Friday, November 30, 2007


Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK 705 was a Boeing 720 – 040 B that crashed while descending to land on Runway 34 at Cairo International Airport on May 20, 1965 resulting in 119 fatalities.

Details
Controlled flight into terrain - Level ground

Result
"The aircraft did not maintain the adequate height for the circuit and continued to descend until it contacted the ground. The reason for that abnormal continuation of descent is unknown."
The aircraft crashed during approach. The plane descended during the approach at triple the normal rate. The aircraft exceeded the recommended descent rate during the final stages of landing. Landing Gear was down and locked, however flaps and slats had not been deployed, and wing was in level flight/cruise configuration.

Probable cause

ICAO Circular 88-AN/74 (113-117)
Accident Description: Crashed during approach, excessive descent. Sources

Mr. Jalal Al-Karimi (Dhahran Station Manager – Pakistan International Airlines)
Mr. M Salahuddin Siddiqi (Press Officer – PIA)
Mr. Amanullah Khandwalla (Aerotravels)
Mr. Shaukat Mecklai (Universal Express)
Mr. Arif Raza (son of the owner of Hostelleirie de France)
Mr. Zahoor (Globe) PIA Flight 705PIA Flight 705 Survivors
PIA personnel
Passengers
The twenty two journalists on board who were killed in the disaster included:

Captain Ali Akhtar Khan (Flight Commander)
Captain Jauhar (Co-pilot)
Khalid Zia Lodhi (Chief Navigation Officer)
Jimmy Mirza (Commercial & Marketing Director – PIA)
Momi Gul Durrani
Mr. Abdul Aziz
Mr. Abdul
Mr. Abdul Hamid
Mr. Abdul Hannan
Mr. Abdul Karim
Mr. Abdul Kashim
Mr. Abdul Qadir
Mr. Abdul Rozak
Master Abdul Sattar (Child)
Mst. Fatima Bibi (Child)
Mrs. Hawjaib Hyder
Miss Hawjaib Yasmin (Infant)
Mr. Abdul Sohid
Mr. Abdus Samad
Mr. Abdul Waris
Mr. Abdul Miah
Mr. A I Sheikh
Mr. Akhtar Javed Alavi
Mr. Ali Wasir
Mr. A S Niazi
Mr. Aziz Malik
Mr. Bashir Ahmed Lakhani
Mrs. Banoo Shaukat Mecklai
Ms. Cindy Salandha
Mr. Dennis E Lobo
Mr. Donald Love
Mr. Dost Mohammad
Miss Elizabeth Clare Howard
Mr. Lewis Page Howard
Mrs. Marian Teeters Howard
Ms. Dr. Eva Vodikova
Mr. Feroz Khan
Mrs. F Chowdhry
Mr. Golam Jilani Joarder
Mrs. Gulzar Begum
Mr. Gerry Roasrio
Wing Commander M Shamim Khan
Mr. Hafiz Mohammad
Mr. Hussain El Mani
Mr. Hussein Aly Chehata
Mrs. Hussein Aly Chehata
Miss Hutoki Panthakey
Mr. I A Butt
Mr. Intaj Ali
Mr. Irfan Ali
Mr. Ishaq Ibrahim El-Massoui
Mrs. Jana Hai
Mr. Jaston Layyoub
Mr. Kalay Mia
Mr. Karl
Mr. L A Tahir
Mr. Madjid Al-Makky
Mr. M A Rashid
Mr. Mahfoozul Haq Bhuiyan
Miss Mahmooda Naimatullah Baig
Mr. Malik Abdul Hussain
Dr. Malick Asdar Ali
Mr. Mansoor Laljee
Mr. Mohammed Afzal Johri
Mr. Mohamed El-Hasan
Mr. Mohammad Masood Khan
Mr. Mohammad Bajjawal
Mr. Mohammad
Mr. Mohammad Siddique
Mr. Mohammad Shafiq
Mrs. Danna Danha
Mr. Mumtaz Mian
Mr. G H Terry
Mr. M E Terry
Mr. M Ismail
Mr. Zulfiqar Khan
Mr. Monuhur Mia
Mr. Mostafauddin
Mr. M Yasefa
Miss Naseema Sarwar
Mr. Osman Ahmed Khalfalla
Miss Razia Bibi
Mr. Rolf Evensen
Mr. S A Tasdiq
Mr. S B Agha
Mrs. Shamima Amin
Mr. Sirajuddin
Mr. S M Laekawall
Mr. Shofiullah
Mrs. Syeda Saleema Begum
Mr. Syed Shams Yousseff
Mr. Toyeb Ali
Mr. Victor
Mr. Chang Hsuesh-Li
Mr. Li Yu-Feng
Mr. Hsu Fu-Ken
Mr. Huang Kang
Mr. Wu Fu-Peng
Mr. Yang Zong-Hai
Mr. Yu May-Hang
Major General Mian Hayauddin (Chairman – National Press Trust)
Mr. A K Qureishi (Administrator – Associated Press of Pakistan)
Mr. Fariduddin Ahmad (Pakistan Observer)
Mr. Akhtaruzzaman (Paigham)
Mr. Aleemullah (Leader)
Mr. Irfan Chughtai (Chief Reporter Nawa-i-Waqt)
Mr. T D D'sylva (Pakistan Times)
Mr. Sibte Farooq Faridi (Morning News)
Mr. S M Hannan (Morning News)
Mr. Hamid Hashmi (Daily Imroze)
Mr. Muzammil Huq (Sainik Pakistan)
Mr. Abul Saleh Islahi (Editor Daily Mashriq)
Mr. M B Khalid (Business Recorder)
Mr. Yaqub Khan (Aero News)
Mr. Nasir Mahmood (Daily Jang)
Mr. Jaffar Mansoor (Hurriyat)
Mr. S M Mobin (Unity)
Mr. Shah Mumtaz (PPA)
Mr. Ahmadur Rehman (Ittefaq)
Mr. Saghiruddin (Dawn)
Mr. Yasin Tareen (Business Post)
Mr. Mumtaz Tariq (Flyer) Victims

Type: Boeing 720 – 040 B
Operator: Pakistan International Airlines – PIA
Registration: AP – AMH
C/n / msn: 18379/321
Manufactured: 1962
Engines: 4 x Pratt & Whitney JT3D-3B
First flight: 1962
Delivery date: October 19, 1962

Thursday, November 29, 2007


Maximum snowfall or ice accretion The Blizzard of 2006 was a nor'easter that began on the evening of February 11, 2006. It dumped heavy snow across the Northeast United States from Virginia to Maine through the early evening of February 12 and ended in Atlantic Canada on February 13. The major northeast cities from Baltimore to Boston received at least a foot of snow, with an all-time largest amount of 26.9 inches (68.3 cm) in New York City, the most since at least 1869, the start of record keeping.

