What does Puck look like in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare?

Puck is usually shown as a boy, young man, or teenager, with no beard.  He has no wings, and is clothed in materials that look like they came from the forest.  

Puck is portrayed as a boy because he is Oberon's younger, wilder, more irresponsible servant.  Oberon, king of the fairies, is grave and dignified and plans the tricks he wants to play on the humans.  Puck, by contrast, is impulsive and mischievous, a complete wild card. He is a bit like Peter Pan.  I have also seen him played by a teenaged girl. 

Because Puck is a woodland spirit, he should look woodsy and wild. He is not a fairy, so he should not have wings or look too feminine or flowery.  Usually he is clothed in materials that look like they are made of leaves or moss.  Often he is bare chested.  

For further inspiration about how Puck should look, search for images of the Green Man or of fauns.  

In the poem "Out, Out--," how does Robert Frost bring about the tragic death of the boy?

In his poem "Out, Out--" Robert Frost uses the juxtaposition of positive, warm details to emphasize the horror and unexpectedness of the boy's sudden death. The poem begins:

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard

And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,

Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.

The first line contains the negatively charged words "snarled" and "rattled." The associations to danger and bones create a frightening atmosphere. However, that atmosphere is quickly contrasted with the "sweet-scented" dust created by the saw. This creates a confusing tone - should the reader be frightened or not? That confusion heightens the suspense.

And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,

The repetition here of the snarling and rattling begins to confirm the suspicion that the poem is going to have a bad ending.

Call it a day, I wish they might have said

To please the boy by giving him the half hour

That a boy counts so much when saved from work.

The inclusion of "I wish" foreshadows that something will happen to the boy that would have been prevented if they had given him "the half hour," or in other words, let him off early. This is immediately followed by another warm moment, as "His sister stood beside him in her apron / To tell them ‘Supper.’" This addition of a family member makes the incident that follows even more horrific, as the addition creates another layer of sympathy for the family who loses their son.

The boy subsequently accidentally cuts off his hand, and dies from the injury. This horrific moment is characterized by his plea to his sister:

‘Don’t let him cut my hand off—

The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!’

This plea is darkened by the fact that his hand is already off. He perishes and then the doctors move on to other patients quickly, as quickly as the boy suddenly cut off his hand and lost his life.

Frost's juxtaposing of frightening details and warm moments creates a suspenseful atmosphere that is heightened by the ending where the doctors move on from the boy - dead and without a hand.

Hope this helps!

In The Giver, how has the absence of color helped this society? How has it harmed it?

In The Giver, the lack of color is meant to promote sameness, to eliminate any variety or envy amongst the denizens of the community.  This, I suppose, could be an advantage for the society in that the people need not concern themselves with having to make choices or worry about whether or not their shirts match their trousers, for example. They can focus on their work and following the rules.  I imagine this does make for a more peaceful society, with no one envying someone who has a beautiful blue dress.  The production of material goods is simplified, too, since the making of clothes, furniture, or even bicycles need not include a variety of colors.  For the Elders, certainly, it is far easier to rule a group of people who have no envy and who can stay focused on whatever it is they are expected to do for the good of the community. 

On the other hand, much of the beauty in life rests on color and other forms of variability.  Eliminating color eliminates a great deal of the beauty and richness in the world and takes away one more kind of choice. Thus, the elimination of color confers a kind of aesthetic impoverishment on the people, as well as rendering them without choice in yet one more way. 

What's the process of gas transport in the human body?

Gas transport in humans commences with the process of respiration. This process has two phases, the inspiratory phase in which air is inhaled into the lungs and an expiratory phase during which gas is expelled from the lungs.

Inspiration starts with the expansion of the lungs brought about by the contraction of the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles. This creates a negative pressure in the lungs which causes air from the atmosphere to enter the lungs through the nose.

The air passes into the wind pipe (trachea) through the larynx. At its lower end, the trachea divides into two pipes called the bronchi, each bronchus supplying its air content to each of the two lobes of the lungs where exchange of gases actually takes place.

To facilitate gaseous exchange in the lungs, each bronchus further divides into thinner tubes called bronchioles. The bronchioles empty their gas content into grape-shaped air sacs called alveoli which are covered by blood capillaries. This is the point at which exchange of gases actually takes place in the lungs.

Oxygen is extracted from the air in the alveoli and passes into the blood in the capillaries while carbon dioxide extracted from the blood in the capillaries passes and mixes with alveoli air for expulsion through the second phase of respiration called expiration.

At expiration, the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles relax, decreasing the volume of the chest cavity and increasing the air pressure in the lungs. This pushes air in the lungs into the two bronchi, through the trachea and finally taking its exit through the nose.

In the human body, only about 1.5% of the oxygen which crosses the alveolar membrane in the lungs gets transported through the body by mixing directly with blood. The remaining 98.5% of the oxygen is transported bound to a protein in the blood called hemoglobin.

On the other hand, carbon dioxide is transported by three methods. As carbon dioxide is more soluble in water, about 5 to 7% of it dissolves directly in blood. About 10% of the carbon dioxide is transported bound to hemoglobin but the majority of the carbon dioxide is transported through the bicarbonate buffer system in which an enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, converts the carbon dioxide into carbonic acid inside the red blood cells.

What is a breast ultrasound?

