"A property called confinement [dictates that] the strength of the interaction becomes smaller the closer the particles are, rather than the further they are.  Accordingly, one can never see an isolated quark or gluon, only combinations of them.  Groups of three [...] are known as baryons, amongst which protons and neutrons are the most prominent examples. —Thank you, Andre Liddle & Jon Loveday, for The Oxford Companion to Cosmology [Online Version], in the "standard model for particle physics" entry, 2012.

"Within a single cell there may be 10,000 different proteins; thousands of the energy factories called mitochondria; and half a billion actin molecules, which provide scaffolding to support the cell and help it move and change shape." —Thank you, Rachel Ehrenberg, for "View to a Cell," in Science News, June 15, 2013, p.21.

"When we go down to the low-tide line, we enter a world that is as old as the earth itself -- the primeval meeting place of the elements of earth and water, a place of compromise and conflict and eternal change.  For us as living creatures it has special meaning as an area in or near which some entity that could be distinguished as life first drifted in shallow waters -- reproducing, evolving, yielding that endlessly varied stream of living things that has surged through time and space to occupy the earth." —Thank you, Rachel Carson, for The Edge of the Sea, 1955, p.vii.

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.  Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." —Thank you, Albert Camus, for The Myth of Sisyphus, 1955, p.3.

"Elephants usually drink only once a day and do not seem to care about the water source.  They may stop within a few yards of a crystal clear lake and drink from a small muddy wallow instead." —Thank you, Alan M. Heatwole, for Elephants, 1991, p.44.

"You transformed the force and urgency / of your tears into your mature gaze and were just on the point of turning all your / body's juices into a powerful existence, / which would rise and circle, trustingly, in equilibrium. / Then chance, your last encounter with chance, / tore you back from your furthest progress, / back into a world where juices have their will. / Not all at once; tore just a shred at first, / but when, around this shred, day by day, / reality swelled, became heavy, [...]." —Thank you, Rainer Maria Rilke (and translators Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann), for "Requiem for a Friend," in The Essential Rilke, 1999, pp.49-51. 

"The trunk and branches support the weight of the tree and are the main elements in building a [...] shape in the plant.  The skin protects the interior part of the plant; the vessels provide channels for the passage of nutrition to the leaves and branches.  These vessels are the means by which water and nutrition absorbed by roots are passed to the leaves." —Thank you, Amy Liang, for The Living Art of Bonsai, 2005, p.171. 

"Sound bounces back not only off solid obstacles but also off clouds.  Even absolutely transparent air is able to reflect sound waves in certain circumstances, when for some reason it differs in sound-carrying capacity from the rest of the air mass.  [...]  The famous British physicist gave the name of acoustic clouds to those areas of transparent air which reflected sound, thus producing an 'aerial echo'.  This is what he has to say about it:  'Acoustic clouds, in fact, are incessantly floating or flying through the air.  They have nothing whatever to do with ordinary clouds, fogs or haze.  The most transparent atmosphere may be filled with them; converting days of extraordinary optical transparency into days of equally extraordinary acoustic opacity...  The existence of these aerial echoes has been proved both by observation and experiment.  They may arise either from air currents differently heated, or from air currents differently saturated with vapour.'" —Thank you, Yakov Perelman, for Physics for Entertainment, Book Two, 2008, pp.312-312. 

"Giraffe characteristics:  Very tall with long neck (elongated neck vertebrae) and long limbs.  Bony prominences of neck vertebrae can be seen on the surface [...].  Back line slopes downward toward rear.  usually three, permanent, bony 'horns' in both male and female, covered with skin and fur.  Two located on either side of rear of skull (may be topped with hairy tufts); third horn (sometimes only a knob) wider, stubbier, and of variable size, located on midline in front of the other horns, is more developed in the male.  Long, mobile, prehensile lips; long tongue.  Nostrils closable.  Large eyes with long lashes.  No front teeth in upper jaw.  Two digits with hoofs per limb.  Walks on toes.   Long tail with long hair from tip.  Upright mane on midline of neck.” —Thank you, Eliot Goldfinger, for Animal Anatomy for Artists, 2004, p.164. 

