The Story of France with Firown (Pharaoh)

Is it possible that this mummy in front of me is the one who was chasing Moses?:Professor Maurice Bucaille

THOUGHTS ON FORGIVENESS

One of the best gifts that we can offer ourselves is forgiveness

Miracles Of The Quran

The unprecedented style and the superior wisdom inherent in the Qur'an is conclusive evidence confirming that it is the Word of God.

The Truth About Jesus Christ

Tells the truth about Christianity-How the gospels are unreliable- Audience member shouts at him a few times.

Parent-Child Relationship in Islam

Islam recognises family as a basic social unit. Along with the husband-wife relationship the Parent-child relationship is the most important one

Editor's Picks

29 November 2011

The powerful machine inside you

Your heart beats 101,000 times a day. During your lifetime it will beat about 3 billion times and pump about 800 million pints (378 million litres) of blood. A normal heart beats 70 to 80 times a minute. Over 70 to 80 years, it gives a few billion beats. It is the powerful machine inside you.



A heart consists of two pumps, each made of two chambers. The right atrium squirts oxygen-depleted blood from the body into the right ventricle, which pumps it to the lungs. The left atrium squirts aerated blood from the lungs into the left ventricle, which pumps it out to the body. With each heartbeat, the two small atria contract together, then the two large ventricles, making the beating sound.

A typical athlete’s heart churns out 6 to 8 gallons (25 to 30 litres) of blood per minute. In comparison, the best man-made heart can pump about 2.6 gallons (10 litres) per minute and lasts for about 200 million beats – or about 5 years.

A heart is difficult to imitate because it is a soft, wet, contractile muscle – unlike any technology developed thus far. A man-made heart is a battery-powered motor that either drives a piston, or drives a fan blade that sits immersed in a hydraulic fluid, moving a rotary valve. A good man-made heart, it seems, is hard to find.

Take good care of your heart and it will take good care of you and be thankful to God for giving you a wonderful machine.

"Say it is He Who has created you, and endowed you with hearing (ears), seeing (eyes), and hearts. Little thanks you give." [Quran 67:23]

Mosquito's head


his is a great photo for a mosquito, so that Allah almighty set a parable in the Qur'an by that insect, Engineers have set their sights on insect's eyes. They study how all these eyes work. It's giving them ideas for new inventions. Understanding how eyes capture light may lead to designs for cameras that take pictures inside the human body or to better ways to help planes land safely. So that scientists say insect Eyes Provide High-Tech Optical Inspiration.

Here we have to know that their eyes are known as "the compound eyes" as it may utilize up to 29,000 lenses per eye.

These individual lens systems or "ommatidia" function separately from each other. Each captures its own tiny piece of the overall picture.

All these tiny images are processed simultaneously in the eye, which enables insects to have outstanding fast-motion detection.

Scientists explain that compound eyes afford a panoramic view, allowing insects to see in many directions at once.

Someday, scientists might even be able to make an artificial eye that works just like the real thing.

We used to believe that insects are naïve creatures, but modern science shows us that these creatures are designed precisely with no mistake to perform its functions accurately. 

God be He blessed and exalted says about these small creatures: 

"Verily, Allah is not ashamed to set forth a parable even of a mosquito or so much more when it is bigger (or less when it is smaller) than it. And as for those who believe, they know that it is the Truth from their Lord, but as for those who disbelieve, they say: "What did Allah intend by this parable?" By it He misleads many, and many He guides thereby. And He misleads thereby only those who are Al-Fâsiqûn (the rebellious, disobedient to Allah)." [Quran 2:26]

But, what does Allah almighty mean by saying (or so much more when it is bigger)?

Some people believe that Allah almighty means that there are small bugs live on the head of the mosquito, but it is wrong as there are millions of bacteria live on the body of all insects. We believe Allah means that He created these small insects and also all other bigger and smaller creatures than the insect, therefore we don't have to mock from these small creatures which Allah almighty said about it: 

"The Work of Allah, Who perfected all things, verily He is Well-Acquainted with what you do."[Quran 27:88]

--

By: Abduldaem Al-Kaheel

28 November 2011

Manners Have Limits



"...Manners have limits. When these limits are crossed, this is transgression. When they are fallen short of, this is deficiency and disgrace.



ANGER has a limit: and it is to be bold while being above having negative and deficient traits, and this is the perfect form of anger. If this limit is exceeded, you become a transgressor. If you fall short of it, you will be a coward and will not be able to raise yourself above negative traits.

COVETOUSNESS has a limit: it is to take all you need from this world and what it has to offer you. When you fall short of this limit, it becomes disgrace and wastefulness. When you exceed this limit, you end up wanting what you shouldn't want.

ENVY has a limit: and it is to compete in becoming perfect and to excel such that your rival is unable to excel over you. When this limit is exceeded, you transgress and oppress in which you wish that the good things are taken away from the one you envy and are keen to harm him. When you fall short of this limit, you become low, weak in aspiration, and you belittle yourself. The Prophet ( ï·º) said: "There should be no envy except in regards to two things: a man who was granted wealth by Allah and he was able to spend it for the sake of the truth, and a man who was granted wisdom by Allah and he takes it and teaches it to the people." So, this is an envy of competition, where the envious one pushes himself to be like the one he envies without wishing that he is deprived of the good things that are with him.

SEXUAL desire has a limit: and it is to relax the heart and mind from the exhaustion of worship, to maintain moral excellence, and to use the fulfillment of these desires to help you in this. When you exceed this limit, you fall into being overly lustful, and you come to resemble animals. When you fall short of this limit and don't use this time to obtain excellence and virtue, this becomes weakness, inability, and disgrace.

RELAXATION has a limit: and it is to collect yourself and your strength to prepare for worship and perfection of the self, and to save this so that you don't become weak or tired. When you exceed this limit, this becomes laziness and waste, and you end up missing out on so many things that could benefit you. When you fall short of this limit, you end up hurting and weakening your energy, and it might even be cut off from you like a farmer who is unable to land to plow or crops to pick.

GENEROSITY has a limit between two extremes: and whenever this limit is exceeded, this becomes wastefulness and extravagance. When you fall short of this limit, you become cheap and miserly.

