Phuket

Phuket is one of the southern provinces (changwat) of Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are (from north clockwise) Phang Nga and Krabi, but as Phuket is an island there are no land boundaries. The island is served by Phuket International Airport, located in the north of the island. The ph of "Phuket" is an aspirated "p", so the name is pronounced (roughly) "Poo-get". The name Phuket is apparently derived from the word bukit in Malay which means mountain or hill, as this is what the island appears like from a distance.
Before that its old name was Ta-lang, derived from the old Malay "Telong" which means "Cape". The northern district of the province, which was the location of the old capital, still uses this name.

History
The most significant event in the history of Phuket was the attack by the Burmese in 1785. Captain Francis Light, a British East India Company captain passing by the island, sent word to the local administration that he had observed Burmese forces preparing to attack. Khunying Jan, the wife of the recently deceased governor, and her sister Mook then assembled what forces they could. After a month-long siege, the Burmese were forced to retreat March 13, 1785. The two women became local heroines, receiving the honorary titles Thao Thep Kasatri and Thao Sri Sunthon from King Rama I. During the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), Phuket became the administrative center of the tin-producing southern provinces. In 1933 Monthon Phuket was dissolved and Phuket became a province by itself. Old names of the island include Ko Thalang.

Geography
Phuket is the biggest island in Thailand, located in the Andaman Sea off southern Thailand. The island is mostly mountainous with a mountain range in the west of the island from the north to the south. The mountains of Phuket form the southern end of the Phuket mountain range, which ranges for 440 km from the Kra Isthmus. The highest elevation of the island is Mai Thao Sip Song (Twelve Canes), at 529 m above sea level.

Map of Phuket (beaches in brown)
70% of the island is covered by forest. The western coast has several sandy beaches, while on the east coast beaches are more often muddy. Near the southernmost point is Laem Promthep (Brahma's Cape), which is a popular sunset viewing point.
In the mountainous north of the island is the Khao Phra Thaeo Non-hunting Area, protecting more than 20 km² of rainforest. The three highest peaks of this reserve are the Khao Prathiu (384 m), Khao Bang Pae (388 m) and Khao Phara (422 m). The Sirinat National Park on the northwestern coast was established in 1981 and protects an area of 90 km² (68 km² marine area), including the Nai Yang beach where sea turtles lay their eggs.

Looking north from Kata View Point over Kata Noi Beach, Kata Beach and Karon Beach
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One of the most popular tourist areas on Phuket is Patong Beach on the central western coast, perhaps owing to the easy access to its wide and long beach. Most of Phuket's nightlife and its cheap shopping is located in Patong, and the area has become increasingly developed. Patong means "the forest filled with banana leaves" in Thai.
Other popular beaches are located south of Patong. In a counterclockwise direction these include Karon Beach, Kata Beach, Kata Noi Beach, and around the southern tip of the island, Nai Harn Beach and Bang Tao Beach. These areas are generally much less developed than Patong, and sought out by individuals, families and other groups with a preference for more relaxed and less crowded environs than Patong.
There are several coral islands to the south of Phuket, the Similan Islands lie to the north west, and Phi Phi Islands to the south east. All the islands are suitable for diving.

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information and DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints, since it contains the instructions needed to construct other components of cells, such as proteins and RNA molecules. The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in regulating the use of this genetic information.
Chemically, DNA is a long polymer of simple units called nucleotides, with a backbone made of sugars and phosphate groups joined by ester bonds. Attached to each sugar is one of four types of molecules called bases. It is the sequence of these four bases along the backbone that encodes information. This information is read using the genetic code, which specifies the sequence of the amino acids within proteins. The code is read by copying stretches of DNA into the related nucleic acid RNA, in a process called transcription. Most of these RNA molecules are used to synthesize proteins, but others are used directly in structures such as ribosomes and spliceosomes.
Within cells, DNA is organized into structures called chromosomes and the set of chromosomes within a cell make up a genome. These chromosomes are duplicated before cells divide, in a process called DNA replication. Eukaryotic organisms such as animals, plants, and fungi store their DNA inside the cell nucleus, while in prokaryotes such as bacteria it is found in the cell's cytoplasm. Within the chromosomes, chromatin proteins such as histones compact and organize DNA, which helps control its interactions with other proteins and thereby control which genes are transcribed.

Uses in technology

Genetic engineering

Modern biology and biochemistry make intensive use of recombinant DNA technology. Recombinant DNA is a man-made DNA sequence that has been assembled from other DNA sequences. They can be transformed into organisms in the form of plasmids or in the appropriate format, by using a viral vector. The genetically modified organisms produced can be used to produce products such as recombinant proteins, used in medical research, or be grown in agriculture.

