News tagged with body size
Big-mouthed babies drove the evolution of giant island snakes
Some populations of tiger snakes stranded for thousands of years on tiny islands surrounding Australia have evolved to be giants, growing to nearly twice the size of their mainland cousins. Now, new research ...
May 15, 2012 |
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Eye size determined by maximum running speed in mammals
Maximum running speed is the most important variable influencing mammalian eye size other than body size, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin.
May 02, 2012 |
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Low oxygen triggers moth molt
A new explanation for one of nature's most mysterious processes, the transformation of caterpillars into moths or butterflies, might best be described as breathless.
Aug 22, 2011 |
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Research reveals evolution of earliest horses was driven by climate change, global warming affected body size
When Sifrhippus, the earliest known horse, first appeared in the forests of North America more than 50 million years ago, it would not have been mistaken for a Clydesdale. It weighed in at around 12 pounds ...
Feb 23, 2012 |
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'Shish kebab' structure provides improved form of 'buckypaper'
Scientists are reporting development of a new form of buckypaper, which eliminates a major drawback of these sheets of carbon nanotubes -- 50,000 times thinner than a human hair, 10 times lighter than steel, ...
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Feb 08, 2012 |
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Big brains evolved due to capacity for exercise
The relatively large size of the mammalian brain evolved due to a capacity for endurance exercise, researchers conclude in a recent study.
Aug 04, 2011 |
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Climate change downsizing fauna, flora: study
Climate change is reducing the body size of many animal and plant species, including some which supply vital nutrition for more than a billion people already living near hunger's threshold, according to a ...
Oct 16, 2011 |
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A whole new meaning for thinking on your feet
Smithsonian researchers report that the brains of tiny spiders are so large that they fill their body cavities and overflow into their legs. As part of ongoing research to understand how miniaturization affects ...
Dec 12, 2011 |
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Climate change and the mystery of the shrinking sheep
(PhysOrg.com) -- Milder winters are causing Scotland's wild breed of Soay sheep to get smaller, despite the evolutionary benefits of possessing a large body, according to new research due to be published in ...
Jul 02, 2009 |
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Why certain fishes went extinct 65 million years ago
Large size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, according to a new study to be published March 31, 2009, in the Proceedings of the National Ac ...
Mar 26, 2009 |
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Study of wolves will help scientists predict climate effects on endangered animals
Scientists studying populations of gray wolves in the USA's Yellowstone National Park have developed a way to predict how changes in the environment will impact on the animals' number, body size and genetics, amongst other ...
Dec 01, 2011 |
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Mini or massive? For turtles and tortoises, it all depends on where you live
(PhysOrg.com) -- Biologists from the UCLA Division of Life Sciences have reported the first quantitative evidence for an evolutionary link between habitat and body size in turtles and tortoises.
Feb 02, 2011 |
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Is the Hobbit's brain unfeasibly small?
(PhysOrg.com) -- The commonly held assumption that as primates evolved, their brains always tended to get bigger has been challenged by a team of scientists at Cambridge and Durham. Their work helps solve ...
Jan 27, 2010 |
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Climate change causes larger, more plentiful marmots, study shows
This week, one of the world's foremost scientific journals will publish results of a decades-long research project founded at the University of Kansas showing that mountain rodents called marmots are growing ...
Jul 21, 2010 |
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Does Size Matter? Study shows Taller People Earn More Money
(PhysOrg.com) -- Taller men are able to earn more money than their shorter counterparts simply because taller people are perceived to be more intelligent and powerful, this according to a study published in The Economic Re ...
Other Sciences / Social Sciences
Jul 13, 2009 |
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X-height
In typography, the x-height or corpus size refers to the distance between the baseline and the mean line in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the letter x in the font (which is where the terminology came from), as well as the u, v, w, and z. (Curved letters such as a, c, e, m, n, o, r and s tend to exceed the x-height slightly, due to overshoot.) However, in modern typography, the x-height is simply a design characteristic of the font, and while an x is usually exactly one x-height in height, in some more decorative or script designs, this may not always be the case.
Lowercase letters whose height is greater than the x-height either have descenders which extend below the baseline, such as y, g, q, and p, or have ascenders which extend above the x-height, such as l, k, b, and d. The ratio of the x-height to the body height is one of the major characteristics that defines the appearance of a font. The height of the capital letters is referred to as Cap height.
For more information about X-height, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.