North American blizzard of 2006 Impact
For the most part, Connecticut managed to avoid major problems, despite the enormous snowfall amounts. Hartford received a total of 21.9 inches (55 cm) of snow- the second largest snowfall since 1906. A total of 18 inches (46 cm) fell in the small Sandy Hook village. West Hartford totaled 27 inches (69 cm) and Fairfield saw 27.8 inches (70.6 cm) of snow. Despite the large amounts of snow, there were only isolated individual power outages.

Connecticut
New Castle County and Wilmington felt the brunt of this storm with 14-15 inches (35-38 cm) of snow. Kent and Sussex counties to the south mixed with rain for a while, and saw significantly less snow accumulations, mostly in the 6 inch (15 cm) range.

Delaware
The city of Washington, D.C. missed the worst of the storm. The city received about 9 inches (22 cm) of snow, far less than in the suburbs. Approximately 3,000 people lost electricity in the District of Columbia. However, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (just across the Potomac River) was closed.

District of Columbia
The heaviest snow in Maryland fell from the northern suburbs of Washington, D.C., to the Baltimore area. These areas overwhelmingly saw over a foot of snow. Snowfall rates of 2-3 inches (5-8 cm) per hour were common, and thundersnow occurred. Snowfall amounts of up to 21 inches (53 cm) were reported in Columbia, 13.1 inches (33.3 cm) in Baltimore, 17 inches (43 cm) in Catonsville, and a foot (30.5 cm) in Potomac. This was the area's heaviest snow in three years. Lesser amounts occurred in western and southern parts of the state.
Maryland was hardest hit by power outages. In the Baltimore area, more than 62,000 people lost electricity, plus another 16,000 in Montgomery County and 37,000 in Prince George's County.

Maryland
The most serious coastal problems were in Massachusetts. The heaviest snow was in the central part of the state, where snow amounts of up to 20 inches (50 cm) were reported. Coastal areas, particularly around Nantucket saw lesser amounts (approximately 12") as it was mixed with sleet at times, but winds of up to 60 mph (95 km/h) whipped up the ocean with storm surges of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm) and led to some coastal flooding, plus offshore waves of up to 25 feet (8 m). Logan International Airport in Boston and flights into and out of Barnstable municipal airport in Hyannis on Cape Cod saw over 90% of their flights cancelled at the peak of the storm.
There were no power outages despite the conditions.

Massachusetts
The impact of the blizzard in northern New Jersey was strong enough to stop the New Jersey Transit bus service between 7:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., although trains continued to run (with some delays). Many roads remained closed. Businesses were closed for most of the day. 16,000 people were without power in the state. Northeastern New Jersey saw the brunt of the storm; 21" (53.3 cm) of snow fell at Newark Airport, with higher amounts reported around North Central NJ due to heavy banding through the night.nmi

New Jersey
The Greater New York City Area received the brunt of the February Blizzard of 2006. All three of the airports in the New York City area (LaGuardia Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport) were closed during the record blizzard, for the first time since the September 11, 2001 attacks. Like the Blizzard of 1996, this winter storm does not meet the criteria to be called a blizzard, however. The winds were not strong enough, and visibility was not poor enough. Thundersnow, which is an extremely rare occurrence, especially in New York, happened for about a 4 hour period in parts of Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Rockland and Westchester during the height of the storm early Sunday morning.
Central Park received 26.9 inches (68.3 cm) of snow, the largest amount for a single storm since records began, breaking the record of 26.4 inches (67.1 cm) that fell on December 26, 1947. By comparison, the blizzards of 1996 and 2003 dropped 20.2 and 19.8 inches (51.3 and 50.3 cm) in Central Park respectively. The smallest amounts of snowfall were recorded in the beginning of Nassau County some towns are Oceanside, Lynbrook, Rockville Centre and Island Park. The snow removal cost in New York City alone is estimated at about $27 million.

New York
Cars left overnight in Manhattan street parking were generally immobile by morning.
North American blizzard of 2006 New York City Hall as the snow began to fall on Saturday (February 11, 2006).
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn on February 12.
A loader clears snow in New York City during a lull in the snowfall on Sunday, February 12.
Near Whiteout Conditions in Yonkers, New York.
Riverside Drive, New York City.

New York photo gallery
Snowfall totals were measured at 12 inches (30 cm) at Philadelphia International Airport, but 35 miles (56 km) to the west in West Caln Township there were 21 inches (53 cm). Philadelphia International Airport remained open throughout the storm, although about 50% of flights were cancelled. There were also power outages in the Philadelphia area, with about 10,000 customers losing power. But in contrast, in Western Pennsylvania most got 1" (2.5 cm) or less of snow.

Pennsylvania
The Governor of Rhode Island, Donald Carcieri, declared a statewide state of emergency due to the blizzard conditions.

Rhode Island
According to Dominion Power, over 64,000 people in Northern Virginia lost power in the storm, primarily in the suburban areas adjacent to Washington, D.C. Many locations in the extreme Northeastern portion of the state recorded 10-15" (25-38 cm) of snow, with Falls Church and Fairfax coming in at 13.5" (34.3 cm) and 14.0" (35.6 cm) respectively. Fairfax County and eastern Loudoun County were generally the start of the 12+" (30+ cm) accumulations, which spread north towards Massachusetts.

Virginia
While the snowfall amounts diminished somewhat (to about 6 to 12 inches or 15 to 30 cm) by the time the storm tracked east into Atlantic Canada, the winds increased substantially. The worst of the storm was felt along the Atlantic coast, particularly in a swath around the Bay of Fundy, the Northumberland Strait and the south coast of Newfoundland. Hurricane-force wind gusts were reported in several communities, peaking at 156 km/h (97 mph) in Grand Etang, Nova Scotia (equal to a Category 2 hurricane) and 133 km/h (83 mph) in Cape Race on the east coast of Newfoundland. Some damage was reported as a result of the strong winds, particularly downed power lines but also some roof damage to buildings.

