 'hard-leaved' in Greek. Sclerophyllous vegetation generally has small, dark leaves covered with a waxy outer layer to retain moisture in the dry summer months.
Phytogeographers consider the fynbos (South Africa) as a separate floral kingdom because 68% of the 8,600 vascular plant species crowded into its 90,000 square kilometers are endemic and highly distinctive at several taxonomic levels. This is equivalent to about 40% of the plant species of the United States and Canada combined, found within an area the size of the state of Maine. The fynbos and Southwest Australia shrublands have flora that are significantly more diverse than the other ecoregions, although any Mediterranean shrubland is still rich in species and endemics relative to other non-forest ecoregions.
-Forest. Mediterranean forests are generally composed of broadleaf trees, such as the oak and mixed sclerophyll forests of California and the Mediterranean region, the Eucalyptus forests of Southwest Australia, and the Nothofagus forests of central Chile. Forests are often found in riparian areas, where they receive more summer water. Coniferous forests also occur, especially around the Mediterranean. Pine and deciduous oak forest are widespread across California.
-Woodland. Oak woodlands are characteristic of the Mediterranean Basin and in California. Pine woodlands are also present in the Mediterranean Basin. California additionally has walnut woodlands.
-Savanna and grassland. The California Central Valley grasslands are the largest Mediterranean grassland eco-region, although these grasslands have mostly been converted to agriculture. The remaining woodlands feature mainly oak, walnut and pine. The cork oak savanna in Portugal, known as montado, is a good example of a mediterranean savanna.
-Shrubland. Shrublands are dense thickets of evergreen sclerophyll shrubs and small trees. They are most common near the seacoast, and are often adapted to wind and salt air from the ocean. They are called chaparral (California and southern Portugal), matorral in Chile and southern Spain, garrigue or maquis in France, macchia or gariga in Italy, phrygana in Greece, tomillares in Spain, fynbos, renosterveld, Succulent Karoo, and strandveld in South Africa, kwongan in Southwest Australia and batha in Israel. Northern coastal scrub and coastal sage scrub, also known as soft chaparral, occur near the California coast. In some places shrublands are of the mature vegetation type, and in other places are the result of degradation of former forest or woodland by logging or overgrazing, or disturbance by major fires.
Fire, both natural and human-caused, has played a large role in shaping the ecology of Mediterranean ecoregions. The hot, dry summers make much of the region prone to fires, and lightning-caused fires occur with some frequency. Many of the plants are pyrophytes, or fire-loving, adapted or even depending on fire for reproduction, recycling of nutrients, and the removal of dead or senescent vegetation. In both the Australian and Californian Mediterranean-climate eco-regions, native peoples used fire extensively to clear brush and trees, making way for the grasses and herbaceous vegetation that supported game animals and useful plants.
The plant communities in these areas adapted to the frequent human-caused fires, and pyrophyte species grew more common and more fire-loving, while plants that were poorly adapted to fire retreated. After European colonization of these regions, fires were suppressed, which has caused some unintended consequences in these ecoregions; fuel builds up, so that when fires do come they are much more devastating, and some species dependent on fire for their reproduction are now threatened. The European shrublands have also been shaped by anthropogenic fire, historically associated with transhumance herding of sheep and goats.
Though adapted to infrequent fires, chaparral plant communities can be eliminated by frequent fires. A high frequency of fire (less than ten years) will result in the loss of obligate seeding shrub species such as Manzanita spp. This high frequency disallows seeder plants to reach their reproductive size before the next fire and the community shifts to a sprouter-dominance. If high frequency fires continue over time, obligate resprouting shrub species can also be eliminated by exhausting their energy reserves below-ground. Today, frequent accidental ignitions can convert chaparral from a native shrubland to non-native annual grassland and drastically reduce species diversity, especially under drought brought about by climate change.
Mediterranean ecoregions are some of the most endangered and vulnerable on the planet. Many have suffered tremendous degradation and habitat loss through logging, overgrazing, conversion to agriculture, urbanization, fire suppression, and introduction of exotic and invasive species.
