A Ton of Crap (132 page)

MATH:
Logarithms
What Are Logarithms?, Basic Rules of Logarithms, Expanding Logarithms, Simplifying Logarithmic Expressions, Change-of-Base Formula, Applications of Logarithms

SCIENCE:
RNA
Messenger RNA, Ribosomal RNA, Transfer RNA, Small Interfering RNA, Precursor Messenger RNA, RNA Therapeutics

FOREIGN LANGUAGE:
Endangered Languages
Karaim, Votic, Dyirbal, Chong, Sarikoli, Chuvash

ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

History of the Land
The history of Israel and Palestine is a very complex one. In ancient times, the land was known as Judea and it was the land of the Jewish people. When the Romans conquered the land, it was renamed Palestine. This land was then conquered and inhabited by Arabs for more than 1,000 years. With the Zionist movement, the Jewish people wished to return to Israel. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 stated that Britain wished to turn Palestine into a national home for the Jewish people, upsetting the Arabs that lived there. Riots broke out and the British stopped immigration of the Jewish people to Palestine. After the Holocaust, the British once again began allowing Jewish people to move to Palestine. In 1947, the land was divided into a Jewish and Arab state.

EDITING STRATEGIES

Editing and Proofreading
Editing and proofreading are not interchangeable. They are two very important processes to use during the finishing process of writing. Editing is about making sure terminology is used correctly. It’s ensuring that every term that is used is the right term. Often, research is an important part of the editing process. Proofreading, however, is about scanning your writing to make sure that everything is grammatically sound, and that there are no syntax or spelling errors. The meaning of the words does not matter. This is about whether or not the structure is correct.

LOGARITHMS

What Are Logarithms?
Maybe the most useful concept in arithmetic that can be used in all sciences, logarithms are ways to express a power that a fixed base, or number, is raised to so that a given answer is produced. Common logarithms have a base of ten, while natural logarithms have a base
e
. Here are some basic logs:

log(10) = 1

This is because 101 = 10

log(100) = 2

This is because 102 = 100

log(2) ≈ 0.3

This is because 100.3 = 2

The opposite of a log, which is known as an antilog, looks like this:

antilog(2) = 100

With antilogs, you are just raising the base (10) to the power of
x
(in this case 2).

RNA

Messenger RNA
Messenger RNA, also known as mRNA, is the single-stranded molecule that is responsible for encoding a chemical blueprint for the process of protein synthesis. Messenger RNA has a copy of the genetic information found on a strand of DNA. Whereas DNA has the genetic information in the nucleus, messenger RNA transports that information out of the nucleus to the cytoplasm. It is in the cytoplasm that the proteins are put together. As mentioned earlier, messenger RNA goes through transcription and then translation.

ENDANGERED LANGUAGES

Karaim
Karaim is a Turkic language that has influences from Hebrew similar to the way the Ladino or Yiddish languages do. The language is spoken by the Crimean Karaites, who are followers of Karaite Judaism. The language is spoken in Crimea, Poland, western Ukraine, and Lithuania. Currently, there are only six speakers alive.

ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

Palestinian State
The Arab people did not accept the division of the land, and war between Palestine and Israel broke out. The Jewish people expanded their territory after a victory, leaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians refugees. The two-state solution was finally agreed upon in 1988. Violence and land settlement continued, however, and in September of 2000, there was open conflict. The Road Map Peace Plan is a plan that was issued by the Bush administration to create a Palestinian state in peace.

EDITING STRATEGIES

Your Target Audience
Once your writing is finished, it is of absolute necessity that you go back and edit. Your first draft should never be your final draft. Think about your audience. Who are you writing this for? Is it a technical audience? Do you need to explain any technical terms you have included or will they know what you’re talking about? How old is your audience? If you are writing for children, they have a shorter attention span than adults. Think about the length of your sentences. Make sure what you have written is appropriate for the people who are going to be listening to or reading it.