Mars

The present-day surface of Mars may look much like some deserts or volcanic plains on Earth, but it would not be a very comfortable place to visit in person.  The surface temperature is usually well below freezing, with a global average of about -53 degree C.  The atmospheric pressure is less than 1% that on the surface of the Earth, making the air so thin that no human could survive more than a few minutes without a pressurized spacesuit.  The air contains only trace amounts of oxygen, so we could not breathe it.  The lack of oxygen also means that Mars lacks a substantial ozone layer, so much of the Sun's damaging ultraviolet radiation passes unhindered to the surface.  Nevertheless, these conditions are much less extreme than those on the Moon (mainly because of the moderating effects of the atmosphere), and it's easy to imagine future astronauts living and working in airtight research stations while occasionally donning spacesuits for outdoor excursions.  Martian surface gravity is about 40% that on Earth, so everyone and everything would weigh about 40% of Earth weight.  As a result, astronauts could walk around easily even while wearing spacesuits with heavy backpacks.

Visitors to Mars would find some notable similarity to Earth.  The martian day is only about 40 minutes longer than on Earth day, so adapting to the patterns of day and night should be easy.  The tilt of the martian axis is about 25 degree--only slightly greater than Earth's 23.5 degree tilt--so Mars has seasons much like those on Earth.  However, because the martian year is nearly twice as long as an Earth year, the seasons last nearly twice as long on Mars.

The martian seasons also differ from seasons on Earth in another important way that is due to the nature of Mars's orbit.  Seasons on Earth are caused by the tilt of the axis.  The Earth's axis remains pointed in the same direction (toward the north star) throughout the year, so on one side of the orbit the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun and on the other side it is tilted away from the Sun.  The Northern Hemisphere receives more direct sunlight when the Southern Hemisphere receives less direct sunlight, and vice versa.  That is why the two hemispheres experience opposite seasons.  For Earth, the axis tilt is the only significant influence on the strenght of sunlight reaching the surface at different times of year.  On Mars, however, the shape of the orbit introduces a second important effect.  Mars has a more elliptical orbit that puts it significantly closer to the Sun during its southern hemisphere simmer and farther from the Sun during its southern hemisphere winter.  Hence, the martian seasons are much more extreme for the southern hemisphere than they are for the northern hemisphere.  In addition, because planets move faster in the portions of their orbits closer to the Sun, the southern hemisphere's summer is shorter in duration and more intense than the northern hemisphere's longer, milder summer.

The seasons cause one of the major features of Mars's climate: seasonal changes in the pressure and the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.  When it is winter in, say, the northern hemisphere, polar temperatures drop so low that carbon dioxide freezes out of the atmosphere as solid ice.  This ice forms a polar cap of carbon dioxide frost that can be as much as a meter thick at the pole and extend as far south as latitude 40 degree.  At the same time, it is summer in the southern hemisphere, where the frozen carbon dioxide in the polar cap sublimes into carbon dioxide gas. In general, sublimation refers to the phase change from solid to gas, while evaporation refers to the phase change from liquid to gas.  As the southern summer ends and the northern summer begins, the whole process reverses, with carbon dioxide gas subliming at the north pole and freezing at the south pole.  Overall, as much as a third of the total carbon dioxide of the martian atmosphere cycles seasonally between the north and south polar caps.

Over the course of the northern hemisphere summer, all the frozen carbon dioxide at the north pole sublimes, leaving a residual polar cap that lasts through the rest of the summer season, made of water ice (H2O) mixed with martian dust.  Some of the water ice sublimes to add water vapor to the atmosphere, but the temperature does not rise high enough for the ice to melt.  Given that seasonal changes are more extreme for the southern hemisphere, we might similarly expect to see all the carbon dioxide sublime from the south polar ice cap during southern hemisphere summer.  However, this is not case; instead, the south polar ice cap retains frozen carbon dioxide throughout the  martian year.  The reason for this is not fully understood, but it appears to involve several factors, including elevation, the way atmospheric dust affects heat transport, and the history of the polar cap over the last few hundred thousand years.  Winds generated by the temperature differences near the edges of the polar caps sometimes initiate local dust storms.  Occasionally, local dust storms in low southern latitudes expand during summer into huge dust storms that enshroud the entire planet.  At times the martian surface becomes almost completely obscured by airborne dust.  As the dust settles out, it can change the surface appearance over vast areas (for example, by covering dark reigns with brighter dust); such changes fooled past astronomers into thinking they were seeing seasonal changes in vegetation.  The dust storms also have Mars with a perpetually dusty atmosphere that gives the martian sky its pale pink color.