Forensics
Forensic scientists can use DNA in blood, semen, skin, saliva or hair at a crime scene to identify a perpetrator. This process is called genetic fingerprinting, or more accurately, DNA profiling. In DNA profiling, the lengths of variable sections of repetitive DNA, such as short tandem repeats and minisatellites, are compared between people. This method is usually an extremely reliable technique for identifying a criminal.However, identification can be complicated if the scene is contaminated with DNA from several people. DNA profiling was developed in 1984 by British geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys,and first used in forensic science to convict Colin Pitchfork in the 1988 Enderby murders case. People convicted of certain types of crimes may be required to provide a sample of DNA for a database. This has helped investigators solve old cases where only a DNA sample was obtained from the scene. DNA profiling can also be used to identify victims of mass casualty incidents.

Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics involves the manipulation, searching, and data mining of DNA sequence data. The development of techniques to store and search DNA sequences have led to widely-applied advances in computer science, especially string searching algorithms, machine learning and database theory.String searching or matching algorithms, which find an occurrence of a sequence of letters inside a larger sequence of letters, were developed to search for specific sequences of nucleotides. In other applications such as text editors, even simple algorithms for this problem usually suffice, but DNA sequences cause these algorithms to exhibit near-worst-case behaviour due to their small number of distinct characters. The related problem of sequence alignment aims to identify homologous sequences and locate the specific mutations that make them distinct. These techniques, especially multiple sequence alignment, are used in studying phylogenetic relationships and protein function. Data sets representing entire genomes' worth of DNA sequences, such as those produced by the Human Genome Project, are difficult to use without annotations, which label the locations of genes and regulatory elements on each chromosome. Regions of DNA sequence that have the characteristic patterns associated with protein- or RNA-coding genes can be identified by gene finding algorithms, which allow researchers to predict the presence of particular gene products in an organism even before they have been isolated experimentally.
Biobanks are repositories for genomic analysis. DNA and RNA information content is stored for future testing. As technology progresses, it is anticipated that the value of these repositories will increase dramatically, allowing the linking of genotype to phenotype.

DNA and computation
DNA was first used in computing to solve a small version of the directed Hamiltonian path problem, an NP-complete problem. DNA computing is advantageous over electronic computers in power use, space use, and efficiency, due to its ability to compute in a highly parallel fashion (see parallel computing). A number of other problems, including simulation of various abstract machines, the boolean satisfiability problem, and the bounded version of the travelling salesman problem, have since been analysed using DNA computing. Due to its compactness, DNA also has a theoretical role in cryptography, where in particular it allows unbreakable one-time pads to be efficiently constructed and used.

History and anthropology
Because DNA collects mutations over time, which are then inherited, it contains historical information and by comparing DNA sequences, geneticists can infer the evolutionary history of organisms, their phylogeny. This field of phylogenetics is a powerful tool in evolutionary biology. If DNA sequences within a species are compared, population geneticists can learn the history of particular populations. This can be used in studies ranging from ecological genetics to anthropology; for example, DNA evidence is being used to try to identify the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
DNA has also been used to look at modern family relationships, such as establishing family relationships between the descendants of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. This usage is closely related to the use of DNA in criminal investigations detailed above. Indeed, some criminal investigations have been solved when DNA from crime scenes has matched relatives of the guilty individual.

Water skiing

History
Water skiing began in 1922 when Ralph Samuelson strapped two boards to his feet and rigged a clothesline up to his boat on Lake Pepin in Lake City, Minnesota. The sport remained a little-known activity, with Samuelson as its daredevil pioneer for several years. Samuelson began taking his "stunts" on the road, performing shows from Detroit to Florida. Numerous claims began to surface as to who was the first water skier, but in 1966 the American Water Ski Association formally acknowledged him as the first on record. Samuelson has also been credited as the first ski racer, first to go over a jump ramp, first to slalom ski and the first put on a water ski show. The first woman to water ski has been credited to Katherine Lomerson of Union Lake, Michigan, who completed the feat in 1924.