BRAVERY has a limit: and when you cross this limit, you become reckless. When you fall short of this limit, you become a coward. This limit is that you put yourself forth when the time is right to do so and that you hold yourself back when the time is right to do so, just like Mu'awiyah said to 'Amr bin al-'As: "I don't know whether you're brave or cowardly! You go forth to the point that I say you're the bravest person, and then you stay back to the point that I say you're the most cowardly person!" So, he replied:
I am brave if I am guaranteed the chance * If I don't have the chance, I am a coward...

PROTECTIVE JEALOUSY has a limit: and if you exceed this limit, you fall into accusation and suspicion of the innocent. If you fall short of this limit, you fall into heedlessness and lack of manhood.

HUMILITY has a limit: and if it is crossed, this becomes humiliation and disgrace. If you fall short of it, you deviate to arrogance and false pride.

HONOR has a limit: and if you exceed it, you fall into arrogance and blameworthy traits. If you fall short of it, you deviate to humiliation and disgrace.

The basic principle in all this is to choose the path of moderation between excess and negligence. This is what all of the benefits of this world and the next are built upon. In fact, you can benefit your body in no other way, because when some of your activities are done with lack of moderation and either exceed or fall short of it, your body's health and energy begins to decline accordingly. Likewise, natural activities such as sleeping, staying awake, eating, drinking, having intercourse, playing sports, spending time alone, spending time with others, etc. - if these are all done moderately between the two blameworthy extremes, this is justice. If you deviate to either extreme, this is a sign of deficiency and will lead to even more deficiency.

This knowledge of proper limits is from the best types of knowledge, especially the limits of what is commanded and prohibited. The most knowledgeable people are those who know the most about these limits, such that they don't put in them what doesn't belong and don't remove from them what does belong. Allah Said:

"The bedouins are the worst in disbelief and hypocrisy, and more likely to be ignorant of the limits that Allah has revealed to His Messenger... " [Quran 9:97]

So, the people who are most just are those who recognize by way of knowledge and action the legislated limits in their manners and deeds, and Allah is the source of success..."

--
by Ibn Al-Qayyim 

25 November 2011

Mystery of Geckos' sticky feet


The mystery of how geckos manage to scurry up walls and stick to ceilings may have been solved by scientists.



It seems the little lizards have a network of tiny hairs and pads on their feet which produce electrical attractions that literally glue the animals down.

With millions of the hairs on each foot, the combined attraction of the weak electrical forces allow the gecko to stick to virtually any surface - even polished glass.



Californian researchers believe the reptile's sticky toes could now help them to develop a novel synthetic adhesive that is both dry and self-cleaning.

If a human hand had the equivalent "sticking power", it could lift huge weights. "If the hands were maximally attached, we estimate that kind of size would be able to hold about 90 pounds (40 kilos) or so," Professor Autumn Kellar, one of the researchers in the gecko study, told the BBC.

Walk

Geckos are small, insect-eating, and often very noisy creatures that have become popular pets.

Close up on the gecko's setae
Biologists have long admired the animals' ability to walk up smooth surfaces but have never really understood how it was done.

Suction was regarded as an unlikely explanation since geckos can cling on to a wall even in a vacuum. That astonishing trick of walking upside down on the ceiling would seem to rule out friction.

Furthermore, without any glands on their feet, it would be hard for geckos to produce their own natural glue.

But a team of researchers, led by Professor Robert Full, now think it may all come down to van der Waals forces - the weak attraction that molecules have for one another when they are brought very, very close together.

Outstanding adhesives

The scientists looked closely at the feet of a Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko) which is native to South-East Asia. Close-up pictures reveal about two million densely packed, fine hairs, or "setae", on each toe.

The end of each seta is further subdivided into hundreds to thousands of structures called spatulae.

Professor Full's team of biologists and engineers calculated the combined adhesive force of all the tiny hairs lining the gecko's toes is 10 times greater than the maximum force reportedly needed to pull a live gecko off the wall.
The spatulae - scale bar: one thousandth of a millimetre
"These billion spatulae, which look like broccoli on the tips of the hairs, are outstanding adhesives," said Professor Full, head of the Poly-PEDAL (Performance, Energetics, Dynamics, Animal Locomotion) Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

He said: "Geckos have developed an amazing way of walking that rolls these hairs onto the surface, and then peels them off again, just like tape. But it's better than tape."

Professor Full's team believe the stickiness of the gecko can now be attributed to intermolecular forces so weak they are normally swamped by the many stronger forces in nature.

Unbalanced charges

These forces come into play, though, because the gecko foot hairs get so close to the surface.

He said: "The hairs allow the billion spatulae to come into intimate contact with the surface, combining to create a strong adhesive force.

Hanging on to glass: The gecko's party piece
 "Our calculations show that van der Waals forces could explain the adhesion, though we can't rule out water adsorption or some other types of water interaction."

Van der Waals forces arise when unbalanced electrical charges around molecules attract one another.

They are responsible for the attraction between layers of graphite, for example, and the attraction between enzymes and their substrate.

Though the charges are always fluctuating and even reversing direction, the net effect is to draw two molecules together, such as molecules in a gecko foot and molecules in a smooth wall.

Geckos will stick to metal, plastics or glass, in air or under water, Kenny says. Engineers predicted the force of a single gecko foot hair by measuring the adhesive force of a whole gecko and dividing that by the number of foot hairs per animal. They were surprised when their measurements revealed a single hair to be 10 times more forceful at adhesion than they had estimated.

It turns out a gecko foot exerts a force of 10 Newtons (about a kilogram, or 2.2 pounds). A million hairs could fit onto a dime-sized patch capable of supporting about 20 kilograms (about 44 pounds).

Attachment takes about 6 thousandths of a second, detachment takes 16 thousandths of a second -- fast enough to allow a gecko to run, said. Metin Sitti, an engineer at Carnegie Mellon University

In yet-to-be published work the gecko hairs have been shown to be self-cleaning, unlike any other known adhesive. Work has also begun on building a mechanical gecko that Professor Full hopes will lead researchers to a new, synthetic, dry adhesive.

"There are signs for the believing nation in the creation of their (own) selves, and the creation of the animals He has scattered (across the world)." [Quran 45:4]

--
Courtesy: BBC Science, Stanford University 

24 November 2011

Picture Perfect: No Racism in Islam


Poem: Six ft under the ground


Why do u ignore the command of your lord
Allah’s anger and disgrace can you afford?

Time, health, worship, a whole life time wasted
Shaitan came with failed promises and you hasted

Even though Allah told us innahu aduwun mubiin
Yet you were still ever so keen

My dear Ummah through the dhikr of Allah do hearts find peace
Every hour, every minute, every seconds you should seize

By the sight of Allah the mountains crumble
Isn’t that enough to make us humble?