"I use the term ['invisible masterpiece'] as a metaphor for the idea of a work that comprises art in the absolute - a state beyond the reach of every tangible art-work.  ['Invisible masterpiece'], therefore, does not refer to any specific work, but only to an unattainable ideal, a work in which a dream of art (or art as a dream) is incorporated.” —Thank you, Hans Belting, for The Invisible Masterpiece, 2001, p.11.  Thank you, Chris & Anna Celenza, for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.

"A range of theoretical developments has gradually qualified the interpretation of 'universe.'  [...]  Sometimes it's applied to separate realms, ones that are partly or fully, temporarily or permanently, inaccessible to us; in this sense, the word relegates our universe to membership in a large, perhaps infinitely large, collection.” —Thank you, Brian Greene, for The Hidden Reality:  Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, 2011, pp.12-13.

"I am in love with what we are / Not what we should be / And I am, I am starstruck / With every part of this whole story / So if it's just tonight / The animal inside, let it live then die / Like it's the end of time / Like everything inside / Let it live then die [...]”—Thank you, K. Sebert, Gottwald, Greg Kurstin, Pebe Sebert for the opening lyrics of the song, "Animal (Switch remix)," on Ke$ha's album, "I Am the Dance Commander + I Command You to Dance: The Remix Album," 2011.  Thank you, Ke$ha, for recording these lyrics.

"First of all Chaos came into being.  Next came / broad-breasted Gaia (Earth), the secure dwelling place forever of all / the immortals [...] / [...] From Chaos there came into being Erebos (Darkness) and black night / [...] Gaia first brought forth starry Ouranos (Sky)/ [...] in order to be a secure dwelling place forever for the blessed gods.”—Thank you, Hesiod ("late eighth to early seventh century BCE", in Richard D. McKirahan, Jr's, Philosophy Before Socrates, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994, p.9.  Thank you, Chris & Anna Celenza for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.

"Plants have developed a wide spectrum of techniques in order to ensure that their flowers are pollinated.  The various devices involve timing and position of flower opening, flower shape, and color.  These features are collectively known as flowering strategies.”—Thank you, Michael Emsley, for Human Rain Forests and Cloud Forests, Harry N. Abrams, 1979, p.152

Posts will resume on June 10, 2013.

"Early in embryonic development, the cells begin to specialize:  Some become liver cells; some become nerve cells; others become the transparent lens of the eye.  Every cell in the body carries the same genes.  (A gene, simply speaking, is a segment of DNA that encodes for a specific protein and therefore dictates a specific cell function.)  If all cells have identical genes, how can one cell be so different from another?  This question is currently the subject of extensive research.  Apparently, cells in various regions of the developing embryo are exposed to different chemical signals that channel the cells into specific pathways of development.”—Thank you, Elaine N. Marieb & Jon Mallat, for Human Anatomy, Second Edition, Benjamin/Cummings, 1997, pp.43-44

"N.__'s first law of motion:  An object moves with a velocity that is constant in magnitude and direction, unless acted on by a nonzero force.  [...]  N__'s second law:  The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass.  [...]  N__'s law of universal gravitation:  Every particle in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.”—Thank you, Raymond A. Serway, Chris Vuille, & Jerry S. Faughn, for College Physics, Volume 1, Eighth Edition, Thomson Higher Education, 2008, pp.85,86,90.  Thank you, Ken Cropper, M.D., for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.  *Isaac Newton.

"As traveling disturbances pass over a coastline or ice edge, they experience a change in surface friction, heat fluxes, and possibly orography. The sudden change in surface conditions can modify the disturbance, but it also can give rise to entirely new phenomena that are peculiar to the coastal region.  [...]  The complexities introduced by such mesoscale and synoptic-scale interactions hinder conceptual understanding, and accurate forecasting of changing coastal conditions requires the simultaneous simulation of a variety of disparate processes and their interactions.  Manifestations of these interactions are numerous.”—Thank you, Health Press, for Coastal Meteorology: A Review of the State of the Science, 1992, p.45

"The female honeyguide [bird...] finds a nest made by another bird and lays a single egg in it when the other mother is not around.  When the honeyguide egg hatches, it is blind and hungry and almost helpless, but it has two sharp hooks on its bill.  It uses them to bite the other nestlings to death.  [...]  The mother bird [...then raises this] baby [...], while her own young have been killed."—Thank you, Alvin Silverstein, Virginia Silverstein, & Laura Silverstein Nunn, for Symbiosis, Twenty-First Century Books, 1998, p.7

