Abbott has always held strong conservative and religious views and has not been afraid to speak out on controversial issues. Combined with his earlier training as a priest this has led to his being given the nickname of the "Mad Monk". Abbott for example does not support the right of women to have an abortion. As Minister for Health he created a huge protest in 2006 when he tried to ban a drug used for abortions. In 2012 he was criticised by Australian lawyer Julian Burnside for saying that refugees trying to reach Australia were acting in an un-Christian way. Abbott's policies for the 2013 Australian election includes a plan to stop refugee boats coming to Australia. He does not support marriage equality which would let same sex couples get married.
Abbott is a very keen sportsman, and regularly takes part in competitions. He is currently in training for the 2014 Port Macquarie Ironman contest. This is a race with a 3.9 km swim, 180 km bicycle ride, and finishing with a 42.2 km run. Abbott is married with three daughters.
Conrad Gessner
Conrad Gessner (or Konrad Gessner, 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Swiss naturalist and bibliographer. His five-volume "Historiae animalium" (1551–1558) is a forerunner of modern zoology. The flowering plant genus "Gesneria" is named after him.
He studied at Strasbourg, Bourges (1532–1533) and Paris. In 1535, religious unrest drove him back to Zürich, where he made an unwise marriage. His friends came to his aid, enabled him to study at Basel (1536), and in 1537 obtained for him the professorship of Greek at the newly founded academy of Lausanne (then belonging to Berne). Here he had leisure to devote himself to scientific studies, especially botany.
In 1540–1541 he visited the famous medical university of Montpellier, took his degree of doctor of medicine (1541) at Basel, and then settled down to practise at Zürich, where he obtained the post of lecturer in physics at the Carolinum, the precursor of the University of Zürich. There, apart from a few journeys to foreign countries, and annual summer botanical journeys in his native land, he passed the remainder of his life. He devoted himself to preparing works on many subjects of different sorts. He died of the plague, the year after his ennoblement.
To his contemporaries he was best known as a botanist, though his botanical manuscripts were not published till long after his death (at Nuremberg, 1751–1771, 2 vols. folio), he himself issuing only the "Enchiridion historiae plantarum" (1541) and the "Catalogus plantarum" (1542) in four languages.
In 1545 he published his remarkable "Bibliotheca universalis" (ed. J. Simler 1574), supposedly a catalogue (in Latin, Greek and Hebrew) of all writers who had ever lived, with the titles of their works, etc. A second part, "Pandectarium sive partitionum universalium Conradi Gesneri Ligurini libri xxi", appeared in 1548; only nineteen books being then concluded. The last, a theological encyclopaedia, was published in 1549, but the last but one, intended to include his medical work, was never finished.
His great zoological work, "Historiae animalium", appeared in 4 vols. (quadrupeds, birds, fish) folio, 1551–1558, at Zürich, a fifth (snakes) being issued in 1587. This work is the starting-point of modern zoology. Not content with such vast works, Gessner put forth in 1555 his book entitled "Mithridates de differentis linguis", an account of about 130 known languages, with the "Lord's Prayer" in twenty-two languages, while in 1556 appeared his edition of the works of Claudius Aelianus.
Gessner's work "On fossil objects" contains, among much else, a recognition of the true organic nature of some fossils.
To non-scientific readers, Gessner is best known for his love of mountains (below the snow-line) and for his many excursions among them, undertaken partly as a botanist, but also for the sake of exercise and enjoyment of the beauties of nature. In 1541 he prefixed to his "Libellus de lacte et operibus lactariis" a letter addressed to his friend, J. Vogel, of Glarus, as to the wonders to be found among the mountains, declaring his love for them, and his firm resolve to climb at least one mountain every year, not only to collect flowers, but in order to exercise his body. In 1555 Gessner issued his narrative ("Descriptio Montis Fracti sive Montis Pilati") of his excursion to the Gnepfstein (1920 m), the lowest point in the Pilatus chain.
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Bernhard Rensch
Bernhard Rensch (21 January 1900–4 April 1990) was a German evolutionary biologist, and ornithologist who did field work in Indonesia and India. He is probably best known as one of the architects of the modern evolutionary synthesis, which he popularised in Germany. His work on the evolution of geographically isolated populations, and on evolution above the species level, contributed to the modern synthesis. He also worked extensively on animal behavior (ethology).
Rensch's education and scientific work was interrupted by service in the German military during both World War I and World War II. His autobiography, published later in life, translates as 'Life of a biologist in a turbulent century'.
In 1929 he published a classic book on species and speciation in which he proposed ideas which later were to become basic principles of taxonomy. He recognised the significance of Moritz Wagner's idea of geographical species-splitting.
In 1947, Rensch published "Neuere Probleme der Abstammungslehre: die Transspezifische Evolution". This looked at how the evolutionary mechanisms involved in speciation might be extended to explain the origins of the differences between the higher level taxa. His work contributed to the rapid acceptance of the synthesis in Germany.
Kinect
Kinect is a device that was made by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Kinect uses cameras and a special microphone to see and hear Xbox 360 users. The device also uses equations to know what is a person and what is not. It was first shown at E3 in Los Angeles in May of 2009. It has won many awards. Kinect allows a user to move his or her body to control games, movies, and more. People can move their hand to go through menus, or they can use their whole body to control a body in a game. Kinect is special because it is the first way to play games that does not use a controller.
Kinect was released to retail stores in late 2010. The retail price is $149.99 and the Kinect is also optionally bundled with a new Xbox 360 S model that includes a game called Kinect Adventures!. Microsoft has said they will advertise it almost like a new video game console. They want Kinect to increase the time that people make games for Xbox 360 before a new video game console is made. In the future, Microsoft hopes Kinect starts a new idea of people using televisions, computers, and games with their hands and voices. PlayStation Move, which is for the PlayStation 3 console, is Kinect's main competitor.
The Kinect was named the "Fastest selling consumer electronics device" by the Guinness World Records, selling an average of 133,333 kinects per day with a total of 8 million units in its first 60 days.
A new version of the Kinect sensor was released with the Xbox One, which was released on November 22, 2013.
However, on October 2017, Microsoft stopped making Xbox One Kinect devices and the Xbox One Kinect doesn't want to work for Xbox One dashboard anymore, but only works for games.
Lille (disambiguation)
G. Ledyard Stebbins
George Ledyard Stebbins, Jr (6 January 1906 – 19 January 2000) was an American botanist and geneticist. He was one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. Stebbins received his PhD in botany from Harvard University in 1931. He went on to the University of California, Berkeley, where his work led to a synthesis of plant evolution and genetics.