 

Liquid water is not stable on the martian surface today--any liquid water would tend to evaporate or freeze almost immediately.  Thus, scientists do not find liquid water on the surface of Mars, even though the midday temperature near the equator often rises high enough to melt any frost that collects on surface rock.  If this frost does melt, it evaporates very quickly.  More commonly, it probably sublimes directly from ice to water vapor.  While ther is no liquid water on the surface today, Mars clearly has substantial amount of water.  Besides evidence of water ice in the residual summer north polar cap, we often find water vapor and ice crystals in the martian atmosphere, sometimes forming clouds. (The south polar cap probably also contains at least some water ice mixed in with its carbon dioxide ice).  In addition, it's likely that Mars has substantial amounts of subsurface ice, a possibility supported by recent observations from Mars Odyssey.  Spacecraft instruments have detected near-surface hydrogen, probably coming from water ice frozen into the top meter or so of the surface soil.  Mars may also have subsurface ice at greater depths ( a hundred meters or more), and in some places this ice may be melted to make underground pockets of liquid water.  If any life exists on Mars today, it most likely lives in such pockets, perhaps resembling the rock-dwelling bacteria (or lithophiles) found deep underground on Earth in the Columbia River Basalt.

Evolution of Human

Scientists traced the course of evolution from the origin of life through the extinction of the dinosaurs.  The scientists seen that evolution took many surprising twists and turns to that point.  The subsequent evolution of mammals and humans was just as interesting.  We are primates, as are all the great apes, monkeys, and prosimians (such as lemurs).  The ancestor of all of today's primates lived in the trees, and many of the traits that make us so successful evolved as adaptations to tree life.  For example, the limber arms that allow us to throw balls and work with tools evolved so that our ancestors could swing through trees, and our dexterous hands evolved to hang from branches and manipulate food.  The eyes of primates are close together on the front of the face, providing overlapping fields of view that enhance depth perception--an obvious advantage when swinging from branch to branch.  For the same reason, primates developed excellent eye-hand coordination.

Parental care is essential for young animals in trees, and primates evolved close parent-child bonds.  These bonds, in turn, made it possible for primates to be born in much more helpless state than the babies of most other types of animals.  Although many primate species, including us, eventually moved down from the trees, most primates continue to nurture their young for a long time.  This trait reaches its extreme in humans.  Human babies are nearly helpless at birth and require parental care for more years than the offspring of any other species.  Contrary to a common myth, humans did not evolve from gorillas or other modern apes.  Rather, modern apes and humans share a common ancestor that is now extinct.  Our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, shared a common ancestor with us just a few million years ago.

The facet that modern gorillas, chimps, and humans all evolved from the same ancestor has at least two important implications for understanding our existence today.  First, it shows that relatively small genetic differences can make a big difference in species success.  About 98% of the DNA sequences that make up the human genome are identical to the sequences that make up the chimpanzee genome.  Thus, a 2% difference in genetic material is all that separates our current success on the planet from the current predicament of chimpanzees, which survive naturally in only a few isolated locations in Africa.  Second, it suggest that the evolution of intelligence is a complex process.  Gorillas and chimpanzees have been evolving from our common ancestor just as long as we have, but we are the only species building cities and radio telescopes.  This fact raises the question of whether advanced intelligence is and inevitable outcome of evolution. 

Even after hominids (human ancestors) diverged from the ancestors of chimpanzees and gorillas, human evolution followed a remarkably complex path.  Indeed, one of the most pervasive but incorrect myths about human evolution is that it followed a simple pathway from stooped apes to upright humans.  The reality is that there have been numerous hominid species, sometimes with two or more sharing the Earth at the same time.  The earliest fossil skulls that appear to be identical to those of modern humans are about 100,000 years old.  However, even then our ancestors shared the planet with another hominid species, usually called Neanderthals, that was quite similar and may have had a slightly larger brain on average.  The Neanderthals disappeared about 35,000 years ago, and no one yet knows why.

Deciphering the details of human ancestry is a rich field of research.  First, there is no longer a "missing link" in human evolution.  While a few mysteries may always remain, we now know enough from the fossil record and genome comparisons to see a clear path from the earliest microbes to ourselves.  Second, despite the many species of hominids that have come and gone, all modern humans are members of the same species.  That is, while people often focus on outward differences between races, such as skin color of hair texture, all human genomes are virtually identical.  Moreover, any small racial differences that might once have arisen have since been spread across races by the widespread interbreeding of our ancestors.  Any remaining genetic differences between human races are generally much smaller than the genetic variation among the individuals in each race.  The early twentieth century saw the rise of many groups, most notoriously the Nazis, that tried to claim the genetic superiority of one race over others.  But late-twentieth-and twenty-first-century science has shown these claims to be scientifically invalid.

