title: Tropic of Cancer

paragraphs: The Tropic of Cancer ("cancer" (♋) is Latin for crab) is one of the five major circles of latitude (imaginary lines around the Earth) that are often marked on maps of the Earth. This is the parallel of latitude that is 23° 26' 22" north of the Equator. At every June Solstice the Sun passes straight overhead on the tropic. This never happens anywhere north of the Tropic of Cancer.


title: Equinox

paragraphs: An equinox is when the sun passes directly over the equator. There are two equinoxes each year. Equinox can also mean either of the two days when this happens. On these days, the nights are equal in length at latitudes L° North and L° South. The word "equinox" comes from two Latin words meaning "equal" and "night".

paragraphs: Around the day of the equinox, the length of the day is a little over twelve hours and the length of the night is a little under twelve hours. They are not exactly equal because the sun is not a point in the sky and because the sunlight bends as it comes to earth. The exact day and time when this happens depend on how far away from the equator it is being measured. They occur on or around March 21 and September 21. Solstices fall around June 21st and December 21st at odd intervals.

paragraphs: The equinoxes are the beginning of spring, and autumn (or "fall" in the US).

paragraphs: The time of daylight is quite easy to measure. This was done in many cultures where festivals were celebrated at the equinoxes.


title: Teufelsbrücke

paragraphs: The Teufelsbrücke (bridge of the devil) is a bridge over the river Reuss in the Swiss canton of Uri.

paragraphs: The valley called "Schöllenenschlucht" is an important access route to the St.Gotthard alpine pass. However, the valley is very narrow, featuring a dangerous river Reuss.

paragraphs: The first bridge across the river was built in 1230. This was a wooden bridge. This meant that due to bad weather it had to be replaced often.

paragraphs: In the 16th century, it was replaced by a bridge of stone. That stone bridge was heavily damaged in the Napoleonic wars in 1799. Nobody could use the bridge because of the damage. Trade with Italy was done over the alpine pass at Splügen.

paragraphs: The first bridge was completely destroyed in a stormy night in 1888.

paragraphs: Only in 1820 could the order to build a new bridge be given. The construction of the bridge took 10 years.

paragraphs: In the middle of the 20th century, the second bridge was no longer able to handle the traffic. A third bridge, featuring two lanes, one for each direction, was built in 1958.

paragraphs: Building the first bridge was very hard. According to a local myth, the first bridge was built by the devil himself. The condition attached was that the devil should get the soul of the first to pass over the bridge. So, when the bridge was finished, people chased a goat over the bridge. Of course, the devil was furious, so he went to pick up a large stone (called "Teufelsstein", the devil's stone). He wanted to smash the bridge he just built to pieces. On his way to the ridge however, he encountered an old believing woman with a cross. Scared of the cross, he left the stone, and fled.

paragraphs: The devil's stone weighs 2000 tons. 300.000 Swiss Francs were used in 1977 to shift the stone 127 meters to make way for the motorway passing over the St.Gotthard pass.

paragraphs: Popular belief has it that the moving of the stone was the cause of an increased number of accidents on kilometre 16 on the St. Gotthard road tunnel.


title: Grandparent

paragraphs: The term grandparent means the parents of a person's father or mother. s have always been important members of a family. The role of a parent is often very different from the role of a grandparent. Parents are the providers and disciplinarians of their children. Grandparents are often much freer to enjoy and have fun with their grandchildren. A grandparent-grandchild relationship is usually much simpler than that of a parent and child.

paragraphs: The term 'grandparent' is used for both male and female genders. The male grandparent is called a grandfather. The female grandparent is a grandmother. When looking at the relationship from the point of view of the grandparent, the term grandchild is used. A grandchild is the child of a person's child. It can also be used based on gender. Grandchild is correct for either gender. Grandson is male. Granddaughter is female.

paragraphs: For example: Bob has a son named Rick. Rick, in turn, has 2 children; a boy (Bill) and a girl (Mary). Bob is the grandfather (male grandparent) of both Bill and Mary. Bill is the grandson (male grandchild) of Bob, and Mary is the granddaughter (female grandchild) of Bob. Rick's mother would be the grandmother (female grandparent) of both Mary and Bill.

paragraphs: There are a number of nicknames for a person's grandparents. These include 'grandpa', 'grandpapa', 'papa' and 'pawpa' for a grandfather. Nicknames for grandmothers include 'grandma', 'grammy', 'granny', and 'nanna'. There are also many unique nicknames. An example is American actress Goldie Hawn who did not want to be called 'grandma', instead came up with the nickname 'Glamma.'