Now your time is up and regret starts to build up
When shaitan called, you should of ignored or at least hanged up

Indeed Allah was sufficient for us but you turned away
Family and friends all in tears as they say;

ina lillahi wa inna illayhi rajioon
It was you who enjoyed the music and the lovely tune
Will the stars disobey Allah, the sun, the moon?

But you thought you had it cool
Indeed you played the biggest fool

Surely the promise of Allah will not fail
But your time is up and the ship of repentance has already sailed

Now you’re all alone Six ft under the ground
Dark, cold, not even a single sound


23 November 2011

Health Benefits of Grapes


" And from the dates and grapes, you extract wine as well as healthy nourishment. Surely, there is a sign in it for any nation that thinks " [Quran 16:67]

What's in the grapes


Flavonoids cause the vibrant purple color in grapes, grape juice; the darker the color, the higher the concentration of flavonoids. Flavonoids, which are also powerful antioxidants can delay aging and reduce damage from free radicals.

Grapes contain the flavonoid-type compounds – resveratrol and quercetin. These two compounds reduce the risk of heart disease. How?

1-By protecting LDL cholesterol from the free radical damage. Free radicals result in LDL’s artery – damaging actions. AND 
2- By reducing harmful blood clots and platelet clumping.

Diets high in saturated fats like lard, oil, butter and mayonnaise AND smoking are risk factors for heart disease. Have you ever heard of the term “French Paradox?” Do you know that French people have lower risk of heart disease than Americans do despite their high-fat diets? That’s because of their frequent consumption of grapes. According to Wikipedia, “French Paradox“ is the observation that Frenchmen suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats.

Grapes even contain fiber and proteins that could play an important role in a strong and healthy life.


Nutritive Values of Grapes : Per 100 gm.

Vitamin A : 80 I.U.
Vitamin B : Thiamine .06 mg.
Vitamin C : 4 mg.
Calcium : 17 gm.
Phosphorus : 21 mg.
Fat : 1.4 gm.
Carbohydrates : 14.9 gm.
Protein : 1.4 gm.
Calories : 70


What are the amazing health benefits of grapes

Some of the health benefits of grapes include the following:
  • Migraine. Home remedy for migraine is ripe grape juice. Should be taken pure (no additional water) early in the morning.
  • Blood cholesterol. Pterostilbene , a compound present in grapes helps lower the cholesterol level. Saponins in grape skin prevents the absorption of cholesterol by binding with it.
  • Alzheimer’s disease. Resveratrol in grapes reduces the levels of amyloidal-beta peptides in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Grapes can enhance brain health and delay the onset of neurodegenerative diseases.
  • Kidney disorders. Grapes reduce the acidity of the uric acid and help eliminate the acid from the system thus reducing the pressure of the kidneys.
  • Heart disease. Grapes increase the nitric oxide levels in the blood which prevents blood clots thus reducing heart attack incidents. Antioxidants in grapes prevent the oxidation of LDL cholesterol, which blocks the blood vessels.
  • Indigestion. Grapes prevent dyspepsia. They cure indigestion and irritation of the stomach.
  • Anticancer properties. Resveratrol acts as anti-inflammatory. Effective in breast and colorectal cancers. Anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins have properties of anti-proliferate which can inhibit the growth of cancer causing agents.
  • Prevents cataract. Flavonoids in grapes reduce the damage caused by free radicals such as cataract apart from age related problems, heart disease and cancer.
  • Macular degeneration is age related loss of vision. Studies suggest 3 servings of grapes daily to lower the risk of macular degeneration by over 36%.
  • Asthma. Due to the high assimilatory power of grapes, moisture present in lungs increases. Grapes have therapeutic value for asthma.
  • Breast cancer. In a recent study, purple colored Concord grape juice helps prevent breast cancer. Experiment was conducted on laboratory rats. There was a significant reduction in breast tumor mass after they were fed the grape juice on the experimental basis.
  • Fatigue. It’s not the dark grape juice that gives an iron boost it’s the light and white grape juice that prevents fatigue because it replenishes the iron content in the body. So go for the light and white grape juice for boost not the dark one.
  • Antibacterial activity. Red grapes contain antibacterial and antiviral properties to protect you from infections. Its antiviral property is effective against poliovirus and herpes simplex virus.

Dua/ Prayer
Allahummaghfirlii warhamniy wahdiniy wa 'aafiniy warzuqniy wajburniy war fa'aniy.
(Oh Allah, forgive me and have mercy on me, and keep me on the right path, and keep me healthy, and provide me with halal sources of living, and complete my shortcomings and make my rank high).

22 November 2011

Flying Marathoners The Red Knots


Did you ever run in a marathon? Did you win? If you did, you thought yourself pretty distinguished, didn't you? But whether you won or not, the greatest victory was completing it—right? You became a marathoner.

Well, we red knots are flying marathoners. How long is the marathon you run? Something like 26 miles? Well, if we flew only 26 miles, we wouldn't think we had gone anywhere. Every year—are you with me? Every year we red knots fly some 20,000 miles. Often we fly as many as 2500 miles non-stop. And we average speeds between 30 and 40 miles per hour. Now how do you feel about your marathon achievement? I'm afraid we passed you long ago!



But I can't take any credit for this. I have to tell you about my wonderful Creator, who designed my robust, muscular wings, and my fine, streamlined body that is able to carry its own food supply—fuel supply, I mean. Yes, I've been engineered to keep flying.

Why do we fly so much? We red knots, it seems, have an obsession for daylight. The more daylight, the better. 24/7 is perfect. Impossible? We come close! We just plan our time so that we're in the Arctic during the summer months (May, June, and July), when the sun there scarcely dips below the horizon, and we are in Antartica during the winter months (December and January), when the days are longest there! Yes, we follow the sun!

What is our motivation? More daylight means more time to forage for food. Because we spend so much time in the air burning up energy, we have to pack all we can into that time on the ground—or we won't keep flying. At the same time, we have to know when to stop eating. If we ate too much back at the bay (where we fuel up) and got too heavy, we'd still be there. Grounded!

