The sky
Is a suspended blue ocean.
The stars are the fish
That swim.


The planets are the white whales
I sometimes hitch a ride on,


And the sun and all light
Have forever fused themselves


Into my heart and upon
My skin.

My photograpgy

Water one of the beautiful nature element on earth

WATER

Water is a chemical substance that is composed of hydrogen and oxygen and is vital for all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or state, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam. Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface. On Earth, it is found mostly in oceans and other large water bodies, with 1.6% of water below ground in aquifers and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of solid and liquid water particles suspended in air), and precipitation. Oceans hold 97% of surface water, glaciers and polar ice caps 2.4%, and other land surface water such as rivers, lakes and ponds 0.6%. Additionally, a minute amount of the Earth's water is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products.

 OCEAN

An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas. More than half of this area is over 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) deep. Average oceanic salinity is around 35 parts per thousand (ppt) (3.5%), and nearly all seawater has a salinity in the range of 30 to 38 ppt. Though generally recognized as several 'separate' oceans, these waters comprise one global, interconnected body of salt water often referred to as the World Ocean or global ocean. This concept of a global ocean as a continuous body of water with relatively free interchange among its parts is of fundamental importance to oceanography.

The major oceanic divisions are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos, and other criteria: these divisions are (in descending order of size) the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean. Smaller regions of the oceans are called seas, gulfs, bays and other names. There are also salt lakes, which are smaller bodies of landlocked saltwater that are not interconnected with the World Ocean. Two notable examples of salt lakes are the Aral Sea and the Great Salt Lake.

World's famous oceans:

• Arctic Ocean
• Atlantic Ocean
• Indian Ocean
• Pacific Ocean
• Southern Ocean

LAKE

 

 A lake (from Latin lacus) is a terrain feature (or physical feature), a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin (another type of landform or terrain feature; that is, it is not global) and moves slowly if it moves at all. On Earth, a body of water is considered a lake when it is inland, not part of the ocean, is larger and deeper than a pond, and is fed by a river. The only world other than Earth known to harbor lakes is Titan, Saturn's largest moon, which has lakes of ethane, most likely mixed with methane. It is not known if Titan's lakes are fed by rivers, though Titan's surface is carved by numerous river beds. Natural lakes on Earth are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing or recent glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers. In some parts of the world, there are many lakes because of chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last Ice Age. All lakes are temporary over geologic time scales, as they will slowly fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them.

POND

 

 A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens designed for aesthetic ornamentation, fish ponds designed for commercial fish breeding, and solar ponds designed to store thermal energy. Ponds and lakes are distinguished from streams via current speed. While currents in streams are easily observed, ponds and lakes possess thermally driven microcurrents and moderate wind driven currents. These features distinguish a pond from many other aquatic terrain features, such as stream pools and tide pools.

RIVER

 

 A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, a sea or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including stream, creek, brook, rivulet, and rill; there is no general rule that defines what can be called a river. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location; one example is Burn in Scotland and North-east England. Sometimes a river is said to be larger than a creek, but this is not always the case, due to vagueness in the language A river is part of the hydrological cycle. Water within a river is generally collected from precipitation through surface runoff, groundwater recharge, springs, and the release of stored water in natural ice and snowpacks (i.e., from glaciers).

 STREAM

A stream is a flowing body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. In the United States a stream is classified as a watercourse less than 60 feet (18 metres) wide. Streams are important as conduits in the water cycle, instruments in groundwater recharge, and they serve as corridors for fish and wildlife migration. The biological habitat in the immediate vicinity of a stream is called a riparian zone. Given the status of the ongoing Holocene extinction, streams play an important corridor role in connecting fragmented habitats and thus in conserving biodiversity. The study of streams and waterways in general involves many branches of inter-disciplinary natural science and engineering, including hydrology, fluvial geomorphology, aquatic ecology, fish biology, riparian ecology and others.