"Millions and millions of single-celled [...] bacteria live inside our intestines.  [...]  The survival of many species depends on the presence of bacteria.  Certain bacteria that live in our intestines [...] (intestinal microflora) help to destroy other organisms that could be harmful.  Some microflora break food down to make it easier to digest [...]; others make important vitamins, such as [...] B [...and...] K.  [...]  Scientists now believe that some important parts of the cells of animals and plants were once bacteria that were captured by some long-ago ancestor of present-day species and then were passed on by their hosts from generation to generation.  One important type is the mitochondria, found in the cells of virtually all eukaryotes (organisms whose cells have a nucleus, [which] includes plants, animals, fungi, and protists).  Mitochondria are football-shaped structures that burn food materials to release energy for the cell's activities.  Researchers have found that mitochondria have their own DNA [...].  It's different from the cell's DNA, which is specific for the type of plant or animal; in fact, it's somewhat like the DNA of bacteria."—Thank you, Alvin Silverstein, Virginia Silverstein, & Laura Silverstein Nunn, for Symbiosis, Twenty-First Century Books, 1998, pp.10-11

"[A statistical table is] sometimes referred to as a summary or analytical table.  This type of table is used primarily for analyzing information as opposed to referencing, scheduling, etc.  There are always two or more variables and the data in the body is normally numeric.  Information is generally arranged, ranked, sorted, etc., to make such things as relationships, trends, comparisons, distributions, and anomalies stand out."—Thank you, Robert L. Harris, for Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference, Oxford University Press, 1983, p.368

"When I was a young student naturalist in Corfu, I did not have access to naturalist shops and it was before the days of mail-order catalogs [...].  Even if this had not been the case, my meager pocket money would not have allowed me to buy specially made butterfly nets and cans for collecting insects.  My nets were homemade out of cheap cheesecloth sewed by myself or by my mother or sister [...], and my killing bottle was and old candy jar with a cotton ball soaked in ether purchased from the druggist.  Not one bottle or can in our house was thrown out, they all made containers of one sort or another for my collection.  Matchboxes were invaluable and any solid container of wood or cardboard was a godsend  When my containers were full of specimens I unhesitatingly used all my pockets, my handkerchief, my shirt [...]."—Thank you, Gerald Durrell, for A Practical Guide for the Amateur Naturalist, Alfred A. Knopf, 1983, p.19.  Thank you, Jill Goff, for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.

"In population, [India] ranks second only to China.  The north is mountainous, with mountains and foothills of the Himalayan range.  Rivers, such as the Brahmaputra and Ganges (Ganga), rise in the Himalayas and flow across the fertile northern plains.  Southern India consists of a large plateau, called the Deccan.  The Deccan is bordered by two mountain ranges, the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats.  [...]  India has 15 major languages and hundreds of minor ones, together with many religions."—Thank you, Keith Lye, for The Portable World Factbook, Avon Books, 1997, pp.150-151.  Thank you, Jill Goff, for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.

"Orchestra:  a term, dating (in modern times) from the late 17th c[entury], for an instrumental ensemble, usu[ally] restricted to mean an ensemble composed of a section of bowed strings with more than one player to a part along with woodwind, brass and percussion instruments [...]  The modern symphony orchestra usually contains from 40 to 100 players."—Thank you, Philip D. Morehead, for The New American Dictionary of Music, Dutton, 1991, p.385.  Thank you, Jill Goff, for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.

"Plasma is a medium composed of electrons and ions free to move in all spatial directions.  Because a charged particle can interact simultaneously with many other charged particles in its vicinity [...], plasma behaves as a collective medium and is macroscopically neutral."—Thank you, Michael Moisan & Jacques Pelletier, for "Physics of Collision Plasmas: Introduction to High-Frequency Discharges," in Physics of Collisional Sciences, Springer Netherlands, 2012, p.1