Atlantic Canada
Only accumulations of 8 inches (20 cm) or greater are listed. Not all observations are listed due to space limitations; only major communities and notable reports are listed.
Sources: National Weather Service local offices - Sterling, VA, Mount Holly, NJ, Upton, NY, Taunton, MA, Caribou, ME, Gray, ME

Trivia

Cyclogenesis
Extratropical cyclone

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Information highway
The information superhighway is a now-obsolete term that was used to describe the future of what existed up until the mid-1990s as the Internet (for the early state of the Internet, see Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog).
Nam June Paik, a 20th century South Korean born American video artist, claims to have coined the term in 1974. "I used the term (information superhighway) in a study I wrote for the Rockefeller Foundation in 1974. I thought: if you create a highway, then people are going to invent cars. That's dialectics. If you create electronic highways, something has to happen." [1] The term was popularized by former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore in the early 1990s. [2], [3]

See also

Al Gore's contributions to the internet and technology
National Information Infrastructure
The Superhighway Summit

Tuesday, November 27, 2007


Reptiles are tetrapods and amniotes, animals whose embryos are surrounded by an amniotic membrane, and members of the class Sauropsida. Today they are represented by four surviving orders:
Modern reptiles inhabit every continent except for Antarctica, although their main distribution comprises the tropics and subtropics. Though all cellular metabolism produces some heat, most modern species of reptiles do not generate enough to maintain a constant body temperature and are thus referred to as "cold-blooded" or ectothermic (the Leatherback Sea Turtle might be an exception, see also gigantothermy). Instead, they rely on gathering and losing heat from the environment to regulate their internal temperature, e.g, by moving between sun and shade, or by preferential circulation — moving warmed blood into the body core, while pushing cool blood to the periphery. In their natural habitats, most species are adept at this, and can usually maintain core body temperatures within a fairly narrow range. Reptiles are thick-skinned; unlike amphibians, they do not need to absorb water. While this lack of adequate internal heating imposes costs relative to temperature regulation through behavior, it also provides a large benefit by allowing reptiles to survive on much less food than comparably-sized mammals and birds, who burn much of their food for warmth. While warm-blooded animals move faster in general, an attacking lizard, snake or crocodile moves very quickly.
Except for a few members of the Testudines, all reptiles are covered by scales.
Most reptile species are oviparous (egg-laying). Many species of squamates, however, are capable of giving live birth. This is achieved, either through ovoviviparity (egg retention), or viviparity (offspring born without use of calcified eggs). Many of the viviparous species feed their fetuses through various forms of placenta analogous to those of mammals (Pianka & Vitt, 2003 pgs: 116-118). They often provide considerable initial care for their hatchlings.

Anapsida
Diapsida
Reptilia Laurenti, 1768
Crocodilia (crocodiles, gharials, caimans and alligators): 23 species
Sphenodontia (tuataras from New Zealand): 2 species
Squamata (lizards, snakes and amphisbaenids ("worm-lizards")): approximately 7,900 species
Testudines (turtles and tortoises): approximately 300 species Classification of reptiles
From the classical standpoint, reptiles included all the amniotes except birds and mammals. Thus reptiles were defined as the set of animals that includes crocodiles, alligators, tuatara, lizards, snakes, amphisbaenians and turtles, grouped together as the class Reptilia (Latin repere, "to creep"). This is still the usual definition of the term. However, in recent years, many taxonomists have begun to insist that taxa should be monophyletic, that is, groups should include all descendants of a particular form. The reptiles as defined above would be paraphyletic, since they exclude both birds and mammals, although these also developed from the original reptile. Colin Tudge writes:
The terms "Sauropsida" ("Lizard Faces") and "Theropsida" ("Beast Faces") were coined in 1916 by E.S. Goodrich to distinguish between lizards, birds, and their relatives on one hand (Sauropsida) and mammals and their extinct relatives (Theropsida) on the other. This division is supported by the nature of the hearts and blood vessels in each group, and other features such as the structure of the forebrain. According to Goodrich both lineages evolved from an earlier stem group, the Protosauria ("First Lizards") which included some Paleozoic amphibians as well as early reptiles.
In 1956 D.M.S. Watson observed that the first two groups diverged very early in reptilian history, and so he divided Goodrich's Protosauria among them. He also reinterpreted the Sauropsida and Theropsida to exclude birds and mammals respectively. Thus his Sauropsida included Procolophonia, Eosuchia, Millerosauria, Chelonia (turtles), Squamata (lizards and snakes), Rhynchocephalia, Crocodilia, "thecodonts" (paraphyletic basal Archosauria), non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and sauropyterygians.
This classification supplemented, but was never as popular as, the classification of the reptiles (according to Romer's classic Vertebrate Paleontology) into four subclasses according to the positioning of temporal fenestrae, openings in the sides of the skull behind the eyes. Those divisions were:
All of the above but Synapsida fall under Sauropsida.

Anapsida - no fenestrae
Synapsida - one low fenestra (no longer considered true reptiles)
Euryapsida - one high fenestra (now included within Diapsida)
Diapsida - two fenestrae Taxonomy

Phylogeny
Hylonomus is the oldest-known reptile, and was about 8 to 12 inches (20 to 30 cm) long. Westlothiana has been suggested as the oldest reptile, but is for the moment considered to be more related to amphibians than amniotes. Petrolacosaurus and Mesosaurus are other examples. The earliest reptiles were found in the swamp forests of the Carboniferous, but were largely overshadowed by bigger labyrinthodont amphibians such as Proterogynrius. It was only after the small ice age at the end of the Carboniferous that the reptiles grew to big sizes, producing species such as Edaphosaurus and Dimetrodon.
The first true "reptiles" (Sauropsids) are categorized as Anapsids, having a solid skull with holes only for nose, eyes, spinal cord, etc. Turtles are believed by some to be surviving Anapsids, as they also share this skull structure; but this point has become contentious lately, with some arguing that turtles reverted to this primitive state in order to improve their armor. Both sides have strong evidence, and the conflict has yet to be resolved.
Shortly after the first reptiles, two branches split off, one leading to the Anapsids, which did not develop holes in their skulls. The other group, Diapsida, possessed a pair of holes in their skulls behind the eyes, along with a second pair located higher on the skull. The Diapsida split yet again into two lineages, the lepidosaurs (which contain modern snakes, lizards and tuataras, as well as, debatably, the extinct sea reptiles of the Mesozoic) and the archosaurs (today represented by only crocodilians and birds, but also containing pterosaurs and dinosaurs).
The earliest, solid-skulled amniotes also gave rise to a separate line, the Synapsida. Synapsids developed a pair of holes in their skulls behind the eyes (similar to the diapsids), which were used to both lighten the skull and increase the space for jaw muscles. The synapsids eventually evolved into mammals, and are often referred to as mammal-like reptiles, though they are not true members of Sauropsida. (A preferable term is "stem-mammals".)

