BCECE Medical

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society." Mark Twain, More Maxims of Mark (1927) Around 400,000 years ago, Homo sapiens devised a solution to protect the vulnerable naked human body from the environment—clothes. Anthropologists believe the earliest clothing was made from the fur of hunted animals or leaves creatively wrapped around the body to keep out the cold, wind, and rain. Determining the date of this invention is difficult, although sewing needles made from animal bone dating from about 30,000 B.C.E. have been found by archeologists. However, genetic analysis of human body lice reveals that they evolved at the same time as clothing. Scientists originally thought the lice evolved 107,000 years ago, but further investigations placed their evolution a few hundred thousand years earlier. Clothing has changed dramatically over the centuries, although its ancient role as an outward indication of the status, wealth, and more...

“... people like to stare at: a flowing stream, a crackling fire, and a Zamboni clearing the ice." Charlie Brown, Peanuts character The Zamboni name is synonymous with ice rink resurfacing in the United States, although few people outside of ice-skating would recognize it. Frank Zamboni (1901-1988) was born just after the turn of the twentieth century to Italian immigrant parents. As a young man he worked on the family farm and as a mechanic in a local garage. Frank opened an ice-making plant, with his younger brother Lawrence, producing blocks of ice for refrigeration. When electrical refrigerators were invented in the mid 1930s, making the production of ice blocks redundant, the Zambonis transformed their ice-making equipment and expertise into an ice rink. "Iceland" proved a popular local attraction, with 150,000 visitors a year. Cleaning, or resurfacing, of the rink was a time-consuming business, requiring three men and taking an more...

Since Viagra® (sildenafil citrate)—the first oral drug to treat erectile dysfunction—went on sale ten years ago, more than 27 million men in 120 countries have been prescribed it for impotence. Initially the drug was designed to treat high blood pressure, but in clinical trials this use proved disappointing. One side effect, shyly reported by the healthy volunteers, was that the drug produced super-charged erections. It was known that sexual arousal messages from the brain spark the production of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cyclic GMP), a chemical that relaxes the pelvic muscles and allows the penis to become engorged with eight times its normal supply of blood. Sildenafil suppresses an enzyme (phosphodiesterase type 5), whose normal role is to break down cyclic GMP and cause the erection to subside. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer conducted twenty-one randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials involving more than 3,700 participants aged from nineteen to eighty-seven suffering from varying degrees more...

"The development involved more than $30,000 In experimentation and marketing." Lloyd E. Griscom, The Historic County of Burlington For almost a millennium the farming practices of the Saxons remained unchanged. To plow the ground, farmers used the primitive scratch plow developed in Mesopotamia in 5500 B.C.E. The work was laborious. In 1797 Charles New bold (1764-1835), a blacksmith from New Jersey, patented a practical plow in which the three main parts were made as one solid piece of cast iron. These were the moldboard (a curved iron plate), the share (the cutting edge of the plow attached to the moldboard), and the landslide (the stabilizing mechanism that counteracts the sideways motion of turning over the soil). Newbold also integrated a runner that allowed directional control and therefore straighter furrows. Farmers were initially wary of Newbold's plow, believing that the cast iron would poison their fields and ruin their crops. Eventually more...

When pioneer automobile makers, searching for an effective braking system, looked back to the horse- powered carriages on which their vehicles were based, they realized, unfortunately, that no one had ever actually managed to design one. So for several years, brake technology dragged along behind that of engines and transmissions. Carriage brake evolution had peaked in 1838 with the spoon brake—in essence, a crude lever and shoe system that forced a block of wood directly against the tire. Henry Ford avoided the dilemma of which braking system to fit to his Quadricycle in 1896 by not installing any. Instead, a lever released a drive belt and the vehicle (eventually) coasted to a stop. Drivers could assist the process by pressing their feet against the front wheels.                         The introduction of pneumatic tires rendered a block-on-tire system impracticable. A leap more...

 “I have now made an engine that shall not waste a particle of steam. It shall be boiling hot" James Watt to his friend John Robison Scottish engineer James Watt (1736-1819) was responsible for some of the most important advances in steam-engine technology. Steam engines had been in use since the 1710s, mainly to pump water from mines. These machines depended upon steam condensing inside a large cylinder after the cylinder was cooled with cold water. As the steam condensed, it took up less space, allowing atmospheric pressure to push down on a movable piston inside the cylinder. In 1765 Watt made the first working model of his most important contribution to the development of steam power; he patented it in 1769. His innovation was an engine in which steam condensed outside the main cylinder in a separate condenser; the cylinder remained at working temperature at all times. Watt made more...

A democratic country has more citizen participation in the form of voting for elected representatives, implies more accountability of the government and protects the political and personal rights of citizens, including those in the minority. Citizens are those persons who live m a state permanently and enjoy civil and political rights. In return they are expected to owe allegiance to the State and the State is obliged to protect the citizen's life, liberty, property and political rights. A civil society that functions well is perhaps indicative of how well a democracy works. Whether democratic processes work better in homogeneous or heterogeneous societies is a matter of speculation, but India with her culturally and ethnically diverse groups is known to be the world's largest democracy. The success of democracy is largely measured by the public's participation in the process and the responsiveness of the system to popular demands. Many people think more...

Both men and woman have intentions and act, so both are capable of virtue. Virtue ethics as a theory of morality has existed, most notably, since Aristotle. Courage is one such virtue and to display this, persons need to experience fear and perceive danger. The circumstances surrounding an act of courage need to be proportionate to perceived risk to avoid the activity becoming an enterprise of foolishness. Also the potential costs associated with the risk must be proportionate to the ends concerning the bravery. These elements associated with courage are undoubtedly equally available to both sexes and in the  sense of equality feminism woman can and have been courageous. However, in light of difference feminism, another facet may need to be added to the modem meaning of courage, as an acknowledgement that virtues are characterised with respect to attitudes held within the context of definition. A virtue is a prescription more...

The worth of a civilization can be judged by the place given to women in the society. One of several factors that justify the greatness. Of India’s ancient culture is the honourable place granted to women. The Muslim influence on India caused considerable deterioration in the status of women. They were deprived of their rights of equality with men. Raja Ram Mohan Roy started a movement against this inequality and subjugation. The contact of Indian culture with that of the British also brought improvement in the status of women. The third factor in the revival of women's position was the influence of Mahatma Gandhi who induced women to participate in the Freedom Movement. As a result of this retrieval of freedom, women in Indian have distinguished themselves as teachers, nurses, air-hostesses, booking clerks, receptionists, and doctors. They are also participating in politics and administration. But in spite of this amelioration more...

Shri Vajpayee was Prime Minister of India from May 16-31,1996 and a second time from March 19, 1998 to May 13, 2004. With his swearing-in as Prime Minister, he has been the only Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to occupy the office of the Prime Minister of India through three successive mandates. Shri Vajpayee has also been the first Prime Minister since Smt. Indira Gandhi to lead his party to victory in successive elections. Born on December 25,1924 at Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh to Shri Krishna Bihari Vajpayee and Smt. Krishna Devi, Shri Vajpayee brings with him a long parliamentary experience spanning over four decades. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1957. He was elected to the 5th, 6th and 7th Lok Sabha and again to the 10th, 11th 12th and 13th Lok Sabha and to Rajya Sabha in 1962 and 1986. He has again been elected to Parliament more...