How are the lithosphere and asthenosphere alike?

The Earth is composed of three parts, the outermost crust (where we live), the mantle and the core (the innermost portion of the planet). Lithosphere is composed of the crust and the uppermost portion of mantle, while the asthenosphere is the layer just underneath the lithosphere. There are certain similarities between the two (lithosphere and asthenosphere). Both these spheres or layers contain similar type of rocks. In fact, the lower portion of the lithosphere is...

The Earth is composed of three parts, the outermost crust (where we live), the mantle and the core (the innermost portion of the planet). Lithosphere is composed of the crust and the uppermost portion of mantle, while the asthenosphere is the layer just underneath the lithosphere. There are certain similarities between the two (lithosphere and asthenosphere). Both these spheres or layers contain similar type of rocks. In fact, the lower portion of the lithosphere is composed of rocks from asthenosphere that solidifies (due to cooling). Both the layers contain solid rocks, although rocks in asthenosphere are plastic in nature. Another similarity is related to seismics. Both the layers allow the primary waves (or body waves) to pass through them. Asthenosphere also helps in the motion of tectonic plates, in fact, these plates float over the asthenosphere.

Hope this helps. 

What affects the color of your poop?

The color of one's stool is affected by his/her diet and the amount of bile produced in his/her intestinal tract. Bile is a fluid that contains enzymes that aid the digestion of lipids (fats). It is yellow to green in color. As bile moves down the digestive tract, it turns from yellow to green to brown. Stool color may also be affected by the types of medications taken by an individual. Below are possible stool colors, what they might mean, and their causes.

1.      Green

Green stools may indicate diarrhea. The bile is moving so quickly through the digestive system that it does not have time to turn brown. Green stools may also result from eating an abundance of leafy vegetables or consuming artificial food dyes.  

2.      Light grey or white

Such a stool color may indicate that there is not enough bile being produced. Antidiarrheal medications may inhibit bile production and result in such a stool color.

3.      Black

Black stool may indicate that the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract is bleeding. Iron supplements have also been known to cause black stools.

4.      Yellow

Such stool color is a result of excess fat in one’s diet. Fat in the stool can also be a result of the inability to absorb the fat. This may be a result of a medical condition of the GI tract, such as celiac disease.

5.      Bright red

This color is an indication that the lower GI tract is bleeding, which may be a result of hemorrhoids. Red stool color may also be a result of ingesting beets, red food dye, or tomato-based beverages or broths.

The colors of concern that may warrant immediate medical attention are bright red or black stools.

Why is race important in How it Feels to Be Colored Me?

Race is extremely important in Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” because the essay deals with the social construct of race, racism, and maintaining one’s cultural identity.

She begins the essay with, “I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief.” Immediately,...

Race is extremely important in Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” because the essay deals with the social construct of race, racism, and maintaining one’s cultural identity.

She begins the essay with, “I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief.” Immediately, Hurston jokes about one of the ways she sees African Americans classify themselves, referring to the cultural joke that African Americans like to include being Indian as part of their cultural identity. Unlike most African Americans, Hurston suggests she is 100% black (colored), a fact she did not realize until she was thirteen.

She states, “I remember the very day that I became colored.” Hurston then begins a series of incidents that help to form her awareness as a black person. “Up to my thirteenth year I lived in the little Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. It is exclusively a colored town. The only white people I knew passed through the town going to or coming from Orlando.” Huston explains that because she grew up in an all-black town, her race was never an issue. It was when she moved to the white town of Jacksonville that the concept of race, more particularity, her race became clear. “It seemed that I had suffered a sea change. I was not Zora of Orange County any more, I was now a little colored girl. I found it out in certain ways. In my heart as well as in the mirror, I became a fast brown--warranted not to rub nor run.” Her first encounters with racism after moving to Jacksonville made her aware of her race.

The essay recounts the various situations in which her race is more apparent to her because of the racism she experienced simply because of the color of her skin. She writes of her experience at Bernard College, “I do not always feel colored. Even now I often achieve the unconscious Zora of Eatonville before the Hegira. I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.” She highlights again that it is others who are more concerned about her race, something she rarely thinks about. She writes, “The cosmic Zora emerges. I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.” Huston’s identity and confidence is less about her race and more about who she is a person.

Throughout the essay, Hurston exerts her identity as an American who just happens to be black. It is society, not her, that seeks to place her in a certain category (black). She ends the essay by illustrating that people are all the same. She states, “But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless.” Because “How it Feels to Be a Colored Me,” deals with Huston’s cultural identity and the way society forces her to classify herself because of her skin color, race is an important element of the essay.

How is Jay Gatsby motivated by a dream of a more just world?