paragraphs: Traditionally, grandparents were highly respected in most cultures. Today many grandparent-grandchild relationships are declining. Much of the modern world does not value older people the way societies did in the past. Also, popular entertainment, especially programs and movies aimed at 'tweens' (children 10 to 12 years old) portray adults as being foolish. This makes the involvement of grandparents more important than ever.

paragraphs: A person's great-grandparent's "parents" would be that person's "great-great-grandparents". Commonly the prefix "great-" is added, one for each additional generation. To avoid having to add several "greats" when discussing a direct ancestors, ordinals are commonly used instead. For example, a "great-great-grandfather" would be a "second great-grandfather". A "great-great-great-grandfather" would be a third great-grandfather, and so on. Some sources also use cardinal numbers for numbering greats. For example, a great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother becomes "six times great grandmother". However, sixth great-grandmother would be most commonly used.

paragraphs: Not counting the individual person in the relationship, a parent is the first generation of the person's ancestors. A grandparent is the second generation (from the individual). A great-grandparent would be the third generation and so a great-great grandparent would be in the fourth generation of ancestors, and so on. Another way of putting it is a person's second great-grandparent is a grandparent's grandparent.

paragraphs: In the past, many great-grandparents died long before their great-grandchildren were born. Today, people in many societies are living longer. This means many children get to know at least one of their great-grandparents.

paragraphs: The word 'family' is often used to mean the same as the term Nuclear family. Strictly speaking, a nuclear family is made up of a husband, a wife, and their children. It may also be used to include a stepparent, stepchildren or adopted children. However, the latter family unit is more commonly called a blended family. Close kin however extends the family unit. For example, second cousins are all descendants of one or both great-grandparents. Family units extending to second cousins are considered close kin. So the term includes great-grandparents as well. Third cousins (all those descended from second great-grandparents) are not considered close kin, but just family.

paragraphs: A person's ancestor tree is a binary tree. It is formed by the person, the parents (2), the grandparents (4), great-grandparents (8), and so on. With each increasing generation of great-grandparents the number doubles. In other words, a person's sixth great grandparents (great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents) would number 256 or formula_1 (2 to the 8th power). However, the number of individuals in such a tree grows exponentially and will eventually become impossibly high. For example, a single individual alive today would, over 30 generations going back to the High Middle Ages, have about formula_2 generations or just over a billion ancestors. That would be far more than the total world population at the time.

paragraphs: This paradox or impossible situation, is explained by having shared ancestors, which is called pedigree collapse. Instead of every person today having a family tree of all unique ancestors, many of these ancestors occupy more than one position in the pedigree. In other words, one's 15th great-grandfather may have been their 15th great-grandfather more than once if the person today is descended from children of both or all of his marriages. So in a typical family tree, the same ancestor may pop up in more than one place in the pedigree. Pedigree collapse is generally caused by close relatives marrying in the past, which was common in many societies. Even today, because most people do not know their ancestry beyond their grandparents, they are inadvertently marrying their own distant cousins. On average, a typical European marriage today is between sixth cousins (those descended from a common sixth great-grandparent). In closed societies the relationship is usually much closer.


title: Lepton

paragraphs: Leptons are elementary particles with spin 1/2 (a fermion) that are not affected by strong nuclear force. They are a family of particles that are different from the other known family of fermions, the quarks.

paragraphs: Electrons are a well-known example that are found in ordinary matter. There are six leptons: the electron, muon, and tau particles and their associated neutrinos. The different varieties of the elementary particles are commonly called "flavors", and the neutrinos here are considered to have distinctly different flavor. Of the six leptons, three have electric charge and three do not. The best known charged lepton is the electron (e). The other two charged leptons are the muon (µ) and the tau (τ), which are like electrons but much bigger. The charged leptons are all negative particles, their "antiparticles" are positively charged (for example, the antiparticle of the electron, e, is a positron, e).

paragraphs: The superparticle of a lepton is called a "slepton."


title: Jersey

paragraphs: Jersey is an island off the northwest coast of France. It is a crown dependency of the British monarchy. Jersey is called a "bailiwick" because the person who is the head of law for the island is called the "Bailiff". The Bailiwick of Jersey also includes the islands of the Minquiers and Ecréhous, where nobody lives. The other islands of the Channel Islands belong to the Bailiwick of Guernsey. The country code (also used for internet) is JE.