"turn on the hydrant and the water's hard
you can't wash your face or fill a pail
and the pump has chewed right through its hose
the crowbar's dull and the pick won't bite
because like death water is tough
though you abolish it altogether

all events are reflected in it separately
even toss a piano from the balcony on your neighbor
like a new man he's vulnerable
and the tongue in your mouth is unbearably white
looks as if we'd been drinking a solution of chalk
and now we're eating it like that

a useless sound from the water arose
the air will not pass down the hollow reed
it has choked, thy flute
granite will ring out on the side of the pail
but in frozen time is no harm
to plants stars and beasts

because the limestone brain is hard
because the world is mountain wax
that congeals without difficulty
and in the well's circle more faithfully than you
its features have been reflected forever
by this stone water"

—Thank you, Aleksei Tsvetkov, for "140" in Contemporary Russian Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology, Indiana University Press, 1993, pp.236-239.  Thank you, Barbara Folsom, for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.

"The vocal cords (vocal folds) are paired bands of fibrous tissue near the base of the larynx.  In normal breathing there is a V-shaped gap between them, called the glottis.  Sound is produced when the cords close together, tighten by muscle action, and vibrate as air from the lungs passes between them.  The greater the tension in the cords, the higher the pitch (frequency).  Above are the false vocal cords (vestibular folds).  These do not produce sound but help close off the larynx when swallowing."—Thank you, Steve Parker, for The Human Body Book, Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2007, p.137   

"The Greek word muthos means formulated speech, whether it be a story, a dialogue, or the enunciation of a plan.  So muthos belongs to the domain of legein ["to speak"], [...] and does not originally stand in contrast to logoi, a term that has a closely related semantic significance and that is concerned with the different forms of what is said.  [...]  Between the eighth and fourth centuries B.C.[E.], a whole series of interrelated conditions caused a multiplicity of differentiations, breaks, and internal tensions with in the mental universe of the Greeks that were responsible for distinguishing the domain of myth from other domains:  The concept of myth peculiar to classical antiquity thus became clearly defined through the setting up of an opposition between muthos and logos, henceforth seen as separate and contrasting terms."—Thank you, Jean-Pierre Vernant for Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, Zone Books, 1990, p.203-204.  Thank you, Chris & Anna Celenza for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.

"All civilizations can be understood to a limited extent purely in thermodynamic terms.  From the food that keeps our bodies at proper metabolic temperature to the draft animals, engines, or nuclear reactors that propel our vehicles, the connection between energy and culture is close and causal."—Thank you, Robert J. Wenke & Deborah I. Olszewski for Patterns in Prehistory, Oxford University Press, 2007, p.484

"G.V.__ argued systematically that the understanding of a past society - even of an earlier period in the history of one's own society - was a demanding, if rewarding, intellectual task.  The modern reader opening a work by Homer or Livy had to realize that it did not describe individuals like himself, men and women whose experiences, feelings, and ideas would be immediately recognizable.  Only by mastering the general laws of social and cultural evolution that Vico himself had formulated could one avoid committing basic errors."—Thank you, Giambattista Vico (1668-1774) for New Science.  Thank you, Anthony Grafton, for the "Introduction" of Penguin Book's 1999 edition (quote from p.xi of "Introduction").  Thank you, Chris & Anna Celenza for access to the library from which this book was borrowed. *Giambattista Vico

"Now I assert, the spirit and the soul / are held conjoint and form one common nature, / but the captain, so to speak, and lord of the body / is the judgment, which we call the soul or mind. / It sits fixed in the center of the breast. / Here alarm bucks loose, and dread, and round these regions / Gladness caresses.  Here, then, is the mind, the soul. / The other, the spirit, sown broadcast through the body, / obeys and moves to the mind's sway and will. / The mind thinks by itself, joys in itself, / Even when nothing is stirring the spirit or body. / And as when our head or eye is stricken with  / Some trying pain, we're still not torture-crossed / throughout the body, so the mind itself / will grieve or flourish in gladness while the spirit, / spread through the frame, is touched by nothing new. / But when the fear that troubles the mind is more / vehement, we see the spirit in all the members / agree, and the body blanches and beads of sweat / break out all over, the tongue-tied voice cracks, falters, / it's dusk with the eyes, ears ring, limbs buckle and give, / and yes, we see men terrified in mind / crumple — so anyone should easily learn / that the spirit and mind are one, for when spirit is struck / by the force of the mind, it thrusts and hurls the body."—Thank you, Lucretius (ca.99-55 BCE) (and Anthony M. Esolen, editor) for De rerum natura (on the nature of things), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, p.95.  Thank you, Chris & Anna Celenza for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.

