Wild silk

A variety of wild silks, produced by caterpillars other than the mulberry silkworm have been known and used in China,Sexy silk dresses, South Asia, and Europe since ancient times. However, the scale of production was always far smaller than that of cultivated silks. They differ from the domesticated varieties in color and texture, and cocoons gathered in the wild usually have been damaged by the emerging moth before the cocoons are gathered, so the silk thread that makes up the cocoon has been torn into shorter lengths. Commercially reared silkworm pupae are killed by dipping them in boiling water before the adult moths emerge, or by piercing them with a needle, allowing the whole cocoon to be unravelled as one continuous thread. This permits a much stronger cloth to be woven from the silk. Wild silks also tend to be more difficult to dye than silk from the cultivated silkworm

Silkworm legends

In China, there is a legend that the discovery of the silkworm's silk was by an ancient empress LeiZu, the wife of the Yellow Emperor and the daughter of XiLing-Shi. She was drinking tea under a tree when a silk cocoon fell into her tea. She picked it out and started to wrap the silk thread around her finger, she slowly felt a warm sensation. When the silk ran out,womens silk pajamas, she saw a small larva. In an instant, she realized that this caterpillar larva was the source of the silk. She taught this to the people and it became widespread. There are many more legends about the silkworm.

The Chinese guarded their knowledge of silk. It is said that a Catholic priest smuggled silkworms, in a hollow stick, out of China and sold the secret to Europe
 

Silk Street engaged

Silk Street engaged domestic famous real property management company –Guibinlou Real Property in managing the whole shopping mall. Silk Street has made great effort to organize the management group. They engaged talents to make sure the management is normative and harmonious.

The establishment of Merchant Management Committee has built up a whole system including quality, service and communication. Indeed, the committee standardized and monitored the operation of the market.

Silk Street also made great effort to cooperate with many other companies, including national and international enterprises, travel agencies etc. We have a nice hope to build a perfect market for all the guests. Silk Street will join hands with its merchants and the whole society, undertaking the new task of fashion-esteem, culture-spread,Silk Queen Quilt Cover, brand -establishing, and building a “Century-Old Shop”, achieving a century's brilliance of an international shopping mall!

Maryland Students Use Speed Cameras for Revenge

Cameras for Revenge Students in Montgomery County, Maryland use fake license plates to send speed camera tickets to enemies. > > Maryland plate, photo by Amy the Nurse/FlickrHigh school students in > Maryland are using speed cameras as a tool to fine innocent drivers in > a game, according to the Montgomery County Sentinel newspaper. Because > photo enforcement devices will automatically mail out a ticket to any > registered vehicle owner based solely on a photograph of a license > plate, any driver could receive a ticket if someone else creates a > duplicate of his license plate and drives quickly past a speed camera. > The private companies that mail out the tickets often do not bother to > verify whether vehicle registration information for the accused > vehicle matches the photographed vehicle. In the UK, this is known as number plate cloning, where thieves will find the license information of a vehicle similar in appearance to the one they wish to drive. They will use that information to purchase a real license plate from a private vendor using the other vehicle's numbers. This allows the "cloned" vehicle to avoid all automated punishment systems. According to the Sentinel, two Rockville, Maryland high schools call their version of cloning the "speed camera pimping game." A speed camera is located out in front of Wootton High School,Silk Queen Quilt Cover, providing a convenient location for generating the false tickets. Instead of purchasing license plates, students have ready access to laser printers that can create duplicate license plates using glossy paper using readily available fonts. For example, the state name of "Maryland" appears on plates in a font similar to Garamond Number 5 Swash Italic. Once the camera flashes, the driver can quickly pull over and remove the fake paper plate. The victim will receive a $40 ticket in the mail weeks later. According to the Sentinel, students at Richard Montgomery High School have also participated, although Montgomery County officials deny having seen any evidence of faked speed camera tickets. Source: Local teens claim pranks on countys Speed Cams (Montgomery County Sentinel

How do silkworms make silk

Silkworms, offspring of moths,mens silk pajamas, produce their highly-desirable, pricey silk, by spewing out thread from tiny holes in their jaws, which they use to spin into their egg-bearing cocoons. This entire production takes a mere 72 hours, during which time they produce between 500-1200 silken threads. These miniature, mulberry leaf-munching marvels lay, at minimum, 500 eggs each spring, thereby increasing the number of workers for the production line.

The ancient Chinese unearthed the silkworm's secret, and were the first to spin the silkworm's threads into cloth. They kept this covert, top-secret operation, from the rest of the world by imposing the death sentence upon those who smuggled the worm and/or its eggs out of China. Eventually, however, the secret was out, and silkworms are now farmed for their silk, in China, of course, in Japan, in India, in France, in Spain, and in Italy. These countries harness the power of the silkworm through a tedious, labor-intensive, time-consuming process, a process which prominently figures into the price of silk.

Bombyx mori

The silkworm is the larva or caterpillar of the domesticated silkmoth, Bombyx mori (Latin: "silkworm of the mulberry tree"). It is an important economic insect since it is the producer of silk. A silkworm's preferred food is white mulberry leaves, but it may also eat the leaves of any other mulberry tree (ie, Morus rubra or Morus negra) as well as the Osage Orange. It is entirely dependent on humans for its reproduction and does not occur naturally in the wild. Sericulture has been practised for at least 5,silk pajamas,000 years in China, Korea, and Japan.

It was domesticated from the wild silkmoth Bombyx mandarina which has a range from northern India to northern China, Korea, Japan and far eastern Russia. It derives from Chinese rather than Japanese or Korean stock.[1] The breeding of silkworms cannot have originated before the Neolithic as the tools necessary to make use of the silk thread on a large scale only have become available since then. The domesticated B. mori and the wild B. mandarina can still breed and sometimes produce hybrids.

About the Silk Worm

Mulberry leaves contain an extremely high amount of alkaloids that inhibit enzymes that break down sucrose (sugar), and thus are potentially quite toxic. However,Sexy silk dresses, one type of sucrase called beta-fructofuranosidase is not affected by these alkaloids.

Until now, this enzyme has not been found in any animals, but Toru Shimada and colleagues believed this might explain the silkworm's unique diet.

The researchers scanned the silkworm genome and discovered two fructofuranosidase genes, although only one was actually expressed in the worm. This gene (BmSuc1) was, as expected, concentrated in the worm's gut, although surprisingly was also prevalent in the silk gland. When they isolated the enzyme from silkworms, the researchers found it could effectively digest sucrose.

Shimada and colleagues note that further work is needed to determine if this special enzyme is the sole reason for silkworm's resistance to mulberry toxins. It's possible that fructofuranosidases may turn up in other insects that cannot eat mulberry leaves, indicating additional factors are at work.

What Pulpit Freedom

The Gray Lady weighs in on Pulpit Freedom Sunday and, surprise of surprises, takes the dimmest of views. But while the editorial makes a couple of important points, it includes this odd statement: "The tax code mandate they are challenging has protected the separation of church and state by denying tax deductions for contributions to charitable organizations that engage in secular campaigning." But the mandate is not really about separation of church and state, and it does not prevent religious institutions from engaging in "secular" campaigning--if that means, say, advocating passage of this or that piece of legislation. Rather, it says that any tax-exempt (501 c 3) organization, secular or religious, cannot engage in partisan political activity--activity on behalf of a particular party or candidate for office. The principle at stake is what might be called the separation of non-profits and political partisanship.

As for the Alliance Defense Fund, it backs its position with the following bogus argument:

The bottom line is that no enforcement agency of the federal government should be telling a pastor what he can or cannot say from his pulpit about the Bible and his church's teaching on the issues of the hour--even if the pastor's sermon applies Screipture and church teaching to candidates and elections. Such agencies certainly cannot condition tax-exempt status--a status churches have always been constitutionally guaranteed since our founding--on the surrencder of cherished First Amendment rights.

