51-701: The Army Mules are a group of mules which serve as the mascots for the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York . The tradition of mules as mascots for Army dates back to 1899, when an officer at the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot decided that the team needed a mascot to counter the Navy goat . Mules were an obvious choice, as they were used as haulers for Army gear for generations. Not much
102-553: A component of glass , enamel , and pottery glazes , for tanning of skins and hides , for artificial aging of wood, as a preservative against wood fungus , and as a pharmaceutic alkalizer . In chemical laboratories, it is used as a buffering agent. The terms tincal and tincar refer to native borax, historically mined from dry lake beds in various parts of Asia. Borax was first discovered in dry lake beds in Tibet . Native tincal from Tibet, Persia , and other parts of Asia
153-767: A consequence, certain foods, such as caviar , produced for sale in the United States contain higher levels of salt to assist preservation. In addition to its use as a preservative, borax imparts a firm, rubbery texture to food. In China , borax ( Chinese : 硼砂 ; pinyin : péng shā or Chinese : 月石 ; pinyin : yuè shí ) has been found in foods including wheat and rice noodles named lamian ( Chinese : 拉面 ; pinyin : lāmiàn ), shahe fen ( Chinese : 沙河粉 ; pinyin : shāhéfěn ), char kway teow ( Chinese : 粿條 ; pinyin : guǒ tiáo ), and chee cheong fun ( Chinese : 肠粉 ; pinyin : chángfěn ) In Indonesia , it
204-447: A female donkey (a jenny ). Mules vary widely in size, and may be of any color seen in horses or donkeys. They are more patient, hardier and longer-lived than horses, and are perceived as less obstinate and more intelligent than donkeys. A female mule that has oestrus cycles, and so could, in theory, carry a fetus, is called a "molly" or "Molly mule", although the term is sometimes used to refer to female mules in general. A male mule
255-517: A mule foal cloned by nuclear transfer of cells from foetal material, was born at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho . Neither an equid nor a hybrid animal had been cloned before. In general terms, in both the mule and the hinny, the foreparts and head of the animal are similar to those of the father sire , while the hindparts and tail tend to resemble those of the dam . A mule
306-407: A mule's giving birth was a frequently recorded portent in antiquity, although scientific writers also doubted whether it was really possible (see e.g. Aristotle , Historia animalium , 6.24; Varro , De re rustica , 2.1.28). Between 1527 and 2002, approximately sixty such births were reported. In Morocco in early 2002 and Colorado in 2007, mare mules produced colts. Blood and hair samples from
357-587: A part of the Spirit Support Activity of the U.S. Corps of Cadets. The current Army Mule Riders are: Cadet Garrett Dolan, 2021, Cadet Sarah Traynor, 2022, Cadet Kyle Kass, 2023, and Cadet Benjamin Bennett, 2024. Together they are present at many of West Point's athletic events, parades, and other ceremonial activities. The Mules serve not only as West Point's mascot, but also as the mascot for the entire United States Army. Mule The mule
408-783: A rider. About 3.5 million donkeys and mules are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide. Mule trains have been part of working portions of transportation links as recently as 2005 by the World Food Programme , and are still used extensively to transport cargo in rugged, roadless regions. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that China was the top market for mules in 2003, closely followed by Mexico and many Central and South American nations. Borax Borax (also referred to as sodium borate , tincal ( / ˈ t ɪ ŋ k əl / ) and tincar ( / ˈ t ɪ ŋ k ər / ) )
459-436: A risk concern and do not exceed the level of concern..." but that there could be some risk of irritation to children inhaling it if used as a powder for cleaning rugs. Overexposure to borax dust can cause respiratory irritation, while no skin irritation is known to exist due to external borax exposure. Ingestion may cause gastrointestinal distress including nausea , persistent vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea . Effects on
510-477: A stallion, was bred to several mares, which gave birth to live foals that showed no characteristics of the donkey. In 1995, a group from the Federal University of Minas Gerais described a female mule that was pregnant for a seventh time, having previously produced two donkey sires, two foals with the typical 63 chromosomes of mules, and several horse stallions that had produced four foals. The three of
