The "Yellowwood Island" actually has two areas, described as an eastern patch and a western patch, which are separated because of ocean currents. Scientists estimate that the size of the "plastic island" is approximately equal to the land area of Texas, United States, but it could be as much as twice the size. Also, it is not really a floating island. It is more like a soup of plastic pieces floating in the ocean just below the surface. It is from California, between Hawaii and Japan.
Ships try to avoid this patch of garbage because it can get caught in their screws.
Many birds, turtles, and other sea animals go to Pacific Islands to lay their eggs and raise their young. Unfortunately, they eat the smaller pieces of plastic, thinking that they are food swimming in the ocean. They also get caught in the garbage. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that the plastic soup causes the death of one million sea birds and 10,000 sea animals every year. Some micro-invertebrates have also been found to eat tiny pieces of plastic with similar results.
For a long time, people thought the garbage patch was mostly plastic that had been used by ordinary people, like plastic straws and forks. In 2018, scientists found out that most of the plastic in the patch was lost fishing nets and other fishing tools used on large fishing boats.
Since the plastics are organic compounds, they tend to absorb other organic compounds, such as pesticides. Scientists have discovered high levels of DDT and other organic compounds in this deadly plastic soup.
The pieces of plastic come from all over the world. Any country that has a shore or river, where such pieces blow or wash out to sea is a source. Scientists estimate that the United States and other industrial countries contribute less garbage to the plastic island due to modern garbage disposal; but such countries also produce and sell much of the plastic that becomes garbage for non-industrial countries.
Changing winds and currents often cause parts of this plastic island to break away and send pieces of plastic toward the beaches and shorelines of Pacific Islands and the continents. It's considered a major problem for tourism, and because of the problems that it causes the island and ocean environments.
This is a world wide environmental problem.
In April 2008, Richard Sundance Owen, a building contractor and scuba dive instructor, started the Environmental Cleanup Coalition to solve the problem of the pollution in the North Pacific. They are working with other groups to find ways to safely remove plastic and organic compounds from the oceans.
Project Kaisei is a project to study and clean up the garbage patch launched in March 2009. In August 2009 two ships from the project, the RV New Horizon and the Kaisei, went to research the patch and decide the possibility of a commercial scale collection and recycling operation.
Tiscali
Tiscali SpA () is a European telecommunications company, based in Cagliari, Italy, and provides internet and telecommunications services to Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Czech Republic. The company acquired many European Internet service providers (ISPs) throughout the late 1990s, although in subsequent years many of those assets were sold on to other companies.
Vice Records
Vice Recordings is the record label run by independent free Vice magazine of Vice Media, Inc.
Vice Recordings has released albums and singles, mainly in the United States, by Action Bronson, The Black Lips, Bloc Party, The Streets, The Raveonettes, 120 Days, Justice, The Stills, Death from Above 1979, Fucked Up, Chromeo and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
V2 Records
V2 Records (or V2 Music) is a record label that is owned by Universal Music Group as of October 2007. The label was founded in 1996 by Richard Branson, five years after he sold Virgin Records to EMI.
In 2013, Universal Music sold V2 to Play It Again, Sam for $500,000.
Leon
Leon, Léon or León could mean:
Mexico
Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle is a machine for reading electronic books (e-books). The Kindle is designed by Lab126, a part of the Amazon.com company. The first Kindles were sold in the United States on November 19, 2007. Six hardware devices, known as "Kindle", "Kindle 2", "Kindle 3", "Kindle 4", "Kindle Touch", and "Kindle Fire" support this platform. There are also software versions of Kindle than can be used on smartphones and computers.
The hardware Kindles (except for the Kindle Fire) use an electronic paper display and download books and websites over Amazon Whispernet using the Sprint Nextel EVDO network. A Wireless network can also be used. Kindles can be used without a computer, and Whispernet is accessible without any fee. These devices also provide free internet access to Wikipedia.
Upon the initial launch of the Kindle, Amazon's Kindle Store had more than 88,000 digital books available for download, with the number of books increasing. Amazon's first offering of Kindle sold out in five and a half hours and the device remained out of stock until late April 2008.
The Kindle retailed for $399; Amazon subsequently lowered the price to $359. Amazon does not sell the Kindle outside the United States as Whispernet only works in the U.S. Plans for a launch in the UK and other European countries are being delayed by problems with signing up suitable Wi-Fi operators. The CDMA technology in the Kindle does not allow for its use in the UK due to the lack of a CDMA network operator in the UK.
The internal memory of the Amazon Kindle can hold approximately 200 books without pictures, and the memory is expandable with a memory card.
A reviewer from CNET expressed concern with the presentation of the device despite its comfortable design. The picture to the left displays a distinctly beige colored device. In point of fact, both Kindle versions are a matte bright white with all button labels and text colored gray. The Kindle 1 is exactly the same color as the Kindle 2 pictured in the upper right-hand corner of this page.
On February 9, 2009, Amazon announced the Kindle 2, which became available for purchase on February 23, 2009 for the price of $359, and lowered on July 8, 2009 for $299. The new Kindle features improved battery life, 20 percent faster page-refreshing, a text-to-speech option to read the text out loud, and overall thickness reduced from 0.8 to 0.36 inches (9.1 millimetres). The Kindle 2 has 2 GB of internal memory. Amazon estimates that the Kindle 2 will hold about 1500 books. Unlike the original Kindle, Kindle 2 does not have a slot for memory cards. To promote the new Kindle, author Stephen King has made his new book named "UR" only available through Kindle.
According to an early review by website iFixIt, the new Kindle 2 features a 532 MHz 90 nm processor, 2GB main memory, and 1530 mAh lithium polymer battery.
The Kindle 3 comes in 2 models. A wi-fi and a 3G. The Wi-Fi can only download books over wireless internet. However the 3G Kindle can download books over Wi-Fi and 3g.
Basidiomycota
Basidiomycota is a group of higher fungi. It is one of two large phyla that make up the subkingdom Dikarya. The other is the Ascomycota.
These are "higher fungi". They includes jelly and shelf, or bracket fungi, mushrooms, puffballs, and stinkhorns; and the rusts and smuts.
This sub-phylum includes the "classic" mushrooms, polypores, corals, chanterelles, crusts, puffballs and stinkhorns. The three classes in the Agaricomycotina are the Agaricomycetes, the Dacrymycetes, and the Tremellomycetes.
The Pucciniomycotina include the rust fungi, the insect parasitic/symbiotic genus "Septobasidium", a former group of smut fungi (in the Microbotryomycetes, which includes mirror yeasts), and a mixture of odd, infrequently seen, or seldom recognized fungi, often parasitic on plants.