ADF has the U.S. Constitution and the weight of American history on its side. Those who oppose the Pulpit Initiative have yet to make one constitutionally-derived argument against it. It is ironic that they laud the "separation of church and state" in opposition to the Pulpit Initiative, but by opposing the initiative,Silk Queen Quilt Cover, are asking for continued government control and censorshipo of a pastor's sermon. The pulpit is no place for government regulators.
In fact, churches have no constitutionally guaranteed tax-exempt status. Although it has been traditional in the West not to tax churches since the Emperor Constantine, the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment has never been interpreted to include a right not to be taxed. The remedy for the grievance here is simply for ADF to try to get the law changed.

The Fourth Circle

As Congress ponders what to do to get the country out of its financial mess, and even considers some consequences to impose upon those malefactors of great wealth who brought us to this pretty pass, it may be instructive to consider the punishment that Dante imagined for the greedy--the avaricious on the one hand and the spendthrift on the other--whom he consigned to Hell's fourth circle.

Thus we descended into the fourth hollow, taking more of the
woeful bank that gathers in the evil of the whole universe. Ah,
Justice of God! Who heapeth up so many new travails and penalties
as I saw? And why doth our sin so waste us? As doth the wave,
yonder upon Charybdis, which is broken on that which it
encounters, so it behoves that here the people counterdance.

Here saw I people more than elsewhere many, and from one side and
the other with great howls rolling weights by force of chest.
They struck against each other, and then just there each turned,Sexy silk pajamas,
rolling backward, crying, "Why keepest thou?" and "Why flingest
thou away?" Thus they turned through the dark circle on either
hand to the opposite point, still crying out their opprobrious
verse; then each, when he had come through his half circle,
wheeled round to the other joust.

And I, who had my heart well-nigh pierced through, said, "My
Master, now declare to me what folk is this, and if all these
tonsured ones on our left were clerks."

And he to me, "All of these were so asquint in mind in the first
life that they made no spending there with measure. Clearly
enough their voices bay it out, when they come to the two points
of the circle where the contrary sin divides them. These were
clerks who have no hairy covering on their head, and Popes and
Cardinals, in whom avarice practices its excess."

And I, "Master, among such as these I ought surely to recognize
some who were polluted with these evils."

And he to me, "Vain thought thou harborest; the undiscerning life
that made them foul, to all recognition now makes them dim.
Forever will they come to the two buttings; these will rise from
the sepulchre with closed fist, and these with shorn hair.
Ill-giving and ill-keeping have taken from them the fair world,
and set them to this scuffle; such as it is, I adorn not words
for it. Now canst thou, son, see the brief jest of the goods that
are committed unto Fortune, for which the human race so scramble;
for all the gold that is beneath the moon, or that ever was, of
these weary souls could not make a single one repose."

Pre-debate Roundup

Melissa Rogers catches the Alliance Defense Fund in full blink mode on its forthcoming Pulpit Initiative.

The Anchorage Chabad rabbi thinks Obama would be as good for the Jews as Palin.

And last but anything but least, Bill Donohue is defending Palin from witchcraft charges. Well, nobody's charged Palin herself with being a witch, but she's been ridiculed for having received a prayer to protect her from the assaults of witches from that Kenyan pastor, who can, according to Donohue,Fantastic silk scarves, be forgiven for laying on the protection. Why? Because "[w]itchcraft is a sad reality in many parts of Africa, resulting in scores of deaths in Kenya over the past two decades." Donohue believes witches are killing people in Kenya? Maybe the League should fedex some of its copies of the Malleus Maleficarum down to Nairobi.

Pew-a-thon

Today, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released the second installment of its Landscape Survey, this one on religious beliefs and practices. I haven't had a chance to pick through it carefully, but here are a couple of items worth noting, derived from today's conference call with the press.

First, as longtime readers of this blog may recall, the first installment of the survey caught my attention for not disclosing the proportion of Muslims turned up in this 35,silk pajamas,000-strong interview screen, but rather using the number employed in the 2007 Pew report on Muslims in America. That number was .6 percent of the American population. In the course of the phone call, Pew Forum head Luis Lugo mentioned that the Landscape Survey turned up 116 Muslims, which amounts to only .3 percent of the survey. In response to a query from me, the Pew folks said that the adjusted number turned out to be .4 percent.

Why didn't they report that? They said they decided that their earlier estimate was better because it included questioning in Arabic, Urdu, and Farsee. I don't think this quite computes. It suggests that fully one-third of the American Muslim population can't or won't communicate in English, and given that over one-third of American Muslims are African Americans, that would mean that over half the non-black Muslim population doesn't do English. Given their high levels of education and income, this seems improbable to say the least. Maybe there's another explanation, and perhaps it's the one hinted at by Lugo, who noted in the phone call that they are "still pulling out the arrows" from the barrage they received from national Muslim organizations, which have preferred much higher numbers, after the 2007 report. Whatever the merits of the .6 percent estimate, there's no excuse for Pew not to have included a long footnote or appendix giving the actual number and explaining why they chose to go a different route. So saith I, anyway.

As for campaign-related news, the most important takeaway is that Pew is inclined to see some opening for the Democrats when it comes to evangelicals. On very first blush, the finding that members of evangelical churches only favor Republicans by 50 percent to 34 percent suggests as much. However, there are various caveats. "Evangelicals" are not here identified by how individuals answer the question "do you consider yourself a born-again or evangelical Christian," which is how most surveys identify evangelicals. So members include Latinos and African Americans, who are normally treated separately, and do not include "born-again" members of mainline Protestant denominations, who are often very Republican-leaning. At least we can hope that Pew will soon release the cross-tabs for members of those denominations by race and ethnicity. I trust John Green's nose on this one, but am eager to see the verification.

Otherwise, while the survey broadly tells us lots of things we already know (and it's always good to have what we know confirmed), there seem to be many interesting new tidbits. Intriguingly, if oddly, whole states are looked at for levels of religious intensity--i.e. (as the Hartford Courant will report tomorrow), the distinct lukewarmness of the faithful in Connecticut. Elsewhere, there's the array of views among faith traditions on whether "Religion causes more problems in society than it solves." Leading the list of those who "completely disagree" are Mormons (54 percent), followed by members of evangelical churches (50 percent), Muslims (47 percent), and members of historically black churches (45 percent). The lowest outside of the non-believing, non-belonging types are the Buddhists (12 percent), Hindus (15 percent), and Jews (18 percent). In other words, except for the evangelicals, small and/or persecuted minority groups are clustered at both ends of the spectrum. Social circumstances, historical memory, and theology vary, o ye social scientists eager for explanations based on one or two variables.

I am a betting man

The Democratic National Committee has wasted little time putting together an attack ad on McCain and gambling. Brody thinks it could work with evangelicals, and on such matters his opinion is worth paying attention to. I have my doubts though. While It's generally believed that reports on George W. Bush's drunk driving hurt him with evangelicals in 2000, McCain is a much better known quantity,mens silk pajamas, and most evangelicals have already made up their minds who they're voting for. But as always in a close election, a percentage point here or there in a swing state can make a big difference.
 

Fool Me Twice

God-o-Meter reported yesterday that Obama's faith folks had backed out of a scheduled lunchtime debate in DC with opposite numbers on the McCain side. (Hey, wasn't it the McCain side that was supposed to be suspending its campaign?) GOM quoted at length from a statement by the Family Research Council,mens silk pajamas, which wanted everyone to know about this apparent act of bad faith by the Obamas. The scheduled moderator, Rev. Rob Schenck, was quoted as saying: "Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean assured me...that his party would do everything possible to constructively engage Evangelicals, traditional Catholics, and other moral conservatives... Barack Obama has made similar promises. They did a couple of high-profile media events, but it appears they were not serious at a grassroots level."

The Obama campaign did not deny that it had backed out, and I've got no inside poop on why it did so. But Schenck's a right-wing partisan and pro-life agitprop artist who has 1) sought to prove that Obama is a secret Muslim; and 2) called Obama's Christian faith "woefully deficient." Rick Warren was not quite the honest broker he held himself out to be at the Saddleback forum last month. If I'd been in the Obama camp, I wouldn't have showed up for this debate either, not with Schenck in the chair.