"All stable matter in the universe is made from particles that belong to the first generation [of quarks]; any heavier particles quickly decay to the next most stable level."—Thank you, CERN, 2013, http://home.web.cern.ch/about/physics/standard-model

"The purpose of the reasoning process, logic's principal concern, is demonstration.  I am not reasoning with you if I simply say that such-and-such is true.  [...]  I must show you that such-and-such is true, and I do that by making an argument.  An argument will only be as good as the statements of which it is composed, and those statements, in turn, will only be as good as the terms of which they are composed.  [...]  Argument is the activity of logic, and any particular argument is a concrete manifestation of the reasoning process."—Thank you, D. Q. McInerny (writer) for Being Logical:  A Guide to Good Thinking, Random House, 2004, p.41

"[A] barrier lake [is one] formed by a natural barrier [that] stop[s] water [from] draining away.  Natural barriers can be moraine, rock, or lava."—Thank you, Ajay K. Ghosh (editor) for Academic Dictionary of Geology, Isha Books, 2005, p.19

"[An] overview of fluid mechanical processes occurring at the different interfaces existing in the realm of Environment Fluid Mechanics (EFM), [include, but are not limited to] the air-water interface, the air-land interface, the water-sediment interface, and the water-vegetation interface.  Across any of these interfaces, mass, momentum, and heat are exchanged through different fluid mechanical processes over various spatial and temporal scales."—Thank you, Carlo Gualtieri & Dragutin T. Mihailović (editors) for Fluid Mechanics of Environmental Interfaces, 2nd. Ed., CRC Press, 2012, p.vii

"The microorganisms that decompose the organic matter in the surface soil [of tropical forests] are aided by bacteria and single-celled animals in the alimentary canals of termites, cockroaches, and beetles.  The ubiquitous termites depend on protozoa, which permanently inhabit their gut, for cellulose digestion, and similarly the ants that cultivate fungus gardens use the fungi to digest the cellulose of their plant harvests, for they themselves are unable to do it alone."—Thank you, Michael Emsley (writer) and Kjell B. Sandved (photographer) for Rain Forests and Cloud Forests, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1979, p.115

"Adult [margined burying beetles (Nicrophorus marginatus)] often drag a small carcass 16 feet, bury it beneath loose dirt, then mate there.  They remove fur or feathers [from the carcass], work [the] body into a ball shape then lay eggs.  Adults care for larvae until larvae pupate, sometimes in a side tunnel."—from Lorus and Margery Milne in The Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders, Alfred A. Knopt, 1980, p.549

"Donax clams live in the intertidal zone on wave-swept beaches, where the sand is constantly kept wet.  They lie buried just an inch or so from the surface, with the ends of their two siphons extending slightly above the surface.  Waves flush them out of the sand; then they move either up or down with the wash and quickly bury themselves again with their powerful foot."—from Harald A. Rehder in The Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Seashells, Alfred A. Knopt, 1981, p.779

"The most common method of closing wounds is by sutures. There are two basic types of suture materials; absorbable ones such as catgut (which comes from sheep intestine) or synthetic substitutes; and nonabsorbable materials, such as nylon sutures, steel staples, or adhesive tissue tape. Catgut is still used extensively to tie off small blood vessels that are bleeding, and since the body absorbs it over time, no foreign materials are left in the wound to become a focus for disease organisms. Nylon stitches and steel staples are removed when sufficient healing has taken place."—from "surgery," Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013, web, 28 March, 2013

"The skeleton is the internal framework of the body and is made up of bones and cartilage.  [...]  Bones provide support (when they are locked in position by the muscles and ligaments) and protection (the skull, rib cage and pelvis protect their contents).  They produce motion, acting as levers when pulled by the muscles."—from Eliot Goldfinger in Human Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form, Oxford University Press, 1991, p.3

"Statics deals with the equilibrium of bodies, that is, those that are either at rest or move with a constant velocity; whereas dynamics is concerned with the accelerated motion of bodies."—from R.C. Hibbeler in Engineering Mechanics: Statics and Dynamics, 9th Ed., Prentice Hall, 2000, p.3

