An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a merchant ship designed for the bulk transport of oil. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries. Product tankers, generally much smaller, are designed to move petrochemicals from refineries to points near consuming markets.

Conan of Aquilonia is a collection of four linked fantasy short stories written by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Robert E. Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. The stories were originally published in Fantastic for August 1972, July 1973, July 1974, and February, 1975. The collected stories were intended for book publication by Lancer Books, but this edition never appeared due to Lancer's bankruptcy. The first book edition was issued in paperback by Ace Books in May 1977 and the first British edition was published by Sphere Books in October 1978.

The Vikings were seafaring north Germanic people who raided, traded, explored, and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia, and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries. The Vikings employed wooden longships with wide, shallow-draft hulls, allowing navigation in rough seas or in shallow river waters. The ships could be landed on beaches, and their light weight enabled them to be hauled over portages. These versatile ships allowed the Vikings to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, and as far south as Nekor. This period of Viking expansion, known as the Viking Age, constitutes an important element of the medieval history of Scandinavia, Great Britain, Ireland, Russia, and the rest of Europe.

Volunteer hosts went to the airport, picked up assigned students, fed them dinner, took them to the opening lecture at the Clay Center, put them in spare bedrooms for the night, then fed them breakfast this morning and will deliver the outstanding teens to buses that convey them to the mountain retreat where they undergo a month of intensive science training and outdoor fun.

Luckily, this year, enough local families volunteered to host all the brilliant youths. In the past, the number of guest homes sometimes fell short, and some of the visitors slept on cots and sleeping bags at local churches. They're adventurous teens and don't mind this makeshift camp-in but it's better if friendly hosts give them a more personal welcome for their stay.

Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in traveling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. Short track speed skating takes place on a smaller rink, normally the size of an ice hockey rink. Distances are shorter than in long track racing, with the longest Olympic race being 3000 meters. Races are usually held as knockouts, with the best two in heats of four or five qualifying for the final race, where medals are awarded. Disqualifications and falls are not uncommon. The sport originates from pack-style events held in North America and was officially sanctioned in the 1970s, becoming an Olympic sport in 1992. Although this form of speed skating is newer, it is growing faster than long track speed skating, largely because short track can be done on an ice hockey rink rather than a long-track oval.