A pagoda, in South-east Asia, is a cone-shaped monumental structure built in memory of the Buddha. But in the Far East, a pagoda is a tower-like, multi-storeyed structure of stone, brick, or wood, usually associated with a Buddhist temple complex. The pagoda is derived from the stupa of ancient India, which was a dome-shaped commemorative monument, usually erected over the …

Mudskippers are small tropical fish of the eastern Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific from Australia to Japan. They live in estuaries with mudbanks and also in mangrove swamps. Their eyes protrude from their heads and can be moved independently of each other. When the mud is exposed by the ebbing of the tide the mudskippers come out …

In constitutional law, a moot court is an important part of the curriculum undertaken twice in a semester, during the class time, and students serve as both presenter and judges. A moot court is a competition, conducted at both undergraduate level and in law school, in which teams of students prepare and argue legal cases. Such cases may be real …

Moon trees are trees grown from hundreds of seeds taken into orbit around the moon by Stuart Roosa during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. As the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission, and because he was a former smoke jumper, Roosa was contacted by Ed Cliff, who was the Chief of the Forest Service at the time, …

The Minskian Ponzi deal was a theory propounded by American economist Minsky, in 1986. Such deals are both unsustainable and hazardous. In Minsky’s view, periods of economic and financial stability lead to a lowering of investors’ risk aversion and a process of releveraging. Investors borrow excessively and push asset prices excessively high. In this process, there are three types of …

A marsupial is a mammal which has a pouch. Its baby is born at a very early stage of development, and makes its way straight away to the pouch, where its suckles. At first the baby has no powers of suction in its mouth, and so the mother’s teat squirts milk into the baby’s mouth at regular intervals. Marsupials are …

The Manx cat is a tail-less cat found principally upon the Isle of Man, a lozenge-shaped island about 30 miles long and 20 miles wide, which is situated in the Irish Sea, at roughly the same distance from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The Manx cat is a common household pet on the Isle of Man and is easily recognized …

A loofah is a fibrous, cylinder-shaped vegetable product often used in bathrooms as a kind of rough sponge or gentle brush. It is the dried interior of the fruit of a plant know to botanists as Luffa aegyptiaca. Less dignified, though more descriptive, names for this tropical climbing or trailing herb are dishcloth gourd and vegetable gourd. The luffa belongs …

In this age of recession and shrinking world economies, governments, in a bid to increase aggregate demand (AD), may lower interest rates to encourage spending. This is because a lower interest rate makes spending relatively more attractive to consumers and businesses than saving in banks. When a government continues to lower interest rates repeatedly and they reach a level of …

A lightship is like a floating lighthouse. It anchors in one spot to warm shipping of such nearby dangers as sand banks or dangerous currents. At night it projects a powerful beam of light. The lamp is fitted in such a way that the beam stays steady, even if the ship is being tossed about by waves. Lightships also have …