Earth History

Human recorded history dates back only a few thousand years on a planet that has existed for about 4.5 billion years.  The answer is that this history is recorded in rocks and fossils, relics of organisms that lived and died long ago.  reading this history is not as easy as reading words on a page, but with proper scientific tools it can be read just as reliably.  What is required is an understanding of how fossils and rocks are made, why the are found in distinct geological layers, and how we can determine their ages through rediometric dating and other techniques.  Rocks and fossils tell us about the Earth's past in a variety of ways.  For example, a rock's structure and composition depend on the conditions under which it formed, which may offer clues to the climate at the time.  Fossils may also tell us about past environmental conditions and allow us to reconstruct the evolutionary history of life.  Reading the history recorded in rocks and fossils--often called the rock record and fossil record, respectively--requres knowing a little about how rocks and fossils are formed.

Geologist classify rocks into three basic types according to how they are made.  Igneous rock is made from molten rock that cools and solidifies.  Sedimentary rock is made by the gradual compression of sediments, such as sand and silt at the bottoms of seas and swamps.  Metamorphie rock is rock that has been structurally transformed by high pressure or heat that is not quite high enough to melt it.

Note that rock can change from one type to another.  Igneous rock is often made from sedimentary or metamorphic rock that has been carried deep underground and melts under high heat and pressure.  This molten rock cools and solidifies into igneous rock as it rises toward the surface or erupts from a volcano.  Sedimentary rock may be made as erosion breaks up existing rock into sediments that are carried to the sea.  Metamorphic rock is made from igneous or sedimentary rock that is transformed by high pressure or heat.  Because rock can be recycled among the three types, the rock type is not directly related to its composition.  In fact, individual rocks of any of the three types usually contain a mixture of different crystals in close contact.  Each individual crystal represents a particular mineral, which is the word used to describe a crystal of a particular chemical composition and structure.  Thus, a rock's type (igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary) tells us how it was made, while its mineral composition tells us what it is made of.

If you study geology in greater depth, you'll learn a variety of other terms used by geologists to sub-classify rocks by their type and mineral composition.  Igneous rocks may differ substantially from one another depending on exactly what melted to make them, and geologists have special names for different types of igneous rocks.  For example, a type of dark, dense igneous rock commonly produced by undersea volcanoes is called basalt; another common type of igneous rock is granite, which is named for its grainy appearance and is often found in mountain ranges.  We generally find recognizable fossils only in sedimentary rocks, because the high heat and pressure involved in forming metamorphic or igneous rocks tends to destroy fossils.  Although we tend to think of fossils as "remains" of living organisms, most fossils contain little or no organic matter.  In general, when an organism dies and gets buried in sediments, minerals dissolved in groundwater gradually replace organic material.  Mineral-rich portions of organisms, such as bones, teeth, and shells, may be left behind, becoming fossils like those of the dinosaur bones displayed in many museums.  In some cases, the mineral replacement is complete and organisms literally turn to stone; the "stone trees" of Arizona's Petrified Forest formed in this way.  In many other cases, the organisms themselves decay, but in doing so they leave an empty mold that fills with minerals dissolved in water.  The minerals may then make a cast in the shape of the dead organism.  More rarely, some of the organic material from a dead organism may be preserved well enough to allow at least some study.  Some fossil plant leaves are still green and well enough preserved for their cells to be studied with microscopes, even though they died millions of years ago.  In other rare cases, whole organisms may be preserved in tree resin or frozen in ice.  One of the most interesting types of fossil is left not by a dead organism but by the activity of an organism while it was alive.  For example, "coprolites" are rocks that consist of petrified excrement, which can allow us to learn about an animal's diet.  In other cases, scientists have found fossilized dinosaur footprints, made when mineral processes preserved impressions left by dinosaur as it walked through soft soil or mud.  Such fossil tracks provide clues about how dinosaurs walked and can help scientists hypothesize about dinosaur behavior.

Very few living organisms leave fossils behind.  For example, scientist have discovered only a small number of complete dinosaur skeletons despite the huge number of dinosaurs that once must have roamed the Earth.  Fossils are rare because most dead organisms decay becoming food for living organisms in the soil--long before any mineral replacement can occur.  Nevertheless, over millions and billions of years, enough dead organisms have become fossilized to leave a substantial fossil record. 

