The Western alphabet

The Western alphabet, which is used in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Australia and New Zealand as well as in other countries, originated in the Middle East. The people who gave the world this alphabet were the Phoenicians, a people who established colonies all over the Mediterranean, including Carthage in Africa and Gades in Spain. In their alphabet, the letters were represented by little pictures which represented sounds. The Phoenician A was aleph, which means "bull". and it was made from a little picture of a bull's head. The letter B was beth which meant "house", and showed the round-roofed buildings which you can still see today in...

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Alternative medicine

         Alternative medicine is, by definition, an alternative to something else: modern, Western medicine. But the term ‘alternative’ can be misleading, even off-putting for some people. Few practitioners of homeopathy, acupuncture, herbalism and the like regard their therapies as complete substitutes for modern medicine. Rather, they consider their disciplines as supplementary to orthodox medicine. The problem is that many doctors refuse even to recognize ‘natural’ or alternative medicine, to do so calls for a radically different view of health, illness and cure. But whatever doctors may think, the demand for...

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How a Volcano Really Works

     As it rises, the pressure of the rock around and above it becomes less and less. At a certain point, that pressure drops so low that it cannot keep the rock balloon solid any more. The balloon melts. It becomes an underground liquid that we call magma - a liquid imprisoned in an underground chamber of the solid rock around it.        Ordinary steam, heated to only 212° f  (100 °C), can drive a locomotive. Now try to imagine the power of super-steam, heated to 3000°F (nearly 2000 °C).        Early explanations for the awesome power of volcanoes involved...

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