Cancers diagnosed: Breast cancer

Why performed: There are several reasons that breast ultrasounds are performed. After a questionable mammogram, a breast ultrasound may be used to further examine the breast tissue. Some breast conditions may look like a possible cancer on a mammogram but can be identified as benign on ultrasound. For example, breast cysts and some fibroadenomas appear as clear areas on a breast ultrasound, whereas a breast cancer would not. In women under the age of thirty-five, breast ultrasound may be the procedure of choice for screening for breast cancer because younger women have denser breast tissue, which makes it difficult to assess for abnormalities on mammography. Breast ultrasound may also be used to guide a needle biopsy, or needle localization. Ultrasound has proved effective at examining the breasts of women with breast implants. It is often able to illustrate whether the implant has ruptured or not. Mammography does not show fluid leaking from the implant.

Patient preparation: No preparation of the patient is required.

Steps of the procedure: For a breast ultrasound, the patient puts on a hospital gown, which is open in the front, and then lies supine on a table. A pillow is placed under the shoulder of the breast to be scanned. The area to be scanned is uncovered. The patient’s arm is placed up over the head, resting on the examination table. The radiology technician or physician uses a transducer (an instrument to transmit and receive sound waves) to scan the breast tissue. A transducer looks like a small cell phone. A gel is used between the transducer and the patient to enhance the transmission of the sound waves for the scan. The transducer is moved slowly and lightly over the breast tissue. Usually, the breast lesion is viewed in several planes, so that its features can be defined. This is accomplished by changing the angle of the transducer in relation to the breast tissue. The images of the breast are printed for further examination.

After the procedure: No additional patient care is required, so the patient can go home.

Risks: There are no known risks of breast ultrasound for the patient. It appears that sound waves are safe for use on human beings. For the physician, however, there is the risk of making an incorrect diagnosis about the presence of breast cancer. Breast ultrasounds do not differentiate microcalcifications (mineral deposits) in the breast tissue. Microcalcifications that are clustered can be a first sign of a developing breast cancer.

The accuracy of breast ultrasounds can vary with the skill of the technician. Once the ultrasound images have been printed, there is no way to determine the angle of the transducer, or to manipulate the images, as can be done with mammograms. Also, breast ultrasound is not as accurate at assessing the whole breast. It is most effective at assessing a small area of breast tissue.

Results: The images of the breast ultrasound demonstrate the different breast tissues, with the ducts appearing darker than the adipose (fatty) tissue between the ducts. The breast ultrasound is most accurate at identifying breast cysts, which are fluid-filled. If on ultrasound an area of the breast appears particularly dense and opaque, then a breast cancer could be present. Breast ultrasound does not differentiate between benign tumors and malignant (cancerous) tumors or growths. As a result, a breast biopsy is required to identify the type of lesion.

Bibliography

"Breast Ultrasound." American Cancer Society. Amer. Cancer Soc., 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 9 Sept. 2014.

Love, Susan M., and Karen Lindsay. Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. Rev. 4th ed. Cambridge: Da Capo, 2005. Print.

Pagana, Kathleen Deska, and Timothy J. Pagana. Mosby’s Manual of Diagnostic and Laboratory Tests. 3rd ed. St. Louis: Elsevier, 2006. Print.

Sencha, Alexander N., Elena V. Evseeva, Mikhail S. Mogutov, and Yury N. Patrunov. Breast Ultrasound. New York: Springer, 2013. Print.

Shetty, Mahesh K. Breast and Gynecological Cancers: An Integrated Approach for Screening and Early Diagnosis in Developing Countries. New York: Springer, 2013. Print.

Why did George go to the bunkhouse alone in chapter five?

In chapter five of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife and flees from the barn on his way, as instructed by George, to "hide in the brush" in the clearing between the Gabilan Mountains and the Salinas River, which is the setting of the book's opening chapter. Candy enters the barn looking for Lennie because he has been "figuring some more" about Lennie's rabbits when he sees Curley's wife dead on the ground. After his discovery, he immediately gets George to show him the dead girl. The two men know automatically that it was most certainly Lennie who did it. George asks Candy to wait a few minutes before informing the other men on the ranch of the discovery. In the mean time, George is headed for the bunkhouse where he takes Carlson's gun. It was obviously in George's mind to kill Lennie with the gun. Later in the chapter, Carlson is indeed missing his gun. In the final chapter, George uses the Luger pistol to shoot Lennie in the back of the head. 

Explain how Pericles was an imperialist.

In the late 400s B.C., several Greek city-states formed what was known as the Delian League, a loose alliance system, to meet the threat posed by the invading Persian Empire. After defeating the Persians, the League became permanent, and it was always dominated by Athens, the most powerful city-state. In the years that followed, Athens began to attempt to convert the Delian League into an empire. As the chief statesman and political leader in Athens, Pericles was at the center of these efforts. He used the treasury of the Delian League to pay for Athenian building projects (including the Parthenon) and launched several military expeditions to expand the influence of Athens. The ancient Greek historian Thucydides fairly explicitly describes Pericles as an imperialist who boasted about all of the Greeks ruled by Athens. He viewed Athenians as culturally superior to other Greeks, especially the Spartans. Indeed, Athenian expansionism under the guidance of Pericles was a major contributing factor to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, a highly destructive and lengthy conflict between alliances led Athens and Sparta. Pericles himself died during this war, which ultimately resulted in a catastrophic defeat for the Athenians. This war brought the "golden age" of Athens, one characterized as much by imperialist expansion as by democracy and high culture, to an end. Pericles is identified with each of these characteristics.