561-464: A suitable polymer bed are used to chromatograph non- glycated hemoglobin differentially from glycated hemoglobin (chiefly HbA1c ), which is an indicator of long-term hyperglycemia in diabetes mellitus . Borax alone does not have a high affinity for hardness cations , although it has been used for water-softening. Its chemical equation for water-softening is given below: The sodium ions introduced do not make water "hard". This method
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#1732783501917612-672: A time. Mules were used by armies to transport supplies, occasionally as mobile firing platforms for smaller cannons, and to pull heavier field guns with wheels over mountainous trails such as in Afghanistan during the Second Anglo-Afghan War . In the second half of the twentieth century, widespread use of mules declined in industrialised countries. The use of mules for farming and for transportation of agricultural products largely gave way to steam-, then diesel-powered, tractors and lorries. On 5 May 2003, Idaho Gem ,
663-616: Is Latinized: the Middle English form was boras , from Old French boras, bourras . That may have been from Medieval Latin baurach (another English spelling), borac(-/um/em), borax , along with Spanish borrax (> borraj ) and Italian borrace , in the 9th century, and from Arabic bawraq, būraq, bōraq ( بورق ) as mentioned for example in Kitab al-Tabikh of Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq . The words tincal and tincar were adopted into English in
714-417: Is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse . It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare ). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes ; of the two possible first-generation hybrids between them, the mule is easier to obtain and more common than the hinny , which is the offspring of a male horse (a stallion ) and
765-432: Is a proton conductor at temperatures above 21 °C. Conductivity is maximum along the b- axis. Borax is also easily converted to boric acid and other borates , which have many applications. Its reaction with hydrochloric acid to form boric acid is: Borax is sufficiently stable to find use as a primary standard for acid-base titrimetry . Molten borax dissolves many metal oxides to form glasses. This property
816-400: Is a salt ( ionic compound), a hydrated or anhydrous borate of sodium , with the chemical formula Na 2 H 20 B 4 O 17 . It is a colorless crystalline solid that dissolves in water to make a basic solution . It is commonly available in powder or granular form and has many industrial and household uses, including as a pesticide , as a metal soldering flux , as
867-447: Is a common, but forbidden, additive to such foods as noodles, bakso (meatballs), and steamed rice. When consumed with boric acid, numerous studies have demonstrated a negative association between borax and various types of cancers. Boric acid and borax are low in toxicity for acute oral exposures, at approximately the same acute toxicity as salt. The average dose for asymptomatic ingestion cases, which accounts for 88% of all ingestions,
918-437: Is around 0.9 grams. However, the range of reported asymptomatic doses is wide, from 0.01 to 88.8 g. Other uses include: According to one study, borax is not acutely toxic. Its LD 50 (median lethal dose) score is tested at 2.66 g/kg in rats, meaning that a significant dose of the chemical is needed to cause severe symptoms or death. The lethal dose is not necessarily the same for humans. On pesticide information websites it
969-472: Is based on silicone polymers), can be made by cross-linking polyvinyl alcohol with borax. Making flubber from polyvinyl acetate -based glues , such as Elmer's Glue , and borax is a common elementary science demonstration. Borax, given the E number E285 , is used as a food additive but this use is banned in some countries, such as Australia , China , Thailand and the United States . As
1020-522: Is generally larger than a hinny, with longer ears and a heavier head; the tail is usually covered with long hair like that of its mare mother. A mule has the thin limbs, small narrow hooves and short mane of the donkey, while its height, the shape of the neck and body, and the uniformity of its coat and teeth are more similar to those of the horse. Mules vary widely in size, from small miniature mules under 125 cm (50 in) to large and powerful draught mules standing up to 180 cm (70 in) at
1071-506: Is important for its uses in metallurgy and for the borax bead test of qualitative chemical analysis. Borax is soluble in a variety of solvents; however, it is notably insoluble in ethanol. The term borax properly refers to the so-called "decahydrate" Na 2 B 4 O 7 ·10H 2 O , but that name is not consistent with its structure. It is actually octahydrate. The anion is not tetraborate [B 4 O 7 ] but tetrahydroxy tetraborate [B 4 O 5 (OH) 4 ] , so
