SMS Furst Bismarck

SMS Fürst Bismarck was Germany's first armored cruiser, built for the Kaiserliche Marine before the turn of the 20th century and launched in 1900. Named for the German statesman Otto von Bismarck, the ship was primarily intended for colonial duties. She served in this capacity as part of the East Asia Squadron until she was relieved in 1909, at which point she returned to Germany. The ship was rebuilt between 1910 and 1914, and after the start of World War I, she was briefly used as a coastal defense ship. She proved inadequate to this task, and so she was withdrawn from active duty and served as a training ship for engineers until the end of the war. Fürst Bismarck was decommissioned in 1919 and sold for scrap.

Earthworms

All earthworms have bodies composed of repeated segments called metameres separated from one another by circular membranes called septa. The metameres are very similar to one another, but in earthworms there are the following variations (among others): there are no nephridia in the first three segments; there are no nerve ganglia in the first two segments (though several nerves extend there from the third and fourth segments); the prostomium, which is not a complete segment, functions as a flap to close the mouth but is also highly flexible and is used by the worm as a prehensile body part to grasp and pull leaves and grass into its burrow. The large muscular pharynxsucks in the worm’s food which then passes between the animal’s hearts to be stored and moistened in the crop and then ground by fragments of ingested sand and stone in the gizzard before entering the rest of the intestine. The gizzard is considered the animal’s stomach. The nephridia are the only waste-filtering organs—there is no separate digestive gland or liver.

2014 Eruption

A man sweeping volcanic ash in Yogyakarta during the 2014 eruption of Kelud. The East Javan volcano erupted on 13 February 2014 and sent volcanic ash covering an area of about 500 kilometres (310 mi) in diameter. Ashfall from the eruption "paralyzed Java", closing airports, tourist attractions, and businesses as far away as Bandung and causing millions of dollars in financial losses. Cleaning operations continued for more than a week.