What is Purpose of Parthenon in Athens, Greece?

Parthenon in Athens (credit to Google)

The Parthenon is a classical style, a Doric order style of the Temple that built by the Athenian Empire in 447 BC. The temple for the patron of goddess, Athena.

Athena is the smartest and wisest of all gods in Greece. As god of war and peace. She was an inventor and crafted.

Then, Bakula (2018) added that “She was a protector, adviser, patron, and ally of heroic men.”

Parthenon have 8 pillars in front of the entrance. These pillars to support a pediment; a triangular element in upper part of front any classical style buildings.

In terms of political and military viewpoints, the Parthenon is a symbol of Athenian imperial power. 

As said by Martin (1999) that the Parthenon served as a champion of military power, indicated by the present of the goddess in battle armor inside the building.

The Parthenon is a rectangular form; Columns are smaller; and columns in Doric order of classical style.

Parthenon on the hill (credit to Google)

Currently, Parthenon function as a museum, to be one of tourist’s attraction in Greece.

As a great empire once upon time, we could find the remaining of Greek buildings in many places such as Italy, Sicily, and Turkey.

Parthenon was viewed from the sky (credit to Google)

Then, Greek classical style was mimicked and copied around the globe for private and public buildings. 

What kind of Greek classical buildings do yo know?

Reference

Bakula, J. (2018). Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Artistry in Greek Mythology. Retrieved from https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Greek-Goddess-Athena

Martin, TR. 1999. An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/#q=thomas+r+martin+an...
+overview+of+athena+empire.

Stop by at Art Galleries of a College Student

Look like a big goat head

We just stop by a college art gallery that close to our neighborhood recently. The students use a wall to show their creativity.

Sure, the purposes are to promote and if the art works are good enough, then the owners sell it.

Since the painting owners are students, mainly associate degree students, the price range from US$ 50 to couple hundred bucks.

I saw the highest price of painting is US$ 480. Male goat head of oil painting. Look very beautiful for me.

Vases and flowers

There are many painting styles as we know, some of them are:

- Racoco

- Barouque

- Realism (called as naturalism too)

- Fauvism

- Romanticism

- Cubism

- Expressionism

- Abstract

- Surrealism

Many vases with beautiful flowers

I know few of artists with their styles:

- Rembrant, a Dutch painter is one of well known artists for realism style.

- Pablo Picasso, a Spanish painter, a well known artist for cubism style.

- Edvard Munch, a Norwegian painter, a well known artist for expressionism style.

- Jackson Pollock, an American painter, a well known artist for abstract style

- Max Ernst is one of well known painters from Germany for surrealism style.

In my opinion that majority students adapted the Realism, also called as naturalism painting style. I love this style. What we see have no hiding meaning.

Few paintings as I saw that depict the light and visible strokes to show the quality of painting. This style could be included as post impressionism painting style.

Vincent van Gogh, a dutch painter is well known for his post impressionism style.

What painting style do you like? Who is your favorite painter?

Regular Visiting of Nursery at Home Depot

Nursery of flowers

We usually visit nursery on late January or early February every year. Temperature is comfortable in our American southern states.

The nursery could be home depot, Walmart or any specific nurseries that available in our city or near by our neighborhood.

In the last several years, frozen (temperature below minus C degree) killed our plants, flowers and fruits.

Some of our trees also died, not because of temperature, but because of diseases. Mainly due to fungi and bacteria diseases.

We need to re-placed the dead plants with new ones. They are include annual and perennial flowers, fruits and trees.

Perennial flowers

From the word “perennial,” we know that this is a kind of “continuation.” The flowers may grow year by year.

The flowers are growing during spring and summer seasons, dormant in the fall and winter. They might re-grow in the spring and summer, depending on many factors.

There are plenty of perennial flowers, some of them are:

- Black eyed Susan

- Day lily

- Daffodils

- Aster

- Gloriosa daisy

- Penstemon

Annual flowers

Annual refer to growing in one season only, no re-growing in spring and summer seasons.

Some of annual flowers are following:

- Petunia

- Pansy

- Calendula

- Swiss chard

- Geranium

Beautiful roses

I like white rose, look lovely. I think Home Depot sells plenty of roses variations and colors.

The colors not only white and red, but also include yellow, vermilion, magenta, apricot and purple.

What flowers do you like? Perennial or annual?

Do You Know that America Exports Date Fruits?

A date fruit tree sold by Etsy, US$ 2.31 per small tree

I thought that date fruits come from certain countries in Asia, Middle East and Africa only. The fact that the following top 10 countries produce dates are from these regions. They are:

01) Egypt, yearly production 1.1 million tons

02) Iran, yearly production 0.95 million tons

03) Saudi Arabia, yearly production 0.84 million tons

04) Iraq, yearly production 0.68 million tons

05) Pakistan, yearly production 0.56 million tons

06) United Arab Emirat, yearly production 0.53 million tons

07) Algeria, yearly production 0.49 million tons

08) Sudan, yearly production 0.44 million tons

09) South Sudan, yearly production 0.43 million tons

10) Oman, yearly production 0.24 million tons

Dates sold in Walmart

Quite lately, I knew that America produces date fruits too. Date trees are growing well in some hot places such as Southern Florida, Southern California and Arizona.