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#17327835019171122-437: Is known about the "official" mules until 1936, when Mr. Jackson (named for Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson ), a former Army pack mule, arrived from Front Royal, Virginia . He served for twelve years, presiding over two national championship teams. Starting with Mr. Jackson, there have been seventeen "official" Army mules, only one, Buckshot, being female. The current Mule Corps are: The Army Mules are trained by cadet Mule Riders,
1173-509: Is listed as a non-lethal compound and of no hazardous concerns. Borax has been in use as an insecticide in the United States with various restrictions since 1946. All restrictions were removed in February 1986 due to the low toxicity of borax, as reported in two EPA documents relating to boric acid and borax. EPA has determined that, because they are of low toxicity and occur naturally, boric acid and its sodium salts should be exempted from
1224-647: Is part of the EU Regulations on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals 2006 (REACH), and the addition was based on the revised classification of borax as toxic for reproduction category 1B under the CLP Regulations . Substances and mixtures imported into the EU which contain borax are now required to be labelled with the warnings "May damage fertility" and "May damage
1275-757: Is properly called a "horse mule", although it is often called a "john mule", which is the correct term for a gelded mule. A young male mule is called a "mule colt", and a young female is called a "mule filly". Breeding of mules became possible only when the range of the domestic horse, which originated in Central Asia in about 3500 BC , extended into that of the domestic ass, which originated in north-eastern Africa. This overlap probably occurred in Anatolia and Mesopotamia in Western Asia, and mules were bred there before 1000 BC . A painting in
1326-444: Is rare, but can occasionally occur naturally, as well as through embryo transfer . A few mare mules have produced offspring when mated with a horse or donkey stallion. Herodotus gives an account of such an event as an ill omen of Xerxes' invasion of Greece in 480 BC: "There happened also a portent of another kind while he was still at Sardis—a mule brought forth young and gave birth to a mule" (Herodotus The Histories 7:57), and
1377-589: Is sodium tetraborate proper, with formula Na 2 B 4 O 7 . It can be obtained by heating any hydrate to 300 °C. It has one amorphous (glassy) form and three crystalline forms – α, β, and γ, with melting points of 1015, 993 and 936 K respectively. α- Na 2 B 4 O 7 is the stable form. Borax occurs naturally in evaporite deposits produced by the repeated evaporation of seasonal lakes . The most commercially important deposits are found in: Turkey ; Boron, California ; and Searles Lake , California . Also, borax has been found at many other locations in
1428-413: Is suitable for removing both temporary and permanent types of hardness. A mixture of borax and ammonium chloride is used as a flux when welding iron and steel . It lowers the melting point of the unwanted iron oxide ( scale ), allowing it to run off. Borax is also mixed with water as a flux when soldering jewelry metals such as gold or silver , where it allows the molten solder to wet
1479-583: Is toxic to ants and rats. Because it is slow-acting, worker ants will carry the borax to their nests and poison the rest of the colony. Borax is used in various household laundry and cleaning products, including the 20 Mule Team Borax laundry booster, Boraxo powdered hand soap, and some tooth bleaching formulas. Borate ions (commonly supplied as boric acid) are used in biochemical and chemical laboratories to make buffers , e.g. for polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of DNA and RNA, such as TBE buffer (borate buffered tris-hydroxymethylaminomethonium) or
1530-788: The Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal from the North Palace of Nineveh is a clear and detailed image of two mules loaded with nets for hunting. Homer noted their arrival in Asia Minor in the Iliad in 800 BC. Christopher Columbus allegedly brought mules to the New World. George Washington bred mules at his Mount Vernon home. At the time, they were not common in the United States, but Washington understood their value, as they were "more docile than donkeys and cheap to maintain." In