Evolution of the reptiles

Systems
All reptiles have closed circulation via a three-chamber heart consisting of two atria and one, variably-partitioned ventricle. There is usually one pair of aortic arches. In spite of this, because of the fluid dynamics of blood flow through the heart, there is little mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood in the three-chamber heart. Furthermore, the blood flow can be altered to shunt either deoxygenated blood to the body or oxygenated blood to the lungs, which gives the animal greater control over its blood flow, allowing more effective thermoregulation and longer diving times for aquatic species. There are some interesting exceptions among reptiles. For instance, crocodilians have an anatomically four-chambered heart that is capable of becoming a functionally three-chamber heart during dives (Mazzotti, 1989 pg 47). Also, it has been discovered that some snake and lizard species (e.g., monitor lizards and pythons) have three-chamber hearts that become functional four-chamber hearts during contraction. This is made possible by a muscular ridge that subdivides the ventricle during ventricular diastole and completely divides it during ventricular systole. Because of this ridge, some of these squamates are capable of producing ventricular pressure differentials that are equivalent to those seen in mammalian and avian hearts (Wang et al, 2003).

Circulatory
All reptiles breathe using lungs. Aquatic turtles have developed more permeable skin, and even gills in their anal region, for some species (Orenstein, 2001). Even with these adaptations, breathing is never fully accomplished without lungs. Lung ventilation is accomplished differently in each main reptile group. In squamates the lungs are ventilated almost exclusively by the axial musculature. This is also the same musculature that is used during locomotion. Because of this constraint, most squamates are forced to hold their breath during intense runs. Some, however, have found a way around it. Varanids, and a few other lizard species, employ buccal pumping as a complement to their normal "axial breathing." This allows the animals to completely fill their lungs during intense locomotion, and thus remain aerobically active for a long time. Tegu lizards are known to possess a proto-diaphragm, which separates the pulmonary cavity from the visceral cavity. While not actually capable of movement, it does allow for greater lung inflation, by taking the weight of the viscera off the lungs (Klein et al, 2003). Crocodilians actually have a muscular diaphragm that is analogous to the mammalian diaphragm. The difference is that the muscles for the crocodilian diaphragm pull the pubis (part of the pelvis, which is movable in crocodilians) back, which brings the liver down, thus freeing space for the lungs to expand. This type of diaphragmatic setup has been referred to as the "hepatic piston."
How Turtles & Tortoises breathe has been the subject of much study. To date, only a few species have been studied thoroughly enough to get an idea of how turtles do it. The results indicate that turtles & tortoises have found a variety of solutions to this problem. The problem is that most turtle shells are rigid and do not allow for the type of expansion and contraction that other amniotes use to ventilate their lungs. Some turtles such as the Indian flapshell (Lissemys punctata) have a sheet of muscle that envelopes the lungs. When it contracts, the turtle can exhale. When at rest, the turtle can retract the limbs into the body cavity and force air out of the lungs. When the turtle protracts its limbs, the pressure inside the lungs is reduced, and the turtle can suck air in. Turtle lungs are attached to the inside of the top of the shell (carapace), with the bottom of the lungs attached (via connective tissue) to the rest of the viscera. By using a series of special muscles (roughly equivalent to a diaphragm), turtles are capable of pushing their viscera up and down, resulting in effective respiration, since many of these muscles have attachment points in conjunction with their forelimbs (indeed, many of the muscles expand into the limb pockets during contraction). Breathing during locomotion has been studied in three species, and they show different patterns. Adult female green sea turtles do not breathe as they crutch along their nesting beaches. They hold their breath during terrestrial locomotion and breathe in bouts as they rest. North American box turtles breathe continuously during locomotion, and the ventilation cycle is not coordinated with the limb movements (Landberg et al., 2003). They are probably using their abdominal muscles to breathe during locomotion. The last species to have been studied is red-eared sliders, which also breathe during locomotion, but they had smaller breaths during locomotion than during small pauses between locomotor bouts, indicating that there may be mechanical interference between the limb movements and the breathing apparatus. Box turtles have also been observed to breathe while completely sealed up inside their shells (ibid).
Most reptiles lack a secondary palate, meaning that they must hold their breath while swallowing. Crocodilians have evolved a bony secondary palate that allows them to continue breathing while remaining submerged (and protect their brains from getting kicked in by struggling prey). Skinks (family Scincidae) also have evolved a bony secondary palate, to varying degrees. Snakes took a different approach and extended their trachea instead. Their tracheal extension sticks out like a fleshy straw, and allows these animals to swallow large prey without suffering from asphyxiation.
Also, crocodiles are known to cry while eating. Many myths and folklore have grown around this astonishing fact, such as that the crocodile feels guilty for eating, but in truth, the crocodile cries to release fluid from its body, to make room for oxygen. This is also due to the fact that the crocodile's nasal cavity (nose) is exceptionally small.

Respiratory
Excretion is performed mainly by two small kidneys. In diapsids uric acid is the main nitrogenous waste product; turtles, like mammals, mainly excrete urea. Unlike the kidneys of mammals and birds, reptile kidneys are unable to produce liquid urine more concentrated than their body fluid. This is because they lack a specialized structure present in the nephrons of birds and mammals, called a Loop of Henle. Because of this, many reptiles use the colon and cloaca to aid in the reabsorption of water. Some are also able to take up water stored in the bladder. Excess salts are also excreted by nasal and lingual salt-glands in some reptiles.

Reptiles Excretory
The reptilian nervous system contains the same basic part of the amphibian brain, but the reptile cerebrum and cerebellum are slightly larger. Most typical sense organs are well developed with certain exceptions most notably the snakes lack of external ears (middle and inner ears are present). All reptilians have advanced visual depth perception compared to other animals. There are twelve pairs of cranial nerves.[1]

Nervous
Most reptiles reproduce sexually. All male reptiles except turtles and tortoises have a twin tube-like sexual organ called the hemipenes. Turtles and tortoises have a single penis. All testudines lay eggs, none are live bearing as some lizards and snakes are. All reproductive activity occurs with the cloaca, the single exit/entrance at the base of the tail where waste and reproduction happens.
Asexual reproduction has been identified in squamates in six families of lizards and one snake. In some species of squamates, a population of females are able to produce a unisexual diploid clone of the mother. This asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis occurs in several species of gecko, and is particularly widespread in the teiids (especially Aspidocelis) and lacertids (Lacerta) In captivity Komodo dragons (varanidae) have reproduced by parthenogenesis.
Parthenogenetic species are also suspected to occur among chameleons, agamids, xantusiids, and typhlopids.
Amniotic eggs are covered with leathery or calcareous shells. An amnion, chorion and allantois are present during embryonic life. There are no larval stages of development.

