Portal:North America
The North America Portal
North America is a continent in the Northern and Western Hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. The region includes the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Clipperton Island, Greenland, Mexico, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United States.
North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), representing approximately 16.5% of the Earth's land area and 4.8% of its total surface area. It is the third-largest continent by size after Asia and Africa, and the fourth-largest continent by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. , North America's population was estimated as over 592 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In human geography, the terms "North America" and "North American" sometimes refer to just Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Greenland.
It is unknown with certainty how and when first human populations first reached North America. People were known to live in the Americas at least 20,000 years ago, but various evidence points to possibly earlier dates. The Paleo-Indian period in North America followed the Last Glacial Period, and lasted until about 10,000 years ago when the Archaic period began. The classic stage followed the Archaic period, and lasted from approximately the 6th to 13th centuries. Beginning in 1000 AD, the Norse were the first Europeans to begin exploring and ultimately colonizing areas of North America.
In 1492, the exploratory voyages of Christopher Columbus led to a transatlantic exchange, including migrations of European settlers during the Age of Discovery and the early modern period. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, immigrants from Europe, Asia, and descendants of these respective groups. (Full article...)
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Exsudoporus frostii (formerly Boletus frostii), commonly known as Frost's bolete or the apple bolete, is a bolete fungus first described scientifically in 1874. A member of the family Boletaceae, the mushrooms produced by the fungus have tubes and pores instead of gills on the underside of their caps. Exsudoporus frostii is distributed in the eastern United States from Maine to Georgia, and in the southwest from Arizona extending south to Mexico and Costa Rica. A mycorrhizal species, its fruit bodies are typically found growing near hardwood trees, especially oak.
Exsudoporus frostii mushrooms can be recognized by their dark red sticky caps, the red pores, the network-like pattern of the stipe, and the bluing reaction to tissue injury. Another characteristic of young, moist fruit bodies is the amber-colored drops exuded on the pore surface. Although this mushroom is considered edible when thoroughly cooked, it is generally not recommended for consumption because of the risk of confusion with other poisonous red-pored, blue-bruising boletes. B. frostii may be distinguished from other superficially similar red-capped boletes by differences in distribution, associated tree species, bluing reaction, or morphology. (Full article...) Featured picture -
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Ursula Martius Franklin CC OOnt FRSC (16 September 1921 – 22 July 2016) was a Canadian metallurgist, research physicist, author, and educator who taught at the University of Toronto for more than 40 years. Franklin is best known for her writings on the political and social effects of technology. She was the author of The Real World of Technology, which is based on her 1989 Massey Lectures; The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map, a collection of her papers, interviews, and talks; and Ursula Franklin Speaks: Thoughts and Afterthoughts, containing 22 of her speeches and five interviews between 1986 and 2012. Franklin was a practising Quaker and actively worked on behalf of pacifist and feminist causes. She wrote and spoke extensively about the futility of war and the connection between peace and social justice. Franklin received numerous honours and awards, including the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case for promoting the equality of girls and women in Canada and the Pearson Medal of Peace for her work in advancing human rights. In 2012, she was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame. A Toronto high school, Ursula Franklin Academy, as well as Ursula Franklin Street on the University of Toronto campus, have been named in her honor.
For Franklin, technology was much more than machines, gadgets or electronic transmitters. It was a comprehensive system that includes methods, procedures, organization, "and most of all, a mindset". She distinguished between holistic technologies used by craft workers or artisans and prescriptive ones associated with a division of labour in large-scale production. Holistic technologies allow artisans to control their own work from start to finish. Prescriptive technologies organize work as a sequence of steps requiring supervision by bosses or managers. Franklin argued that the dominance of prescriptive technologies in modern society discourages critical thinking and promotes "a culture of compliance". (Full article...)
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Mount Adams, known by some Native American tribes as Pahto or Klickitat, is a potentially active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range. Although Adams has not erupted in more than 1,000 years, it is not considered extinct. It is the second-highest mountain in Washington, after Mount Rainier.
Adams, named for President John Adams, is a member of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, and is one of the arc's largest volcanoes, located in a remote wilderness approximately 34 miles (55 km) east of Mount St. Helens. The Mount Adams Wilderness consists of the upper and western part of the volcano's cone. The eastern side of the mountain is designated as part of the territory of the Yakama Nation. (Full article...)Did you know...
- ... that the Ulster cherry is named after Ulster County, New York, a region where sweet cherries are produced commercially?
- ...that a circumferentor (pictured) was an important tool to surveyors for mapping the North American frontier?
- ...that Navassa Island off the west coast of Haiti is claimed by the United States as an unorganized unincorporated territory?
- ... that the Valley of Mexico has been one of the most heavily populated places on the planet for almost two millennia?
- ...that the Land Run of 1889 resulted in the founding of both Oklahoma City and Guthrie, whose populations grew from zero to over 10,000 in less than a day?
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