Citizen John McPaine

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from putting their country first; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and votes of man and woman. A credit crunch, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the worse the polls, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: Remember that,Silk Queen Quilt Cover, ye subprime lenders. It is dearness only that gives every thing its value: 700 billion? Why not 700 trillion? Heaven knows, not I, how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as THE PRESIDENCY should not be highly rated. My opponent, with the leadership of Congress to enforce his tyranny, has declared that he has a right not only to DEBATE but to FORCE me to do so; and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to MYSELF."

Schönborn v. Sodano

It is a rare thing when one Catholic cardinal publicly attacks another. The most famous example occurred in the middle of the 11th century, when Humbert of Silva Candida bitterly criticized Peter Damian for claiming that bishops who had purchased their offices were still valid bishops. The saintly (later sainted) Damian was one of the circle of papal reformers who strongly opposed simony, but he was unwilling to evoke the chaos that would have ensued if half the bishops in Europe (and all the priests they had ordained) had been kicked out of their jobs. Humbert was the kind of intellectual radical whose unwillingness to compromise helped bring about Rome's permanent split with Eastern Orthodoxy.

Now comes Christoph Schönborn, the cardinal archbishop of Vienna, accusing  Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals and former Vatican secretary of state,Sexy silk dresses, of having blocked the Vatican's inquiry into sex abuse allegations against the late, disgraced cardinal of Vienna, Hans Hermann Groer. Schönborn also said that Sodano had done "massive harm" to victims of sex abuse on Easter Sunday when he waved away criticism of the church's handling of sex abuse as "idle gossip." Declared Schönborn, a sometime protege of Benedict XVI: "The days of cover up are over."

While Sodano--also protector of the late, disgraced Legionaries of Christ founder Marcial Maciel Degollado--could never be confused with Peter Damian (and Schönborn seems a far cry from Humbert), there's certain parallel with the earlier strife, which help set the terms for the papacy's massive effort to reform the medieval church. The question now is what the papacy will do to reform its own ways and means.

Marriage-olatry

Before he became Pope Innocent III in 1198, Lotario dei Conti of Segni wrote De quadripartita specie nuptiarum, a treatise defining marriage as a four-part thing according to the four ways that Parisian scholastics of the day interpreted Scripture: historical, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical. According to Lotario,  the "historical" was the carnal marriage of man and woman, designed for the procreation of offspring and the avoidance of fornication. The "allegorical" referred to the sacramental marriage of Christ and the Church; the "tropological,Sexy silk pajamas," the marriage of God and the individual soul; and the anagogical, the marriage between the Word of God and human nature in the Incarnation of Christ. For Lotario, the four types of marriages were equally "marriage." His point was to enable each to shed light on the others--to create an interpretive web for enriching his readers' understanding of all the relationships.

This excursus is prompted by a reading of the pastoral letter on marriage issued yesterday by the USCCB. It, too, makes reference to spiritual marriages--between Christ and the Church, within the Trinity. But unlike its medieval precursor, it tends to privilege the historical sense as the only "real" marriage. It's not a medieval document, but I'm not sure it's better for that. Carnal marriage--between a man and woman, sans contraception or divorce--becomes an object of transcendant significance, the bedrock of society and even of the Church. Marriage as an idol has been a Protestant temptation, and a Mormon one--but in recent years the Catholics have embraced it too.

If the Church wants to do that, it's not for us non-Catholics to object. But it also teaches that monogamous, heterosexual marriage is a natural phenomenon, created in obedience to Natural Law, and therefore that it can intervene to try to make society at large toe the line. In that regard, the pastoral's secular argumentation with respect to non-heterosexual marriage is notably weak--mostly just ex cathedra table-thumping like the following:

The legal recognition of same-sex unions poses a multifaceted threat to the very fabric of society, striking at the source from which society and culture come and which they are meant to serve. Such recognition affects all people, married and non-married: not only at the fundamental levels of the good of the spouses, the good of children, the intrinsic dignity of every human person, and the common good, but also at the levels of education, cultural imagination and influence, and religious freedom.

When it comes to plain old cohabitation, the pastoral refers its readers to empirical data:

Social science research, however, finds that cohabitation has no positive effects on a marriage....The findings of the social sciences confirm that the best environment for raising children is a stable home provided by the marriage of their parents.
 

Getting GetReligion

Because GetReligion's Mollie Hemingway is gracious enough to concede that I've offered the "best defense" of the Goodstein/Halbfinger NYT article on Pope Benedict's performance as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and because I was perhaps ungracious enough to smack her around a little in a subsequent post,Silk Queen Quilt Cover, let me acknowledge the validity of her latest grounds for criticism.

First, G/H may fairly be charged with taking a swipe at then-Cardinal Ratzinger's position on Liberation Theology. Here's what they wrote:

As Father Gauthe was being prosecuted in Louisiana, Cardinal Ratzinger was publicly disciplining priests in Brazil and Peru for preaching that the church should work to empower the poor and oppressed, which the cardinal saw as a Marxist-inspired distortion of church doctrine.

OK, if I'd been their editor I would have changed that to read "...for preaching that empowering the poor and oppressed was the church's central mission...." In the context of the article as a whole, I count this venial sin.

Second, and more importantly, Hemingway claims that the G/H time-line regarding when the CDF "dithered" is "a mess." With respect to the paragraph above, for example, her point is that the prosecution of Father Gauthe and the crackdown on liberation theologians took place in 1980s, but that knowledge of the CDF's full responsibility for abuse cases indicated in a letter from 1922 didn't surface until some time in the 1990s.

I'll stipulate that there is indeed considerable fuzziness about when the 1922 letter came to be known inside the Roman Curia. For all we know, the CDF's staff canonists may have been aware of it all along. But that's not the point. The CDF had some considerable responsibility for abuse cases all along. And we know in detail from the Kiesle case in the early 1980s that the CDF under Ratzinger didn't merely dither; it brought to a standstill a proceeding that had been moving forward. As I noted, G/H allude to the Kiesle case (which Goodstein and Michael Luo looked at earlier this year). Had I been the editor, I would have made a little space to name and describe it.

Wallisite Common Ground

Jim Wallis' endless apologia pro Stupakia sua on Huffpost is an awe-inspiring exercise in injured innocence. According to him, the collapse of a compromise on abortion in the House health care bill was all the fault of the House leadership (which disrespected pro-life moderates) and pro-choice activists (who just couldn't see past their zealotry). Were there partisans on the other side to be named and blamed? Not so far as Wallis is concerned.

Now as Sarah Posner's fine blow-by-blow on Religion Dispatches makes clear, the abortion issue was badly handled by the pro-choice forces. But as usual, Wallis portrays himself, Rodney King-like, as just trying help people get along. No, in fact they can't all get along. If you're going to be for compromise in order to get health care passed, you've got to take a stand, and tell your interlocutors what to rally around.

To its credit, Third Way has done just that, criticizing the Stupak-Pitts Amendment (as it is now called) for violating the principles of abortion neutrality embraced in word by many,silk pajamas, and backing the failed (but perhaps to be revived in the Senate) Ellsworth Amendment. (See memo, after jump) Michael Sean Winters, vigorous pro-lifer that he is, recognizes that Stupak-Pitts went too far, and supports dialing it back for the greater good. Does Sojourners do the same? Tell us, Jim. And while you're at it, how about shouldering a little responsibility for what happened, O Prophet of the Common Ground?

Premeditated Murder

If ever anyone planned and carried out the killing of another human being, Scott Roeder's testimony at his trial yesterday made clear that he did. He described taking his pistol to George Tiller's church two times prior to when he actually got to the doctor, pressing the muzzle against his head and pulling the trigger. The killing had been something he'd been meditating, he said, since 1993. The Kansas City Star, has the story and the chilling video.

The real news was not Roeder's admissions, but Judge Warren Wilbert's ruling that he would not permit jurors to consider a verdict of voluntary manslaughter--something he had left open as a possibility. A defense of voluntary manslaughter is only permissible if the accused acted to stop the imminent use of unlawful force.

"There's no imminence of danger on a Sunday morning in the back of a church," Wilbert said,silk pajamas, "let alone unlawful conduct. In the state of Kansas, abortions are legal."