"Homeostasis [is] the ability or tendency of an organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes." —from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Ed., 2000

"Some of the most agreeable proportions [to humans] have an identifiable mathematical basis and are frequently found in natural forms.  [...]  If a group of people are asked individually to put a mark on a line that produces a pleasing division, the majority will intuitively select a point that roughly produces [what has come to be called] a Golden Section, [... a ratio of] approximately 8 to 5."—from Keith Micklewright in Drawing: Mastering the Language of Visual Expression, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 2005, p.58

"[...] the rate at which kaons turn into antikaons does not precisely balance the reverse process, antikaons into kaons.  If such an asymmetry exists between matter and antimatter, even at the minuscule level observed, it could offer a natural explanation of why the universe is predominantly made of matter."—from Paul Davies in About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, Simon & Schuster, 1995, p.213

"For about the first microsecond [after the big bang], both protons and antiprotons existed in abundance, because the thermal-energy density was greater than that needed to create such a pair.  After the first microsecond, nearly all of the proton-antiproton pairs annihilated each other, leaving a very small surplus of protons and neutrons, flooded by electrons and positrons."—from William W. Porterfield in Inorganic Chemistry: A Unified Approach, Academic Press,1993, p.3

"Ions are electrically charged particles. [...] Opposite charges attract and like charges repel. [...] Electrical potential, also called voltage, is the force exerted on a charged particle, and it reflects the difference in charge between [either side of a membrane or barrier]. [...] The resting potential of a typical neuron is about -65 millivolts [...], and is an absolute requirement for a functioning nervous system."—from Mark F. Bear, Barry W. Connors, & Michael A. Paradiso in Neuroscience:  Exploring the Brain, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins,2001, pp. 60-62

"Learning and memory can occur at synapses.  Regardless of the species, brain location and memory type, many of the underlying mechanisms appear to be universal.  Events are represented first as changes in the electrical activity of the brain, then as second messenger molecules, and next as modifications of existing synaptic proteins.  These temporary changes are converted to permanent ones—long-term memory—by altering the structure of the synapse."—from Mark F. Bear, Barry W. Connors, & Michael A. Paradiso in Neuroscience:  Exploring the Brain, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins,2001, p.792

"[Another] common [way] to generate current [is] chemically, involving electrochemical generation of electrons by reactions between chemicals and electrodes (as in batteries)."—from Harry Kybett & Earl Boynson in All New Electronics Self-Teaching Guide, Wiley Publishing, Inc.,2008, p.2

"Recent estimates put the total number of insect species known to science between 1 million and 2 million.  Whatever number we pick, we must remember that it is an estimate of the total number of names, not species.  Some species may have been described more than once; others may encompass several species that await formal description.."—from Arthur V. Evans and Charles L. Bellamy in An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles, Henry Holt and Company, Inc.,1996, p.20

"With all its eyes the creature
sees the open.  Our eyes alone are
as if turned back, and placed all around,
like traps, encircling its free escape.
What is outside we know only
from the face of the animal; and we even turn
the young child around and force it to look
back at created things, not at that openness
dwelling in the creature's face."
—from Rainer Maria Rilke in The Essential Rilke, (Trans., Galway Kinnell & Hannah Liebmann), The Ecco Press, 1999, p.125

"For Descartes the results of all previous speculation had to be set aside or suspended, until clear and indubitable principles could be established against which to measure them.  Without the aid of such principles, no system, scientific or metaphysical, could warrant assent."—from the Anna and Chris Celenza Library, Baltimore, Maryland:  from Roger Scruton in A Short History of Modern Philosophy, Routledge,1995, p.27

"Draw the verbs of the figure.  This is where we want to direct our concentration.  Draw what the body is doing, not just the body.  [...]  Here is our [...] line with force and direction.  The one line addresses one idea.  The line starts somewhere, does something, and goes somewhere."—from Michael D. Mattesi in Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, Focal Press,2006, p.1-2

"[One of] the most common ways to generate current [is through the] photovoltaic generation of electrons; [...i.e.,] when light strikes semiconductor crystals, as in solar cells."—from Harry Kybett & Earl Boynson in All New Electronics Self-Teaching Guide, Wiley Publishing, Inc.,2008, p.2