paragraphs: Over one hundred and six thousand people live on the main island. Thirty per cent of them live in its only town, Saint Helier.

paragraphs: Along with English and French, more than two thousand people speak Jèrriais, a dialectal form of the Norman language.

paragraphs: The Bailiwick of Jersey is not a part of the United Kingdom or of the European Union. It has its own parliament called the "States of Jersey" which passes laws for the island.

paragraphs: "Jersey" is divided into 12 parishes which elect their own administration.


title: East Timor

paragraphs: The Democratic Republic of East Timor or Timor Leste is a country in Southeast Asia. It is on the eastern side of the island of Timor. It also includes the smaller islands of Atauro and Jaco Island, and a small area, named Oecusse, inside the west side of Timor. Oecusse is an exclave, which means it is separated from the main part of the country by part of another country. That other country is Indonesia.

paragraphs: The capital and largest city, Dili, is home to one hundred and fifty thousand people. The next largest city is Baucau. (see List of settlements in East Timor).

paragraphs: East Timor gets its name from the Malay word for "east", "timur".

paragraphs: It is a member of the United Nations the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

paragraphs: For a long time, Portugal controlled the East Timor and called it the Colony of Portuguese Timor. In 1975, the Portuguese army left, and East Timor was invaded (taken over) by the Indonesian army in 1975. The invasion was very violent. The army stayed there until 1999, when they gave up control of the territory with the help of the United Nations.

paragraphs: At the time, the United States government said it did not know Indonesia was going to invade East Timor. But secret documents, released from 2002 to 2005, show that Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State of the United States, did know, and supported the invasion.

paragraphs: When it got its independence on 20 May 2002, it became the first country to become independent in the twenty-first century (since the year 2001). In 2006, when Montenegro became independent, East Timor was no longer the newest one.

paragraphs: Since then, East Timor has not been given much attention in the news. Recently, the Colombian music artist Shakira made a song named "Timor", which talks about the country. The attention is because there has been fighting in East Timor between gangs (groups of criminals with guns), security forces (the country's army). Australia, a large nearby country, sent troops in to make peace.

paragraphs: East Timor is a small country located between Australia and Indonesia, 3,000 years ago, East Timor was a mountainous island composed of migrant indigenous people from New Guinea, Australia and Melanesia.

paragraphs: There were some migrants from Austronesia searching for a new life on this island. Some of the people arrived from South China and North Indochina looking for trade because East Timor had resources which could be exported, like sandalwood, honey, slaves and wax.

paragraphs: During the Second World War, the Japanese occupied the region, encountered strong resistance to their attempts to force the population to grow foods for their troops and export. At the time 30% of the population died.

paragraphs: On 25 April 1974, the Portuguese Armed Forces headed by General António de Spínola organized a Military Coup against Salazar’s regime called the Revolution of Carnations. After this revolution, Portugal decided to give freedom to the colonized countries.

paragraphs: East Timor is the largest of the Lesser Sunda Islands. To the north of the island are the Ombai Strait, Wetar Strait, and the greater Banda Sea. To the south the Timor Sea separates the island from Australia.

paragraphs: The country has many mountains. Its highest point is Tatamailau (also known as Mount Ramelau) at . The climate is tropical and generally hot and humid.

paragraphs: The Nino Konis Santana National Park is on the eastern tip of the island. The park includes coral reefs, coastal area, and mountains.

paragraphs: East Timor is divided into 13 municipalites. These were formerly named districts. The municipalities are divided into administrative posts (former subdistricts), and further subdivided into sucos. The 13 municipalities are:


title: Country music

paragraphs: Country music (sometimes called Country & Western) is a form of music that has been enjoyed by people all over the United States for decades. Famous singers from this genre include Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, the Judds, Dolly Parton, Glen Campbell, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, George Strait, Kenny Rogers, Loretta Lynn, Randy Travis, Tanya Tucker, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith and Hank 3

paragraphs: Country music's strongest appeal is with American rural and small-town populations, but many American cities have a large audience. The music also has listeners in Canada, in England, and worldwide. The popularity of Country comes and goes with each decade. Sometimes a new movie (like "Midnight Cowboy" or "Urban Cowboy"), hit record (like "She Believes In Me" by Kenny Rogers), or new performer (like Randy Travis in the 1980s) raises new interest.