1581-667: The Southwestern United States , the Atacama Desert in Chile , newly discovered deposits in Bolivia , and in Tibet and Romania . Borax can also be produced synthetically from other boron compounds. Naturally occurring borax (known by the trade name Rasorite–46 in the United States and many other countries) is refined by a process of recrystallization . Borax is used in pest control solutions because it
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1632-574: The Tomb of Nebamun at Thebes , dating from approximately 1350 BC , shows a chariot drawn by a pair of animals which have been variously identified as onagers , as mules or as hinnies. Mules were present in Israel and Judah in the time of King David . There are many representations of them in Mesopotamian works of art dating from the first millennium BC. Among the bas-reliefs depicting
1683-421: The rhombohedral crystal system . It occurs naturally as the mineral tinkhanite . It can be obtained by heating the "decahydrate" above 61 °C. Borax "dihydrate" has the formula Na 2 B 4 O 7 ·2H 2 O , which is actually anhydrous, with the correct formula Na 2 B 4 O 5 (OH) 4 . It can be obtained by heating the "decahydrate" or "pentahydrate" to above 116-120 °C. Anhydrous borax
1734-430: The withers . The median weight range is between about 370 and 460 kg (820 and 1000 lb). The coat may be of any color seen in the horse or in the donkey. Mules usually display the light points commonly seen in donkeys: pale or mealy areas on the belly and the insides of the thighs, on the muzzle, and around the eyes. They often have primitive markings such as dorsal stripe, shoulder stripe or zebra stripes on
1785-516: The 17th century from Malay tingkal and from Urdu / Persian / Arabic تنکار tinkār/tankār ; thus the two forms in English. These all appear to be related to the Sanskrit टांकण ṭānkaṇa . From a chemical perspective, borax contains the [B 4 O 5 (OH) 4 ] ion. In this structure, there are two four-coordinate boron centers and two three-coordinate boron centers. It
1836-595: The Colorado birth verified that the mother was indeed a mule and the foal was indeed her offspring. A 1939 article in the Journal of Heredity describes two offspring of a fertile mare mule named "Old Bec," which was owned at the time by Texas A&M University in the late 1920s. One of the foals was a female, sired by a jack. Unlike her mother, she was sterile. The other, sired by a five-gaited Saddlebred stallion, exhibited no characteristics of any donkey. That horse,
1887-643: The highest exposed cohorts, are too low to reach the blood (and target tissue) concentrations that would be required to exert adverse effects on reproductive functions." A draft risk assessment released by Health Canada in July 2016 has found that overexposure to boric acid has the potential to cause developmental and reproductive health effects. Since people are already exposed to boric acid naturally through their diets and water, Health Canada advised that exposure from other sources should be reduced as much as possible, especially for children and pregnant women. The concern
1938-405: The horse it inherits speed, conformation, and agility. Mules are reputed to exhibit a higher cognitive intelligence than their parent species, but robust scientific evidence to back up these claims is lacking. Preliminary data exist from at least two evidence-based studies, but they rely on a limited set of specialized cognitive tests and a small number of subjects . Mules are generally taller at
1989-452: The latter available for testing each bore 64 horse-like chromosomes. These foals phenotypically resembled horses, though they bore markings absent from the sire's known lineages, and one had ears noticeably longer than those typical of her sire's breed. The elder two horse-like foals had proved fertile at the time of publication, with their progeny being typical of horses. While a few mules can carry live weight up to 160 kg (353 lb),
2040-487: The legs. The mule exhibits hybrid vigor . Charles Darwin wrote: "The mule always appears to me a most surprising animal. That a hybrid should possess more reason, memory, obstinacy, social affection, powers of muscular endurance, and length of life, than either of its parents, seems to indicate that art has here outdone nature". The mule inherits from the donkey the traits of intelligence, sure-footedness, toughness, endurance, disposition, and natural cautiousness. From
2091-446: The metal and flow evenly into the joint. Borax is also a good flux for "pre-tinning" tungsten with zinc , making the tungsten soft-solderable. Borax is often used as a flux for forge welding . In artisanal gold mining , borax is sometimes used as part of a process known as the borax method (as a flux) meant to eliminate the need for toxic mercury in the gold extraction process, although it cannot directly replace mercury. Borax
