fter almost ten years of being regaled by Kaiser Permanente (KP) historian Steve Gilford’s wonderful stories about Sidney Garfield, MD’s four-year sojourn in the Mojave Desert (1933-38), where the young surgeon literally laid the foundation of what would become KP, I was well primed for the long-delayed pilgrimage. Finally, last November, I at last had a legitimate excuse to fly down to Anaheim...

1) Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 W. Taylor St., Chicago, IL 60607, USA (e-mail: [email protected]) 2) Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, 84 990, Israel (e-mail: [email protected]) 3) Department of Live Sciences and Mitrani Department of Desert Ecol...

Finch H., Allen P., Meyer S. (2013): Exposure to low water potentials and seed dormancy favour the fungus in the Pyrenophora semeniperda–Bromus tectorum pathosystem. Plant Protect. Sci., 49 (Special Issue): S15–S20. In semi-arid regions of the United States, Pyrenophora semeniperda kills seeds of the winter annual Bromus tectorum. We report on pathosystem outcomes under manipulated water potent...

Heterothermy plays an important role in lowering the costs of thermoregulation in endotherms by reducing water and energy requirements. We tested predictions that birds in arid habitats should express fine-scale variation in their thermoregulatory patterns as a function of prevailing climatic conditions. We assessed effects of air temperature (Tair) and water vapor pressure deficit (D) on body ...

Fresh water is an essential element for human survival and land-based life forms. Right quantity and quality of fresh water is a fundamental element for human continued existence and land-based life forms. About 97% of earth water is salt water and from remaining 3% only 0.4% fresh water is available for human use. Many countries of the world are facing problem of inadequate drinking water supp...

Desert roses are gypsum crystals that consist of intersecting disks. We determine their geometrical structure using computer assisted tomography. By mapping the geometrical structure onto a graph, the topology of the desert rose is analyzed and compared to a model based on diffusion limited aggregation. By comparing the topology, we find that the model gets a number of the features of the real ...

Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray analyses of desert varnish reveal that microorganisms concentrate ambient manganese that becomes greatly enhanced in brown to black varnish. Specific characteristics of desert varnish and of varnish bacteria support a microbial origin for manganese-rich films. Varnish microbes can be cultured and produce laboratory manganese films. Accord...

In recent years telecommunications services in remote Australia have received considerable attention, with services for indigenous desert communities a key focus. This project, known as Desert Interactive Remote Television (DIRT), uses existing community rebroadcast TV infrastructure to provide low cost multimedia messaging services for remote desert communities. The system architecture, key ap...

The adaptive significance of mechanisms of energy and water conservation among species of desert rodents, which avoid temperature extremes by remaining within a burrow during the day, is well established. Conventional wisdom holds that arid-zone birds, diurnal organisms that endure the brunt of their environment, occupy these desert climates because of the possession of physiological design fea...

The TerraMax vehicle is based on Oshkosh Truck’s Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement truck platform and was one of the five vehicles able to successfully reach the finish line of the 132 miles DARPA Grand Challenge desert race. Due to its size 30 000 pounds, 27 0 long, 8 4 wide, and 8 2 high and the narrow passages, TerraMax had to travel slowly, but its capabilities demonstrated the maturity o...