paragraphs: Country music has its roots and beginnings in folk music. The old cowboy and pioneer songs of the American frontier were popular in the early twentieth century, and so were arrangements of pop music songs by rural (or rural-sounding) performers. Country musicians also adapted new musical instruments, like the Hawaiian steel guitar.

paragraphs: Modern-day Country music started in the years after World War II. The Sons of the Pioneers and The Carter Family performed old and new songs, in a way that reminded people of singalongs and jamborees of the past. Hank Williams is often called the first songwriter of country music. His songs were easy to learn and remember, and their lyrics said things felt by many people. His music is still performed today. Some of the early rock and roll musicians, like Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley, began their career as country performers.

paragraphs: Nashville, Tennessee became the center of Country music, much like New Orleans became the center of Jazz. The Grand Ole Opry broadcast performances by The Carter Family and others, and became an important breaking ground in Country music. A television series, "Hee-Haw", was a long-running showcase for Country performers, and was hosted by musicians Buck Owens and Roy Clark. When cable television became popular in the United States, The Nashville Network (TNN) and Country Music Television (CMT) brought Country music videos and related programming to nationwide audiences. (In later years, as interests changed, TNN changed its programming. It also changed names, first to "The National Network", then to Spike TV, which is its name today.) Country music began in the Southern United States at 1920. And Bob Wills had developed the Western Swing.

paragraphs: Country-styled comedy is also popular, with writers and performers like Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy, and others. Many comedians have appeared with Country acts, including Andy Griffith, Ray Stevens, and George Lindsey. Lindsey, Lulu Roman and Junior Samples were cast members of "Hee-Haw", and so were Grandpa Jones and Minnie Pearl. Homer and Jethro and Pinkard & Bowden were duos of musicians who made parodies of Country and pop songs.

paragraphs: "The Beverly Hillbillies", a CBS television series, included music by Flatt and Scruggs. Members of the cast appeared in character at Country concerts, and on other television shows, to entertain audiences.


title: Tootsie

paragraphs: Tootsie is a 1982 American romantic comedy-drama movie from Columbia Pictures. It stars Dustin Hoffman as a struggling actor, who dresses as a woman and soon has a role in a soap opera.

paragraphs: In 1998 the United States Library of Congress chose the movie to keep in the National Film Registry.

paragraphs: The theme song to the movie, "It Might Be You", was a Top 40 hit in the U.S., and also hit #1 on the U.S. adult contemporary chart. Stephen Bishop sang the song and the music was by Dave Grusin / Marilyn and Alan Bergman.

paragraphs: The movie was nominated for ten Academy Awards. Lange was the only winner, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

paragraphs: The movie was number two in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs list in 2000.

paragraphs: It was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.


title: Lynyrd Skynyrd

paragraphs: Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American southern rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Their name comes from one of their school teachers who was named Leonard Skinner. They wrote songs including: "Sweet Home, Alabama", "Simple Man" and "Freebird." The lead singer's name was Ronnie Van Zant. After Ronnie died, his brother Johnny Van Zant became lead singer.

paragraphs: On October 20, 1977, the band was on tour flying to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for their next gig, when their 1977 Convair 240 plane ran out of fuel and crashed in a heavily wooded area. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick and the pilots were killed in the crash. The rest of the band and crew were injured and temporarily split up. They reunited in 1987 with Van Zant's younger brother Johnny as their new singer.


title: Peter Handke

paragraphs: Peter Handke (born December 6, 1942 in Griffen (Carinthia)) is an Austrian author and translator of books.

paragraphs: Peter Handke is known for his extremely critical (and perhaps even absurd) plays. Perhaps his best-known play is called "Publikumsbeschimpfung" (translates roughly as "insulting /offending the audience"). The play consists of actors insulting and offending the audience, and later congratulating them for the good performance. The play has been labelled as "antitheater".

paragraphs: In 2019, Handke was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.


IDD


title: Density

paragraphs: Density is a measurement that compares the amount of matter an object has to its volume. An object with much matter in a certain volume has high density. An object with little matter in the same amount of volume has a low density.

paragraphs: Density is found by dividing the mass of an object by its volume.

paragraphs: where "ρ" is the density, "m" is the mass, and "V" is the volume.

paragraphs: In general, density can be changed by changing either the pressure or the temperature. Increasing the pressure always increases the density of a material. Increasing the temperature usually lowers the density, but there are exceptions. For example, the density of water increases slightly between its melting point at 0 °C and 4 °C. When water freezes, it expands by about 9% in volume, making ice that is less dense than liquid water. Water expands as it drops below 4 °C.

