mosque as the house of god has always been significant to rulers, people and muslim artists. it is one of the most ancient architectural subjects. varamin1jami mosque from ilkhanid2 era is one of the masterpieces of iranian-islamic architecture. it was one of the first projects which started the glorious era of renovation after the dark times of the mongols3 invasion. perfect stucco ornaments i...

The evolutionary divergence of sexual signals is often important during the formation of new animal species, but our understanding of the origin of signal diversity is limited [1, 2]. Sensory drive, the optimization of communication signal efficiency through matching to the local environment, has been highlighted as a potential promoter of diversification and speciation [3]. The swordtail chara...

Understanding the mechanisms that influence variation in sexually selected ornaments in seabirds has been challenging owing to the difficulty of capturing and sampling individuals outside of the breeding period when ornaments are usually grown. Stable carbon (dC) and nitrogen (dN) isotopes were used to examine the influence of pre-breeding diet composition on ornament size in the Rhinoceros Auk...

Get out of your chair and go look at some animals behaving. I hope that spring is in the air so that you can see animals courting and mating. Look at insects, birds, mammals, or reptiles. Go to the beach and look at the fiddler crabs. So sad if the dead of winter has set in and animals aren’t engaged in mating rituals. Look at fish in an aquarium. Go to a tropical fish store and look at a tank ...

Three dimensional building models have become important during the past years for visualization of touristic or historic objects. Detailed facade models are essential for realistic impressions on a terrestial observer. Such models require both a geometric component that describes the shape of the building or parts of it as well as a texture component that provides color information and depicts ...