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2142-421: The more correct formula should be Na 2 B 4 O 5 (OH) 4 ·8H 2 O . However, the term may be applied also to the related compounds. Borax "pentahydrate" has the formula Na 2 B 4 O 7 ·5H 2 O , which is actually a trihydrate Na 2 B 4 O 5 (OH) 4 ·3H 2 O . It is a colorless solid with a density of 1.880 kg/m that crystallizes from water solutions above 60.8 °C in
2193-419: The newer SB buffer or BBS buffer (borate buffered saline) in coating procedures. Borate buffers (usually at pH 8) are also used as preferential equilibration solutions in dimethyl pimelimidate (DMP) based crosslinking reactions. Borax as a source of borate has been used to take advantage of the co-complexing ability of borate with other agents in water to form complex ions with various substances. Borate and
2244-440: The nineteenth century, they were used in various capacities as draught animals – on farms, especially where clay made the soil slippery and sticky; pulling canal boats; and famously for pulling, often in teams of 20 or more animals, wagonloads of borax out of Death Valley , California from 1883 to 1889. The wagons were among the largest ever pulled by draught animals, designed to carry 10 short tons (9 metric tons) of borax ore at
2295-557: The requirement of a tolerance (maximum residue limit) for all raw agricultural commodities. Although it cited inconclusive data, a re-evaluation in 2006 by the EPA still found that "There were no signs of toxicity observed during the study and no evidence of cytotoxicity to the target organ." In the reevaluation, a study of toxicity due to overexposure was checked and the findings were that "The residential handler inhalation risks due to boric acid and its sodium salts as active ingredients are not
2346-448: The shoulder than donkeys and have better endurance than horses, although a lower top speed. In the early twentieth century the mule was preferred to the horse as a pack animal – its skin is harder and less sensitive than that of a horse, and it is better able to bear heavy weights. A mule has 63 chromosomes , intermediate between the 64 of the horse and the 62 of the donkey. Mules are usually infertile for this reason. Pregnancy
2397-549: The superiority of the mule becomes apparent in their additional endurance. In general, a mule can be packed with dead weight up to 20% of its body weight, or around 90 kg (198 lb). Although it depends on the individual animal, mules trained by the Army of Pakistan are reported to be able to carry up to 72 kg (159 lb) and walk 26 km (16.2 mi) without resting. The average equine in general can carry up to roughly 30% of its body weight in live weight, such as
2448-578: The unborn child". It was proposed for addition to REACH Annex XIV by the ECHA on July 1, 2015. If this recommendation is approved, all imports and uses of borax in the EU will have to be authorized by the ECHA. A review of the boron toxicity (as boric acid and borates) published in 2012 in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health concluded: "It clearly appears that human B [boron] exposures, even in
2499-522: The vascular system and human brain include headaches and lethargy but are less frequent. In severe cases, a "beefy" red rash affecting the palms, soles, buttocks and scrotum has occurred. The Indonesian Directorate of Consumer Protection warns of the risk of liver cancer with high consumption of borax over a period of 5–10 years. Borax was added to the Substance of Very High Concern (SVHC) candidate list on December 16, 2010. The SVHC candidate list
2550-755: Was reportedly used by gold miners in parts of the Philippines in the 1900s. There is evidence that, in addition to reducing the environmental impact, this method achieves better gold recovery for suitable ores and is less expensive. This borax method is used in northern Luzon in the Philippines, but miners have been reluctant to adopt it elsewhere for reasons that are not well understood. The method has also been promoted in Bolivia and Tanzania. A rubbery polymer sometimes called Slime , Flubber , 'gluep' or 'glurch' (or erroneously called Silly Putty , which
2601-621: Was traded via the Silk Road to the Arabian Peninsula in the 8th century AD. Borax first came into common use in the late 19th century when Francis Marion Smith 's Pacific Coast Borax Company began to market and popularize a large variety of applications under the 20 Mule Team Borax trademark , named for the method by which borax was originally hauled out of the California and Nevada deserts . The English word borax
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