Twelve mouse traps described and figured by Leonard Mascall in 16th Century England are illustrated and interpreted afresh. Special attention is given to one that is also depicted on the Merode altarpiece, an important 15th Century Dutch painting. Since Mascall's era many of his mouse traps have virtually disappeared. Others have been made more effective by various design changes, including the...

We have investigated microbial mats of alkaline siliceous hot springs in Yellowstone National Park as natural model communities to learn how microbial populations group into species-like fundamental units. Here, we bring together empirical patterns of the distribution of molecular variation in predominant mat cyanobacterial populations, theory-based modelling of how to demarcate phylogenetic cl...

Hydrogeochemistry of 32 hot springs in the western Sichuan Province after the Wenchuan MS 8.0 earthquake was investigated by analyzing the concentrations of cation and anion and the isotopic compositions of hydrogen and oxygen. The water samples of the hot springs were collected four times from June 2008 to April 2010. Hydrogeochemical data indicated the water samples can be classified into 9 c...

We report here two draft cyanobacterial genome sequences, those of Cyanobacterium aponinum IPPAS B-1201, isolated from a hot spring in the Turgen Gorge (Kazakhstan), and the uncharacterized cyanobacterium IPPAS B-1203, isolated from a hot spring in Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic). These two strains were deposited at the Collection of Microalgae (IPPAS) of the Timiryazev Institute of Plant Physiol...

Thermophilic bacteria resembling Thermus aquaticus were isolated from hot water taken from domestic and commercial hot-water tanks. Cold water from the same locations never yielded thermophilic bacteria, suggesting that the bacteria were growing in the tanks. In contrast to the T. aquaticus isolates from hot springs, the present isolates were rarely pigmented. In general, the hotter sources mor...

We investigate the influence of morphology and size on the vibrational properties of disordered clusters of colloidal particles with attractive interactions. Spectral features of the vibrational modes are found to depend strongly on the average number of nearest neighbors, NN, but only weakly on the number of particles in each glassy cluster. In particular, the median phonon frequency, ω(med), ...

We know of some 650 holy springs in Denmark. Their abundance seems to be the reason why a decade ago one of Denmark's leading authorities on late-medieval archaeology wrote that the popular worship of saints in that country appeared to be more closely connected to the cult of holy springs than anywhere else in Europe.' This statement was apparently based largely on post-Reformation sources. A v...

The aim of this study was to determine the concentration of fluoride in drinking water, the distribution system, in 22 villages in Shout (A city in West Azerbaijan province). Sampling of springs and underground water was carried out in two warm and cold seasons. Fluoride concentration were determined through spectrophotometer with a model, DR/5000.The fluoride concentration were compared with I...

The paper describes the results of the EC COPERNICUS-Project SADTS (= Semi-Active Damping of Truck Suspensions and its Influence on Drivers and Road Loads). This research project investigated the potential of semi-active truck suspensions optimised for road-friendliness. The improvements are compared to modern passive air springs.