Hammurabi Essays - Codes Of Conduct, Legal Codes, Babylonia

Hammurabi Hammurabi In his position as king of Babylonia, Hammurabi managed to organize the world's first code of law and establish Babylon as the dominant and successful Amorite City of its time. Records written on clay tablets show that Hammurabi was a very capable administrator and a successful warrior. His rule spanned from 1792 B.C. to 1750 B.C. When he became king in 1792, he was still young, but had already become entrusted with many official duties in his administration. In the early years of his reign, Hammurabi mostly participated in traditional activities, such as repairing buildings, digging canals, and fighting wars. Yet later in his rule, Hammurabi organized a unique code of laws, the first of its kind, therefore making himself one of the world's most influential leaders. Hammurabi was primarily influential to the world because of his code of laws. This code consisted of 282 provisions, systematically arranged under a variety of subjects. He sorted hiss laws into groups such as family, labor personal property, real estate, trade, and business. This was the first time in history that any laws had been categorized into various sections. This format of organization was emulated by civilizations of the future. For example, Semitic cultures succeeding Hammurabi's rule used some of the same laws that were included in Hammurabi's code. Hammurabi's method of thought is evident in present day societies, which are influenced by his code. Modern governments currently create specific laws, which are placed into their appropriate family of similar laws. Hammurabi had his laws recorded upon an eight foot black stone monument. Hammurabi based on his code on principles like, the strong should not injure the weak, and that punishment should fit the crime. As for punishment, legal actions were initiated under the code by written pleadings; testimony was taken under oath. The code was severe in its penalties, prescribing an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This code of laws was able to be maintained by invoking the authority of the gods and the state. Although the punishments were different than those of today, the authority of the state (government) is similar. Currently, punishments are issued through the state's law enforcement system, comparable to the way punishment was determined and enforced in ancient Babylon. In the code, crimes punishable by death required a trail in front of a bench of judges. Included in these crimes were: bigamy, incest, kidnapping, adultery, and theft. There were also laws similar to today. For example, a husband who wished to divorce his wife, was required to pay alimony and child support. By creating the world's first set of organized laws, Hammurabi constituted a model set of moral codes for other civilizations to duplicate. The code of Hammurabi is believed to have greatly influenced the development of Near Eastern civilizations for centuries after it was written. Although Hammurabi failed to establish an effective bureaucratic system himself, his ideas were successful in establishing laws in Babylonia. Since Babylon was the world's first metropolis, the large population needed to be bound by a strict set of organized civil laws. The way Hammurabi constructed his laws is influential to the world today, because laws can be more easily understood by the people.

The Function of Plant Cells essays

The Function of Plant Cells essays Plants are unique amongst the eukaryotes, organisms whose cells have membrane-enclosed nuclei and organelles because they can manufacture their food. Chlorophyll, which gives plants their green color, enables them to use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugars and carbohydrates; chemicals the cell uses for fuel. Like the fungi, another kingdom of eukaryotes, plant cells have retained the protective cell wall structure of their prokaryotic ancestors. The basic plant cell has the basic construction of a typical eukaryote cell but does not have centrioles, lysosomes, cilia, or flagella as does the animal cell. Plant cells do have specialized structures: a rigid cell wall, central vacuole, plasmodesmata, and chloroplasts. One of the most important distinguishing features of plant cells is the presence of a cell wall, a which serves a variety of functions. The cell wall protects the cellular contents, gives rigidity to the plant structure, provides a porous medium for the circulation and distribution of water, minerals, and other small nutrient molecules. It contains specialized molecules that regulate growth and protect the plant from disease. A structure of great tensile strength, the cell wall is formed from fibrils of cellulose molecules, embedded in a water-saturated matrix of polysaccharides and structural glycoproteins. Many plant cells have both a primary cell wall, while the cell is growing, and a secondary cell wall, which is produced inside the primary wall after the cell has stopped growing. Conduits called plasmodesmata penetrate both the primary and secondary cell walls, providing pathways for transporting cytoplasmic molecules from one cell to another. The primary chemical component of cell walls is cellulose, which is made up of several thousand glucose molecules linked end to end. Other chemicals that make up cell walls are lignins, which add rigidity, and waxes, such as cutin and suberin, which reduc...

Emergency Response to Nuclear Disasters Research Proposal

Emergency Response to Nuclear Disasters - Research Proposal Example Nearly three million people live within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of an operating nuclear power plant.1 Nuclear power plants use the heat generated from nuclear fission in a contained environment to convert water to steam, which powers generators to produce electricity, also producing by-products in the wake of this procedure like, radiation and release radioactive particles into the air which can be harmful to people, animals, crops, and the environment overall. Mutation of humans and animals, deaths of plants and infection of various species resulting in an entire food chain getting irrevocably poisoned, severely erosive acid rain, contamination of the water cycle and air as radioactive particles diffuse into the surrounding regions are some of the many devastating effects that disrupt the ecosystem of our planet. Although the construction and operation of nuclear power plants are closely monitored and regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), accidents at these plants are possible due to flaws in the design of the power plant, human error of the operators and electrical engineers involved etc. The worrying thing about these power stations is that when something goes wrong due to human error or a fault not fixed, an irreversibly massive accident can occur destroying many kilometers of area in its vicinity, contaminating it almost forever. The magnitude of its effects is determined by the amount of radiation released from the explosion, wind direction and speed, and weather condition. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945) nuclear bombings, two of the most famous nuclear accidents at these power stations occurred at the Chernobyl reactor 4 (Ukraine - 1986) in the former Soviet Union and the Three Mile Island (US - 1979) reactor 2 in the United States. Categorized as the most intense nuclear disaster ever, the Chernobyl nuclear explosion (1986) destroyed the unit in its entirety and released an incredible amount of radiated fallout, into the environment resulting in about 600000 deaths due to radiation exposure as revealed by IAEA and WHO studies with 56 direct deaths off the explosion. The 4000 cancer deaths due to exposure to nuclear carcinogens are just a meager part of the expected 100000 fatalities. The after effects of this nuclear power plant disaster were Nuclear rain in places like Ireland as the radioactive fallout traveled over an extensive geographical area spreading all through the Western Europe in just a span of 1 week resulting in contamination in large areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Four square kilometers of pine land forests turned brown and died in addition to numerous animal deaths and the remaining badly poisoned with thyroid and reproductive problems, now known as the 'Red Forest'. However, the later g enerations did not suffer these problems. About 336000 people's evacuation, resettling due to this tragedy and the horrendous large scale loss of life and lifestyle pose nuclear power catastrophe as one of the most irreversibly destructive threats in this contemporary society of technological development where precautions and safety measures direly need to be adopted to avoid a bigger loss.The Kyshtym (1957) disaster in a Russian nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Mayak, the Windscale fire (UK - 1957)