Life for us begins in the Arctic summertime. This is where we raise our families. By late summer, when the days begin to be noticeably shorter, we are on our way south. The first stopover for many of us is Delaware Bay, where the horseshoe crabs have just laid their eggs. Someone has estimated that 100,000 of us devour 248 tons of horseshoe crab eggs during the time we are there. This rich food is excellent for refueling and rebuilding our muscular wings.



Then we're off to Brazil or Argentina non-stop. That means going several weeks without eating. (Do you see why we need all those horseshoe crab eggs?) By late November we are in the Antarctic, just when the daylight there is getting close to 24/7. Well timed, isn't it?

Then in the spring (your spring) we head back north, stopping to refill our energy tanks in Brazil or Argentina, and again in Delaware Bay.

Scientists have found that when we refuel we actually triple the size of our liver and double the size of our flight muscles, which eventually serve as a source of protein for us. This is all very important to our survival. If any of us run out of fuel on the way—that's the end of the story for us. There are no refueling stations in the air!

And think about this. When we head for the Arctic, we have to have a little more than enough energy to arrive, because there may not be food immediately available in that region, and we need to build nests and raise our young while the days are longest. That is why, when we're on the ground, we eat so ravenously.

Besides knowing just how much to eat, we also have to know just how fast to flap our wings, as every wing movement uses valuable energy from the very limited supply. How do we know these things? I can only thank our marvelous Creator. (If I tried to figure it out for myself, I would get nervous—and burn up more energy!)

So you agree that 20,000 miles a year is a major undertaking for a nine or ten inch bird? Those miles add up. By the time we are 13 years old, we have flown a distance equal to the moon and back!

The worldwide flyways of six morphologically distinct subspecies of Red Knot Calidris canutus. Polygons in the Arctic depict breeding ranges; circles depict principal wintering areas with the diameters of circles indicating relative numbers of birds
What about adverse weather? What if strong winds or storms blow us off course? In general, weather conditions are not a big problem. If we get blown off course, our Designer has provided us with an inside navigation system to get us back on course. I can't explain how it works, but I thank our great Creator that we are very seldom lost.

You call it “instinct,” this marvelous programming in our brains that we didn't put there? When you think about it, isn't it fantastic? Yes, our little ones hatch actually knowing how to fly, and which direction to go. How do we judge distances so accurately? How do we navigate? How do we find the same stopovers every year (at the right time of year) when flying two or three thousand feet above the earth? There's no logical explanation—except that we are awesomely designed!

Some of our kind leave the Antarctic and head for the Arctic by way of a stopover in northwest Australia. The bay waters there are distressingly hot and humid. We find these conditions extremely difficult (it's a shocking contrast with the temperatures in the Antarctic). But again, praise to our Creator, our body temperature fluctuates, and our normally low temperature can rise to well over 100 degrees F. We don't like it—we pant, and wade in the warm shallow waters, and raise the feathers on our backs to dissipate some heat—but we survive! And soon it is time to fly on.

Every flap of my wings is another “Thank You!” to my wonderful Creator. If He is able to keep little me flying all those miles, what can He do for you!

"Do they not see the birds committed to fly in the atmosphere of the sky? None holds them up in the air except GOD. This should be (sufficient) proof for people who believe." [Quran 16:79]

21 November 2011

Picture Perfect : Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs


20 November 2011

Tit for Tat


It is a law of nature that whatever action we take in this world, there is always a reaction. If we do good, we stand to gain a good reward. If we do bad, we should expect a bad outcome ultimately. "What you sow, so you reap" is a popular saying.

The Holy Qur'an has also guided us on this subject. It says:

If you do good, you do good to yourselves. (likewise)

Your good deeds are for your own good, and similarly, your bad deeds are to afflict your own self!” [Quran 17:7]

One of the companions of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) was very fond of this verse of the Qur'an. He used to recite it loudly and repeatedly wherever he went.

A Jewish woman who had heard him once wanted to prove him wrong and thus make him unpopular among his people. She thought up a plot against him.

She prepared some sweets mixed with poison and sent them to him as a present. When he received them, he went out of the city with them. On the way, he met two men who were returning home from a long journey. They appeared tired and hungry, so he thought of doing them a good turn. He offered them the sweets. Of course, he was not aware that they were secretly mixed with poison. No sooner had the two travellers taken the sweets, they collapsed and died. When the news of their death reached Medina, the city where the Prophet resided, the man was arrested. He was brought in front of the Prophet and he related what had actually happened. The Jewish woman who had mixed poison with the sweets was also brought to the court of the Prophet. She was stunned to see the two dead bodies of the travelers there. They in fact turned out to be her own two sons who had gone away on a journey.

She admitted her evil intention before the Prophet and all the people present. Alas, the poison she had mixed in the sweets to kill the companion of the Prophet had instead killed her own two sons.



What a splendid example of a tragic reaction to a bad action. It shows how one reaps what he sows.

"Do as you would be done by" are words of wisdom from the learned and wise men of the past. They teach us to do good to others in the same way as we like others to do good to us.

17 November 2011

Picture Perfect: I'm an Atheist


A computer cannot get created by itself or a Computer cannot grow in nature (Evolve) by itself

If there is not a Creator, Did human designed & programmed himself?

 "Were they created of nothing, or were they themselves the creators?"
[Quran 52:35]


16 November 2011

Eyes: Thank God I Can See


It is He Who brought you forth from the wombs of your mothers when ye knew nothing; and He gave you hearing and sight and intelligence and affections: that ye may give thanks (to God)." [Quran 16:78]

Before we go into the subject, lets read these interesting facts


Did You Know That...?
  • every second, the retina in our eye performs billions of computer-like calculations, as it measures distances, intensities, focal lengths, colors and hues, and tones of dark and light on all the objects we see.
  • we are aware of our surroundings because our eyes pick up light rays, and the cones and rods in our eye convert the information (about size, distance, patterns, color, etc.) to electrical impulses and send it to the brain.
  • our eyes, when accustomed to darkness, can sense as few as 10 quanta of light (the glow of a candle flame 10 miles distant).
  • our eyes are constantly in motion, flicking from one image to another several times a second.
  • the fluid nourishing the interior of the eye is colorless and clear. If it were the color of blood, light would be stopped before it reached the retina, and we would not be able to see.
  • we see color because we have some 7,000,000 cones in our eyes which are of three types, each having one pigment (red, green or blue) and able to absorb that part of the color spectrum.
  • our eyes are equipped with their own anti-bacterial cleansing agent, so that unwanted bacteria entering the eye are immediately dissolved.
  • the retina of our eye contains from 75 million to 150 million rods (tiny photoreceptors) which are continually picking up light that is reflected to our eye.
  • our eyes, when accustomed to darkness, are 10,000 times more sensitive to light than when they are light adjusted.
Suppose you could make a camera that would operate for fifty years without needing a new battery, or even a new roll of film. Suppose further that this camera was self-focusing, self-repairing, self-adjusting to intensities of brightness or darkness, that it could retain a picture in its library for fifty years or more—would you not have quite a remarkable product, one that everyone would want? Our eyes are all of this, and much, much, much more.


