The island has no trees. The island is surrounded by a coral reef. This makes the atoll hard to approach in a boat.
Hermaphrodite
Hermaphrodite is a term which comes from Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. It is used as a scientific term in biology.
In zoology, an animal which can produce both sperm and ova is a hermaphrodite. As an example, most earthworms are hermaphrodites. A simultaneous hermaphrodite has both sets of sex organs throughout life. A sequential hermaphrodite has ovaries at first, replaced by a testis later, or the other way round.
In botany, hermaphrodite is used for 'complete' flowers with both male and female parts, and for plants which have bisexual reproductive units. See flowering plant sexuality for details.
With people, the term hermaphrodite is not correct, because true functioning hermaphrodites are not possible in humans. What sometimes happens is errors in development which lead to intersex persons. A definition of intersex is :
People who are intersex may have a very small penis and no testicles, or a very small and short vagina and a large clitoris that looks like a penis.
Epididymis
The epididymis is the part of the human male reproductive system. It is the tube that holds the testicles in place. It stretches from the back of each testicle to the van deferens.
The dinges is made up of three parts:
Sperm made in the testis go into the head ("caput") of the epididymis, go through the body ("corpus") and stop at the tail ("cauda"), where they are stored. When sperm are first made and travel to the head, they are not yet ready to be ejaculated. They cannot swim or fertilize an egg. By the time they reach the tail, the sperm can fertilize an egg. The sperm are transferred to the Seminal visicle through the vas deferens. The sperm can not swim yet, so muscle contractions push the sperm to the seminal vesicle where final development is finished. .
When the sperm are ejaculated, they move through the tail of the epididymis. There are so many sperm that they cannot swim, but use peristalsis from muscles in the vas deferens.
An injury or infection of the epididymis causes epididymitis, a painful condition that can take months to heal. Sometimes the testicle has to be removed. There does not seem to be any single cause, or treatment for this condition. Some doctors treat it with antibiotics, some take a "wait and see" attitude. At times just one testicle is affected and at others, both.
Sometimes males get their epididymis removed either as a form of birth control or for other reasons (such as for post-vasectomy pain syndrome) in a surgery known as an epididymectomy.
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Mammary gland
Mammary glands are the part of the female body designed for the making milk for baby mammals to drink. In humans they are in the breasts.
Kurt Browning
Kurt Browning (born June 18, 1966 in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta) is a Canadian figure skater. He won four world championships and four Canadian championships.
Browning did the first ever quadruple jump (four turns) in competition. He is well known for his footwork. As a professional, he has skated for Stars on Ice and Tom Collins Tour of Champions, won several professional championships, and did some T.V. skating specials. He has also talked during skating events on T.V. He has helped the charity Muscular Dystrophy.
Browning was raised in Caroline, Alberta. He married a dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, Sonia Rodriguez, in 1996. They have a son Gabriel, born in 2003.
Airbus
Airbus (, , , ) is a company which makes aircraft. It is owned by EADS, a European aerospace company. Airbus has its headquarters in Blagnac, France.
Airbus began as a consortium (a group) of aircraft makers called Airbus Industrie. Later, in 2001, it became a joint-stock company. It was owned by EADS (80%) and BAE Systems (20%). BAE sold its part of the company to EADS on 13 October 2006, so EADS now completely owns the company.
Around 55,000 people work for Airbus in sixteen places in four European Union countries: France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain. The final part of Airbus aircraft making is done in Toulouse, France; Hamburg, Germany; Seville, Spain; and, since 2009, Tianjin, China.
Airbus makes and sells the first digital fly-by-wire airliner, the Airbus A320. Airbus also makes the biggest airliner in the world, the Airbus A380.
"Airbus Industrie" started as a consortium (group) of European aircraft makers. The companies came together to compete with American companies like Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed.
Even though a lot of European planes had a lot of new features, even the most successful planes were not made for long. In 1991, Jean Pierson, who was then the CEO and Managing Director of Airbus Industrie, gave some reasons why American plane makers were bigger: because the United States is so big, people preferred to fly; a 1942 agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States meant that the United States would make transport planes; and World War II had given the United States "a profitable, vigorous, powerful and structured aeronautical industry."
In the 1960s, some plane makers were thinking about coming together. Some aircraft companies had already thought that this would need to happen. In 1959, Hawker Siddeley thought about making an "Airbus" version of the Armstrong Whitworth AW.660 Argosy. This version would "be able to lift as many as 126 passengers on ultra short routes at a direct operating cost of 2d. per seat mile." However, European aircraft makers knew that making this plane would be dangerous. They knew that they would have to work together to make a plane like this. At the 1965 Paris Air Show, big European airlines began to think about the specifications for the "airbus". In that same year, Hawker Siddeley joined with Breguet and Nord to design the airbus. By 1966, Sud Aviation (became Aérospatiale) (France), Arbeitsgemeinschaft Airbus (became Deutsche Airbus) (Germany) and Hawker Siddeley (UK) were all working together. The partners asked for money from the French, German and British governments in October 1966. On 25 July 1967, the three governments gave the money and decided to continue with the airbus.
In the two years after this, both the British and French governments thought the project would fail. 75 orders were needed before 31 July 1968. The French government thought about leaving the partnership, because it was worried about the costs of the Airbus A300, Concorde and the Dassault Mercure. The French government was persuaded to stay. The British government left the partnership on 10 April 1969. Hawker Siddeley was helping until the British government left, and France and Germany did not want to design the airbus' wing (which Hawker Siddeley was doing). Hawker Siddeley was allowed to keep helping, but it did not have any help from the British government.
Airbus Industrie was officially started as a "Groupement d'Interet Économique" (Economic Interest Group or GIE) on 18 December 1970. The name "Airbus" was taken from a word used by airlines in the 1960s. It meant an aircraft with a certain size and range. Aérospatiale and Deutsche Airbus each owned 36.5% of the company, Hawker Siddeley owned 20% and Fokker-VFW owned 7%. Each company made its own parts of the plane, and they were completely ready when they were delivered. In October 1971, the Spanish company CASA took 4.2% of Airbus Industrie. Aérospatiale and Deutsche Airbus lowered their share to 47.9%. In January 1979, British Aerospace, which had taken over Hawker Siddeley in 1977, took 20% of Airbus Industrie. Aérospatiale and Deutsche Airbus lowered their share even more, to 37.9%. CASA kept its 4.2%.