Under the circumstances, classic civil disobedience theory would suggest that Roeder go ahead and plead guilty, contending that he had acted in order to protest an unjust law and throwing himself on the mercy of the court. Perhaps he'll do so. But anti-abortion radicals seem to have a difficult time admitting that abortion is actually legal in America. Acknowledging that they are law-breakers seems more than they can manage.

Mainline blues

Pastordan, good UCC clergy that he is, laments the ARIS news on shrinking Mainline Protestantism. This is hardly new news, but there has been an acceleration in the shrinkage during this decade--down from 17.2 percent of the adult population in 2001 to 12.9 percent today. The good pastor stresses the importance of the Mainline maintaining and strengthening its distinctive vision of progressive morality (leave us not say moralism). The latest Mainline Protestant clergy survey, released a few days ago by Public Religion Research, shows a modest liberalizing trend among this already pretty liberal group. The question is whether they became just the voices of a few crying in the wilderness--whether there will be enough fannies in the pews to make anyone else pay attention. In this regard,Fantastic silk scarves, it's interesting the most liberal of the mainline denominations, Pastordan's own United Church of Christ, has actually increased its (modest) numbers (and percentage of the population) since 1990. So maybe there's a public out there waiting for a prophetically energized Mainline.

But there's another possiblity. The late, great church historian Bill Hutchison always used to point out that what came to be called the Mainline was historically always being replenished by the civilizing, so to speak, of evangelicalism. The main case in point was Methodism, which evolved from circuit riding revivalism to central Mainline pillar in a couple of generations. There's a real possiblity that a good segment of the new non-denominationalism will take on enough of the socially conscious, community-building role of the Mainline to be, to all intents and purposes, part of it. This is the ecclesiastical equivalent of the "common ground" politics that is exercising some of us, for better or worse, these days. While it may not make the lefties happy, it may be their salvation.
 

Newly Discovered Chlorophyll Catches Infrared Light

A new kind of chlorophyll that catches sunlight from just beyond the red end of the visible light spectrum has been discovered. The new pigment extends the known range of light that is usable by most photosynthetic organisms. Harnessing this pigment’s power could lead to biofuel-generating algae that are super-efficient, using a greater spread of sunlight than thought possible.

“This is a very important new development, and is the first new type of chlorophyll discovered in an oxygenic organism in 60 years,Sexy silk pajamas,” says biological chemist Robert Blankenship of Washington University in St. Louis.

The newfound pigment, dubbed chlorophyll f, absorbs light most efficiently at a wavelength around 706 nanometers, just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, researchers report online August 19 in Science. This unique absorbance appears to occur thanks to a chemical decoration known as a formyl group on the chlorophyll’s carbon number two. That chemical tweak probably allows the algaelike organism that makes chlorophyll f to conduct photosynthesis while living beneath other photosynthesizers that capture all the other usable light.

“In nature this very small modification of the pigment happens, and then the organism can use this unique light,” says molecular biologist Min Chen of the University of Sydney in Australia. Chen and her colleagues identified the new pigment in extracts from ground-up stromatolites, the knobby chunks of rock and algae that can form in shallow waters. The samples were collected in the Hamelin pool in western Australia’s Shark Bay, the world’s most diverse stromatolite trove.

Use special detergent

For the very best and brightest results,Silk Queen Quilt Cover, it is best to use a special detergent for this purpose, because many commercial laundry detergents container optical brighteners which occupy the same positions you want the fabric to make available for the dye, and brighteners make deep colors look less intense. Appropriate detergents include Synthrapol, or pure SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate or sodium lauryl sulfate), commonly sold in feed stores under the brand name Orvus. However, results of dyeing are generally acceptable even when ordinary detergents have been used for pre-washing. If you don't have Synthrapol, don't worry; just use whatever detergent you have

Sea Creatures Hint at Recent Trans-Antarctic Seaway

The discovery of nearly identical sea creatures on either side of a now solid Antarctic ice sheet — 1,500 miles wide and over a mile thick — points to an open ocean passage there as recently as 125,000 years ago.

 
A schematic of a seaway created by the partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (on left).
The new evidence adds to geologic clues indicating the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has collapsed at least once in the last million years, and could do so again in a warmer climate. The complete collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise global sea level by 11 to 16 feet.

“The West Antarctic Ice Sheet can be considered the Achilles heel of Antarctica,” biologist David Barnes of the West Antarctic Survey, lead author of the study, said in a press release. “Our research provides compelling evidence that a seaway stretching across West Antarctica could have opened up only if the ice sheet has collapsed in the past.”

As part of the Census of Antarctic Marine Life, scientists were looking at the distribution of different species of bryozoans, small filter-feeders that are attached to the sea floor as adults (top image). They found that the populations of bryozoans were remarkably similar in two different seas separated by the ice sheet, the Weddell and the Ross.

“Because the larvae of these animals sink and this stage of their life is short — and the adult form anchors itself to the sea bed — it’s very unlikely that they would have dispersed the long distances carried by ocean currents,” Barnes said. “Our conclusion is that the colonization of both these regions is a signal that both seas were connected by a trans-Antarctic sea way in the recent past.”

“This biological evidence is one of the novel ways that we can look for clues that help us reconstruct Antarctica’s ice sheet history,” Barnes said. The study appears in Global Biological Change.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is already considered to be highly vulnerable to climate change,silk pajamas, but estimates of when it might collapse vary from a few hundred to a few thousand years

Then an additional

Then an additional 12 people used hand-powered machines to extract the silk and weave it into 96-filament thread. Once the spiders had been milked, they were released into back into the wild, where Godley said it takes them about a week to regenerate their silk. “We can go back and re-silk the same spiders,” he said. “It’s like the gift that never stops giving.”

 

Of course, spending four years to produce a single textile of spider silk isn’t very practical for scientists trying to study the properties of spider silk or companies that want to manufacture the fabric for use as a biomedical scaffold or an alternative to Kevlar armor. Several groups have tried inserting spider genes into bacteria (or even cows and goats) to produce silk, but so far, the attempts have been only moderately successful.

Part of the reason it’s so hard to generate spider silk in the lab is that it starts out as a liquid protein that’s produced by a special gland in the spider’s abdomen. Using their spinnerets, spiders apply a physical force to rearrange the protein’s molecular structure and turn it into solid silk.

When we talk about a spider spinning silk, we’re talking about how the spider applies forces to produce a physical transformation from liquid to solid,” said spider silk expert Todd Blackledge of the University of Akron,Sexy silk pajamas, who was not involved in creating the textile. “Scientists simply can’t replicate that as well as a spider does it. Every year we’re getting closer and closer to being able to mass-produce it, but we’re not there yet.”

Physical properties

Silk fibres from the Bombyx mori silkworm have a triangular cross section with rounded corners, 5-10 μm wide. The fibroin-heavy chain is composed mostly of beta-sheets, due to a 59-mer aminoacid repeat sequence with some variations.^[14] The flat surfaces of the fibrils reflect light at many angles, giving silk a natural shine. The cross-section from other silkworms can vary in shape and diameter: crescent-like for Anaphe and elongated wedge for tussah. Silkworm fibres are naturally extruded from two silkworm glands as a pair of primary filaments (brin), which are stuck together, with sericin proteins that act like glue, to form a bave. Bave diameters for tussah silk can reach 65 μm. See cited reference for cross-sectional SEM photographs.^[15]

Silk has a smooth, soft texture that is not slippery, unlike many synthetic fibers.

Silk is one of the strongest natural fibres but loses up to 20% of its strength when wet. It has a good moisture regain of 11%. Its elasticity is moderate to poor: if elongated even a small amount, it remains stretched. It can be weakened if exposed to too much sunlight. It may also be attacked by insects, especially if left dirty.

Silk is a poor conductor of electricity and thus susceptible to static cling.

Unwashed silk chiffon may shrink up to 8% due to a relaxation of the fibre macrostructure. So silk should either be pre-washed prior to garment construction, or dry cleaned. Dry cleaning may still shrink the chiffon up to 4%. Occasionally,Silk Queen Quilt Cover, this shrinkage can be reversed by a gentle steaming with a press cloth. There is almost no gradual shrinkage nor shrinkage due to molecular-level deformation.