The Birth of Stars and Planets

Stars are born when gravity pulls together a large, interstellar gas cloud.  These clouds are made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium--roughly three quarters hydrogen and one-quarter helium, by mass.  only about 2% of the cloud material consists of heavier elements (this fraction was smaller in the past, before stellar recycling made these heavier elements).  Because new stars are made from this interstellar material, they are born with the same chemical composition of roughly 98% hydrogen and helium and 2% other elements.

 

A typical star-forming cloud, such as the Orion Nebula (see picture0, gives birth to several thousand stars.  however, the stars are not all born at once; the individual stars may be born over a time span of many millions of years, depending on how rapidly gravity can make small pieces of the cloud collapse into stars. Stars for form not as isolated spheres but rather as the centeral objcets within broad, spinning disks of gas.  Planets can be born within these disks as part of the star formation process.  The disks form because of three critical processes that occur when gravity collapses a cloud of gas.

 As the cloud shrinks in size, it gradually spins faster and faster.  This spin-up occurs for the same reason that ice skaters spin faster when they pull in their arms ( a phenomenon known in physics as "conservation of angular momentum").  The Original cloud is so large and diffuse that its rotation may be imperceptible, but as it shrinks in size the rotation becomes noticeable, just as is the case with an ice skater.  As the rate of spin increases, the cloud fattens into a disk.  The flattening occurs because any gas particles that are not moving in the plane of rotation tend to collide with each other and with particles in the disk, which gradually forces all the particles into the same plane.  Near the cloud center, the temperature rises as the cloud density and pressure increases. (This occurs because as the cloud shrinks its gravitational potential energy is converted into thermal energy.)  When the temperature grows hot enough, nuclear reactions can begin and the central object ignites as a star.

Because all three processes must occur in any collapsing cloud, scientists believe that virtually all stars are surrounded by spinning disks as they are born.  Observations confirm that many young stars are surrounded by such disks.  There are many possible ways in which the disks can later be destroyed.  For example, in many star systems the central object rotates so fast that it splits into two stars (making a binary star system), and the competing gravitational tugs from the two stars may disrupt any disk.  Nevertheless, the existence of our own solar system (and other known planetary systems) proves that planets do form within these disks in at least some cases.

The very first generation of stars in the universe must have been made entirely of hydrogen and helium, because other chemical elements did not yet exist.  These first-generation stars must have lived and died before the birth of the old stars in the galactic halo, producing the relatively small amount of heavier elements that we find in halo stars.  As time passed, many generations of massive, short-lived stars added heavier elements to the galaxy.  By the time our solar system formed, about 4.6 billion years ago, interstellar gas in the Milky Way Galaxy already contained close to its present value of 2% heavier elements.  Although 2% may not sound like much, it is more than enough to trigger the process of planet formation and to make small, rocky planets like Earth.  Indeed, it's probably possible for planetary systems to form even around stars with much smaller abundances of heavy elements, such as around the stars in the halo, though we don't yet know for sure.

According to present theory, the process of planet formation begins as tiny solid particles condense from the gas in the spinning disk around a forming star.  (In cooler regions of the disk, some of the solid particles may actually be preexisting grains of dust that are commonly found in cool interstellar clouds.)  These particles condense for much the same reason that raindrops or snowflakes condense in clouds.  When the temperature is low enough, some atoms or molecules in the gas will bond together.  When the solid particles collide gently, they stick together, thus growing larger.  Eventually, they can become large enough so that their won gravity begins to attract more matter, enabling them to become larger still.  if nothing interrupts this process, gravity will eventually make full-fledged planets from what started as tiny solid "seeds." Because pure hydrogen and helium don not solidify, most of the material in the spinning disk always remains gaseous.  Only a small fraction of the matrial in the disk can condense to make the solid seeds.

The inner planets of our solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) are so different in character from the giant outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune).  In the inner regions of a spinning disk, near the central star, it is too hot for ices to condense.  But metal and rock can solidify at fairly high temperatures, so in these regions bits of solid metal and rock condense from the warm gas.  Because the heavy elements that make metals and rocks are so rare, there's not enough solid material in these inner regions to make planets much larger than Earth.  Moreover, these small planets lack the gravitational Earth.  Moreover, these small planets lack the gravitational strength needed to hold on to the abundant gas around them.  These inner planets therefore end up being made almost entirely of metal and rock. They are called terrestrial planets "Earth-like."