paragraphs: Fresh water is often used as a standard of relative density. This is called specific gravity.

paragraphs: The most common SI units for density are g/cm and kg/m. When the numerator is much larger than the denominator, that means the substance has a higher density. When the denominator is much larger than the numerator, the substance has a lower density.

paragraphs: "Density" sometimes means the ratio between other properties instead of mass and volume. Then it means how much of a property can be found in a specific piece of what they are looking at. For example, "population density" is how many people live within the same amount of land area. The population density in the city is higher than the country side because people live closer to each other in the city. In computers, "storage density" is how much data can fit on a data storage device in relation to its physical size. A Blu-ray disc has a higher storage density than a DVD which has a higher storage density than a CD, even though they all have almost exactly the same volume.


title: Gram

paragraphs: A gram, or gramme, is a unit of measure in the metric system. It measures mass, or how much matter something is. The symbol is g. One gram used to be defined as the mass of one cubic centimetre of pure water at 3.98 degrees Celsius. Now one gram is defined as 1/1000 of a kilogram. A milligram is 1/1000 of a gram.


title: Longitude

paragraphs: Longitude is a way to say where a place is on the Earth. It is measured starting from an imaginary north-south line called the Prime Meridian. (A meridian is an imaginary line drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole.) Longitude says how far east (positive numbers) or west (negative numbers) of the Prime Meridian any place is.

paragraphs: Longitude is measured using degrees, the same way an angle ihs. The Prime Meridian is 0° (zero degrees), and the farthest away is +180° eastward and -180° westward. Unlike latitude, which has the equator as a natural starting position, there is no natural starting position for longitude. Other meridians have been used in the past, but most scientists now agree to use the Prime Meridian.

paragraphs: For centuries navigators at sea were seldom able to know their longitude. The problem was solved by making better clocks (chronometers) in the early 19th century.

paragraphs: Longitude, as opposed to latitude does not maintain a constant distance between degrees since meridians all come together at the poles and are far apart at the equator. This means people near the North or South Pole can cross many degrees of longitude by travelling a short distance.


title: Hilary Duff

paragraphs: Hilary Erhard Duff (often mistakenly spelled as Hillary Duff) (born September 28, 1984) is an American actress and singer. She got famous by being in the television show "Lizzie McGuire". Since then, she has gone onto a movie career, with roles in mainstream pictures. Among the movies she plays in are "Cheaper by the Dozen", "The Perfect Man", "A Cinderella Story", "Raise Your Voice", "Material Girls" and independent movies such as "War, Inc." and "Greta". Duff has also ventured into a music career as a pop musician, releasing 8 albums (for example "Most Wanted", "Dignity", "Metamorphosis", "Hilary Duff") and 15 music videos (for example "Reach Out", "With Love", "Stranger", "Wake Up", "So Yesterday", "Come Clean"). Lately she has also ventured into a fashion career as a designer for DKNY, with her new line "Femme for DKNY".

paragraphs: In June 2018, Duff and her boyfriend Matthew Koma announced that they are expecting a baby girl.


title: Oil platform

paragraphs: An oil platform is a large structure placed in the sea. It is used to drill for oil or natural gas at the bottom of the sea. The platform may be attached to the sea floor (stationary)or it might be movable(mobile).

paragraphs: In general, oil platforms are located on the continental shelf. As of 2006, drilling for resources up to 8km away from the platform was possible.


title: Continental shelf

paragraphs: A continental shelf is the part of the continent that is under water. The shelf was part of the land during the ice ages in the glacial periods, but under water in the interglacial periods. We are at present in an interglacial period.

paragraphs: Every continent is in the sea, like an island. Most of the island is above the water line, and we see it as a continent. Some of it though, is below the water line. Beyond the continental shelf, the bottom goes down to much greater depths.

paragraphs: The continental shelf is a shallow ocean. It varies in depth, up to 140 metres deep. It varies greatly in its width. At the leading edge of a moving continental plate there will be little or no shelf. The western edge of the Americas are an example. The shelf on a passive edge of a plate will be wide and shallow. The widest shelf is the Siberian shelf in the Arctic Ocean: it is 1500 km (930 miles) in width.

paragraphs: There have been, at some periods, shallow seas "inside" continents. These are called epicontinental seas. Much of present-day North America was covered by an epicontinental sea called the Sundance Sea during the Jurassic period. In the Cretaceous an even larger area was covered by the Western Interior Seaway.

