Humboldt Current

Fig. 1. Major oceanographic features 1. Canary Current, 2. Gulf Stream, 3. North Atlantic Current, 4. Sargasso Sea, 5. North Atlantic Gyre, 6. Labrador Current, 7. Loop Current, 8. North Pacific Gyre, 9. South Equatorial Current, 10. Benguela Current, 11. Humboldt Current, 12. Antilles Current, 13. Florida Current, 14. Brazil Current, 15. Kuroshio, 16. Antarctic West Wind Drift.

Over the past decade, plastic debris has become a common feature of beaches and coastal waters adjoining populated areas of Europe (36-38), the Mediterranean (39-41), North and Central America (42-44) and New Zealand (45). Plastics are also present in the open ocean both near the major shipping lanes and in the most remote regions of the world (the Arctic (46), the Benguela Current (47), the Cape Basin area of the South Atlantic (48), the Humboldt Current in the South Pacific (49), and the Antarctic (50, 51). 

Hutchins D. A., Hare C. E., Weaver R. S., Zhang Y., and Eirme G. F. (2002) Photoplankton iron limitation in the Humboldt current and Peru upwelling. Limnol. Oceanogr. 47, 997-1011. 

Another pqrulation, called the Pemvian brown pelican, lives along the coast of Pern where it feeds in the Humboldt Current. It is quite a bit larger than the north... 

The aridity in north-western and especially coastal Peru, and all the way south to Chile, is due to (a) a constant temperature inversion generated in large part by the cool north-flowing Humboldt current which prevents precipitation in the coastal region and (b) the influence of subtropical atmospheric subsidence and the rain-shadow effect of the Andean cordillera, which prevents humid air from the Amazon reaching the Pacific coastline (Hartley, 2003 Rundel et al., 1991). In the inter-Andean valleys the rain-shadow effect caused by the eastern Andean cordilleras is, however, the most important aridity-producing factor (Troll, 1952). 

The basic pattern of Walter s (1979) ideal continent — single dry seasons north and south of the Equator, and either a double wet season or continuously wet conditions close to it — is subject to some variation, because continents are neither symmetrical nor level. Adjacent continents, cold currents close to the shore, and mountain ranges can all modify the basic pattern. In East Africa, the presence of the dry Arabian landmass to the north-east means that winds from that direction are dry. The Horn of Africa is therefore much drier than would be expected from its proximity to the sea. (This is clearly not the whole story, because the corresponding area in South America, north-eastern Brazil, also has a drier climate than might otherwise be expected.) In south-western Africa, the cold waters of the Benguela current immediately offshore mean that the onshore winds are not saturated with water, so rainfall is very low and, again, somewhat unpredictable. This is paralleled in South America in northern coastal Chile and Peru, where the cold Humboldt current offshore leads to extreme aridity onshore and thus the Atacama desert, one of the driest places in the world. In both these areas, much of the available moisture comes from mists. The Senegal current produces a similar but less maiked effect in north-western Africa. 

Hawaiian Islands described kava-kava and the natives ceremonial use of this substance. One year later, Sir Joseph Priestly, who first isolated oxygen,produced nitrous oxide (N2O). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, after whom the Pacific current is named, gathered together the first "scientific report on the use oiyopo snuff in the Amazonian region. 

In 1801, the German explorer and naturalist Baron Alexander von Humboldt (after whom the Pacific current is named), identified the yopo tree botanically. While collecting flora near the Orinoco River, he watched the Maypure Indians prepare cohoba snuff by breaking the pods, moistening them and allowing them to ferment. When the pods turned black, they were kneaded with cassava meal and lime from snails into small cakes, which were eventually powdered. Humboldt noted, "it is not to be believed that the... 

Whymper, whose writings are accepted as classics on the subject, includes a chapter on the history and growth of the cacao industry (1921) (75). Quotations from Prescott (1843) (62), Peter Martyr (1526) (61), and UeCandolle (1883) (18), and popular accounts that are current in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century news journals, and references to Humboldt s travels (1799) (38) and to the famous scholar and physician Henry Stubbe (1662) (67) make interesting reading which invites a study of the original sources. 

Dr. Barsoum is currently a Distinguished Professor at Drexel University. He and his research group were the first to fabricate and fully characterize an important new class of machinable ternary carbides and nitrides, the M v+iAXv (so-called MAX) phases. Since 1996, Dr. Barsoum and his collaborators have published over 60 refereed papers on these ternary carbides and nitrides, including ones in Nature and Science. Dr. Barsoum has authored or co-authored over 100 refereed publications, 6 US patents awarded and 4 pending. In 2000 he was awarded a Humboldt-Max Planck Research award for Senior US Research Scientists. He spent his 2000-2001 sabbatical year at the Max Planck Research Institute in Stuttgart. Germany. 

Mrinalini Walawalkar is a Reader at the University Insttute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. Previously she was a Scientific Officer at IIT-Bombay and an Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow at Bochum and Gottingen Universities. Her current research interests are in the area of inorganic materials. 

Shaul Mukamel, who is currently the C. E. Kenneth Mees Professor of Chemistry at the University of Rochester, received his Ph.D. in 1976 from Tel Aviv University, follot by postdoctoral appointments at MIT and the University of California at Berkeley and faculty positions at the Weizmann Institute and at Rice University. He has b n the recipient of the Sloan, Dreyfus, Guggenheim, and Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist awards. His research interests in theoretical chemical physics and biophysics include developing a density matrix Liouville-space approach to femtosecond spectroscopy and to many body theory of electronic and vibrational excitations of molecules and semiconductors multidimensional coherent spectroscopies of sbucture and folding dynamics of proteins nonlinear X-ray and single molecule spectroscopy electron transfer and energy ftrnneling in photosynthetic complexes and Dendrimers. He is the author of over 400 publications in scientific journals and of the textbook. Principles of Nonlinear OfMical Spectroscopy (Oxford University Press), 1995. 

Fischer s name is associated with a great number of important organic transformations, such as the Fischer indole synthesis, Fischer esterification, Kiliani-Fischer synthesis, and the Fischer oxazole synthesis. The Fischer oxazole synthesis was one of his first contributions in his early years in the Berlin University (currently Humboldt University). In 1896 he published a new synthesis of 2,5-diaryloxazoles using an acid-catalyzed condensation of cyanohydrins with aldehydes. 

Carsten Liiter, University of Glasgow, Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Division of Molecular Genetics, 56 Dumbarton Road, Glasgow Gll 6NU, Scotland. Current address Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Museum fuer Naturkunde, Institut fuer systematische Zoologie, Invalidenstrasse 43, D-10115 Berlin (carsten.lueter rz.hu-berlin.de). 

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