Natural and synthetic silk is known to manifest piezoelectric properties in proteins, probably due to its molecular structure.^[16]

Silkworm silk was used as the standard for the denier, a measurement of linear density in fibers. Silkworm silk therefore has a linear density of approximately 1 den, or 1.1 dtex.

China

Silk fabric was first developed in ancient China,^[1] with some of the earliest examples found as early as 3,500 BC.^[2] Legend gives credit for developing silk to a Chinese empress, Lei Zu (Hsi-Ling-Shih, Lei-Tzu). Silks were originally reserved for the Kings of China for their own use and gifts to others, but spread gradually through Chinese culture and trade both geographically and socially, and then to many regions of Asia. Silk rapidly became a popular luxury fabric in the many areas accessible to Chinese merchants because of its texture and luster. Silk was in great demand, and became a staple of pre-industrial international trade. In July 2007, archeologists discovered intricately woven and dyed silk textiles in a tomb in Jiangxi province, dated to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty roughly 2,500 years ago.^[3] Although historians have suspected a long history of a formative textile industry in ancient China, this find of silk textiles employing "complicated techniques" of weaving and dyeing provides direct and concrete evidence for silks dating before the Mawangdui-discovery and other silks dating to the Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD).^[3]

The first evidence of the silk trade is the finding of silk in the hair of an Egyptian mummy of the 21st dynasty, c.1070 BC.^[4] Ultimately the silk trade reached as far as the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa. This trade was so extensive that the major set of trade routes between Europe and Asia has become known as the Silk Road. The highest development was in Japan and China.

The Emperors of China strove to keep knowledge of sericulture secret to maintain the Chinese monopoly. Nonetheless sericulture reached Korea around 200 BC,Sexy silk dresses, about the first half of the 1st century AD had reached ancient Khotan^[5], and by AD 300 the practice had been established in India.^{[citation needed]}

ASHGABAT

     Day 7: ASHGABAT

    We arrive in the ‘Las Vegas of the Kara Kum’, the capital city of Turkmenistan,womens silk pajamas, Ashgabat. A huge modern folly in the desert which is a monument to the recently deceased President Sapamurat Turkmenbashi. Situated between the Kara Kum Desert and the Kopet Dag mountain range the scenery that forms the backdrop to the city is one of extremes.

ALMATY

 

        Day 12: ALMATY

          Just before lunch we arrive in the largest city in Kazakstan, Almaty, which is set to play host to the 2011 Asian Winter Games. Beautifully set in a valley in the foothills of the Tien Shen Mountains, we have lunch in a Kazak ‘yurt’,mens silk pajamas, a traditional dwelling place of the nomadic people of this region. Tonight is our final evening on board the Golden Eagle and we mark the occasion with a farewell banquet.

The first Britons

     The first Britons - free access

       A haul of stone tools unearthed from a beach in England hints that humans were living in northern Europe far earlier than we thought - and in a cold climate. The finding suggests that the first Britons were a hardy bunch,mens silk pajamas, able to thrive                                                               in Scandinavian-like conditions.

The Silk Experience

The development of 'The Silk Experience' movement grew from our many silk connections around the world. "The Silk Experience' is a consorsium of silk textile teachers, artists and authors that have coordinated their talents by offering core, silk related topics for 7 years at the Houston Quilt Festival and at other venues in this county.

In our need to understand the processes required to produce silk and the manipulation of the silk fibers into thread and fabrics, we have been fortunate toacquire the aid of silk professionals in Japan who have taught us the 'mysteries' fo silk.

Ginny Eckley and I were fortunate to be asked to teach some of our silk techniqes to Bernina audiences in Japan , which eventually lead to making several ' Sik Study Tours' to Japan to increase our knowledge of 'the queen of fiber's'. These exciting exchanges,womens silk pajamas, also lead us in assisting talented Japanese silk professionals to bring their artisty to this country.

Silk has proved to be a never ending wonder to those of us that have worked with it and we are eager to continue the networkings and sharing of those 'silk experiences' with others.

The silk industry in France

Italian silk cloth was very expensive, as much a result of the cost of the raw material as of the production costs. The craftsmen in Italy proved unable to keep up with the exigencies of French fashion, which continuously demanded lighter and less expensive materials.^[28] These materials were used for clothing, and garment production began to be done locally. Nevertheless, Italian silk long remained among the most prized, mostly for furnishings and the brilliant colours of the dyes.

Following the example of the wealthy Italian city-states of the era (Venice, Florence, Lucca, etc.), which had become the centre of the luxury textile industry, Lyon obtained a similar function in the French market. In 1466 King Louis XI decided to develop a national silk industry in Lyon. In the face of protests by the Lyonnais, he conceded and moved the silk fabrication to Tours, but the industry in Tours stayed relatively marginal. His main objective was to reduce France's trade deficit with Italy, which caused France to lose 400,000 to 500,000 golden écus a year.^[29] It was under Francis I in around 1535 that a royal charter was granted to two merchants, Étienne Turquet and Barthélemy Naris, to develop a silk trade in Lyon. In 1540 the king granted a monopoly on silk production to the city of Lyon. Starting in the 16th century Lyon became the capital of the European silk trade,Fantastic silk scarves, notably producing many reputable fashions.^[30] Gaining confidence, the silks produced in the city little by little began to abandon the original oriental styles and moved towards their own distinctive style, with an emphasis on landscapes. Thousand of workers, the canuts, devoted themselves to the flourishing industry. In the middle of the 17th century over 14,000 looms were in use in Lyon, and the silk industry fed a third of the city's population.^[30]

The appearance of silk

The earliest evidence of silk was found at the sites of Yangshao culture in Xia County, Shanxi, where a silk cocoon was found cut in half by a sharp knife, dating back to between 4,000 and 3,000 BCE. The species was identified as bombyx mori, the domesticated silkworm. Fragments of primitive loom can also be seen from the sites of Hemudu culture in Yuyao, Zhejiang, dated to about 4,000 BCE. Scraps of silk were found in a Liangzhu culture site at Qianshanyang in Huzhou, Zhejiang, dating back to 2,700 BCE.^[1][2] Other fragments have been recovered from royal tombs in the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1600 BCE - ca. 1046 BCE).^[3]

During the later epoch, the Chinese lost their secret as the Koreans, the Japanese, and later the Indians succeeded in discovering how to make silk. Allusions to the fabric in the Old Testament show that it was known in western Asia in biblical times.^[4] Scholars believe that starting in the 2nd century BC the Chinese established a commercial network aimed at exporting silk to the West.^[4] Silk was used,womens silk pajamas, for example, by the Persian court and its king, Darius III, when Alexander the Great conquered the empire.^[4] Even though silk spread rapidly across Eurasia, with the possible exception of Japan its production remained exclusively Chinese for three millennia.

Silk For Mens Clothing - The History of Silk

Most of the silk that is used for weaving into textiles comes from cocoons made by larvae of the Bombyx mori, or mulberry silkworm that is raised in captivity. This fabric has its lustrous appearance because of a prism-like structure of the fibers that refracts incoming light at several angles. Silk fabric was first made in China from as long ago as 3,500 BCE. Only kings could wear and give silk in ancient China, but use of the fabric eventually spread throughout Asia.

Approximately 1,000 years B.C.E. the silk trade stretched into the Middle East, North Africa, India and Europe. It had already become an international trading item at this time. The trade routes running from Europe to Asia were known collectively as the Silk Road. Though Chinese emperors tried to keep knowledge of the production of silk secret,mens silk pajamas, the techniques nonetheless spread to Korea by 200 B.C.E., and by 300 C. E., silk was produced in India.

China is the largest producer of silk today with India coming in second. However India is the largest user of silk today. Brides traditionally wear silk saris during marriage ceremonies in some parts of India, and silk is commonly worn to festive occasions in India.

This comfortable and useful fabric was known throughout the Roman Empire. Though the emperor Tiberius passed laws forbidding men to wear silk garments (because it was simply too luxurious and sophisticated), this did little to stop the wearing of silk.

Venice was a center of trade, and because of this many growers settled in Italy. By the 1200s C.E. Italian silk had a reputation as truly luxurious fabric. Silk made in the province of Como became the most valuable in the world, and by the late 19th century, Italy was the third largest producer in the world, bested only by China and Japan.

