The Caloric Balance Equation

When it comes to maintaining a healthy weight for a lifetime, the bottom line is – calories count! Weight management is all about balance—balancing the number of calories you consume with the number of calories your body uses or "burns off."

A calorie is defined as a unit of energy supplied by food. A calorie is a calorie regardless of its source. Whether you're eating carbohydrates, fats, sugars, or proteins, all of them contain calories. Caloric balance is like a scale. To remain in balance and maintain your body weight, the calories consumed (from foods) must be balanced by the calories used (in normal body functions, daily activities, and exercise).

The Goldfish

The common goldfish is remarkably hardy, and it is the most commonly kept pet animal in the world. It ahs been kept as an ornamental fish for centuries, and graced the garden pools & aquariums of kings and emperors for a thousand years.

The goldfish is renowned for its spectacular red-gold colour, can grow to about 20cm in length, and live upto 10 years or more.

The body is protected by rows of overlapping scales that never increase in number, but increase in size as the fish grows. The circuli, or rings of growth, are well-spaced in summer when growth is rapid, but are laid down close together in winter and at other times of poor growth. The tightly-bunched circuli of winter tend to show up as distinct bands, or annuli, and it is these that indicate the years of a fish's life to a trained scale reader.

Papaya

The papaya is sometimes called papaw or pawpaw, but in the United States these names are generally restricted to Asimina triloba (L.) Dunal (see "Papaw"). Papayas are grown to a limited extent in continental United States. They have been tried in Texas and in California, have never exceeded a few hundred acres even in Florida (Harkness 1967), but are more common in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The 1964 United States Census of Agriculture showed that 32 farms in Florida produced almost 1.5 million pounds of fruit, while 266 farms in Hawaii produced almost 22 million pounds.

Papayas grow from about 32 deg N. to 32 deg S. latitude, from sea level to 5,000 feet altitude. They are killed by frost but do well in full sun or under irrigation. They do not occur in the wild, probably originated in Mexico or Costa Rica, and now consist of many cultivars (Purseglove 1968*).

The ripe fresh fruit (90 percent water, 4 to 10 percent sugar) (Wolfe and Lynch 1940) is eaten throughout the tropics for breakfast, dessert, in salads, jams, ice creams, and soft drinks. The dried latex or "milk" of immature fruit yields papain, a proteolytic enzyme similar in action to pepsin, which is used as a meat tenderizer (Becker 1958). It also creates shrink-resistance in wool.

What causes tornadoes?

Thunderstorms develop in warm, moist air in advance of eastward-moving cold fronts. These thunderstorms often produce large hail, strong winds, and tornadoes. Tornadoes in the winter and early spring are often associated with strong, frontal systems that form in the Central States and move east. Occasionally, large outbreaks of tornadoes occur with this type of weather pattern. Several states may be affected by numerous severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.

During the spring in the Central Plains, thunderstorms frequently develop along a "dryline," which separates very warm, moist air to the east from hot, dry air to the west. Tornado-producing thunderstorms may form as the dryline moves east during the afternoon hours.

Along the front range of the Rocky Mountains, in the Texas panhandle, and in the southern High Plains, thunderstorms frequently form as air near the ground flows "upslope" toward higher terrain. If other favorable conditions exist, these thunderstorms can produce tornadoes.

Tornadoes occasionally accompany tropical storms and hurricanes that move over land. Tornadoes are most common to the right and ahead of the path of the storm center as it comes onshore.

Satellite Power System (SPS)

Concept for providing large amounts of electricity for use on the Earth from one or more satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit. A very large array of solar cells on each satellite would provide electricity, which would be converted to microwave energy and beamed to a receiving antenna on the ground. There, it would be reconverted into electricity and distributed the same as any other centrally generated power, through a grid.