paragraphs: Continental seas have the richest life of the oceans, more species and greater numbers than anywhere else. This is because it has both sunlight and nutrients for photosynthesis. This causes microscopic algae and cyanobacteria to bloom, and then animals eat the phytoplankton. Most of the nutrients in the oceans are washed down from the continents by rivers. In particular, the continents are almost the only source for some key elements such as iron. The lack of nutrients away from continents explains why so much of the Pacific Ocean is almost barren of life, and why the shelves are so rich in life.

paragraphs: The shelf usually ends at a point of decreasing slope (called the shelf break). The sea floor below the break is the continental slope. The character of the shelf changes dramatically at the shelf break, where the continental slope begins. With a few exceptions, the shelf break is located at a remarkably uniform depth of roughly ; this is likely a hallmark of past ice ages, when sea level was lower than it is now.


title: Mariana Trench

paragraphs: The Mariana Trench is the deepest known submarine trench. It is also the deepest known location on Earth itself. It lies south and east of the Mariana Islands, and has a depth up to 10,971 m (7 miles). The western end of the trench is near Guam.

paragraphs: The trench is about 2,550 kilometres (1,580 miles) long but has a mean width of only 69 kilometres (43 miles).

paragraphs: The deepest part of the trench is known as the Challenger Deep. It is named after the British Royal Navy survey ship "HMS Challenger", whose expedition of 1872–76 made the first recordings of its depth.

paragraphs: A 2009 sonar mapping of the Challenger Deep from the "Kilo Moana" found a spot with a depth of (6.82 miles). The sonar system has an accuracy of better than 0.2% of water depth. <ref name="Daily reports for R/V KILO MOANA"></ref><ref name="Scientic Equipment aboard the R/V KILO MOANA"></ref> Water pressure is more than a thousand times as great as at the surface.

paragraphs: The Challenger Deep has been reached four times by submersibles, namely the manned bathyscaphe "Trieste" on 23 January 1960, the unmanned robotic deep-sea probes "Kaiko" (Japanese) in 1995 and "Nereus" (U.S.) in 2009, and by James Cameron in the Deepsea Challenger on 26 March, 2012. Cameron was able to film a 3D movie of the bottom of the trench.

paragraphs: The HMS "Challenger" expedition found radiolaria in the two dredged samples taken when the Challenger Deep was first discovered.

paragraphs: On their 1960 descent, the crew of the "Trieste" noted that the floor consisted of diatomaceous ooze and reported observing "some type of flatfish, resembling a sole, about 1 foot long and 6 inches across" lying on the seabed. The report has since been questioned, with suggestions that it may have been a sea cucumber. The video camera on board the "Kaiko" probe spotted a sea cucumber, a scale worm and a shrimp at the bottom. At the bottom of the Challenger deep, the "Nereus" probe spotted one polychaete worm about an inch long.

paragraphs: An analysis of the sediment samples collected by "Kaiko" found large numbers of simple organisms at .

paragraphs: The overwhelming majority of the organisms collected were simple, soft-shelled foraminifera (432 species according to National Geographic).

paragraphs: Eighty-five percent of the specimens were organic, soft-shelled forams. This is unusual compared to samples of sediment from other deep-sea environments, where the percentage of organic-walled foraminifera ranges from 5% to 20%. As small organisms with hard, calcareous shells have trouble growing at extreme depths because of the high solubility of calcium carbonate in the pressurized water, scientists theorize that the preponderance of soft-shelled organisms in the Challenger Deep may have resulted from survivors of the biosphere present when the Challenger Deep was shallower than it is now.

paragraphs: The trench is one of the results of a large boundary where two oceanic tectonic plates have converged (collided).

paragraphs: At the boundary, the western edge of the Pacific Plate is subducted beneath the small Mariana Plate. Because the Pacific plate is the largest of all the tectonic plates on Earth, crustal material at its western edge has had up to 170 million years to compact and become very dense; hence its great height-difference relative to the higher-riding Mariana Plate, at the point where the Pacific Plate crust is subducted. This deep area is the Mariana trench proper. The movement of these plates is also responsible for the formation of the Mariana Islands.


title: Mariana Islands

paragraphs: The Mariana Islands (also the Marianas; up to the early 20th century sometimes called "Islas de los Ladrones" meaning "Islands of Thieves") are a group of islands made up by the summits of 15 volcanic mountains in the western Pacific Ocean.