Silk production came to the Americas as early as the 1600s when American colonists tried their hand at producing silk, as did Shakers living in what is now Kentucky and some New England residents. In the 19th century, European workers in Paterson, New Jersey brought silk production there, making Paterson a center of U.S. production of silk.

Silk is strong because of the amount of the amino acid called glycine in it, which allows the fibers to pack tightly and strongly. Silk's tensile strength is because of interceded hydrogen bonds, which resist even most acids. Sulfuric acid, however, will dissolve silk. Because of its wonderful properties, silk used to be used for making blanket filling, parachutes, and even bicycle tires.

The cultivation of silk involves silk moths laying eggs on special paper. When the eggs hatch, the larvae are given mulberry leaves to eat. After about five weeks, the larvae are ready to begin spinning their co coon, which they do on a straw frame placed over the tray where the larvae live. The silk is coated in a substance called seracin, and it solidifies as soon as it comes in contact with air. Silkworm larva can spin a mile of filament into a cocoon in two or three days time. The cocoon totally encases the larva and when the cocoon is finished the larva are killed in heated water and the silk is collected.

This is the story of how fine silk comes about. Silk is one of the finest fabrics you can buy. Bedding and sleepwear made of silk is an affordable luxury that will give you one of the little pleasures of life.

 

Improved technology

The 13th century saw an already changing technology undergo many dramatic changes. It is possible that, as with in England at the end of the 18th century, advances in the textile industry were a driving force behind advances in technology as a whole. Silk indeed occupies a privileged place in history on account of this.^[24]

At the start of the thirteenth century, a primitive form of milling the silk threads was already in use. In 1221 Jean de Garlande's dictionary, and in 1226, Étienne Boileau's Livre des métiers (Tradesman's Handbook) enumerated many types of devices which can only have been doubling machines. The instruments used were further perfected in Bologna between 1270 and 1280. From the start of the fourteenth century, many documents allude to the use of devices that were quite complex.^[25]

The reel, originally developed for the silk industry, now has multiple uses. The earliest surviving depiction of a spinning wheel is a panel of stained glass in the Cathedral of Chartres.^[26] Bobbins and warping machines appear together in the stained glass at Chartres and in a fresco in the Cologne Kunkelhaus (ca 1300). It is possible that the toothed warping machine was created by the silk industry; it allowed the warp to be more uniform and allowed the warp to be of a longer length.^[25]

Starting at the end of the 14th century, no doubt on account of the devastation caused mid-century by the Black Death,Fantastic silk scarves, there was a general shift towards less expensive techniques. Many things which would have earlier been completely forbidden by the guilds were now commonplace (using low quality wool, carding, etc.). In the silk industry, the use of water-powered mills grew, and by the 15th century, the loom designed by Jean le Calabrais saw nearly universal use.^[27]

Tubes are

Tubes are required in metazoans to transport the liquids and gases that sustain life. The conservation of molecules and mechanisms involved in tube formation suggests that what we learn by studying simple systems will apply to related processes in higher animals. Studies over the past 10 years have revealed the molecules that specify cell fate in Drosophila salivary gland and the cellular events that mediate tube morphogenesis. Here, we discuss how anterior–posterior and dorsal–ventral patterning information specifies both the position of salivary-gland primordia and how many cells they contain. We examine the transformation of a polarized epithelial sheet into an elongated,mens silk pajamas, unbranched tube, and the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence the final position of the salivary gland.

References

1. Wilson SE, Mohan RR, Mohan RR, Ambrosio J. Renato, Hong J, Lee J. The Corneal Wound Healing Response: Cytokine-mediated Interaction of the Epithelium, Stroma, and Inflammatory Cells. Prog Retin Eye Res. 2001; 20:625-37. [PMID: 11470453]
   
2. Jester JV, Ho-Chang J. Modulation of cultured corneal keratocyte phenotype by growth factors/cytokines control in vitro contractility and extracellular matrix contraction. Exp Eye Res. 2003; 77:581-92. [PMID: 14550400]
   
3. Kim WJ, Helena MC, Mohan RR, Wilson SE. Changes in corneal morphology associated with chronic epithelial injury. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 1999; 40:35-42. [PMID: 9888424]
   
4. Soriano ES, Campos MS, Aguiar JA, Michelacci YM. Effect of epithelial debridement on human cornea proteoglycans. Braz J Med Biol Res. 2001; 34:325-31. [PMID: 11262582]
   
5. Imayasu M, Petroll WM, Jester JV, Patel SK, Ohashi J, Cavanagh HD. The relation between contact lens oxygen transmissibility and binding of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the cornea after overnight wear. Ophthalmology. 1994; 101:371-88. [PMID: 8115159]
   
6. Helena MC, Baerveldt F, Kim WJ,Silk Queen Quilt Cover, Wilson SE. Keratocyte apoptosis after corneal surgery. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 1998; 39:276-83. [PMID: 9477983]
   
7. Lin AM, Dung SW, Chen CF, Chen WH, Ho LT. Hypoxic preconditioning prevents cortical infarction by transient focal ischemia-reperfusion. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2003; 993:168-78. [PMID: 12853311]
   
8. Yu EZ, Li YY, Liu XH, Kagan E, McCarron RM. Antiapoptotic action of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha in human endothelial cells. Lab Invest. 2004; 84:553-61. [PMID: 15064771]
   
9. Grimm C, Wenzel A, Groszer M, Mayser H, Seeliger M, Samardzija M, Bauer C, Gassmann M, Reme CE. HIF-1-induced erythropoietin in the hypoxic retina protects against light-induced retinal degeneration. Nat Med. 2002; 8:718-24. [PMID: 12068288]
   
10. Xing D, Sun X, Li J, Cui M, Tan-Allen K, Bonanno JA. Hypoxia preconditioning protects corneal stromal cells against induced apoptosis. Exp Eye Res. 2006; 82:780-7. [PMID: 16364292]
    
11. Lando D, Peet DJ, Whelan DA, Gorman JJ, Whitelaw ML. Asparagine hydroxylation of the HIF transactivation domain a hypoxic switch. Science. 2002; 295:858-61. [PMID: 11823643]
    
12. Jiang BH, Semenza GL, Bauer C, Marti HH. Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 levels vary exponentially over a physiologically relevant range of O2 tension. Am J Physiol. 1996; 271:C1172-80. [PMID: 8897823]
    
13. Sowter HM, Ratcliffe PJ, Watson P, Greenberg AH, Harris AL. HIF-1-dependent regulation of hypoxic induction of the cell death factors BNIP3 and NIX in human tumors. Cancer Res. 2001; 61:6669-73. [PMID: 11559532]
    
14. Dong Z, Venkatachalam MA, Wang J, Patel Y, Saikumar P, Semenza GL, Force T, Nishiyama J. Up-regulation of apoptosis inhibitory protein IAP-2 by hypoxia. Hif-1-independent mechanisms. J Biol Chem. 2001; 276:18702-9. [PMID: 11278985]
    
15. Zaman K, Ryu H, Hall D, O'Donovan K, Lin KI, Miller MP, Marquis JC, Baraban JM, Semenza GL, Ratan RR. Protection from oxidative stress-induced apoptosis in cortical neuronal cultures by iron chelators is associated with enhanced DNA binding of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 and ATF-1/CREB and increased expression of glycolytic enzymes, p21(waf1/cip1), and erythropoietin. J Neurosci. 1999; 19:9821-30. [PMID: 10559391]
    
16. Akakura N, Kobayashi M, Horiuchi I, Suzuki A, Wang J, Chen J, Niizeki H, Kawamura K, Hosokawa M, Asaka M. Constitutive expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha renders pancreatic cancer cells resistant to apoptosis induced by hypoxia and nutrient deprivation. Cancer Res. 2001; 61:6548-54. [PMID: 11522653]
    
17. Tang Y, Pacary E, Freret T, Divoux D, Petit E, Schumann-Bard P, Bernaudin M. Effect of hypoxic preconditioning on brain genomic response before and following ischemia in the adult mouse: identification of potential neuroprotective candidates for stroke. Neurobiol Dis. 2006; 21:18-28. [PMID: 16040250]
    
