Silicon Valley includes the northern part of Santa Clara Valley and adjacent communities in the southern parts of the San Francisco Peninsula and East Bay. It reaches from Menlo Park (on the Peninsula) and the Fremont/Newark area in the East Bay down to San Jose.
Currently, many locations in Silicon Valley are full of tourists.
The term "Silicon Valley" was coined by journalist Don Hoefler in 1971. He used it as the title of a series of articles "Silicon Valley USA" in a weekly trade newspaper Electronic News which started with the January 11, 1971 issue. "Valley" refers to the Santa Clara Valley, located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, while "Silicon" refers to the high concentration of semiconductor and computer-related industries in the area. These and similar technology firms slowly replaced the orchards which gave the area its initial nickname, the "Valley of Heart's Delight".
The San Francisco Bay Area had long been a major site of U.S. Navy work, as well as the site of the Navy's large research airfield at Moffett Field. A number of technology firms had set up shop in the area around Moffett to serve the Navy. When the Navy moved most of its West Coast operations to San Diego, NASA took over portions of Moffett for aeronautics research. Many of the original companies stayed, while new ones moved in. The immediate area was soon filled with aerospace firms.
However, there was almost no civilian "high-tech" industry in the area. Although there were a number of excellent schools in the area, graduating students almost always moved east or south (that is, to Los Angeles County) to find work. This was particularly annoying to Frederick Terman, a professor at Stanford University. He decided that a vast area of unused Stanford land was perfect for real estate development, and set up a program to encourage students to stay in the area by enabling them to easily find venture capital. One of the major success stories of the program was that it convinced two students to stay in the area, William Hewlett and David Packard. In 1939, they founded Hewlett-Packard in Packard's garage, which would go on to be one of the first "high tech" firms in the area that was not directly related to NASA or the U.S. Navy.
Thousands of high technology companies are headquartered in Silicon Valley; among those, the following are in the Fortune 1000:
Additional notable companies headquartered (or with a significant presence) in Silicon Valley include (some defunct or subsumed):
Befitting its heritage, Silicon Valley is home to the high-tech superstore chain Fry's Electronics.
"For a larger list of companies, see "
Technically the following universities are not located in Silicon Valley, but have been instrumental as sources of research and new graduates:
A number of cities are located in Silicon Valley (in alphabetical order):
Cities sometimes associated with the region:
In the James Bond film "A View to a Kill", villain Max Zorin plans to destroy Silicon Valley by detonating explosives between the "Hayward Fault" and "San Andreas Fault", causing them to flood. He dubs the operation 'Main Strike' in order to gain complete control of the microchip market by selling his own and destroying the competition.
Signal (biology)
A signal in biology is any kind of coded message sent from one organism to another, or from one place in an organism to another place.
In biology, especially in electrophysiology, a signal or biopotential is an electric quantity (voltage or current or field strength), that is caused by chemical reactions of charged ions. Biological signals can also be seen as an example of signal (electrical engineering).
Another use of the term lies in the transfer of information between and within cells, as in signal transduction.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (3 February 1830 - 22 August 1903) was a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was known as Lord Robert Cecil before 1865 and as Viscount Cranborne from 1865 until 1868.
Salisbury served as Prime Minister three times for a total of over thirteen years. When Prime Minister, he acted as his own Foreign Minister.
Lord Cecil was elected to Parliament in 1853 as a member of the Conservative Party. In 1866 (now called Viscount Cranborne), he served as Secretary of State for India under Prime Minister Lord Derby. Cranborne resigned, but he would return to government in 1874, now as the Marquess of Salisbury. Salisbury was again Secretary of State for India under Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. In 1878, Salisbury became Foreign Secretary in the Disraeli government.
Salisbury became the Conservative Party leader. Salisbury first served as Prime Minister from 23 June 1885, to 28 January 1886. His first government did not last long as the Conservatives did not have full control.
Salisbury became Prime Minister again on 25 July 1886, with a majority. He would be in office until 11 August 1892. His third time as Prime Minister was from 25 June 1895, until 11 July 1902.
Two issues dominated his time as Prime Minister. One was the struggle between European powers seizing parts of Africa, the so-called "Scramble for Africa". The United Kingdom fought the Second Boer War while Salisbury was Prime Minister.
The other was Ireland, the rise of Irish nationalism amongst Catholics in Ireland. This was backed by his great opponent, Gladstone, leader of the Liberal Party and also three times Prime Minister.
Salisbury helped establish the London County Council. Salisbury built up the Royal Navy. Africa was divided up into colonies.
Salisbury resigned on 11 July 1902. He died on 22 August 1903. The great issues which had divided the country in his time colonialism, Ireland and Africa – lasted in British politics for most of the next century. The one great issue which was not appreciated at the time was the rise of militant German nationalism, which in the next century led to two World Wars. Throughout his career Salisbury wrote articles for the "Quarterly Review", which have now been edited and published.
Electrophysiology
Electrophysiology is the study of the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage change or electrical current flow on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins, to whole tissues like the heart. In neuroscience, it includes measurements of the electrical activity of neurons, and particularly action potential activity.
Classical electrophysiology involves placing electrodes into various preparations of biologic tissue. The principle types of electrodes are: 1) simple solid conductors, such as discs and needles (singles or arrays), 2) tracings on a printed circuit boards, and 3) hollow tubes filled with an electrolyte, such as glass pippettes. The principal preparations include 1) living organisms, 2) excised tissue (acute or cultured), 3) dissociated cells from excised tissue (acute or cultured), 4) artificially grown cells or tissues, or 5) hybrids of the above.
If an electrode is small enough in diameter (on the order of microns), then the electrophysiologist may choose to insert the tip into a single cell.
Many particular electrophysiological readings have specific names:
Ion channel
An ion channel is a pore-forming protein that helps to establish and control the small voltage gradient across the plasma membrane of all living cells (see resting potential) by allowing the flow of ions down their electrochemical gradient. They are present in the membranes that surround all biological cells.
An ion channel is an integral membrane protein or more typically an assembly of several proteins.
The 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon for their discovery of ion channels.
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth