Friday, 19 October, 2018

Aster

Posted on Thursday, 28 July, 2016Monday, 21 August, 2017 by Zheluo Cai

Aster.

Aster is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, encompassing around 180 species, all but one of which are restricted to Eurasia. The name Aster comes from the Ancient Greek meaning “star,” referring to the shape of the flower head. Another common name is Michaelmas daisy. Many species and a variety of hybrids are popular as garden plants because of their attractive and colourful flowers and can grow in all hardiness zones. It thrives in areas with cool, moist summers, producing blue, white, or pink flowers in the late summer or fall. Plant height ranges from 8 inches to 8 feet, depending on variety. They also attract butterflies to your garden, and are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species.

Credit: Wikipedia

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The Guna, known as Kuna prior to an orthographic reform in 2010, and historically as Cuna, are an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. In the Kuna language, they call themselves Dule or Tule, meaning "people," and the name of the language in Kuna is Dulegaya, literally "people-mouth." Most Gunas live on small islands off the coast of the comarca of Kuna Yala known as the San Blas Islands. Each community has its own political organization, led by a saila, who is traditionally both the political and religious leader of the community; he memorizes songs which relate the sacred history of the people and transmits them to the people. Traditionally, Guna families are matrilinear, with the groom moving to become part of the bride's family and taking the last name of the bride as well.

The Tadpoles of IC 410.
Image Credit & Copyright: Mark Hanson. This close-up shows the otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410 in striking false-colours, featuring two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and dust above and left of centre: the tadpoles of IC 410. The narrowband data traces atoms in the nebula, with emission from sulfur atoms in red, hydrogen atoms in green, and oxygen in blue. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars that energizes the glowing gas. Composed of denser cooler gas and dust the tadpoles are around 10 light-years long, potential sites of ongoing star formation, and sculpted by wind and radiation from the cluster stars, their tails trail away from the cluster's central region. IC 410 lies some 12,000 light-years away, toward the constellation Auriga.

The current flag of Myanmar was adopted on 21 October 2010. The new flag was introduced along with implementing changes to the country's name, which were laid out in the 2008 Constitution. The design of the flag has three horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a five-pointed white star in the middle. The three colours of the stripes are meant to symbolise solidarity, peace and tranquility, and courage and decisiveness. The white star that symbolised the Union of Burma.

The Elgin Marbles are a collection of Classical Greek marble sculptures made under the supervision of Phidias and his assistants in c. 447 to 438 BC; originally part of the temple of the Parthenon. From 1801 to 1812, agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the surviving sculptures and transported them to Britain. The half not removed is now displayed in the Acropolis Museum. In Britain, the acquisition of the collection was not supported by some, and the Earl's actions was likened to vandalism. Following a public debate in Parliament and its subsequent exoneration of Elgin, he sold the Marbles to the British government in 1816. They were then passed to the British Museum, where they are now on display in the purpose-built Duveen Gallery.