First, I would refer you to elsewhere in . The world Gatsby lives in is fundamentally amoral. Gatsby himself is an expression of this moral ambiguity. To quote the linked answer:

The character of Gatsby is particularly ambiguous. In his daily actions, he is fair and just. Polite almost to a fault, he is somewhat full of self-doubt. He is polite and thoughtful. His flaw is that he believes an illusion. He dedicates his existence to a return to the past--his relationship with Daisy. But the relationship never really existed as Gatsby experienced it. Daisy never loved him as he loved her. This doesn't make him immoral, however, only deluded and naive.

For Gatsby, a "just world" would be one in which he and Daisy can be together. The big house, the huge parties, are all a means to an end, the end being creating the environment he thinks will bring Daisy back to him. It doesn't matter to him that this is all paid for by illegal activity, or that presumably his criminality has victimized many people. If he can just get Daisy back things will be as they should be. His fixation on reliving the past is an expression of how he confuses the personal and the (for lack of a better word) cosmic. To Gatsby's mind, in getting Daisy, he heals himself, and in so doing, heals the world. Of course, this is not the case. Daisy doesn't love Gatsby the way he loves her; in fact, Gatsby doesn't even really love her, but the idea of her. Of course it is wrong for him to try to break up her marriage with Tom; the fact that Tom is such a terrible person only underlines how rotten everything in Gatsby's world is. The moral hole at the center of Gatsby the novel is too large for Gatsby the character to fill. In fact, we come to realize, Gatsby is that hole. 

While Juliet's Nurse and mother are talking about Paris, they try to convince Juliet to accept his offer of marriage. Lady Capulet says,...

The Nurse in Shakespeare's play is set up as a foil to Juliet. A foil in Shakespearean drama is a character who has an opposite personality and attitude to the main character. While for much of the play the Nurse is Juliet's prime confidante and friend, they part ways because the Nurse fails to understand the true love the girl feels for Romeo. 

Being older and from the lower class the Nurse looks at things in a different way. She is more practical and much less romantic than the young Juliet. She looks at love in a more physical way and less as an ideal. When we first meet the Nurse she goes on about a time when Juliet, then a small child, fell down. The Nurse's late husband commented that when Juliet grew older she would like falling down on her back, a reference to sex. She tells Juliet that Paris will make her "bigger," meaning pregnant. For the Nurse, marriage and love are tied up with the physical aspects of life. After all, she is a simple servant.

The Nurse looks at Paris as simply a good looking man. She could care less about his personality. She comments in Act I, Scene 3:

A man, young lady—lady, such a man
As all the world—why, he’s a man of wax.

And later she refers to him as a "flower." She's only concerned that Paris is handsome and will make a good lover. She does not consider the romantic aspects of love. Romantic qualities, however, are what Juliet yearns for and once she meets Romeo and he tells her he is worshipping her as a religious pilgrim might, she is hooked. 

The Nurse also doesn't have the type of loyalty that Juliet displays. As soon as things go badly with Romeo, the Nurse advises Juliet to forget him and marry Paris. At this point Juliet breaks with the nurse. She says in Act III, Scene 6,

Ancient damnation, O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath praised him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counselor.
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.

Above all, Juliet is loyal. She is loyal to her parents in the beginning and later to Romeo, so much so that she drinks a sleeping potion and fakes her death to be reunited with him. The Nurse, on the other hand, would quickly give up on the love the two young people share.

Pat Heywood, a Scottish actress, is still the best Nurse. She is perfect in the role in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version of the play. In Baz Luhrmann's 1996 version he updates the play to a modern time and makes Juliet's Nurse Latino, played by Miriam Margolyes, who is also excellent and steals every scene she is in.

If I were to cast a new Romeo and Juliet I might pick Katy Sagal as the Nurse. She is most remembered for playing Peggy Bundy in "Married with Children." She can be bawdy and is now old enough to be convincing in the role. Another possibility might be Susan Sarandon, who's also older now and is one of the finest actresses in Hollywood.  

I'm reading "Desiree's Baby" and I can't seem to understand the message of this story. I understand his assumptions have caused harm to his wife...

What might be confusing to you about the story "Desiree's Baby" is that author Kate Chopin deliberately created many ambiguities within the story. That is, she raises possibilities without answering them for reader. 

In general, here is what happens in the story: Desiree's mother comes to visit Desiree when her baby is about a month old. The mother is surprised at the appearance of the baby, but Desiree is so in love with the child that she does not pick up on her mother's concerns. Desiree says that Armand is very pleased and happy and that he has even stopped beating the slaves since the child was born.