The human eye has a coloured iris that expands or contracts as the level of light brightness increases and decreases. The black "opening" of the eye at the centre of the iris is called the pupil. A camera lens is very similar: there is a diaphragm that expands and contracts much like the iris; and the aperture, which is the opening that light passes through to form an image on the sensor or in the view finder. However, the reason for expanding and contracting the size of the aperture is somewhat different for camera than for eye. We control aperture both to change depth of field (how much of the scene is sharp from closer to the camera to farther away) and as part of the process of controlling how short or long a period of time the picture will be taken within. 

Our eyes are unbelievably complex. Even to suggest that this small organ, only an inch from side to side, came about by the mere working of chance, without design or constructive plan, is a shameful insult to our great Creator. Would the men and women in the Eastman Kodak Company who designed the new Kodak Digital Camera 40, just now being marketed, be pleased with the idea that this device came about without intelligent guidance, that it was simply another automatic generation in a constantly improving series of cameras? Kodak employs thousands of highly trained research personnel, who spend all their working hours originating and developing new ideas in camera technology. Yet what is the most sophisticated camera beside the human eye?

"....Say, “Is a blind man comparable to the one with eyes? Are darkness and daylight equal? Have others, like the partners you ascribe to Allah, created anything that matches His creations? Is that the doubt?” Say, “Allah alone is the Creator of all things! He is the One and Only, and He is the Omnipotent!” [Quran 13:16]

The Eyelid
Let's begin by thinking about the eyelid. Now the eyelid should be a simple structure, just a piece of muscle we can pull down and up to cover or uncover our eye as needed…? Wrong. The eyelid is a highly complex mechanism, and vitally important to protect the eye. But imagine how useless our eyelids would be for the defense of the eye if they were left for us to operate—imagine if we had to think every time we blinked, or if we had to think to draw our eyelids over our eyes when a foreign object threatened our eye.

But no, our Creator has freed us from this cumbersome task by installing an intricate system of nerves and reflexes, too much to talk about here but marvelous in its operation.

Actually, it has been found that the eyelids do even more than protect the eye. Each time we blink, our eyelids, acting much like the windshield wipers on our car, sweep a thin film of fluid across the eyeball, lubricating them and keeping them clean. Any excess drains into our nose through tiny ducts in the lower inner corner of our eye.

What is this fluid? Several glands in our eyelids contribute to this fluid. Most familiar are the tear glands, which supply a form of salt water to the eyes through tiny ducts—we have from 3 to 12 of these ducts—at the outer upper corner of each eye.

But our eyes need more than water—because water would soon evaporate and leave our eyes dry and scratchy. So our Creator has supplied us with another set of glands that secrete a fine, oily substance which does not evaporate. And this is not all. There is yet another gland in our eyelid that secretes an antibacterial agent into our eyes, so that foreign bacteria entering the eye are immediately dissolved.

Can anyone think honestly that all this came about by mere happenstance?

There is no way of separating the eyelid from the eye—they are literally attached—but not too firmly. Can we imagine what it would be like if our eyelid were attached so tightly to our eye that we could not move our eye? But no, the eyelid is composed of 4 layers, and the innermost layer, which attaches to the surface of the eyeball, is loose enough to allow complete movement of the eyeball in all directions, and ample enough to supply a complete protective covering. (Was this delicate balance achieved by chance?)

Also within the eyelid are several specialized muscles, some voluntary and some involuntary. We blink every 2 to 10 seconds. The rate of blinking varies from one person to another, and is controlled, it is believed, by a “blink control center” in our brain. Our eyes blink by a set of involuntary muscles, without any direction from us.

Yet we are not left without control—we can easily overrule that blinking and close or blink our eyes at will—by using another set of muscles.

The Structure of the Eye


Now let's look at the eye itself.

The eye is made up of three coats (layers), which enclose a spherical center area that is filled with a clear liquid to keep the eye firm.

The outermost coat consists of a transparent area (the cornea) through which light enters the eye, and an opaque, white area on either side of the clear area. The second coat (layer) determines if our eyes are black our blue. The third layer is where the light that enters our eyes is interpreted.

If this seems relatively simple, let's look a bit closer at each coat.

Coat 1: The outer layer, the transparent window glass of the eye, is itself made up of five distinguishable layers, each composed of transparent tissue and each critical to the functioning of the eye. One of these sub-layers is a set of about 200 plates, which are stacked much like the leaves of a book; each plate consists of transparent microscopic fibers. And, remember, this is just one of five layers of the outer coat of the eye. (What law of evolution designed transparent tissue, then made it grow in just the right place in our body, where light must enter?)

Light passing through the lens and being brought into focus

Coat 2: The next (middle) coat contains a ring of tissue at the front (the iris), which gives the eye its color. At the center of this ring is the pupil, which enlarges or contracts to control the amount of light entering the eye.
Coat 3: Perhaps the most intricate part of the eye is the third or innermost coat, which contains the retina. In the retina, light is received, images are focused, photoreceptors are exposed, and light images are converted to electrical impulses which are then sent down the optic nerve to the brain, where they are interpreted, so that we know what we are seeing.

Ten different layers are visible in the retina. The first layer contains the eye's light-sensitive cells, which are of two kinds, called rods and cones (the terms are descriptive of the shape of the cells). In the retina are about 7,000,000 cones, and from 75,000,000 to 150,000,000 rods. The rods pick up shades of grey, while the cones are usually thought to be sensitive to the various wavelengths of color. These cones and rods are attached to about 1,000,000 optic nerve fibers (in another layer of the retina), which carry electrical impulses to the brain. Because there are only about 1,000,000 optic nerve fibers to 150,000,000 receptors, a number of receptors must share a single optic pathway.

The rods and cones of the retina are distributed across its surface, but not evenly, as might be expected. Near the center of the retina is a pinhole-sized cup called the fovea.