Bits of metal and rock also condense farther from the central star, but here the temperatures are cold enough for ices to condense as well.  Because the ices are made from more abundant elements than are rocks and metals, ices actually make up most of the solid material in these regions of the spinning disk.  Thus, the growing chunks of solid material in these regions of the spinning disk.  Thus, the growing chunks of solid material in an outer solar system are made mostly of ice, mixed with smaller amounts of metal and rock.  These iceballs can grow fairly large--perhaps 10 times the mass of the Earth or more.  At that point, their gravity begins to attract the surrounding hydrogen and helium gas, which makes them grow even bigger.  By the time the process is complete, these outer plantets have become giants made mostly of hydrogen and helium.  They are called Jovian planets "Jupiter-like."  The gas drawn into a jovian planet tends to form its own spinning disk, rather like a miniature version of the spinning disk around the star.  The same general processes then occur within these planetary disks, leading to the formation of moons.  This is one reason why the jovian planets tend to have many moons.

Worlds Beyond Your Imagination

Until about four hundred years ago, most people assumed that the Earth was the center of the universe and that the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars belonged to an entirely separate realm known as "the heavens." This geocentric (Earth-centered) view of the universe gave the Earth a unique place in the cosmos and implied a clear distinction between Earth and anyplace else.  Although the geocentric belief did not prevent people from speculating about inhabitants of the heavens (often imagined to be godlik), it certainly limited the possibilities for Earth-like life.  Our modern view couldn't be more different.

Today, we know that our planet is just one of eight planets in our solar system, which consists of the Sun, the planets and their moons, and countless smaller objects including asteroids, comets, and specks of interplanetary dust.  Our solar system , in turn, is just one of more than 100 billion star systems that make up the Milky Way Galaxy.  And our galaxy is one of some 100 billion star systems that make up the Milky Way Galaxy.  And our galaxy is one of some 100 billion galaxies in our universe.

Numbers like 100 billion are truly astronomical; it takes some effort to conceive of their size.  Let's start by considering a galaxy of 100 billion stars.  Imagine that, tonight, you are having difficulty falling asleep, perhaps because you are contemplating the vastness of the Milky Way Galaxy.  Instead of counting sheep, you decide to count stars.  If you count about one star each second, how long would it take to count 100 billion stars?  Clearly, the answer is about 100 billion seconds.  But how long is that? You can get the answer by dividing 100 billion seconds by 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, and 365 years per year.  If you do this calculation, you'll find that 100 billion seconds is more than 3,000 years.  In other words, you would need thousands of years just to count the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, let alone study them or search their planets for signs of life.  And this assumes you never take a break--no sleeping, no eating, and absolutely no dying.

The number of stars in the universe is even more incredible.  Just as it would take thousands of years to count the 100 billion (or more) stars in the Milky Way, it would take thousands of years to count the 100 billion galaxies in our universe.  How can we conceive of the total number of stars in the universe?  Visit a beach. Run your hands through the fine grained sand.  Try to imagine counting every tiny grain of sand as it slips through your fingers.  Then imagine counting to scoop up and count the grains until you have counted every grain of sand on the beach.  Next think about visiting every beach on Earth and counting every grain of dry sand you can find.  Of course, you could never actually complete this task.  But if you could, you'd eventually know the total number of grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth.  Incredibly, this number is roughly the same as the number of stars in our universe.

The total number of worlds--by which we mean any reasonably large bodies in space, such as planets, moons, or even large asteroids--may be even greater.  If planetary systems are as common as recent discoveries suggest, many or even most stars may have at least a few planets or moons, some of which could potentially harbor life.  Clearly, our universe contains worlds beyond imagination.

We have assumed that planets should be common around stars throughout the universe.  However, all the extrasolar planets discovered to date are quite nearby on the scale of the Milky Way Galaxy.  Why, then, do we believe that planets should be common everywhere?  Part of the answer lies in the fact that, in science, we always assume that our location in the universe is typical of many other places, and not special in any way.  In that case, the discovery of numerous extrasolar planets nearby must imply that there are many others waiting to be discovered at greater distances.  In addition to this observational evidence, our understanding of how stars and planets are made gives us good reason to think that planets are made gives us good reason to think that planets must be common.  To see why, we must look briefly at the history of matter in the universe.