More Pictures On Nature

Society & Nature

Society & Nature
Our present society is almost totally defined by artificial things. Everywhere you look, there are man-made machines and gadgets that are being used. Even kids these days are so into artificial things, and do not have as much awareness of nature as the previous generations did. edicines are becoming more popular.

In the home-building industry, more and more designers are choosing natural materials as well. One of the most popular choices these days are the natural granite tile countertops. These countertops are fashioned from great hard blocks of granite that have been dug from beneath the earth.

Because of the numerous advances in technology, granite tile countertops are much easier to avail of these days than in the previous years. This is good, because there is quite a large demand for granite tile countertops recently, as people are getting to appreciate the beauty of nature But in recent years, many people are turning back to natural alternatives in many areas. Natural foods are mmore.

In a world that has been bombarded by electronics and artificial objects for so long, things such as granite tile countertops make us realize the splendor of nature that we have been taking for granted.

The process of changing these natural beauties into functional parts of our homes is a marvel in itself. The next time you look at your granite tile countertops, just imagine that thousands of years ago, these rocks were buried under the mountains of what we now call China, or South America, or Europe, being created and designed by mysterious powers before there were even people on earth.

Because granite tile countertops come from real rocks, no tile is exactly the same as another. This inherent exclusivity is just one of the things that make them so attractive to many homeowners. Knowing that the patterns and mixture of colors in your particular granite tile countertops are one in a million makes them more beautiful and more personally significant to you.

The beauty of granite tile countertops, though, is not only in their appearance. There is even a deeper and more essential beauty in what they represent. They serve as a reminder to humanity that we must give more appreciation to nature, and reflect on its magnificence more often Some people who have the luxury of time communicate with nature by going on vacations in the woods or on faraway islands. For those of us who cannot do that, we can now commune with nature simply by gazing at our granite tile countertops, and reflecting on their natural elegance.

Human cell becomes living laser

Scientists have for the first time created laser light using living biological material: a single human cell and some jellyfish protein.

"Lasers started from physics and are viewed as engineering devices," says Seok-Hyun Yun, an optical physicist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who created the 'living laser' with his colleague Malte Gather. "This is the first time that we have used biological materials to build a laser and generate light from something that is living." The finding is reported today in Nature Photonics 

Building a laser requires two things: a lasing material that amplifies light from an external source (a 'gain medium') and an arrangement of mirrors (an 'optical cavity'), which concentrates and aligns the light waves into a tight beam. Until now, the gain medium has only been made from non-biological substances such as doped crystals, semiconductors or gases, but in this case the researchers used enhanced green fluorescent protein (GFP) — the substance that makes jellyfish bioluminescent, which is used extensively in cell biology to label cells.

The team engineered human embryonic kidney cells to produce GFP, then placed a single cell between two mirrors to make an optical cavity just 20 micrometres across. When they fed the cell pulses of blue light, it emitted a directional laser beam visible with the naked eye — and the cell wasn't harmed.

The width of the laser beam is "tiny" and "fairly weak" in its brightness compared to traditional lasers, says Yun, but "an order of magnitude" brighter than natural jellyfish fluorescence, with a "beautiful green" colour.

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Bear researcher frozen out

It was one of the most dramatic sightings ever made in an aerial survey of the Arctic: a dead polar bear, bloated like a gigantic beach ball, floating in open water north of the Beaufort Sea coastline in Alaska.

Researchers say that they spotted four dead polar bears during the survey, and surmised that the bears drowned in stormy waters as they searched for ever-receding sea ice. The idea that polar bears could drown like this became a rallying point for advocates of action on climate change, most notably appearing in former US vice-president Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth (2006).

Now, five years after the observations were reported, the bears have become the focus of charges ranging from scientific fraud to political interference in science. Last week, it emerged that the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) had suspended a researcher involved in the survey, wildlife biologist Charles Monnett. The reason, according to an 18 July memo from Monnett's supervisor, Jeffrey Loman, was an investigation into "integrity issues" by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the US Department of the Interior, which oversees the BOEMRE. Climate-change sceptics were quick to jump on the news as evidence that the science of global warming had been distorted. The BOEMRE has also halted a different polar-bear survey overseen by Monnett, pending further investigation.