The fovea—1/100th of a millimeter across—has some 4,000 cones concentrated in it. This area gives us our keenest, most sharply focused vision. When we really want to focus closely on something of interest, we use the fovea. Why are images so sharp from this area? Because each one of the cones in the fovea is attached to a nerve fiber, giving it a direct pathway to the brain.

Can we think for a moment that any undirected chance designed such a light-sensitive, light-interpreting structure as our eyes, with 150,000,000 photoreceptors continually picking up information from light waves that enter the eye? Could the elements of chance produce even one hundred photoreceptors that would function daily—and keep functioning—for 70 or 80 plus years?

How Do We See?

Vision involves a continuous interaction between the eye, the nervous system and the brain. If we had eyes without a connection to the brain, we would see nothing. Or if we had a nervous system and a brain without a device for receiving light rays, we would see nothing. But our great Creator has designed all three to work together—light to reflect into the eye, photoreceptors in the eye to pick up the light and convert it into electric impulses, and a brain to receive and interpret the impulse. So equipped, we are able to look at an object and—most often—identify it without giving the process a conscious thought.

As soon as we open our eyes at birth, we begin to learn through the gate of the eye. And the process goes on as long as we live.

What is the Process?

Our eyes pick up light reflected from an image, and the image is projected on a postage-stamp-size screen on the retina in our eye. The image as it arrives is upside down, but as quickly as the image hits the screen of our eye, millions of light sensitive receptors on the retina record the intensity, the color, the angle of the light striking each tiny rod or cone, and transmit an electrical impulse to the brain by way of nerve fibers. At the brain, these impulses are assembled and interpreted by being compared with the “similar records” (memory) of previous impulses that have been received and archived, and we are able to identify what we see. The details of the process are beyond the scope of this article, but who can help but marvel at the process that goes on every waking hour every day, and give thanks to Him who made us able to see!

Some have speculated that information gathered by our eyes goes to an information relay center in the brain, where it is coordinated with impulses sent by other sensory organs (touch, smell, feeling, hearing, etc.). There is still much to be learned about how the eye sees.

The Eyes' Pump
Studies have shown that the cornea steadily takes in fluid, which it needs. But if it takes in too much fluid, it swells; and if the fluid stays in the eye, the eye loses its transparency and vision becomes blurred or cloudy. So the fluid intake is counteracted by a tiny pump that expels the fluid as fast as it enters. This pumping action creates a balance so that the cornea does not swell, and so that fresh fluid is continually supplied, keeping the liquid transparent. Since the innermost layer of the eyelid is directly responsible for maintaining pressure in the pump, if the eyelid's lining becomes torn, vision is affected—because the pump cannot operate effectively.

Who can say that such a mechanism simply evolved, without any intelligent direction?

Eye Movements and Adjustments
Another wonder of our eyes is their ability to keep imaging on a level plane, however we may tilt our head. Look at something level—a tabletop, a shelf, the roof of a house.



Now continue looking at that object while you tip your head just a little to the left. The level object still appears level. Keep tipping your head to the left until you have bent your body slightly. The level object still appears level. If we stand on our heads, so that our eyes are upside down, everything we see does not look inverted. How is this possible?

Because our eyes adjust for the movement of our head—however much or little—so that level images continue to appear level.

Imagine what it would be like if everything we looked at appeared to tip just because we tipped our head!
God has designed our eyes to adjust for the continuous movements of our head, so that the image on the retina stays level. Our eyes are also moving continually to pick up additional bits of information so that our brain can keep updating its information—it is estimated that the eyes are never stationary for more than a fraction of a second.

Actually, our eyes make three types of movements. Most common are the small, irregular, involuntary movements, of which the eye is said to make between 30 and 70 per second. The eye also makes flicks—in larger movements, also involuntary—about one per second. Third, our eye makes slow, irregular drifts which extend over longer intervals. The rapid movements of the eye are thought to be necessary to allow the contours of an image to fall on new sets of rods and cones at repeated intervals, so that the retina keeps sending messages to the central nervous system.

Can we say that any or all of this power of motion came about by chance?

These eye movements are done primarily by six muscles, which are attached to the outside of the eye. One muscle pulls in a circular motion, another acts like a pulley, another operates on an oblique angle and passes under the eyeball like a sling, and so on, allowing the eye to turn quickly in any direction.

It is thought that the two distinct types of movements of the eye, the high frequency movements (30—70 per second) and the slower movements are controlled by two totally different sets of muscles. The velocity of the high frequency movements is relatively slow (about 25 degrees per second), whereas the velocity of the slow movements is very high (about 500 degrees per second). Again let us ask: Did such a system of motion just happen?

Marvels, Marvels…
Our eyes are wonderfully adaptable to changing amounts of light or darkness. Go into a totally dark room, and you can hardly see anything. But stay there about 30 minutes, and your eyes have adjusted so drastically that they now are about 10,000 times more sensitive to light than when you entered. (If our eyes were to retain this high-sensitivity in bright light we would soon be blind.)

When the eye is dark-adapted, it is thought that the rods are utilized rather than cones, because the amount of light they require to “see” is much lower than that required by the cones. This idea is confirmed by the fact that we cannot distinguish color when light is very limited.

Summary
We have only touched on a few highlights of a vast subject, where many questions remain unanswered even by those who know the most about it. But haven't we observed enough to thank God for our eyes, those small, half-inch organs we use every day in so many ways, with scarcely a thought?

Who cannot say, with all humility and reverence, that the hand that made us is Divine!

"Say: It is He Who has created you (and made you grow), and made for you the faculties of hearing, seeing, feeling and understanding: little thanks it is ye give." [Quran 67:23]

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Source:
  • Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, Copyright 1993, 1994 by Compton's NewMedia, Inc.
  • . P. Mattingly & M. L. Rubin in The 1995 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia; Eyes, Their Problems and Treatments, M. Glasspool, MD, published by Arco Publishing, Inc. New York
  • The Incredible Machine, published by National Geographic Society, Washington, DC.
  • The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition, 27:721ff.
  • Image: iris on a sky background & blue eye courtesy of Creative Commons and Wikipedia.org (Attribution 2.0)

15 November 2011

Picture Perfect: ONLY ISRAEL


11 November 2011

Ears: Thank God I Can Hear


" It is He Who brought you forth from the wombs of your mothers when ye knew nothing; and He gave you hearing and sight and intelligence and affections: that ye may give thanks (to God)."[Quran 16:78]

Before we go into the subject, lets read these interesting facts

Did You Know...?
  • our brain analyzes the pattern of sound waves picked up by our ears, so that we can know whether we have heard a foghorn or a bird call.
  • our hearing equipment is so sensitive that our nerves respond to vibrations of the ear membrane no greater than 0.0000001 millimeter in width!
  • we identify sounds by their volume, pitch and tone.
  • all sound has pitch and volume.
  • the human ear is sensitive to frequencies between 20 and 20,000 Hertz (between 20 and 20,000 vibrations per second). The higher the frequency, the higher the pitch of the sound.
  • a dog is able to hear higher pitches than our ears can register—in the range of 30,000 Hertz.
  • bats are able to produce and hear sounds of approximately 100,000 Hertz.