Strong evidence now points to the idea that our universe was born somewhere between about 12 and 15 billion years ago, in an event we call the Big Bang .  The Universe began in a state of extremely high density and temperature and has been expanding and cooling ever since.  However, even as the universe as a whole expands, on smaller scales the force of gravity has drawn matter together to make galaxies.  that is, galaxies represent localized places where gravity has won out against the overall expansion.  Within galaxies, gravity drives the collapse of clouds of gas and dust to form stars (and their planets).  Stars are certainly not living organisms, but they nonetheless go through "life cycles."  After its birth in a giant cloud of gas and dust, a star shines for millions or billions of years by carrying out nuclear reactions in its core.  A star dies when it exhausts its usable fuel.  When a star dies, it blows much of its gas back out into space.  The returned matter mixes with other interstellar matter, eventually forming new clouds of gas from which new generations of stars can be born.  Thus, the Milky Way Galaxy is in many ways like a giant recycling plant, recycling matter from dead stars into new generations of living stars.  Our own Sun is product of many generations of such recycling--the Milky Way Galaxy predates our Sun by at least 5 billion years.

Planets like Earth must be made from material that has been cycled through generations of stars.  Based on evidence we'll discuss shortly, we have good reason to believe that the early universe contained only the simplest chemical elements: hydrogen and helium (and a trace amount of lithium).  But we and the Earth are made primarily of "other" elements such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and iron.  Where did all these other elements come from?  Remarkably, modern science tells us that all these elements were manufactured inside stars (or during stellar explosions that occur at the end of the lives of massive stars).  This means that most of the atoms from which we and the Earth are made were manufactured inside stars that lived and died long ago. In other words of noted astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-1996), we are "star stuff".

Are Bigger Stock Exchanges Better?

According to the article “ Are Bigger Stock Exchanges Better" by Chris Redman states that If Deutsche Borse manages to complete its acquisition of NYSE Euronext and that’s a big if because of antitrust concerns and fears that the U.S. will chafe at losing control of the fabled New York Stock Exchange—the all-share deal will create an Uberbose worth around $26 billion, marketing it the world’s largest exchange (measured by market cap).  But does bigger mean better?

For those who invest in shares of such bulked-up trading institutions, the answer appears to be no. Despite a broad market recovery, Bloomberg’s index of global exchanges remains 42% below its 2007 peak.

 

 

 

That has done nothing to slow the wave of exchange mergers—some 600 over the past decade.  Just hours before the NYSE announcement, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) said it would combine with Canada’s TMX to create the world’s largest house in terms of company listings.  This followed a bid late last year by Singapore’s exchange to pay $8.3 billion for Australia’s ASX to create Asia’s fourth-largest stock market.  

What the deals share are ambitious claims and certain desperation.  LSE chief executive Xavier Rolet boasted that the tie-up with TMX would create a “true leader in the global exchange business.”  Not to be outdone, NYSE boss Duncan Niederauer vowed to create the “premier global exchange group.”  

Those aren’t the first such proclamations.  Back in 2007, when the NYSE bought Euronext, a collection of European houses, NYSE predicted that the deal would “globally redefine the marketplace for trading cash and derivatives securities, producing significant benefits for shareholders, issuers, and users.” Four years later the NYSE and Euronext haven’t even integrated their trading platforms.  

 

 

 

 

Thanks to deregulation, the business of trading shares and other instruments has become highly fragmented.  Once quasi-monopolies, the traditional exchanges have been undermined by myriad competitors, from so called park pools to upstart multilateral trading facilities or MTFs, whose electronic platforms are increasingly favored by high speed traders.  “We’ve got better technology and lower fees because we can operate at a fraction of the costs of the incumbents,” says Alasdair Haynes, chief executive of Chi-X, Europe’s fastest growing MTF.  Launched in 2005, Chi-X has already grabbed almost 18% of Europe’s equities market.  The NYSE once controlled 80% of the trade in stocks listed on its markets that figure is now down to about 23%.

The traditional bourses believe mergers will help them survive by saving money (and fattening mergins).  Deutsche Borse is promising some $412 million annually in cost savings.  But the MTFs will be difficult to beat.  “The combined exchanges will still have thousands of employees,” notes Hynes.  “We have about 50.”  Besides, most MTFs are owned by the banks that are their main clients.  It’s in their interest to drive business through the alternative platforms, meaning life is likely to get harder for the traditional exchanges.  Therefore, the proposed merger of the NYSE and Deutsche Borse is just the latest in a wave of similar deals, even as smaller competitors continue to grab business.