paragraphs: They are the southern part of a seamount range that goes on for 1,565 miles (2,519 km) from Guam to near Japan. The Marianas are the northernmost islands of a larger island group called Micronesia. The Marianas have a total land area of 396 square miles (1026 km²) and are composed of two administrative units:

paragraphs: The first European to discover the island group was Ferdinand Magellan in 1521. In 1667 Spain formally claimed them, and named them after Spanish queen consort and later regent Mariana of Austria.


title: Image scanner

paragraphs: In computing, an image scanner is a device used to transfer images or text into a computer. There are special models for scanning photo negatives, or to scan books. In the computer, the signal from the scanner is transferred to a digital image. This image can then be edited, printed, etc. All scanners have special parts which are used to take a picture from an object.

paragraphs: Charge-coupled device or Contact Image Sensor parts take the light from the object and change it into a digital signal. The digital signal is then transferred to the computer memory or is read in the scanner's processor. With some software it can be changed to a compressed digital image, like JPEG or PNG. Text printed or written by hand can be changed to ASCII code by an OCR program.


Scanner


title: Brassière

paragraphs: A brassière, commonly called a bra, is an undergarment for women. Its main purpose is to support their breasts, but is sometimes also used for sexual attraction in the form of lingerie. The bra is a nineteenth century invention which took off as a fashion garment in the 20th century.

paragraphs: Brassière measurement (also called bust size or bra size) refers to the size of bra a woman wears. Bra sizes were first introduced in the 1910s. The sizes vary from one manufacturer to another. Bra size systems are often used to label off-shelf bras and not custom-made bras.

paragraphs: The term "cup", in relation to bras, began being used in 1916 when two patents were issued. Cup sizes are given in letters such as A, B, C, etc.

paragraphs: Bra sizes in most countries have a number and a letter (for example, 34B). The number comes from the measurement of the ribcage directly underneath the breasts. The letter is a measure of how much larger the breasts are than the ribcage. This is found by measuring the chest over the breasts (across the nipples) and subtracting the ribcage measurement from the breast measurement, then finding the matching letter of the alphabet. For example, someone with a 3-inch difference between the breast measurement and the ribcage measurement would have a C-cup bra. However, this does not always work, since different manufacturers have differently-sized bras. Many women prefer to find a brand and size that works for them by trial and error.


title: Torture

paragraphs: Torture is when someone puts another person in pain. This pain may be physical or psychological. People who have been tortured often suffer from long term physical problems or mental health issues and the person may even die.

paragraphs: Reasons for torture can include punishment, revenge, political re-education, deterrence, and interrogation. Victims or third parties may be forced to take actions against their will. Torture may for the sadistic gratification of those watching the torture.

paragraphs: A common reason for torture is to get information from the victim, for example, to get confessions or the names of accomplices. Information got by torture is unreliable, because people suffering tend to say whatever the questioner wants them to say. Nevertheless, it was used for centuries by all kinds of societies. It was authorised by the Christian Church during the Inquisition from 1252 to 1816.

paragraphs: In 1600 Anton Praetorius fought against torture and against the hunting of witches.

paragraphs: Almost all countries agree that torture is a violation of human rights. On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 5 states, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

paragraphs: Amnesty International is the leading non-governmental organisation against the use of torture. It has regularly reported on which countries it thinks still use torture. It says "Over the last five years, Amnesty has reported torture in at least three quarters of the world - 141 countries".


title: 1680s

paragraphs: For births and deaths in the 1860s see and .


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (movie)

paragraphs: Cheaper by the Dozen refers to two movies based on the book of the same name by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey:


Dependency


title: Iqaluit

paragraphs: Iqaluit is the capital of and largest community in Nunavut Territory in Canada. It is the most northerly capital in Canada, and is also Canada's fastest growing community.

paragraphs: The name "" is Inuktitut word meaning "place of many fish". It is built on the mouth of the Sylvia Grinnell River, on Frobisher Bay. English explorer Martin Frobisher sailed into the bay in 1576 and thought he had discovered the Northwest Passage. The settlement was called Frobisher Bay from 1955 until 1987. The weather in there is normally cold.


title: Phasor

paragraphs: A phasor is a tool in mathematics. It is used to show numbers in a different coordinate system. Certain electronic components have models that can be described more easily by the use of phasors. Inductors add a +90º "phase", while capacitors add -90º "phase". Both elements work on the imaginary axis. Resistors have 0º "phase", and are considered real.