California produced 35 thousand tons (70 million pounds) of dates, around 90% of dates in America.

Production quite small compared to top 10 countries date production. However, it is surprising that America export date fruit to several countries.

Where? What countries are importing date fruits from USA? America exports date fruits to the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

Total export in 2017 to 2018 was 21.8 million pounds with value US$ 67.1 million (Euro 60 million or Pound Sterling 52 million).

We are shopping date fruits from California recently. They are sold in groceries such as Walmart. Price quite reasonable, US$ 4 per-pound (almost half kg).

Have you tasted date fruits?

What Cities Infested by Mosquitoes in the USA?

Anopheles, Aedes and Culex are common mosquitoes in the USA 

(credit to Google)

I thought tropical countries have mosquitoes only, and have many diseases relate to mosquitoes. I was surprising to watch mosquitoes flew around when I moved in to my current house about six years ago.

I then understand that mosquitoes be found in the American southern states such as Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

Lately, I read from several resources that Mosquitoes infested almost all states of America.

Top 10 cities infested by mosquitoes are following (Bolluyt, 2018):

01) St. Louis, Missouri

02) Houston, Texas

03) Miami – Fort Lauderdal

04) Kansas City, Missouri

05) Charlotte, North Carolina

06) Detroit, Michigan

07) Memphis, Tennessee

08) Nashville, Tennessee

09) Tampa, Florida

10) Raleigh – Durham, North Carolina

Mosquito hunters (credit to Google)

There are three most common genera of mosquitoes in the USA are:

- Aedes.

Known for spreading the dengue fever, chikungunya and Zika.

- Anopheles.

Spreading the diseases called malaria.

- Culex.

This mosquito transmits disease called Japanese encephalitis virus and West Nile virus.

There were 2100 cases of “West Nile virus” in the USA in 2016. The highest cases compared to other mosquitoes borne diseases.

Since 1999 until recently, more than 3 million people affected by West Nile virus. Two thousand people have died in the USA.

The number is quite frightening for me, especially it is happening in the advance country like America.

Are there mosquitoes borne diseases in your countries? If so, what kinds of species?

Reference

Bolluyt, J. 2018. New List Reveals the US Cities Most Plagued by Mosquitoes. Retrieved from https://www.cheatsheet.com../culture/new-list-reveals-the-us-cities-most-plagued-by-mosquitoes.html/

What Vegetables Can be Grown Hydroponically?

Simple design of hydroponic system

Hydroponic is a technique to grow plants without soil. In many cases, people use water or highly nutrient solution. Some people use sand as a hydroponic system too.

Growing plants hydroponically have several advantages than grow them in soil. One of advantages is that hydroponi plants are growing faster, it is because plants don’t loss energy to search nutrients in soil, all nutrients are concentrate in solution.

Other advantages include diseases of bacteria, fungi and bug insect infestations are controllable, thus our plants are healthier and environmentally friendly.

Pellets to grow seeds before transferred into a hydroponic system

If you have limited spaces or no backyards at all, and you are interesting in farming at least for leisure time, then, hydroponic is a good choice.

There are many stores sell hydroponic kits, or you could buy hydroponic growing kits through online stores (Etsy, eBay, amazon).

The system (kits) are from simple to complicated ones. Price is range from US$ 15 to more than US$ 350.

Some vegetables

We may grow vegetables and berries by hydroponic system. They are include lettuce, spinach, green bean, tomatoes, cucumber, strawberries and blueberries.

In case of fruit, we tried to grow strawberry. We buy several “root stock” strawberries from nearby nursery.

The strawberries need potassium, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium as their main source of nutrients.

We could pollinate strawberry by our hand in away that we brush the small flowers immediately after they are opening.

The results are quite surprising us, we harvested the berries after one month of planting “root stocks.”

Have you tried hydroponic?

Have You Seen a Half-Male Half-Female Bird?

From left to right: female, a Half-Male Half-Female and male birds,

credit to Daily Mail

Hermaphrodite is a term refers to organisms which have both sexes, male and female. Well known example is worms (earth worms).

How about if an organism has a “Half-Male Half-Female” sex organ? It is called as a “bilateral gynandromorph.”

This kind of anomaly cause a half body as a male and another part is female.

In case of bird, a cardinal bird, for simplify that a male is identified by his red color, while female is shown by her pale brown or gray brown or brownish yellow.

We are easy to distinguish male and female by color of cardinal birds.

Recently, a bird watcher in Pennsylvania, USA, Shirley Caldwell observed a cardinal with “split coat” in her backyard.

Experts believed the bird is a Half-Male Half-Female organism. 

As reported by Gray (2014) that this kind of “bilateral gynandromorph” bird was first time spotted in 2008. It regularly visited Rock Island, Illinois. 

Female cardinal in nature

Uniquely, a cardinal with rare sex appearance had never sing, no mate, lonely, not “bullied” and ignored by other cardinals.

Even thought a rare case, scientists believed that bilateral gynandromorph could be found in all bird species, especially to species with distinctly different between male and female.

Male cardinal in nature

Have you ever seen bilateral gynandromorph or Half-Male Half-Female birds?

Reference

Gray, R. 2014. The lonely life of the half-male half-female bird: Northern cardinal with bizarre split plumage is ignored by its peers in Illinois. Retrieved from Daily Mail, 31 December 2014.