When the baby is about three months old, however, things change radically. Armand stays away from Desiree and the baby without telling her why. Neighbors from far away come to visit, and Desiree is not told why. Finally as Desiree is observing the child of one of the slaves, she begins to look from the little boy to her baby and something dawns on her. She goes to Armand and asks him what it means. He tells her, "It means that the child is not white. It means that you are not white." Evidently the child has facial characteristics that are typical of blacks.

Desiree objects, saying her skin is whiter than Armand's. Desiree's mother writes to her and tells her she is welcome to bring the baby and come back to live with her. Desiree asks Armand if he wants her to go, and he says he does. Without taking anything with her, Desiree takes the baby and walks not toward her mother's house, but into the bayou, where she presumably would have died with her child. Weeks later Armand has a bonfire to burn all the clothing and accessories of Desiree and the baby. He burns letters he received from Desiree during their courtship. Among those letters he finds a note from his own mother to his father revealing the fact that she is of mixed blood, and some of her ancestors were black. 

The story implies without directly stating it that Armand is extremely racist. In the South if a person had even 1/8 black heritage, he or she was considered black, not white. That meant that laws that discriminated against blacks would apply to that person, even if he or she did not look black at all. As a plantation owner, Armand was obviously heavily invested in the social structure of the South and believed that blacks were an inferior race. Desiree was adopted by her family, and when Armand married her, he was wildly in love with her and never considered the possibility she was not completely white, especially since she was very light skinned--at least compared to him.

At first when the child was born, his features did not look African. It takes babies a while to develop their own appearance. Still, at the age of one month, Desiree's mother noticed the features and was surprised. This foreshadows Armand's reaction. When the baby was three months old, Armand suspected the baby was part black, and since he supposedly knew his own heritage but Desiree's birth parents were unknown, he believed he was married to a black woman and had a black child. This was mortifying to him because it would harm his status in his community. The far-off neighbors were probably important members of society who Armand consulted with about the problem. They must have advised him to not accept Desiree or the baby and to get rid of them if he could. Armand treats Desiree coldly, forcing her to bring the matter up. He then tells her she is black. She then offers to leave, certainly hoping he will tell her to stay. But he doesn't. She sees no future for herself and her child without the protection of Armand and "knowing" they will be social outcasts now. So she decides to kill herself and the baby.

In a masterful twist ending, Chopin has Armand find out that he is the one who is of mixed racial ancestry. His mother was part black; she had only lived in France and had never subjected herself to the racial prejudice that ruled the Southern U.S. We assume Armand never knew that about his mother. One of the big ambiguities of the story is how Armand feels now that he knows he is part black. Does he still hate blacks, and does he hate himself? Will he regret having sent his innocent wife and child away to their deaths? Or will he simply burn the letter and go on pretending to be 100% white?

At any rate, the irony of the story is that Armand, who despises the black race so much and thinks it is so inferior to the white race, finds out that he himself is part of that "curse." To comprehend the story, you need to understand the social status of blacks and whites in the South when this story takes place. I hope this explanation helps you understand the story better!

How did the gift from Mary Warren work against Elizabeth Proctor?

Mary Warren gave her employer, Elizabeth Proctor, a "poppet" or doll that she made while she sat in court that day.  Mary Warren says, in Act Two,

I made a gift for you today, Goody Proctor.  I had to sit long hours in a chair, and passed the time with sewing [....].  We must all love each other now, Goody Proctor.

This gift seems to be a kind offering.  Mary Warren goes to bed, and...

Mary Warren gave her employer, Elizabeth Proctor, a "poppet" or doll that she made while she sat in court that day.  Mary Warren says, in Act Two,

I made a gift for you today, Goody Proctor.  I had to sit long hours in a chair, and passed the time with sewing [....].  We must all love each other now, Goody Proctor.

This gift seems to be a kind offering.  Mary Warren goes to bed, and John and Elizabeth continue to discuss Elizabeth's fears that Abigail will use the trials as a way to get rid of her and secure John for herself.  Soon, Cheever arrives with a warrant for Elizabeth's arrest: Abigail has indeed accused her.  He asks Elizabeth to hand over any poppets she keeps, and when he lifts the skirts of the doll and sees a needle stuck in its belly, his "eyes widen in astonished fear."  He says, that night, that Abigail Williams sat down for dinner at Reverend Parris's house and suddenly,

[...] without word nor warnin' she falls to the floor.  Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear.  And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out.  And demandin' of her how she come to be so stabbed, she -- to Proctor now -- testify it were your wife's familiar spirit pushed it in.

Mary Warren soon reveals that Abigail sat beside her in court and watched her make the doll and push the needle in, for safe-keeping.  Proctor and Elizabeth now understand that Abigail has used this information to frame Elizabeth for witchcraft.  The poppet plus Abigail's testimony that Elizabeth sent her spirit out to push the needle into her belly, called spectral evidence, is enough to convict her.