Notes

Colin Tudge (2000). The Variety of Life. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198604262. 
Benton, Michael J. (2004). Vertebrate Paleontology, 3rd ed., Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd.. ISBN 0632056371. 
Colbert, Edwin H. (1969). Evolution of the Vertebrates, 2nd ed., New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc.. ISBN 0471164666. 
Goodrich, E.S. (1916). "On the classification of the Reptilia". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 89B: 261-276. 
Klein, Wilfied; Abe, Augusto; Andrade, Denis; Perry, Steven (2003). Structure of the posthepatic septum and its influence on visceral topology in the tegu lizard, Tupinambis merianae (Teidae: Reptilia). Journal of Morphology 258 (2): 151-157. 
Landberg, Tobias; Mailhot, Jeffrey; Brainerd, Elizabeth (2003). Lung ventilation during treadmill locomotion in a terrestrial turtle, Terrapene carolina. Journal of Experimental Biology 206 (19): 3391-3404. 
Laurin, Michel and Gauthier, Jacques A.: Diapsida. Lizards, Sphenodon, crocodylians, birds, and their extinct relatives, Version 22 June 2000; part of The Tree of Life Web Project
Mazzotti, Frank; Ross, Charles (ed) (1989). "Structure And Function" Crocodiles and Alligators. Facts on File. ISBN 0-8160-2174-0. 
Orenstein, Ronald (2001). Turtles, Tortoises & Terrapins: Survivors in Armor. Firefly Books. ISBN 1-55209-605-X. 
Pianka, Eric; Vitt, Laurie (2003). Lizards Windows to the Evolution of Diversity. University of California Press, 116-118. ISBN 0-520-23401-4. 
Pough, Harvey; Janis, Christine; Heiser, John (2005). Vertebrate Life. Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-145310-6. 
Romer, A.S. (1933). Vertebrate Paleontology. University of Chicago Press. , 3rd ed., 1966.
Wang, Tobias; Altimiras, Jordi; Klein, Wilfried; Axelsson, Michael (2003). Ventricular haemodynamics in Python molurus: separation of pulmonary and systemic pressures. The Journal of Experimental Biology 206: 4242-4245. 
Watson, D.M.S. (1957). "On Millerosaurus and the early history of the sauropsid reptiles". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences 240 (673): 325-400. 

Monday, November 26, 2007

Norcross Places

Norcross, Georgia, a suburb in metro Atlanta
Norcross, Minnesota Norcross People

Norcross High School, public school in Norcross, Georgia (named after Jonathan Norcross)

Sunday, November 25, 2007


St. John's Town of Dalry, usually referred to simply as Dalry, is a village in Dumfries and Galloway, formerly in Kirkcudbrightshire. It is located sixteen miles (26 km) from Castle Douglas along the A713 road, and is at the southern terminus of the A702 road (to Edinburgh). The village is about three miles (5 km) from the northern edge of Loch Ken.

St. John's Town of Dalry Notable people from Dalry

John Johnston, a farmer born in nearby Knocknalling, is credited with introducing agricultural drainage to the United States.
Cowan Dobson, the artist and portrait painter.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Mackay, QueenslandMackay, Queensland Economy
Despite being close to Eungella National Park, the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday Islands, Mackay has not capitalised greatly on its location. Only 5.3% of the region's production is generated from tourism; with 59% of tourism income coming from accommodation and 28% coming from retail sales. Mackay holds a current position as a stop-over location as evident by the many motor-inns - but bodies are working toward greater capitalisation on the tourism market . New facilities, such as Artspace Mackay, are being used not only as centres of culture for the town, but also as new ways of attracting tourists.

Tourism
The Gardens, opened in 2003, focus on rare native plants of Central Queensland. They are located in Lagoon St, West Mackay, on the way to the City Gates. Before 2003, the area was commonly called "The Lagoons." "The Lagoons" were redeveloped into the Botanic Gardens - complete with new plants, flowers, pathways, children's rides, and a restaurant.

Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens
One of the first Europeans to travel through the Mackay region was Captain James Cook, who reached the Mackay coast on June 1, 1770 and named several local landmarks, including Cape Palmerston, Slade Point and Cape Hillsborough. It was during this trip that The Endeavour's botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, briefly recorded seeing Aborigines. The City of Mackay was later founded on Yuibera traditional lands.
Although several other maritime explorers sailed through the waters off Mackay, it was not until 1860 when moves were made to claim the region's virgin pastures.
Two eager young men, John McCrossin and Scottish-born John Mackay, assembled a party of eight, including an Aborigine named Duke, and left Armidale, New South Wales in January 1860. Two men left the party in Rockhampton while the others reached the top of the range overlooking the Mackay district's Pioneer Valley in May. After descending into the valley and exploring almost to the mouth of the river, which they named the Mackay, the members of the party selected land and began the trip back to civilisation. On the return journey, they all suffered from a fever that claimed the life of Duke.
Mackay returned to the area with 1200 head of cattle in January 1862 and founded Greenmount station. Although the other members of his first expedition had marked runs, none but Mackay took up their claims. However, Mackay remained in possession of Greenmount for less than two years. Ownership transferred to James Starr in September 1864 and, despite Mackay's protests, he never succeeded in regaining control. Greenmount passed through a number of owners' hands before being bought by A.A. Cook in 1913. Before leaving the district, John Mackay chartered the vessel Preston, which landed stores from him on the riverbank about a kilometre upstream from the present Hospital Bridge. Mackay made a survey of the river and the chart was sent to Rockhampton. The Port of Mackay was then officially declared a port of entry.
In 1866, a white settler was killed by a local Aboriginal tribe which was then hunted down by the police. A mother, Kowaha, with her infant girl, was chased and pinned between the top of a cliff and her white pursuers where, according to legend, she made the decision to jump to her death rather than be caught. Her baby miraculously survived and was raised by local white settlers. The cliff is now known as The Leap: a reminder of Queensland's bloody past.
In 1918, Mackay was hit by a major Tropical Cyclone causing severe damage and loss of life with hurricane-force winds and a large storm surge. The resulting death toll was further increased by an outbreak of Bubonic plague.
The largest loss of life in an Australian aircraft accident, with 29 deaths, occurred on 10 June 1960 when a Fokker Friendship flew into the sea five nautical miles east of Mackay Airport. As a result of this crash "black boxes" became compulsory in Australian aeroplanes.

Government

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Friday, November 23, 2007

Actuator
An actuator is a mechanical device for moving or controlling a mechanism or system. The actuator is usually a physical mechanism but also refers to an artificial agent intelligent agent.