"I was preoccupied with picturing his life; I had embarked on the task of imagining him, and the effort had brought out a sweat on me.  For I had to make him up as you would make up a dead man for whom no evidence and no remains exist, one who has to be constituted entirely within yourself."—from Rainer Maria Rilke (Michael Hulse, Trans.) in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Penguin Books, 1910, 2009, p.134

"Stilt roots are common in rain-forest trees in families other than the Palmae and Pandanaceae, although those families most commonly display them.  This palm from Amazonas has an abundance of hiding places for small animals among its stilt roots."—from Michael Emsley in Rain Forests and Cloud Forests, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1979, p.74

"Projection:  [...] 7. The spreading out of the sensory fibers through the cerebral cortex after emerging from the spinal cord."—from Arthur S. Reber in The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology, Penguin Books, 1985, 1995, p.604

"Go to the underworld.
Enter the door like flies.
Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld, is moaning
With the cries of a woman about to give birth.
No linen is spread over her body.
Her breasts are uncovered.
Her hair swirls about her head like leeks.

When she cries, 'Oh! Oh! My inside!'
Cry also, 'Oh! Oh! Your Inside!'
When she cries, 'Oh! Oh! My outside!'
Cry also, 'Oh! Oh! Your outside!'
The queen will be pleased.
She will offer you a gift.
Ask her only for the corpse that hangs from the hook on the wall.
One of you will sprinkle the food of life on it.
The other will sprinkle the water of life.
Inanna will arise.'"
—from Robert Wenke & Deborah Olszewski in Patterns in Prehistory:  Humankind's First Three Million Years, Oxford University Press, 2007, p.352, from Wolkstein and Kramer in Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth (full reference to come)

"It is an extraordinary thing to watch the sand come to life if one happens to be wading where there is a large colony of the [mole] crabs.  One moment it may seem uninhabited.  Then, in that fleeting instant when the water of a receding wave flows seaward like a thin stream of liquid glass, there are suddenly hundreds of little gnome-like faces peering through the sandy floor-beady-eyed, long-whiskered faces set in bodies so nearly the color of their background that they can barely be seen.  And when, almost instantly, the faces fade back into invisibility, as though a host of strange little troglodytes had momentarily looked out through the curtains of their hidden world and as abruptly retired within it, the illusion is strong that one has seen nothing except in imagination—that there was merely an apparition induced by the magical quality of this world of shifting sand and foaming water.” —from Rachel Carson in The Edge of the Sea, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1955, 1983, pp. 154-155

"Without the gradual uplift of the landscape[,] rivers cannot cut down into it.  [...]  Uplift or elevation of the land is necessary to carve canyons and without it there would be no Grand Canyon.” —from Wayne Ranney in Carving Grand Canyon:  Evidence, Theories, and Mystery,Grand Canyon Association, 2005, pp.42-43

"Birds have remarkable visual acuity and can distinguish color much better than humans can — trompe-l'œil fools them only partially."—from Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou in Microcosmos:  The Invisible World of Insects, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1996, p.123

"Color expands a photograph's palette and adds a new level of descriptive information and transparency to the image.  It is more transparent because one is stopped less by the surface -- colour is more like how we see.  It has added description because it shows the colour of light and the colours of a culture or an age."—from the Martha & Gary Hill Library, Paris, France:  Stephen Shore in The Nature of Photographs, Phaidon Press, 2007, p.16

[This quote continues from the previous post.]
“A modern translation of the third passage [translated by T__*, R__**, H__***, and O__**** — see preceding post] reads: 
     In those days [this happened]:  the temple of Anu and Raman 
     the great gods, my lords, 
     which formerly Samsiramanu, the Isakku of Assur, 
     Had built, and which in the course of 641 years had more and more decayed:

    Assurdân, the King of Assyria,     
    the son of Ninebpalekur, King of Assyria, 
    had torn down this temple, but not destroyed it; 

    throughout sixty years its foundation stone 
    had not again been laid.”

—from the Earle Havens Library, Baltimore, Maryland:  C. W. Ceram in The March of Archaeology (Trans., Richard and Clara Winston), Knopf, 1958, p.210.  *W.H.Fox Talbot, **Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, ***Edward Hincks, ****Julius Oppert