The ecoregions around the Mediterranean basin and in California have been particularly affected by degradation due to human activity, sufferingextensive loss of forests and soil erosion, and many native plants and animals have become extinct or endangered.
Of course I prefer to have nature around me, but it doesn't have to be with the exact original vegetation for nostalgic reasons. Nature is moving and making new things.
Today, The Grandma has finished her English course in Castelldefels with The Bishops.It has been a wonderful time with her nice partners. They have been playing some game to practice oral English, and they have been talking about leaders and leadership.
Good luck, Bishops!
R2-D2 is a fictional robot character in the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas.
He has appeared in ten of the eleven theatrical Star Wars films to date. At various points throughout the course of the films, R2, an astromech droid, is a friend to C-3PO, Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. R2-D2 and his companion C-3PO are the only characters to appear in every theatrical StarWars film, with the exception of Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).
English actor Kenny Baker played R2-D2 in all three original Star Wars films and received billing credit for the character in the prequel trilogy, where Baker's role was reduced as R2-D2 was portrayed mainly by radio controlled props and CGI models. In the sequel trilogy, Baker was credited as consultant for The Force Awakens; however, Jimmy Vee also co-performed the character in some scenes. Vee later took over the role beginning in The Last Jedi. In The Rise of Skywalker, puppeteers Hassan Taj and Lee Towersey perform the role of R2-D2,replacing Jimmy Vee, who had played the role in the previous two films. His sounds and vocal effects were created by sound designer Ben Burtt.
R2-D2 was designed in artwork by Ralph McQuarrie, co-developed by John Stears and built by Peteric Engineering. The revised Empire Strikes Back droids had fibreglass shells built by Tony Dyson and his White Horse Toy Company.
George Lucas's creation of R2-D2 was influenced by the peasant Matashichi from Akira Kurosawa's 1958 feature film The Hidden Fortress (released in the United States in 1962), although his personality is completely the opposite. Lucas and artist Ralph McQuarrie also drew inspiration from the robots Huey, Dewey, and Louie from Douglas Trumbull's 1972 film Silent Running.
Around the same time that A New Hope was being shot, Ray Harryhausen had already created "Bubo" for the 1981 film Clash of the Titans. In the film, Bubo is a mechanical metal owl that flies heavily and communicates through whistles and tweets. Harryhausen denied a relation.
The name derives from when Lucas was making one of his earlier films, American Graffiti. Sound editor Walter Murch states that he is responsible for the utterance which sparked the name for the droid. Murch asked for Reel 2, Dialog Track 2, in the abbreviated form R-2-D-2. Lucas, who was in the room and had dozed off while working on the script for Star Wars, momentarily woke when he heard the request and, after asking for clarification, stated that it was a great name before going back to writing his script.
R2-D2 stands for Second Generation Robotic Droid Series-2, according to a Star Wars encyclopedia published after the release of the film Star Wars. Tony Dyson, owner of the special effects studio The White Horse Toy Company, was commissioned by special effects supervisor Brian Johnson to fabricate the revised mechanical design for The Empire Strikes Back, making several units operated by remote control. A number were used by Baker, and two were stunt double models made for the scene where the droid was shot from the swamp onto the shore on Dagobah.
Several R2-D2 models were built for the original Star Wars films; one that was remote controlled and rolled on three wheeled legs, and others which were worn by English actor Kenny Baker and walked on two legs. Deep Roy (who also doubled Yoda in several scenes), served as Baker's double, in both Episodes V and VI; providing stunts and filling in when Baker was unavailable. The original props for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope were designed by John Stears and built by Stears' team and Peteric Engineering. The revised fibreglass droids used in The Empire Strikes Back were built by Tony Dyson and the White Horse Toy Company. The radio controlled R2 was operated by John Stears in A New Hope, Brian Johnson in The Empire Strikes Back and by Kit West in Return of the Jedi.
R2-D2 was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2003 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A replica can be seen at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.
The Smithsonian Institution included R2-D2 in its list of 101 Objects that Made America.
In 2022, R2-D2 was surveyed as being the most popular movie robot in the United States.
The telescope dome of Zweibrücken Observatory in Germany was repainted to resemble R2-D2 in 2018.
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