A Few Definitions:
  • Pitch is related to the frequency of the sound wave, i.e., how many vibrations per unit of time. Each vibration is one-cycle (one wave, one back-and-forth). The units of frequency are called Hertz (Hz). One Hz is equal to one vibration per second.
  • Volume depends on the intensity of the sound wave (how deep or “high” the sound wave).



Our world today is full of noise—screeching sirens, blaring radios, rushing traffic, roaring jets—sometimes we almost wish we could not hear. But only almost, for hearing also brings us the singing of birds, the rustle of wind in the trees, the deep breathing of a child, the majesty of music, the loving voice of a friend, the warning of danger. There is just no substitute for hearing. Thank God, we can hear!

Yet hearing is one of the most delicate functions of the body. After many centuries of study, the most brilliant minds still admit that they do not fully understand the intricate process by which we hear. And shall we think that the delicate mechanisms in our body that transmit and interpret sound came about by chance? What human engineer could compress into one cubic inch a complete sound system, including an amplifier, an equalizer, a transducer, a power supply, and all the other equipment necessary to receive and relay sound? And even if an engineer could perform this feat of miniaturization, he could not hope to approach the ears' performance.

Even looking briefly at the mechanisms by which we hear should increase our gratitude to the God we serve, and our deep longing to please Him who has provided so bountifully for His human family. If He has done so much for His earthly creation, what of the wonders He is holding in store for every loving, faithful, obedient child?

What Is Sound?
Two centuries ago the question set debates raging among the intellectuals of Europe. “If a tree falls in the forest,” said the eighteenth century thinker, “and no one is there to hear it, will there be a sound?”

“Of course,” said the physicists, who were then struggling to measure and analyze everything around them. ”Sound is the result of vibrating air molecules, and the air vibrates whether or not any human ears are present to interpret them.“

“Of course not,” said the philosophers, who were questioning all nature in search for the “real” world. “Sound is a sensation known only in the mind of the listener.”

Actually, both were right. Sound originates when a body moves back and forth rapidly enough to send waves through the medium in which it is vibrating (usually the air). But before the sound can be “heard,” the sound waves must be received by the ear and changed into electrical impulses which can be interpreted by the brain.

Sound is the result of molecules—whether in the form of a solid, liquid, or gas—in motion. In 1663, a British scientist named Robert Boyle suspended “a watch with a good alarum” from a slender thread in a glass jar, then pumped the air out of the jar. “We silently expected the time when the alarum should begin to ring… and were satisfied that we heard the watch not at all.

Wherefore ordering some air to be let in, we did… begin to hear the alarum.” Boyle had demonstrated that sound does not exist unless there is a substance through which its vibrations can be transmitted.

Any vibrating object (a taut string, a solid plate, or a column of air) can be a source of sound. Let a drummer crash a loud cymbal. The vibrating plate sets the surrounding air molecules in motion (in waves), much as when you drop a pebble into a pond of water. The waves travel in all directions. Our ears pick up the vibrations, concentrate them in a small area, amplify them, then change the vibrations to electrical impulses which our brains interpret, and—we hear!

Our ears are designed to be very, very, very sensitive to vibration. A normal young person's ear is able to detect sound for which the motion of the air molecules is less than one 10 millionth of one percent—this represents a particle displacement of less than the diameter of one atom (100 million atoms set edge to edge equal the thickness of a single sheet of paper).

Even a very loud noise causes only microscopic movements of our eardrum. A high frequency sound may move the membrane no more than 0.0000001 millimeter—and we hear it!

How is it possible? How can we hear a whisper—or a mosquito flying by? because the force pushing on our eardrum is increased as many as 180 times as it travels some two inches through our ear system.

Yet the amplification process is selective. conversation (a range of 3,000 to 5,000 Hertz) receives the greatest boost (by chance?); and our equipment is too stiff to respond at all to the very lowest tones. Do we wonder why? If the range were not limited in this way, we would be assailed constantly by the sounds of our own body—our muscles contracting, food digesting, blood gushing through our veins, our bones creaking as we move—and how would we ever be able to think or concentrate! (Did such a limitation—on a marvelous amplifier system—come about by chance?)

Ears By Two's
Our Creator has given us two ears. Did we ever wonder why? If we were to try hearing for a while with just one ear, we would quickly know.

First of all, two ears give us a pleasing and understandable reception of many sounds—having an ear on each side of our head means that we actually hear in stereo!

Second, two ears are useful in maintaining a sense of balance—the fluid in our inner ears tells us what is “level” and what is not.

Two ears are also useful in identifying a source of sound.

Distinguishing Sounds
From the time we are born we are receiving an uninterrupted stream of sounds from the outside world, which we screen, sort, and file away. A normal adult has stored in the brain some 400,000 different signals, for future reference. Here is a recording and retrieval system worth noting—at the very least, we should give credit to the Designer!

But when—if ever—do we hear only one sound at a time? Go outdoors, and see how many sounds you hear—simultaneously. If we analyze them, we realize that each is different. How does our ear process and sort all these different wave forms at the same time?

Our ears can actually hear some sounds and reject others. No one really understands how, but from a confused and unorganized maze of signals we are able to hear what we really want to hear. We can shut out a volume of background noises—even very loud noises—to distinguish a familiar voice. A conductor can screen out the sound of many instruments to hear a particular line of music. A mother can identify the cry of her own infant in a nursery where many children are crying. How is it possible? We can only thank our marvelous Creator!

Even while we sleep, our ears sort and select with incredible efficiency. Because the brain can interpret—even independent of our conscious mind—we may sleep soundly through train whistles and screeching traffic, yet awake promptly to the gentle voice of someone beside us—which tells us that our ears receive as well as send messages to the brain.