Monnett's suspension was brought to light on 28 July by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a watchdog group in Washington DC that is giving Monnett legal advice in the matter.

PEER released a transcript of an interview between criminal investigators at the OIG and Monnett, in which Monnett was told that he had been accused of scientific misconduct. He was then asked a series of questions relating to the paper in which he had reported the four drowned polar bears (C. Monnett and J. S. GleasonPolar Biol. 29, 681–687; 2006), but was not told the specific allegations.

Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, says that this does not conform with the Department of the Interior's scientific-integrity policy, which states that those accused of misconduct should be properly informed of the allegations against them, and that the allegations should be referred to a scientific-integrity official, not to criminal investigators. On 29 July, PEER filed a scientific and scholarly misconduct complaint against Monnett's superiors and the OIG, accusing them of violating the policy.

Ruch claims that the suspension is a politically motivated attack on Monnett's research at a time when the BOEMRE is considering whether to allow an expansion of oil drilling off Alaska's northern coast. The bureau denies this, and any accusation of playing into the oil industry's hands is highly sensitive, because the bureau (then known as the Minerals Management Service) was accused of poor oversight of the industry leading up to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Ruch adds that Monnett is declining interviews because he has not been granted permission to do them by the bureau.

After a day of negative publicity generated by PEER's announcement, the bureau hit back. Spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz says that, contrary to the impression given by the transcript, Monnett's suspension was unrelated to scientific-integrity issues, his polar-bear finding or oil-drilling permits. She declined to say what it was related to.

But a 13 July memo to Monnett, provided to Nature by PEER, says that the investigation had uncovered information that raised concerns about his ability to act "in an impartial and objective manner" while handling a US$1.1-million contract for a study of polar bears in the Canadian Arctic. A notice sent to Monnett by the OIG on 29 July further explained that although investigators may continue to query him on scientific integrity, they will now focus on how Monnett awarded the research contract. This includes questions over whether Monnett complied with the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which is intended to ensure fair competition for US government contracts. The OIG adds that the inquiry is not criminal in nature, as the Department of Justice has already considered the case and declined to prosecute. Ruch says that Monnett's handling of the contract was transparent to his supervisors, and that his technical role meant he was not responsible for compliance with the regulation.

The project, begun in 2005, involves putting radio collars on polar bears found on the Canadian side of the Beaufort Sea, and tracking their position by satellite over several seasons. The study is funded by various sources, including the BOEMRE and the Canadian government. But on 13 July, the BOEMRE told scientists on the project to stop their work. The project's principal investigator, Andrew Derocher, a biologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, says he had no idea why. "To begin with, I thought it was related to budgetary issues in the United States. I've never seen anything like this in my life," he says.

Derocher says that data should continue to come in from collars until 2013, but the 'stop work' order may mean that he is unable to document his findings in a final report to the agency. Among those findings is that 2–4-year old polar bears tend not to stray far from their home range — the first time this age group has been tracked. This would mean that in the event of a large oil spill, bears that died from oil exposure would not be replaced quickly by bears from surrounding areas, says Derocher.

Drowned polar bears have not been reported by other scientists, but the hypothesis that a long search for sea ice makes it more likely that bears will get caught in stormy weather and drown is regarded as plausible. In January, scientists led by George Durner at the US Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska, reported the fate of an adult female bear as she swam more than 600 kilo­metres before reaching ice (G. M. Durner et al. Polar Biol. 34, 975–984; 2011). When the researchers caught up with the animal, she had lost 22% of her body mass and her year-old cub.

This finding, corroborated by other studies, suggests that the major impact of receding sea ice on the bears is nutritional stress caused by a reduction of their hunting range, says Steven Amstrup, chief scientist at the campaigning organization Polar Bears International, headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, and a co-author of the study. But the observation that drowning can occur is important, he adds. "If this investigation is not about those observations then the BOEMRE owes it to him and to the public to say clearly what it is about."