optical activity, the ability of asymmetric compounds to rotate the orientation of planar polarized light. Such compounds and their mirror images are know as enantiomers, or optical isomers. Although differing in geometric arrangement, enantiomers possess identical chemical and physical properties. Since each type of enantiomer affects polarized light differently, optical activity can be used to identify which enantiomer is present in a sample and its purity. Certain molecular groups, known as chromophores, possess high optical activity due to mobile electrons that interact with light and are responsible for the color of certain objects (e.g. chlorophyll chromophore). Optical activity is measured by two methods: optical rotation, which observes a sample's effect on the velocities of right and left circularly polarized light beams; and circular dichroism, which observes a sample's absorption of right and left polarized light. See also polarization of light.

or vulcanism

Any of various processes and phenomena associated with the surface discharge of molten rock or hot water and steam, including volcanoes, geysers, and fumaroles. Most active volcanoes occur where two plates converge and one overrides the other (see plate tectonics). Volcanism can also occur along the axis of an oceanic ridge, where the plates move apart and magma wells up from the mantle. A few volcanoes occur within plates, far from margins. Some of these are thought to occur as a plate moves over a “hot spot” from which magma can penetrate to the surface; others appear to result from an extremely slow form of plate spreading.

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Ability of a substance to rotate the plane of polarization of a beam of light passed through it, either as crystals or in solution. Clockwise rotation as one faces the light source is “positive,” or dextrorotary; counterclockwise rotation “negative,” or levorotary. Louis Pasteur was the first to recognize that molecules with optical activity are stereoisomers (see isomerism). Optical isomers occur in pairs that are nonsuperimposable mirror images of one another. They have the same physical properties except for their effect on polarized light; in chemical properties they differ only in their interactions with other stereoisomers (see asymmetric synthesis).

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Performance by an animal of an act inappropriate for the stimulus or stimuli that evoked it. It usually occurs when an animal is torn between two conflicting drives, such as fear and aggression. Displacement activities often consist of comfort movements (e.g., grooming, scratching).

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Number expressing the ratio of a substance's chemical activity to its molar concentration (see mole). The measured concentration of a substance may not be an accurate indicator of its chemical effectiveness as represented by the equation for a particular reaction; in such cases, the activity is calculated by multiplying the concentration by the activity coefficient. In solutions, the activity coefficient is a measure of how much the solution differs from an ideal solution.

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