Trick skiing
Trick skiing is performed using one or two very short finless skis rather than the conventional gear. In it, skiers try to perform tricks somewhat similar to those of gymnasts while being pulled along by the boat. In competitions skiers have two twenty second passes (only one in collegieate waterskiing) in which they attempt to perform as many tricks as they can. Trick skiing is judged by a number (usually 3 or 5) of judges who watch the skier from shore. Points are awarded for each successful trick according to the difficulty of the tricks performed and the accuracy of execution. The winner of the competition is the person who accumulates the largest number of points.
Slalom Skiing

In the context of water skiing, slalom means to use only one ski instead of two. A special slalom ski which has an extra binding behind the main binding must be used. Usually one ski in a pair is equipped to be used as a slalom ski. The bindings are oriented so that both feet point forward, with one behind the other.
Slalom skiing is considerably more difficult, and so one usually learns on two skis before switching to one. Once one is comfortable on two skis, learning to slalom ski is accomplished by setting the binding loose on one ski so that it may be dropped. Once the skier is out of the water, he or she will step out of the loose ski and slip the foot into the extra binding in the slalom ski. It is possible to do a deep water slalom start, just like a deep water start on two skis, but it requires a considerable amount of strength and a powerful boat. For this reason, dropping a ski is a popular option even for some experienced slalom skiers.

Ski jump
The ski jump is performed on two long skis similar to those a beginner uses, with a specialized tailfin that is somewhat shorter and much wider (so it will support the weight of the skier when he is on the jump ramp.) Skiers towed behind a boat at fixed speed, manoeuver to achieve the maximum speed when hitting a ramp floating in the water, launching themselves into the air with the goal of travelling as far as possible before touching the water. Professional ski jumpers can travel up to 70 meters. The skier must successfully land and retain control of the ski rope to be awarded the distance. In show skiing most people don't go for distance but for tricks such as a gainer (backflip). Water ski jump teams can involve multiple people on the jump ramp and if they are good enough they can perform difficult tricks, such as a pinwheel (one skier performs a gainer, another performs a frontflip, and a third performs a heli).

Ski racing
A Water Ski Racing team consists of a boat driver, an observer and a skier. The driver will tow the skier behind a powerboat, varying the speed as different water conditions are encountered, according to the driver's knowledge of the skier, the observer's ability to read the skier and the signals which the skier gives to the driver. Novices who have not progressed onto a mono ski, can race on a pair, although it is far easier to compete on a single ski, once learned. A "race ski" is normally between 7'0 and 8'0 in length with 2 full boot bindings.
The length of the ski line will depend on the length & power of boat you are skiing behind, the water conditions and the kind of speed you anticipate racing at on that particular day. The aim is for the skier to be skiing on the "best water" there is behind the boat, whilst avoiding the line dipping into the water or becoming slack. Most ski racers nowadays use the "wrapped" position, which involves the skier using two handles which go around each side of the body, to be held together with one hand at the top of the backside. The skier sits into this harness and reaches forward with the other hand, to hold a third handle or rope knot, positioned at arms length away. This technique transfers the strain from the arms and lower back, to the upper legs. It was first used in competition by an Australian named Terry Bennett and it enabled him to endure higher speeds for greater periods of time.
Water ski races can take place over a set distance or a period of time and can range from a few minutes to over one hour in duration. Skiers start at the same time or at intervals ranging from 15 to 60 seconds.
The skier has to be physically fit enough to compete successfully in his or her category. Observers need excellent concentration and will relay signals from the skier to the driver, "read" the skier in order to optimise his/her performance and keep the driver informed of other boats and skiers which may be approaching or close by. The driver will take the team around the course, listening to the observer and using his own judgment on speed a line of direction.
These events take place on rivers, lakes, canals and open sea water. One such event held at Echuca on the Murray River, Australia is the Southern 80. Another Famous ski race in Australia is the Bidge to Bridge on the Hawksprey River, Skiers and boats typically average 160 km/h over the 80 kilometer course. The 2007 race was won by a boat called Stinga which completed the course in 19:27.43 minutes, reaching speeds of up to 154.241 km/h and beating last year's winner, Hellbent, by 25 seconds.

Show Ski
Competitive show skiing by amateur ski clubs has been around for many decades, with its highest popularity in the Midwest, especially Wisconsin. A Water ski show usually involves an entertaining theme, announcer(s)/characters, music, multiple boats, and a variety of acts including jumping, swiveling, ballet line, barefooting, doubles, wakeboarding, and the popular pyramids. In a tournament, teams have one hour to perform their show. A panel of judges decide the outcome. Scoring involves the difficulty, crowd appeal, flow, and execution of each act. Also scored are sound/announcing, boat driving, safety-boat driving, dock and equipment, showmanship, and the overall show as a whole. The Rock Aqua Jays Water Ski Team of Janesville, Wisconsin are one of the most successful amateur water ski clubs, with 15 national titles to their credit; they originated the National Show Ski championships, which are frequently held in Janesville. Another good team is the Aquanuts based in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin. Year after year they place within the top 5 in nationals. Junior teams, like regular teams, focus on building teamwork and showmanship skills, the only difference is that they don't compete.