A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as primary legislation. In addition, legislatures may observe and steer governing actions, with authority to amend the budget involved. The members of a legislature are called legislators. In a democracy, legislators are most commonly popularly elected, although indirect election and appointment by the executive are also used, particularly for bicameral legislatures featuring an upper chamber. Terminology The name used to refer to a legislative body varies by country. Common names include: Assembly (from to assemble) Congress (from to congregate) Council (from Latin 'meeting') Diet (from old German 'people') Estates or States (from old French 'condition' or 'status') Parliament (from French...

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only place known in the universe where life has originated and found habitability. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. Approximately 70.8% of Earth's surface is made up of the ocean, dwarfing Earth's polar ice, lakes, and rivers. The remaining 29.2% of Earth's surface is land, consisting of continents and islands. Earth's surface layer is formed of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth's liquid outer core generates the magnetic field that shapes the magnetosphere of Earth, deflecting destructive solar winds. The atmosphere of Earth consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide (CO2) trap a part of the energy from the Sun close to the surface. Water vapor is widely present in the atmosphere and forms clouds that cover most of the planet. More solar energy is received by tropical regions than polar...

Passive house (German: Passivhaus) is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building's ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling. A similar standard, MINERGIE-P, is used in Switzerland. The standard is not confined to residential properties; several office buildings, schools, kindergartens and a supermarket have also been constructed to the standard. The design is not an attachment or supplement to architectural design, but a design process that integrates with architectural design. Although it is generally applied to new buildings, it has also been used for refurbishments. In 2008, estimates of the number of passive house buildings around the world ranged from 15,000 to 20,000 structures. In 2016, there were approximately 60,000 such certified structures of all types worldwide. The vast majority of passive structures have been built in German-speaking countries and Scandinavia. History The passivhaus standard originated from a conversation in May 1988 between Bo Adamson of Lund University...

James Phillip McAuley (12 October 1917 – 15 October 1976) was an Australian academic, poet, journalist, literary critic and a prominent convert to Roman Catholicism. He was involved in the Ern Malley poetry hoax. Life and career McAuley was born in Lakemba, a suburb of Sydney. He was educated at Fort Street High School and then attended Sydney University, where he majored in English, Latin and philosophy (which he studied under John Anderson. In 1937 he edited Hermes, the annual literary journal of the University of Sydney Union, in which many of his early poems, beginning in 1935, were published until 1941.He began his life as an Anglican and was sometime organist and choirmaster at Holy Trinity Church, Dulwich Hill, in Sydney. He lost his Christian faith as a younger man.In 1943, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the militia for the Australian Army and served in Melbourne (DORCA) and Canberra. After the war he also spent time in New Guinea, which he regarded as his second "spiritual home". There he is rumoured to have shot a Japanese soldier dead on Manus Island...

Retrofitting is the addition of new technology or features to older systems. Retrofits can happen for a number of reasons, for example with big capital expenditures like naval vessels, military equipment or manufacturing plants, businesses or governments may retrofit in order to reduce the need to replace a system entirely. Other retrofits may be due to changing codes or requirements, such as seismic retrofit which are designed strengthening older buildings in order to make them earthquake-resistant. Retrofitting is also an important part of climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation: because society invested in built infrastructure, housing and other systems before the magnitude of changes anticipated by climate change. Retrofits to increase building efficiency, for example, both help reduce the overall negative impacts of climate change by reducing building emissions and environmental impacts while also allowing the building to be more healthy during extreme weather events. Retrofitting also is part of a circular economy, reducing the amount of newly manufactured goods, thus reducing lifecycle emissions and environmental impacts. ...

Jesus is called the Son of God in the Bible's New Testament, and in mainstream Christian denominations he is God the Son, the second Person in the Trinity. He is believed to be the Jewish messiah (the Christ) who is prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, which is called the Old Testament in Christianity. Through his crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, God offered humans salvation and eternal life, that Jesus died to atone for sin to make humanity right with God.These teachings emphasize that as the Lamb of God, Jesus chose to suffer nailed to the cross at Calvary as a sign of his obedience to the will of God, as an "agent and servant of God". Jesus's choice positions him as a man of obedience, in contrast to Adam's disobedience. According to the New Testament, after God raised him from the dead, Jesus ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of God, and he will return to earth again for the Last Judgment and the establishment of the Kingdom of God.In the gospel accounts, Jesus also debated with fellow Jews on how to best follow God, performed miracles, taught in parables, and gathered disciples. Christians follow the moral teachings of Jesus. While there has...

Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A typical life cycle involves flightless females giving live birth to female nymphs—who may also be already pregnant, an adaptation scientists call telescoping generations—without the involvement of males. Maturing rapidly, females breed profusely so that the number of these insects multiplies quickly. Winged females may develop later in the season, allowing the insects to colonize new plants. In temperate regions, a phase of sexual reproduction occurs in the autumn, with the insects often overwintering as eggs. The life cycle of some species involves an alternation between two species of host plants, for example between an annual crop and a woody plant. Some species feed on only one type of plant, while others are generalists, colonizing many plant groups. About 5,000 species of aphid have been described, all included in the family Aphididae. Around 400 of these are found on food...

Paranal Observatory is an astronomical observatory operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). It is located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile on Cerro Paranal at 2,635 m (8,645 ft) altitude, 120 km (70 mi) south of Antofagasta. By total light-collecting area, it is the largest optical-infrared observatory in the Southern Hemisphere; worldwide, it is second to the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii. The Very Large Telescope (VLT), the largest telescope on Paranal, is composed of four separate 8.2 m (320 in) telescopes. In addition, the four main telescopes can be used simultaneously for extra light gathering capacity, and for interferometry. Four auxiliary telescopes of 1.8 m (71 in) each are also part of the VLTI to make it available when the main telescopes are being used for other projects. The site also houses two survey telescopes with wide fields of view, the 4.0 m (160 in) VISTA and the 2.6 m (100 in) VLT Survey Telescope for surveying large areas of the sky; and two arrays of small telescopes called NGTS and SPECULOOS which are dedicated to searching for exoplanets. Two major new facilities are under construction nearby: the southern part...

Passive learning is a method of learning or instruction where students receive information from the instructor and internalize it. It is a method "where the learner receives no feedback from the instructor". The term is often used together with direct instruction and lecturing, with passive learning being the result or intended outcome of the instruction. This style of learning is teacher-centered and contrasts to active learning, which is student-centered, whereby students take an active or participatory role in the learning process, and to the Socratic method where students and instructors engage in cooperative argumentative dialogue. Passive learning is a traditional method utilized in factory model schools and modern schools, as well as historic and contemporary religious services in churches (sermons), mosques, and synagogues. Passive learning is not simply the outcome of an educational model. Passive learners may quietly absorb information and knowledge without typically engaging with the information received or the learning experience. They may not interact with others, share insights, or contribute to a dialogue. An estimated 60 percent of people...