Examples and applications
Examples include:

Mechanics - pneumatic actuators, motors, hydraulic cylinders, etc.
Human - Arms, hands, fingers, legs
Mail transfer agent - Update software
In engineering, actuators are frequently used as mechanisms to introduce motion, or to clamp an object so as to prevent motion. In electronic engineering, actuators ACTT, are a subdivision of transducers. They are devices which transform an input signal (mainly an electrical signal) into motion. Specific examples are Electrical motors, pneumatic actuators, hydraulic pistons, relays, comb drive, piezoelectric actuators, thermal bimorphs, Digital Micromirror Devices and electroactive polymers.
Motors are mostly used when circular motions are needed, but can also be used for linear applications by transforming circular to linear motion with a bolt and screw transducer. On the other hand, some actuators are intrinsically linear, such as piezoelectric actuators.
In virtual instrumentation actuators and sensors are the hardware complements of virtual instruments. Computer programs of virtual instruments use actuators to act upon real world objects.

Thursday, November 22, 2007


Checkpointing is a technique for inserting fault tolerance into computing systems. It basically consists on storing a snapshot of the current application state, and use it for restarting the execution in case of failure.

Application checkpointingApplication checkpointing Checkpointing in distributed shared memory systems
A number of practical checkpointing packages have been developed for the Linux/UNIX family of operating systems. These checkpointing packages may be divided into two classes, those which operate in user space, examples of which include the checkpointing package used by Condor and the portable checkpointing library developed by The University of Tennessee. User space checkpointing pacakages are highly portable and can typically be compiled and run on any modern UNIX (e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Darwin etc). In contrast, kernel based checkpointing packages such as Chpox and Cryopid, and the checkpointing algorithms developed for the MOSIX cluster computing environment tend to be highly operating system dependent. Most kernel based checkpointing packages developed to date run under either the 2.4 or 2.6 subfamilies of the Linux kernel on i686 architectures.
Modern checkpointing packages such as Cryopid are capable of checkpointing a process pod, that is a parent process and all its associated children, and of dealing with file system abstractions such as sockets and pipes (FIFO's) in addition to regular files. In the case of Cryopid, there is also provision to roll all dynamic libraries, open files, sockets and FIFO's associated with the process into the checkpoint. This is very useful when the checkpointed process is to be restarted in a hetrogenous environment (e.g. the machine on which the checkpoint is restarted has libraries and file system which differ from the host on which the process was checkpointed).

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

S. O. Davies
Stephen Owen Davies (c. November 9, 1886February 25, 1972) was a Welsh politician, and a member of the British House of Commons from 1934 to his death.
Born in Abercwmboi, he began work as a coal miner at the age of 12, combining mining work with study for a degree. Davies was educated at the University of Wales and the University of London. He was active as a trade unionist, and became vice-president of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain in 1933. He was a councillor on Merthyr Tydfil Borough Council and mayor in 1945-46.
In 1934 he was elected as a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) for the Merthyr, which was renamed Merthyr Tydfil in 1950.
Davies was often out of step with the party line. Following the Aberfan disaster, he was a vocal critic of the way in which the government compensated the families of those killed.
In the run-up the 1970 general election his Constituency Labour Party felt that as he was now in his 80s he ought to stand down, and de-selected him in favour of a younger man. He fought the election as an independent Labour candidate, and won. In Parliament he maintained discreet links with the Parliamentary Labour Party and was sent a copy of the Labour whip, though he was nominally an independent. However he died in 1972 and the Labour Party won the subsequent by-election, although there was a significant swing to Plaid Cymru.

Notes

List of UK minor party and independent MPs elected

Monday, November 19, 2007

Knowsley North and Sefton East (UK Parliament constituency)Knowsley North and Sefton East (UK Parliament constituency)
Knowsley North and Sefton East is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.

Election results
A primarily working-class industrial region, the seat is traditionally one of the strongest Labour-held seats in the country. The original Knowsley North constituency gained several wards from Crosby as a result of boundary changes in 1995.

Sunday, November 18, 2007


The Thames is a river flowing through southern England, and one of the major waterways in England. While perhaps best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows through several other significant towns and cities, including Oxford, Reading and Windsor.
The river gives its name to the Thames Valley, a region of England centred around the river between Oxford and West London, and the Thames Gateway, the area centred around the tidal Thames and the Thames Estuary to the east of London.
History
Until around half a million years ago, the Thames flowed on its existing course through what is now Oxfordshire, before turning to the north east through Hertfordshire and East Anglia and reaching North Sea near Ipswich. At the end of the ice age, the ice started to melt and huge amounts of water entered this river system, causing it to cut down a new route through the chalk at the site of the Goring Gap, near the Oxfordshire village of Goring-On-Thames between Oxford and Reading. This created a new river route flowing down through Berkshire and on into London.
At the height of the last ice age around 12000 years ago, Britain was connected to mainland Europe via a large expanse of land known as Doggerland. At this time, the Thames was much larger than it is today, with its source rising much further west in present-day Wales. The river's course continued out into Doggerland, where it met the Rhine. Thus the two rivers were at one time part of the same river system.

Geological history
The Thames provided the major highway between London and Westminster in the 16th and 17th centuries. The clannish guild of watermen ferried Londoners from landing to landing and tolerated no outside interference.
The River Thames has frozen over in cold weather throughout history. One of the earliest accounts of the Thames freezing over comes from A.D. 250 when it was frozen hard for nine weeks. Hubert Lamb and other historians have found that the Thames froze in the years AD 923, AD 998, and for seven weeks in 1061. It has also completely frozen over during these severe winters of (paradoxically) the Medieval Warm Period: 1149 - 1150, 1204 - 1205, 1269 - 1270, 1281 - 1282, 1309 - 1310, 1407 - 1408, 1409 - 1410, 1434 - 1435, early 1506, 1513 - 1514, 1516 - 1517, and 1536 - 1537. (12 times in total)
Between 1400 and the nineteenth century there were a total of 23 documented winters in which the Thames froze over at London during a period that became known as the Little Ice Age. This led to the first Frost Fair in 1607, complete with a tent city set up on the river itself and offering a number of amusements, including ice bowling. After temperatures began to rise again, starting in 1814, the river has never frozen over completely. The building of a new London Bridge in 1825 may also have been a factor; the new bridge had fewer pillars than the old, so allowing the river to flow more freely, thus preventing it from flowing slowly enough to freeze in cold winters.