What is the process? Actually, there are thought to be dual sets of nerve fibers which serve as transmission lines between our two ears and the brain. Auditory signals from each ear travel to both sides of the brain, so that a dysfunction in one path will not significantly affect hearing in either ear. Who can think that such a system came about without intelligent design?

How We Hear
We can appreciate our Creator's gift to us even more if we look closer at the three different parts of our ear: external, middle and inner.

The External Ear
The external ear is basically very simple. It consists of a sound collector (what we call our “ear”), and a short canal which funnels the sound waves down to the eardrum. The canal leading to the eardrum is lined with tiny hairs projecting outward, which are covered with droplets of sticky wax—an effective device for snagging tiny insects or dust particles that might stray in. (Did “ chance” design such a simple protection?)
The eardrum is surely no chance mechanism. A thin, semitransparent partition stretched across a round opening in the skull, it is made up of three layers: the outer layer (skin), under which is a mucous membrane lining, inside of which is a layer of circular and radial fibers that give the drum rigidity and tension. It is also well supplied with blood vessels and nerve fibers that make it acutely sensitive to pain. The eardrum covers the entrance to the middle ear, and is designed to accurately transmit sound waves to the inner ear.


The Middle Ear
The middle ear is a small, air filled cavity in the bone. It is separated from the external ear by the eardrum, and from the inner ear by a thin bony partition which contains two small membrane-covered openings: the oval window and the round window. The middle ear also contains a tiny tube (the Eustachian tube), just over an inch long, that opens into the throat. This tube is very important in equalizing air pressure in the ear. If pressure on either side of the eardrum were not equal, the eardrum would not be free to vibrate at the correct rate, and we would not know what we were hearing! The tube to the throat is normally closed, but opens when we swallow, or yawn, allowing air from the throat to enter and leave the middle ear, making the inside and outside pressures equal. The tube is also lined with small, movable hair projections facing downward, which help to speed the drainage of secretions from the middle ear into the throat. (Did such a device come about by happenstance?)

Carrying sound waves across the middle ear and amplifying the sounds are three tiny bones, interlinked, commonly known (because of their shape) as the hammer, anvil, and stirrup. Here again is an intricate structure, for which we must thank our great Designer.

The first tiny bone, called the “hammer,” picks up the vibration of the eardrum, to which it is attached, and relays it to the next tiny bone, the “anvil,” which in turn transmits the vibration to the third bone, the “stirrup.” The stirrup (about one tenth of an inch in height) is attached to a membrane that stretches across the oval window of the inner ear; thus the vibrating pattern is transferred directly to the inner ear.

The middle ear also contains another wonder—two minute muscles anchored to the bone of the skull, which work together as a safety device. One muscle passes over a pulley-like projection and attaches to the upper part of the handle of the mallet, and one attaches to the neck of the stirrup. When a loud noise is heard, the first muscle pulls on the eardrum, restricting its ability to vibrate so that it will not be harmed by the loud noise; while the other muscle pulls the stirrup away from the inner ear membrane so that the inner ear fluids will not over-react. (What scheme of chance built a mechanism so delicate?)



The Inner Ear
The inner ear is where hearing really gets complicated. We can only touch on a few high points, but it should be enough to increase our gratitude to our Creator for designing such a high tech hearing mechanism—that really works!

First, the inner ear is heavily protected—it is located in a cavity in the hard bone of the skull, deep behind the eye socket, so that its intricate operations are well protected.

Inside the bone cavity is a delicate bone structure called the bony labyrinth, which consists of two main parts: a set of semicircular canals, which control our sense of balance; and a spiral-coiled cochlea (pronounced ko-KLE-a), which is the real center of hearing.

The cochlea is a pea-sized tube consisting of two and one half spiral turns around a hollow central pillar (its name was derived from the Greek word for "snail"). Winding with the spiral are three fluid-filled canals and a gelatinous membrane, through the center of which runs the most vital organ of hearing: the organ of Corti (named after the scientist who discovered this organ).

How does sound travel through the inner ear? Sound vibrations received from the middle ear move the membrane that stretches across the oval window—which moves the fluid in the canals of the cochlea—which moves the membrane that lies between these canals—which moves special hair cells that are attached to the membrane. In each ear are approximately 12,000 of these hair cells, and projecting from each hair cell are approximately 100 hairs. As the hair cell vibrates, these hairs move, creating an electrical stimulus. These hairs are connected to some 30,000 nerve fibers, which dispatch the messages to the brain—and we hear! (Aren't we thankful that we do not have to understand the process before we can hear?)

But none of the hairs have an exclusive right to a nerve transmitter. All the nerve fibers are “party lines”—over a million hairs must share a mere 30,000 nerve fibers. But this limitation does not seem to slow down the process of hearing— someone has calculated that our ears pick up as many as 100,000 signals a second!
A cross section of the organ of Corti is striking in its detail, especially when we consider how minute this organ is, and how critical in the process of hearing. (The entire organ is only about l.4 inches if uncoiled.) Is it not a miracle of design? /p>
How can we distinguish between low sounds and high? It seems that the cochlea is a “tuned” structure, i.e., different areas register different frequencies; but the process is by no means fully understood.

What shall we say? Do we not feel like standing in silent awe before our great Creator, who made us lowly mortals—and millions of animals besides—able to hear? Who can think that such an intricate system came about by chance? Can we even faintly appreciate the wonder behind the simple statement we make again and again, "I heard&hellip"?

And He who can do such wonders for a mortal body, what can He do for immortals? Do we not owe Him our very best in dedication and service?

How can we but bow our heads in reverence to Him who has put sound in our lives!

Truly, the hand that made us is Divine!

"Say: It is He Who has created you (and made you grow), and made for you the faculties of hearing, seeing, feeling and understanding: little thanks it is ye give." [Quran 67:23]
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Sources:
  • S. V. Letcher in Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, copyright 1993 by Compton's NewMedia, Inc.
  • Dr. A. J. Duvall, III and P. A. Santi in The 1995 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia
  • The Incredible Machine, published by National Geographic Society, Washington, DC, copyright 1986
  • Sound and Hearing, published by Time, Inc., 1965
  • Principles of Anatomy and Physiology, copyright 1993 by Biological Sciences Textbooks, Inc., a division of Harper Collins New York, NY
  • and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition, 25:204f