Investment II

Investment II

Investment is putting money into something with the expectation of profit. More specifically, investment is the commitment of money or capital to the purchase of financial instruments or other assets so as to gain profitable returns in the form of interest, dividends, or appreciation of the value of the instrument (capital gains). It is related to saving or deferring consumption. Investment is involved in many areas of the economy, such as business management and finance whether for households, firms, or governments. An investment involves the choice by an individual or an organization, such as a pension fund, after some analysis or thought, to place or lend money in a vehicle, instrument or asset, such as property, commodity, stock, bond, financial derivatives (e.g. futures or options), or the foreign asset denominated in foreign currency, that has certain level of risk and provides the possibility of generating returns over a period of time.

Investment comes with the risk of the loss of the principal sum. The investment that has not been thoroughly analyzed can be highly risky with respect to the investment owner because the possibility of losing money is not within the owner's control. The difference between speculation and investment can be subtle. It depends on the investment owner's mind whether the purpose is for lending the resource to someone else for economic purpose or not.




In the case of investment, rather than store the good produced or its money equivalent, the investor chooses to use that good either to create a durable consumer or producer good, or to lend the original saved good to another in exchange for either interest or a share of the profits. In the first case, the individual creates durable consumer goods, hoping the services from the good will make his life better. In the second, the individual becomes an entrepreneur using the resource to produce goods and services for others in the hope of a profitable sale. The third case describes a lender, and the fourth describes an investor in a share of the business. In each case, the consumer obtains a durable asset or investment, and accounts for that asset by recording an equivalent liability. As time passes, and both prices and interest rates change, the value of the asset and liability also change.

An asset is usually purchased, or equivalently a deposit is made in a bank, in hopes of getting a future return or interest from it. The word originates in the Latin "vestis", meaning garment, and refers to the act of putting things (money or other claims to resources) into others' pockets. The basic meaning of the term being an asset held to have some recurring or capital gains. It is an asset that is expected to give returns without any work on the asset per se. The term "investment" is used differently in economics and in finance. Economists refer to a real investment (such as a machine or a house), while financial economists refer to a financial asset, such as money that is put into a bank or the market, which may then be used to buy a real asset.

In economic theory or in macroeconomics, investment is the amount purchased per unit time of goods which are not consumed but are to be used for future production. Examples include railroad or factory construction. Investment in human capital includes costs of additional schooling or on-the-job training. Inventory investment refers to the accumulation of goods inventories; it can be positive or negative, and it can be intended or unintended. In measures of national income and output, gross investment (represented by the variable I) is also a component of Gross domestic product (GDP), given in the formula GDP = C + I + G + NX, where C is consumption, G is government spending, and NX is net exports. Thus investment is everything that remains of total expenditure after consumption, government spending, and net exports are subtracted (i.e. I = GDP - C - G - NX).

Non-residential fixed investment (such as new factories) and residential investment (new houses) combine with inventory investment to make up I. Net investment deducts depreciation from gross investment. Net fixed investment is the value of the net increase in the capital stock per year.
Fixed investment, as expenditure over a period of time ("per year"), is not capital. The time dimension of investment makes it a flow. By contrast, capital is a stock— that is, accumulated net investment to a point in time (such as December 31).
Investment is often modeled as a function of Income and Interest rates, given by the relation I = f(Y, r). An increase in income encourages higher investment, whereas a higher interest rate may discourage investment as it becomes more costly to borrow money. Even if a firm chooses to use its own funds in an investment, the interest rate represents an opportunity cost of investing those funds rather than lending out that amount of money for interest.

The investment decision (also known as capital budgeting) is one of the fundamental decisions of business management: Managers determine the investment value of the assets that a business enterprise has within its control or possession. These assets may be physical (such as buildings or machinery), intangible (such as patents, software, goodwill), or financial (see below). Assets are used to produce streams of revenue that often are associated with particular costs or outflows. All together, the manager must determine whether the net present value of the investment to the enterprise is positive using the marginal cost of capital that is associated with the particular area of business.
In terms of financial assets, these are often marketable securities such as a company stock (an equity investment) or bonds (a debt investment). At times, the goal of the investment is to produce future cash flows, while at others it may be for the purpose of gaining access to more assets by establishing control or influence over the operation of a second company (the investee).

Business firms or organizations raise funds from investors in the form of equities and debts (collectively known as the capital structure) and further reinvest it into various investment schemes by carefully analyzing the returns in order to meet out their obligations relating to purchase of assets which provides them long term benefits.

In finance, investment is the commitment of funds by buying securities or other monetary or paper (financial) assets in the money markets or capital markets, or in fairly liquid real assets, such as gold or collectibles. Valuation is the method for assessing whether a potential investment is worth its price. Returns on investments will follow the risk-return spectrum.