Human history
The river's name appears always to have been pronounced with a simple "t" at the beginning; the Middle English spelling was typically Temese and Celtic Tamesis. The "th" lends an air of Greek to the name and was added during the Renaissance, possibly to reflect or support a belief that the name was derived from River Thyamis in the Epirus region of Greece, whence early Celtic tribes are thought to have migrated. However, most scholars now believe Temese and Tamesis come from Celtic (Brythonic) Tamesa, possibly meaning 'the dark one'. The modern Welsh name for the river which may stem from this earlier tradition is Tafwys.
Indirect evidence for the antiquity of the name 'Thames' is provided by a Roman potsherd found at Oxford, bearing the inscription Tamesubugus fecit (Tamesubugus made this). It is believed that Tamesubugus's name was derived from that of the river.

Origin of the name

Geography
The Thames has a length of 346 km (215 miles). Its usually quoted source is at Thames Head (at grid reference ST980994), about a mile north of the village of Kemble and near the town of Cirencester, in the Cotswolds. However, Seven Springs near Cheltenham, where the river Churn rises, is also sometimes quoted as the Thames' source, as this location is furthest from the mouth both in distance along its course and as the crow flies. The springs at Seven Springs also flow throughout the year, while those at Thames Head are only seasonal.
The Thames flows through Ashton Keynes, Cricklade, Lechlade, Oxford, Abingdon, Wallingford, Goring-On-Thames, Reading, Henley-on-Thames, Marlow, Maidenhead, Windsor, Eton, Staines and Weybridge, before entering the Greater London area.
From the outskirts of Greater London, the river passes Hampton Court, Kingston, Teddington, Twickenham, Richmond (with the famous view of the Thames from Richmond Hill), Syon House and Kew before flowing through central London. In central London, the river forms one of the principal axes of the city, from the Palace of Westminster to the Tower of London and was the southern boundary of the mediaeval city.
Once clear of central London, the river passes between Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs, before flowing through the Thames Barrier, which protects central London from flooding in the event of storm surges. Below the barrier, the river passes Dartford, Tilbury and Gravesend before entering the Thames Estuary near Southend-on-Sea.

Course of the river
The whole of the river drains a catchment area of some 4,994 square miles (12,935 km²) or 5,924 square miles (15,343 km²) if the River Medway is included as a tributary.

Catchment area and discharge
Innumerable brooks, canals and rivers, within an area of 3,841 square miles (9,948 square km), combine to form 38 main tributaries feeding the Thames between its source and Teddington. These include the rivers Churn, Leach, Cole, Coln, Windrush, Evenlode, Cherwell, Ock, Thame, Pang, Kennet, Loddon, Colne, Wey and Mole.
Between Maidenhead and Windsor, the Thames supports an artificial secondary channel, known as the Jubilee River, for flood relief purposes.
More than half the rain that falls on this catchment is lost to evaporation and plant growth. The remainder provides the water resource that has to be shared between river flows, to support the natural environment and the community needs for water supplies to homes, industry and agriculture. During heavy rainfall events the Thames occasionally receives raw sewage discharge due to sanitary sewer overflow.

The non-tidal section
About 55 miles from the sea, at Teddington, the river begins to exhibit tidal activity from the North Sea. This tidal stretch of the river is known as "the Tideway". London was reputedly made capital of Roman Britain at the spot where the tides reached in AD 43 but this spot has moved up river, in the 2000 years since then, because of the glacial rebound effect. At London, the water is slightly brackish with sea salt. Below Teddington, the principal tributaries include the rivers Brent, Wandle, Effra, Westbourne, Fleet, Ravensbourne (the final part of which is called Deptford Creek), Lea, Roding, Darent and Ingrebourne.
The average discharge of the Thames grows up to approximately 66 m³/s at the end of its non-tidal section, at Kingston upon Thames, a figure which is exceeded by some other British rivers (e.g., the Severn and the Tay). Indeed, if the Thames were not a tidal river, its average discharge in the centre of London would be somewhere between 80 and 100 m³/s, and the Thames would look like a small river, not the large river we can see today by Westminster, the Houses of Parliament or the City.
Some low-lying areas beside the tidal section of the Thames are liable to regular flooding at spring tides. However, in recent years, the flooding has been occurring more frequently at unusual times. One such example exists at Chiswick Lane South in London's W4 postal district, where the river now bursts its banks almost daily between March and September.

The tidal section
The Thames is navigable from the estuary as far as Lechlade in Gloucestershire. Between the sea and Teddington Lock, the river forms part of the Port of London and navigation is administered by the Port of London Authority. From Teddington Lock to the head of navigation, the navigation authority is the Environment Agency.
The river is navigable to large ocean-going ships as far as the Pool of London and London Bridge. Today little commercial traffic passes above the docks at Tilbury and central London sees only the occasional visiting cruise ship or warship, moored alongside HMS Belfast and a few smaller aggregate or refuse vessels, operating from wharves in the west of London. Both the tidal river through London and the non-tidal river upstream are intensively used for leisure navigation.
There are 45 locks on the River Thames. See Locks on the River Thames for a full list of all locks.

Navigation

Main article: Crossings of the River Thames Crossings

Main article: Islands in the River Thames Islands
The river itself rises in Gloucestershire, traditionally forming the county boundary, firstly between Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, between Berkshire on the south bank and Oxfordshire on the north, between Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, between Berkshire and Surrey, between Surrey and Middlesex and between Essex and Kent.
Before the 1974 boundary changes, the current boundary between Berkshire and Surrey was between Buckinghamshire and Surrey. The boundary between Oxfordshire and Berkshire was also moved at that time.

The river as a boundary

Culture
The Thames is a motif in many books. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome describes a boat trip up the Thames; published in 1889, it has never been out of print, proof of the continuing influence of the Thames on the literary imagination. Other authors took inspiration from this best-selling comic novel (with its side-nods to social commentary). Examples include poet Kim Taplin's 1993 travelogue Three Women in a Boat and Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog. Somewhere near the Oxford stretch is where the Liddells were rowing in the poem at the start of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The river is almost a character in its own right in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows and its derivatives. The utopian News from Nowhere by William Morris is mainly the account of a journey through the Thames valley in a socialist future. Another is featured in The Amulet of Samarkand from The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, when Nathaniel plans to toss a can of tobacco into the Thames in order to imprison Bartimaeus. The Thames also features prominently in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, as a communications artery for the waterborne Gyptian people of Oxford and the Fens.
In books set in London there is Sherlock Holmes looking for a boat in The Sign of Four. Many of Charles Dickens's novels feature the Thames. Oliver Twist finishes in the slums and rookeries along its south bank. Our Mutual Friend begins with a scavenger and his daughter pulling a dead man from the river, to legally salvage what the body might have in its pockets. Dickens opens the novel with this sketch of the river, and the people who work on it:
In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark Bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in.
In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the old sailor Marlow begins his yarn while sitting on a boat in the Thames. The serenity of the contemporary Thames is contrasted with the savagery of the Congo River, and with the wilderness of the Thames as it would have appeared to a Roman soldier posted to Britannia two thousand years before. Conrad also gives a memorable description of the approach to London from the Thames Estuary in his essays The Mirror of the Sea (1906).
In poetry, T.S. Eliot references the Thames at the beginning of The Fire Sermon, Section III of "The Waste Land". It could be said that the references make for a spiritual reverence of the river, as the river is referred to as "sweet". However he also refers to the area as "brown" and throughout this poem the semantic field evokes feelings of decay with its references to detritus. William Blake makes reference to the Thames in his famous poem London:
I wander thro' each charter'd street,/ Near where the charter'd Thames does flow
In this instance, it could be said that the Thames is a boundless and free notion; but Blake seems to be showing here a disdain for its apparent 'chartered' nature. Joseph Brodsky wrote a poem entitled "The Thames at Chelsea".