18. Date T, Mochizuki S, Belanger AJ, Yamakawa M, Luo Z, Vincent KA, Cheng SH, Gregory RJ, Jiang C. Expression of constitutively stable hybrid hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha protects cultured rat cardiomyocytes against simulated ischemia-reperfusion injury. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. 2005; 288:C314-20. [PMID: 15496478]
    
19. Moeller BJ, Cao Y, Li CY, Dewhirst MW. Radiation activates HIF-1 to regulate vascular radiosensitivity in tumors: role of reoxygenation, free radicals, and stress granules. Cancer Cell. 2004; 5:429-41. [PMID: 15144951]
    
20. Gorski DH, Beckett MA, Jaskowiak NT, Calvin DP, Mauceri HJ, Salloum RM, Seetharam S, Koons A, Hari DM, Kufe DW, Weichselbaum RR. Blockage of the vascular endothelial growth factor stress response increases the antitumor effects of ionizing radiation. Cancer Res. 1999; 59:3374-8. [PMID: 10416597]

 

Implicate God - destroy

Oak and the swords have to spend one of his strongest move, but even so the idea of two of the hold is just Tuidi, rather than Zhu Sha. Shows the powerful tiger Juzhu. Elements of air,ffxi power leveling, the wind began to gather oak, while the high militant's body from the swords issued a scabbard like a magic, sharp extraordinary.

"Cut!"

"Destroy!"

Oak and swords at the same time shot,Fantastic silk scarves, but both did not attack the crux Juzhu compound eyes, but legs of a spider leg forward to the attack. That is Juzhu injured, one of the two spider legs. Elements in the formation of a wind in the oak-Ying occurring at the front of one meter, and then continue to stare, while the swords of the knife Daoqi throughput, and even appeared in an inch of Daomang. Tiger Juzhu is clear that for this to think twice before attacking the body backward, and then raised his two pairs of spider legs. Besides blocking front, and the constant outward Tuzhuo spider silk, spider silk in the air strangely formed a spider's web. Like oak and swords cover to go.
 

perception

I had no perception of the whole leg, and set about it.&quot,Silk Queen Quilt Cover,EverQuest gold; Bazaar before extrusion smile. Ze is not nonsense, from the ring in Cang Ming out several needles stabbing Bazaar legs several large hole, and then come up with a dagger shining Han-guang, slightly heated with the flame, the wound started to Bazaar fester's place at a little removed, while the oak and swords, as well as all Bieguo Lian Qiu Ji to go once again to have killed someone while, but watching his teammates in the flesh is still a bit much for him. When something happens to oak origin of this noble young master, his face has become more of the good looks.

Although the leg has been paralyzed toxins. But looking at the flesh of his legs cut off by a block. Bazaar is also a bit unbearable, do not know the psychological effects or other reasons. Had paralysis of the legs, along with Ze continuous cutting, even pain together. However, Baja is still set teeth, beads of sweat from his forehead on the cob rolled, there is no call out soon as.
 

The Industrial Report of American Mens

  

     In the murky economical dark clouds and miserable fog, the traditional white collar worker's life is perhaps no longer sight,Fantastic silk scarves, but shirt fabric - mens shirt fabric sales is rallying. The seller-Charles Company said that their shirt fabric sales has increased 50%, from 220,000 pcs each month increase to 330,000 pcs since 2009. The company was established by Nick in 1986, and sell shirt to US, Germany and Britain. Villar said that the sales increase of mens shirt fabric is the biggest in US, even if the US market was volatile in the end of 2008. "Our sales dropped the cliff during the last September and October." he said. At that time, American bank industry was influenced by the Brother Leiman bankrupt. White shirt is the classics symbol in the period. "A man shirt fabric looks very good and safe," he said, "The bolder color shirt is not always match with the atmosphere of that time." According to the fabric type, the apparel fabric is usually divided into
Wearing white shirt is obviously very suitable in the office to many persons, but the reason why white shirt fabric is popular is unclear. "No evidence states that wearing white shirt will have any difference." Psychologist Dr. Rob Yeung said." But people easily turn to the superstitious religious doctrine and the etiquette form in the mental tension time. Just like many people believe wrongly, if a roulette's wheel are red in the four times, it will be black probablely in the next time, they may believe, a man shirt fabric symbolizes the professionalism and the honest quality."

Parkinson's disease

           Parkinson's disease

       Like the condition itself, advances in understanding and treating Parkinson's disease have come slowly yet inexorably. Finally,mens silk pajamas, however, we might be near the tipping point. With prevalence predicted to exceed 8 million in the next 20 years, new ways to treat Parkinson's disease are urgently needed. Discover more in a dedicated Nature Outlook available free online for 3 months.

Malaria 2010 update

        Malaria 2010 update,Fantastic silk scarves

        Despite increasing research efforts, malaria remains a significant cause of human mortality. The discovery of new drug and vaccine leads, the implementation of effective control measures in light of a changing world and an understanding of the mechanisms underlying human-parasite and vector-parasite interactions are all required to get a step closer to the ultimate goal of eradicating this disease. In all of these areas, the past year has produced some very interesting new insights that we are proud to present in this focus.

The Future

Sericulture is an ancient science, and the modern age has not brought great changes to silk manufacture. Rather, man-made fibers such as polyester, nylon, and acetate have replaced silk in many instances. But many of the qualities of silk cannot be reproduced. For example,silk pajamas, silk is stronger than an equivalent strand of steel. Some recent research has focused on the molecular structure of silk as it emerges from the silkworm, in order to better understand how new, stronger artificial fibers might be constructed. Silk spun by the silkworm starts out as a liquid secretion. The liquid passes through a brief interim state with a semi-ordered molecular structure known as nematic liquid crystal, before it solidifies into a fiber. Materials scientists have been able to manufacture durable fibers using liquid crystal source material, but only at high temperatures or under extreme pressure. Researcher are continuing to study the silkworm to determine how liquid crystal is transformed into fiber at ordinary temperatures and pressures

Silk Manufacturing

In silk manufacture, the first operation is reeling. The cocoons, having been sorted for color and texture, are steamed or placed in warm water to soften the natural gum. They are then unwound; each cocoon may give from 2,000 to 3,000 ft (610-915 m) of filament, from 4 to 18 strands of which are reeled or twisted together to make an even thread strong enough to handle. This is called raw silk. Formerly a hand process, this work is now done in Europe and in some parts of the Orient in factories on simple machines called filatures.

The next step, called throwing, is preparing the raw silk for the loom by twisting and doubling it to the required strength and thickness. This process also is now mostly done in large mills with specialized machinery. Silk, after throwing, has three forms-singles,Fantastic silk scarves, which are untwisted, used for the warp of very delicate fabrics; tram, two or more singles, twisted and doubled, used for the weft of various fabrics; and organzine, made of singles twisted one way, then doubled and twisted in the opposite direction, used for the warp of heavy fabrics. For sewing and embroidery thread, more doubles and smoother twists are made. In modern factories spinning frames complete the preparation for the loom.

The silk is boiled off in soapsuds to remove gum and prepare it for dyeing. For white and pale tints it must be bleached. Scouring or boiling causes loss of weight, sometimes made up by loading with metallic salts, as tin, which has an affinity for silk and can be absorbed to excess, causing weakening of the fiber. Dyeing may be done in the yarn or in the piece. Finishing processes are varying and important, as in making moires. Weaving is done as with other textiles, but on more delicate and specialized looms.

History

Sericulture (the culture of the silkworm) and the weaving of silk have been practiced in China from a remote period. Legend dates this back to 2640 B.C., to Empress Si Ling-chi,Sexy silk dresses, who not only encouraged the culture of the silkworm but also developed the process of reeling from the cocoon. This was a closely guarded secret for some 3,000 years. Silk seems to have been woven very early on the island of Kós, which Aristotle mentions, in a vague description of the silkworm, as the place where silk was "first spun," In the 1st and 2d cent. A.D. silk fabrics imported to Greece and Rome were sold for fabulous prices.