Types of financial investments include shares, other equity investment, and bonds (including bonds denominated in foreign currencies). These financial assets are then expected to provide income or positive future cash flows, and may increase or decrease in value yielding the investor capital gains or losses.
Trades in contingent claims or derivative securities do not necessarily have future positive expected cash flows, and so are not considered assets, or strictly speaking, securities or investments. Nevertheless, since their cash flows are closely related to (or derived from) those of specific securities, they are often studied as or treated as investments.

Investments are often made indirectly through intermediaries, such as banks, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, collective investment schemes, and investment clubs. Though their legal and procedural details differ, an intermediary generally makes an investment using money from many individuals, each of whom receives a claim on the intermediary.

Within personal finance, money used to purchase shares, put in a collective investment scheme or used to buy any asset where there is an element of capital risk is deemed an investment. Saving within personal finance refers to money put aside, normally on a regular basis. This distinction is important, as investment risk can cause a capital loss when an investment is sold, unlike saving(s) where the more limited risk is cash devaluing due to inflation.

In many instances the terms saving and investment are used interchangeably, which confuses this distinction. For example many deposit accounts are labeled as investment accounts by banks for marketing purposes. Whether an asset is a saving(s) or an investment depends on where the money is invested: if it is cash then it is savings, if its value can fluctuate then it is investment.

In real estate, investment money is used to purchase property for the purpose of holding, reselling or leasing for income and there is an element of capital risk.

Investment in residential real estate is the most common form of real estate investment measured by number of participants because it includes property purchased as a primary residence. In many cases the buyer does not have the full purchase price for a property and must engage a lender such as a bank, finance company or private lender. Different countries have their individual normal lending levels, but usually they will fall into the range of 70-90% of the purchase price. Against other types of real estate, residential real estate is the least risky.

Commercial real estate consists of multifamily apartments, office buildings, retail space, hotels and motels, warehouses, and other commercial properties. Due to the higher risk of commercial real estate, loan-to-value ratios allowed by banks and other lenders are lower and often fall in the range of 50-70%.

The greatest player yet to come

Kobe Bryant (born August 23, 1978) is an American professional basketball player who plays shooting gard for the Los Angeles of the NBA. Bryant enjoyed a successful high school basketball career at  Lower Merion High School, where he was recognized as the top high school basketball player in the country.  He decided to declare his eligibility for the NBA Draft upon graduation, and was selected with the 13th overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets, then traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned himself a reputation as a high-flyer and a fan favorite by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest.

Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA Championships from 2000 to 2002. And won by himself another two more championship from 2009 to 2010.  A heated feud between the duo and a loss in the 2004 NBA Finals led to O'Neal's departure following the 2003-04 season. In 2003, Bryant was accused of sexual assault after having sex with a hotel employee in Edwards, Colorado. In September 2004, prosecutors dropped the case after his accuser refused to testify, and Bryant had to rebuild his image while becoming the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring during the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons, setting numerous scoring records in the process.  In 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, the second most points scored in a single game  in NBA history,Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point performance. In the 2007-08 season, he was awarded the regular season's Most Valuable Player Award  (MVP).  After losing in the 2008 NBA Finals, Bryant led the Lakers to two consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010 and was named NBA Finals MVP on both occasions.

As of March 2011, Bryant ranks fourth and sixth on the league's all-time post-season scoring and all-time regular season scoring lists, respectively. He is also the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. Since his second year in the league, Bryant has started in every NBA All-Star Game that has been held with thirteen All-Star appearances, winning the All-Star MVP Award  four times (2002, 2007, 2009, and 2011). He is a twelve-time member of the All-NBA All-Defensive team, and is the youngest player ever to receive defensive honors. At the 2008 Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the USA national Team. In 2009, Sporting News and TNT named Bryant the NBA player of the 2000s decade. 


Therefore, Kobe is the greatest player yet to come!

Investment

Investment is the commitment of money or capital to purchase financial instruments or other assets in order to gain profitable returns in the form of interest, income, or appreciation of the value of the instrument. Investment is related to saving or deferring consumption.  Investment is a term frequently used in the fields of economics, business management and finance. It can mean savings alone, or savings made through delayed consumption.

According to economic theories, investment is defined as the per-unit production of goods, which have not been consumed, but will however, be used for the purpose of future production. Examples of this type of investments are tangible goods like construction of a factory or bridge and intangible goods like 6 months of on-the-job training. In terms of national production and income, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has an essential constituent, known as gross investment. In finance, investment refers to the purchasing of securities or other financial assets from the capital market. It also means buying money market or real properties with high market liquidity. Some examples are gold, silver, real properties, and precious items.