Literature
John Kaufman's sculpture The Diver:Regeneration can be found sited in the Thames near Rainham.
A boat chase on the Thames forms the long opening scene of the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough. The offices of MI6, Britain's external spy agency, are right on the river in a building known as Vauxhall Cross.

Thames Other arts
The river is popular with tourists. There are many sightseeing tours in tourist boats, especially in the lower reaches past the more famous riverside attractions such as the Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London.

Sport
The Thames is the historic heartland of rowing in the United Kingdom. There are over 200 clubs on the river, and over 8,000 members of the Amateur Rowing Association (over 40% of its membership). Most towns and districts of any size on the river have at least one club, but key centres are Oxford, Henley-on-Thames and the stretch of river from Chiswick to Putney.
Two rowing events on the River Thames are traditionally part of the wider English sporting calendar:
The University Boat Race is rowed between Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club in late March or early April, on the Championship Course from Putney to Mortlake in the west of London.
Henley Royal Regatta takes place over five days at the start of July in the upstream town of Henley-on-Thames. Besides its sporting significance the regatta is an important date on the English social calendar alongside events like Royal Ascot and Wimbledon.
Other significant or historic rowing events on the Thames include:
Innumerable other regattas, head races and bumping races are held along the Thames.

The Head of the River Race and other head races over the Championship Course
The Wingfield Sculls for the amateur sculling championship of the Thames and Great Britain
Doggett's Coat and Badge for apprentice watermen, one of the oldest sporting events in the world
Henley Women's Regatta
The Henley Boat Races for the Women's and Lightweight crews of Oxford and Cambridge Universities
The Oxford University bumping races known as Eights Week and Torpids Rowing
Sailing is practiced on both the tidal and non-tidal reaches of the river. Clubs in and near the London section of the Thames include:
Clubs Upstream of London Include:
Clubs in the Lower Thames Include:
See also:

London Corinthian Sailing Club near Hammersmith Bridge
South Bank Sailing Club in Putney
Ranelagh Sailing Club in Putney
Docklands Sailing And Watersports Centre at Millwall Dock
Capital Sailing School at Millwall Dock
The Surrey Docks Watersports Centre at Surrey Quays.
Thurrock Yacht Club in Thurrock
Greenwich Yacht Club in Greenwich
Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge
Thames Sailing Club in Surbiton
Hampton Sailing Club in Hampton, London
Little Ship Club near Southwark Bridge
Goring Thames Sailing Club in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
Upper Thames Sailing Club in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire
Cookham Reach Sailing Club in Cookham, Berkshire
Medley Sailing Club in Oxford, Oxfordshire
Dorchester Sailing Club near Dorchester-on-Thames, in Abingdon, Oxfordshire
Gravesend Sailing Club in Gravesend, Kent
Erith Yacht Club near Erith, Kent
The Thames Sailing Barge Trust
Sailing on the River Thames by the The River Thames Alliance, a partnership between public and private sector organisations set up to help manage the future of the non-tidal Thames. Sailing
Skiffing remains popular, particularly in the summer months. Several clubs and regattas may be found in the outer suburbs of west London.

Skiffing
Unlike the "pleasure punting" common on the Cherwell in Oxford and the Cam in Cambridge, punting on the Thames is competitive and uses narrower craft.

Punting
Kayaking and canoeing are popular, with sea kayakers using the tidal stretch for touring. Sheltered water kayakers and canoeists use the non-tidal section for training, racing and trips. Whitewater playboaters and slalom paddlers are catered for at weirs like Hurley Weir, Sunbury Weir and Boulter's Weir.

Kayaking and Canoeing
This is a trivia section. The section could be improved by integrating relevant items into the main text and removing inappropriate items.

The Sex Pistols played a concert on the Queen Elizabeth Riverboat on June 7, 1977, the Queen's Silver Jubilee, while sailing down the river.
On January 20, 2006, a northern 16-18 ft (5 m) bottle-nosed whale was spotted in the Thames and was seen as far upstream as Chelsea. This is extremely unusual because this type of whale is generally found in deep sea waters. Crowds gathered along the riverbanks to witness the extraordinary spectacle. But it soon became clear there was cause for concern, as the animal came within yards of the banks, almost beaching, and crashed into an empty boat causing slight bleeding. Approx. 12 hours later, the whale was believed to be seen again near Greenwich, possibly heading back to sea. There was a rescue attempt lasting several hours, but it eventually died on a barge. See River Thames whale.
Unusual objects floated along the Thames by barge include a Eurostar Railway locomotive, a Concorde aircraft and a Submarine.
It is not unusual to see the French navy in the Thames; very often French naval vessels make official visits to the Royal Navy dock, HMS President, just by the Tower Bridge.
While writing in his diary in June 1667 Samuel Pepys was disturbed by the sound of gunfire, as Dutch warships on the Thames broke through the Royal Navy to invade London.
Polar explorer and endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh became the first person ever to swim the length of the Thames. His journey started on 17th July 2006 close to the source of the river in Gloucestershire and ended 147 miles later in London. Pugh undertook the challenge to raise awareness of climate change.
The traditional Swan Upping ceremony takes place annually on the River Thames during the third week of July.
Bear Grylls, host of the Discovery Channel's "Man vs Wild" series lives on a converted barge on the River Thames with his wife Shara and their young sons Jesse and Marmaduke.
In the Doctor Who episode "The Runaway Bride", the Thames was completely drained, leaving numbers of barges stranded. Religion

Marchioness disaster
The Diver
Torso in the Thames
River and Rowing Museum
Rivers of the United Kingdom
UK topics
Thames Town
Thames Television
Locks on the River Thames
Weirs on the River Thames
London Stones beside the river