Up to the 6th cent. raw silk was brought from China, but death was the penalty for exporting silkworm eggs. About A.D. 550 two former missionaries to China, incited by Emperor Justinian, succeeded (says Procopius) in smuggling to Constantinople, in a hollow staff, both the eggs of the silkworm and the seeds of the mulberry tree. Byzantium became famous for splendid silken textiles and embroideries, used throughout medieval Europe for royal and ecclesiastical costumes and furnishings. In the 8th cent. the Moors began to carry the arts of silk culture and weaving across the northern coast of Africa and to Spain and Sicily, and in the 12th cent. Spain and Sicily were weaving silks of exquisite texture and design.

Other areas of Europe subsequently became great weaving centers. Lucca, in N Italy, had established looms by the 13th cent., and in the 14th cent. the city became famous for its materials and designs. Florence and Venice followed and wove sumptuous fabrics and velvets enriched with gold thread. Genoa's velvets became well known. France established looms, and under Louis XIV's minister Jean Baptiste Colbert it set the fashion with its beautiful silks. Lyons in S France became an important weaving center. Early attempts were made in England under Henry VI to establish the silk industry, but it was not until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when many French refugee weavers fled to England, that the industry received a real impetus. The French settled in Canterbury, Norwich, and other places; but it was in Spitalfields, London, that the industry became important.

Many attempts were made to establish sericulture in the American colonies: inducements such as land grants and bounties were offered, and many mulberry trees were planted. In 1759 Georgia sold more than 10,000 lb (4,535 kg) of cocoons in London. Pennsylvania had a silk industry, fostered by Benjamin Franklin, until the Revolution. The high cost of labor seems to have been the main deterrent to the success of sericulture in America.

Raw Materials

The secret to silk production is the tiny creature known as the silkworm, which is the caterpillar of the silk moth Bombyx mori. It feeds solely on the leaves of mulberry trees. Only one other species of moth, the Antheraea mylitta, also produces silk fiber. This is a wild creature, and its silk filament is about three times heavier than that of the cultivated silkworm. Its coarser fiber is called tussah.

The life cycle of the Bombyx mori begins with eggs laid by the adult moth. The larvae emerge from the eggs and feed on mulberry leaves. In the larval stage, the Bombyx is the caterpillar known as the silkworm. The silkworm spins a protective cocoon around itself so it can safely transform into a chrysalis. In nature, the chrysalis breaks through the cocoon and emerges as a moth. The moths mate and the female lays 300 to 400 eggs. A few days after emerging from the cocoon, the moths die and the life cycle continues.

The cultivation of silkworms for the purpose of producing silk is called sericulture. Over the centuries, sericulture has been developed and refined to a precise science. Sericulture involves raising healthy eggs through the chrysalis stage when the worm is encased in its silky cocoon. The chrysalis inside is destroyed before it can break out of the cocoon so that the precious silk filament remains intact. The healthiest moths are selected for breeding, and they are allowed to reach maturity, mate, and produce more eggs.

Generally, one cocoon produces between 1,000 and 2,discount nike shoes,000 feet of silk filament, made essentially of two elements. The fiber, called fibroin, makes up between 75 and 90%, and sericin, the gum secreted by the caterpillar to glue the fiber into a cocoon, comprises about 10-25% of silk. Other elements include fats, salts, and wax. To make one yard of silk material, about 3,000 cocoons are used.

THE SECRET OF SERICULTURE

Producing silk is a lengthy process and demands constant close attention. To produce high quality silk, there are two conditions which need to be fulfilled ?preventing the moth from hatching out and perfecting the diet on which the silkworms should feed. Chinese developed secret ways for both.

* The eggs must be kept at 65 degrees F, increasing gradually to 77 degrees at which point they hatch. After the eggs hatch, the baby worms feed day and night every half hour on fresh, hand-picked and chopped mulberry leaves until they are very fat. Also a fixed temperature has to be maintained throughout. Thousands of feeding worms are kept on trays that are stacked one on top of another. A roomful of munching worms sounds like heavy rain falling on the roof. The newly hatched silkworm multiplies its weight 10,000 times within a month, changing color and shedding its whitish-gray skin several times.

*The silkworms feed until they have stored up enough energy to enter the cocoon stage. While they are growing they have to be protected from loud noises, drafts, strong smells such as those of fish and meat and even the odor of sweat. When it is time to build their cocoons, the worms produce a jelly-like substance in their silk glands, which hardens when it comes into contact with air. Silkworms spend three or four days spinning a cocoon around themselves until they look like puffy, white balls.

*After eight or nine days in a warm, dry place the cocoons are ready to be unwound. First they are steamed or baked to kill the worms, or pupas. The cocoons are then dipped into hot water to loosen the tightly woven filaments. These filaments are unwound onto a spool. Each cocoon is made up of a filament between 600 and 900 meters long! Between five and eight of these super-fine filaments are twisted together to make one thread.

*Finally the silk threads are woven into cloth or used for embroidery work. Clothes made from silk are not only beautiful and lightweight, they are also warm in cool weather and cool in hot weather.

Literary sources such as The Book of History, and The Book of Rites give further information about sericulture. Reeling silk and spinning were always considered household duties for women, while weaving and embroidery were carried out in workshops as well as the home. In every silk-producing province the daughters, mothers and grandmothers of every family devoted a large part of the day for six months in a year to the feeding,nike air max 2009, tending and supervision of silkworms and to the unraveling, spinning, weaving, dyeing and embroidering of silk. By the fifth century BC, at least six Chinese provinces were producing silk. Each spring, the empress herself inaugurated the silk-raising season, for silk production was the work of women all over China. The technique and process of sericulture were guarded secrets and closely controlled by Chinese authorities. Anyone who revealed the secrets or smuggled the silkworm eggs or cocoons outside of China would be punished by death.

Substitute and smooth fonts

Silk enables the Quartz text rendering and smoothing introduced in Mac OS X 10.1.5 in all Carbon applications. This means antialiased text in Netscape, Mozilla, and many others. Why wait for developers to update their Carbon applications when you can get the silky smooth text everywhere, right now? Moreover, it can substitute one font with another in your applications, change the theme font (the font used to display menus, window titles, and other interface elements).

Features:

• Substitutes fonts in the applications.
  
• Changes the default theme font to any other font.
  
• Enforces the minimum font size setting.
  
• Enables the Quartz text rendering in all running Carbon applications, such as Netscape, Mozilla and many others.
  
• Exclude list feature allows you to exclude certain applications so they work as before,discount nike shoes, if the antialiased text there looks bad.
  
• Convenient drop button in the Silk preference pane to quickly detect if a particular application is Carbon or not.
  
• Implemented as an easy-to-use preference pane.

Chemical properties

 

Silk is made up of the amino acids Gly-Ser-Gly-Ala and forms Beta pleated sheets. H-bonds form between chains, and side chains form above and below the plane of the H-bond network.

The high proportion (50%) of glycine, which is a small amino acid, allows tight packing and the fibers are strong and resistant to stretching. The tensile strength is due to the many interseeded hydrogen bonds. Since the protein forms a Beta sheet, when stretched the force is applied to these strong bonds and they do not break.

Silk is resistant to most mineral acids,nike running shoes, except for sulfuric acid, which dissolves it. It is yellowed by perspiration.

Ancient Mediterranean

 

   In the Odyssey, 19.233, when Odysseus, while pretending to be someone else, is questioned by Penelope about her husband's clothing,nike shox shoes, he says that he wore a shirt "gleaming like the skin of a dried onion" (varies with translations, literal translation here)^[9] which could refer to the lustrous quality of silk fabric. The Roman Empire knew of and traded in silk. During the reign of emperor Tiberius, sumptuary laws were passed that forbade men from wearing silk garments, but these proved ineffectual.^[10] Despite the popularity of silk, the secret of silk-making only reached Europe around AD 550, via the Byzantine Empire. Legend has it that monks working for the emperor Justinian I smuggled silkworm eggs to Constantinople in hollow canes from China. All top-quality looms and weavers were located inside the Palace complex in Constantinople and the cloth produced was used in imperial robes or in diplomacy, as gifts to foreign dignitaries. The remainder was sold at very high prices