The Blue Lias alternates between limestone, (with some clay), and mudstone. These alternations are caused by short-term climatic variations, thought to be caused by Milankovitch cycles. The blue/grey colour is given by iron pyrite.
A bit higher, these limestone-mudstone alternations change into a clay member. The deposition of a clay-rich mudstone member shows it was laid down in a deeper marine environment.
Leonid Kizim
Leonid Denisovich Kizim (5 August 1941 – 14 June 2010) was a Soviet cosmonaut. In 1986 he was the commander of the only space mission to visit two space stations on one flight. These were the new Mir station and the old Salyut 7 station. At the end of the flight he became the first person to have spent a whole year in space. All together he spent 374 days 17 hours 56 minutes in space.
He became second in charge of the Russian Ministry of Defense's satellite control center. In 1995 he was put in charge of the Military Engineering Academy of Aeronautics and Astronautics in St. Petersburg.
Menai Bridge
Menai Bridge is a small town on the south coast of Anglesey. It is notable for the bridge that crosses over the Menai Strait to the mainland. The bridge was the first suspension bridge to be made to carry a main road. It was built between 1821 and 1825 by Thomas Telford.
Bangor, Gwynedd
Bangor is a small cathedral city and community in Gwynedd, a county in North Wales. It is Wales' oldest city and one of the United Kingdom's smallest cities.
It is historically part of Caernarfonshire.
It is a university city. At the 2011 census, there was 16,358 people living there.
The Welsh language is spoken by 46% of people in the city.
The city is located near the Menai Strait, which is a strait that separates the Isle of Anglesey from mainland Wales.
In World War II, parts of the BBC were evacuated to Bangor during the Blitz.
Caernarfon
Caernarfon, officially the Caernarfon Royal Town (pronounced "Kyer-narvon"), is a royal town and community in Gwynedd, an area of Wales. It has a population of 9,852 people, according to the 2011 census.
It is 8.6 miles (13.8 km) south-west of the city of Bangor and 19.4 miles (31.2 km) north of Porthmadog. It is on the Menai Strait, opposite Anglesey. The A487 goes through the town.
It is a royal town. Queen Elizabeth II made Caernarfon a royal borough in 1963. Since 1974, the town has not been a borough but was allowed to keep its royal title.
The town is home to Caernarfon Castle, a castle that was built between 1283 and 1330 by order of King Edward I.
Since 2016, Caernarfon has hosted the Caernarfon Food Festival. It takes place every year.
Caernarfon has one of the highest percentages of Welsh language speakers in the whole of Wales.
Caernarfon has one twin town. It is twinned with:
Film processing
Photographic film is able to record images. In order to make these images visible, the film needs to undergo a number of chemical processes. The result of these processes will either be negatives or slides. This is generally known as "developing". Different films need different processes. The process for black and white film is different from that for slide film. In general, the process involves the following steps:
There are different kinds of films. The most common of these is film negative. With negative film, all colors are reversed. This is corrected in an additional step of making a "print" of each image.
So called reversal film, which is used for diapositives, directly produces "positive" images (which are "framed" to become a slide).
This whole process is known as film processing.
Mineral water
Mineral water is water obtained from rocks. It is often collected from springs or from underground rivers when they emerge from the rocks. Mineral waters are very clean and have no germs in it. Because they have been held in rocks for a long time they often contain chemicals that have come from the rocks. This chemicals can give the water an interesting taste. Some mineral waters may be good for health. Because some underground water comes to the surface from very deep layers in the earth, it can also have carbon dioxide gas dissolved in it. This can make the water fizzy.
Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is a prize for comedians. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts awards this prize every year. They first gave this prize in 1998. It is named after Mark Twain. Mark Twain was an American author. The Mark Twain Prize is America’s foremost award for humor.
New Mexico State University
New Mexico State University is a four-year public university in the United States. It has five campuses, but its main campus is in Las Cruces, New Mexico. In 2010, it had about 18,000 undergraduate students.
The school started in 1888. It was first called the Las Cruces College. Soon after, it changed its name to New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts. In 1960, its name was changed to New Mexico State University.
New Mexico State University's sports teams are called the Aggies.
Henryk Gorecki
Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki (6 December 1933—12 November 2010) was a Polish composer. His most famous work was his "Symphony No. 3", the "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", written in 1992. More than one million recordings have been sold which makes it the most popular recording by a contemporary composer, getting to number 6 on the British album charts.
In 2010 Gorecki was given The Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest honour.
Beaumaris
Beaumaris (, Literal translation: "beautiful marsh") is a small town on the island of Anglesey of the Menai Strait.
The town itself began in 1295 when Edward I of England started to build Beaumaris Castle. This was one of several castle along the North Wales coast - others include Conwy, Caernarfon and Harlech . Many of the builders of the castle were from France.
The castle was built on a marsh by the village of Llanfaes. The French builders called the marsh "beaux marais" which means "beautiful marsh". This is how the town got its name. The people who lived village in Llanfaes were removed to a new village in the west of Anglesey to make way for the castle. This village was called Newborough and it still exists today.
Notable buildings in the town include the castle, a courthouse built in 1614, St Mary's parish church, and the town gaol.
Beaumaris has a pier which was opened in 1846. The pier was enlarged to 570 feet after storm damage in 1872. Beaumaris Pier is still a busy base for yachts and other boats.
Lotte Giants
Lotte Giants is a South Korean professional baseball team. It was started in 1982. The company Lotte supports the team. Lotte Giants are based in Busan and Changwon, South Korea. They are one of the first teams in the Korea Baseball Organization league. They play in Sajik Baseball Stadium and Masan Baseball Stadium (Changwon Baseball Stadium now). The team represents KyungNam province. Lotte Giants won the first place on 1984 and 1992. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, Lotte Giants had about 4 million people watch them play. This is the most people to watch a team in the league. The symbol of the team is a gull. It represents the harbors of Busan.
Halomonadaceae
The Halomonadaceae are a family of halophilic proteobacteria. The family was originally created in 1988 to contain the genera "Halomonas" and "Deleya". Many of its members were only recently discovered, and research is discovering new facts about them.
GFAJ-1 is a strain of rod-shaped extremophile bacteria in the Halomonadaceae. It was claimed that, when it did not have phosphorus, it took the usually poisonous element arsenic as a substitute.
Geomicrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon collected lake-bottom sediments in the shallow waters of Mono Lake in California. Wolfe-Simon cultured the organisms from this hypersaline (very salty) and highly alkaline environment. They grew in an arsenic-containing medium.