title: Svalbard

paragraphs: Svalbard is a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean. It is the most northern part of Norway. It is about halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Spitsbergen is the largest island, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya. The islands are governed by the Governor of Svalbard. The government is located at Longyearbyen. Other settlements include research outposts, the Russian mining community of Barentsburg, the research community of Ny-Ålesund and the mining outpost of Sveagruva.

paragraphs: The islands were first used as a whaling base in the 17th and 18th centuries. After this, they were abandoned. Coal mining started at the beginning of the 20th century, and several permanent villages were built. The Spitsbergen Treaty of 1920 states that Norway is in control of Svalbard. The 1925 Svalbard Act made Svalbard part of Norway. These treaties also set out rules that economic activities could be done freely and that no military activities can take place. There are only two mining companies, one Norwegian and one Russian. Research and tourism are important industries. There are no roads to connect the settlements. Instead, snowmobiles, aircraft and boats serve as transport. Svalbard Airport in Longyearbyen is the main airport.

paragraphs: In summer, the plants grow quickly (one plant every 25-78 days) during the midnight sun. Svalbard is a breeding ground for many seabirds. There are also polar bears, reindeer, and mammals that live in the sea. Seven national parks and 23 nature reserves cover two-thirds of Svalbard. This protects the fragile natural environment. Sixty percent of land is covered by glaciers, and the islands have many mountains and fjords.

paragraphs: Svalbard's climate is a combination of an Arctic climate (Köppen: ET) tempered by the North Atlantic Current. Nordenskiöld Land is the warmest and wettest part of the archipelago, caused by the convergence of mild and humid air from the south and cold air from the north. Average summer highs are typically while average winter highs are . Svalbard experiences midnight sun from 19 April through 23 August, polar night from 27 October through 14 February and civil polar night from 14 November through 29 January. However, due to shading from mountains, the sun is not visible in Svalbard until around 8 March. Snow typically covers the town from November through March. The warmest temperature ever record in Svalbard was an extraordinary in July 1977 and the coldest was a frigid in March 1986.

paragraphs: Despite its extreme northerly location, Svalbard has recorded a temperature above freezing in all months. One example was in February 2012, when the mild temperatures had an affect on both people and wildlife. The climate is known to be warming very rapidly. Svalbard has also not recorded a temperature below freezing in July.

paragraphs: Warm temperatures can occasionally occur in Summer. The most recent warm spell was at the end of July to the beginning of August in 2015, when the mercury hit .

paragraphs: Bjornoya (Bear Island) holds the record for the lowest average annual sunshine total in Europe, at just 595 hours, sunnier than some parts of Scotland. Conversely, Longyearbyen, further to the north-west, receives almost twice as much sunshine as Bjornoya.


title: Margrethe II of Denmark

paragraphs: Margrethe II ("Margrethe Alexandrine Þórhildur Ingrid") (born 16 April 1940) is the Queen regnant of Denmark. Only very rarely is her name anglicized as Margaret II.

paragraphs: Princess Margrethe was born at Amalienborg Palace, Copenhagen, to Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Ingrid. She was baptised on 14 May 1940 at the Naval Church in Copenhagen. As King Christian X of Denmark was also the King of Iceland at the time of her birth, the Princess was given an Icelandic name, "Þórhildur" (spelled with the Icelandic thorn character, simplified as "th").

paragraphs: She studied archaeology at Girton College, Cambridge in 1960-1961. She was also at the London School of Economics in 1965.

paragraphs: Margrethe was not born to be monarch, even though she was the eldest child of the Crown Prince, later King. At the time of her birth, only males could ascend the throne of Denmark.

paragraphs: The act of succession was changed in 1953.

paragraphs: Her father King Frederik IX died in 1972, and Queen Margrethe II became the first female Danish Sovereign.

paragraphs: In 2018, her husband Prince Henrik died of pneumonia in February and her first cousin Princess Elisabeth died in June.


title: Enterprise architecture

paragraphs: Enterprise architecture is comprehensive framework used to manage and align an organization's business processes, information technology, computer hardware and software, local and wide area networks, people, operations and projects with the organization's overall strategy.

paragraphs: A strong enterprise architecture process helps to answer basic questions.

paragraphs: There are numerous enterprise architecture frameworks defined. Here is a list of a few prevalent frameworks:


title: Mutilation

paragraphs: Mutilation is when the way a human body looks is permanently changed. This change may be due to an accident, or it may be the result of torture.

paragraphs: Losing a part of the body (like a hand), or permanent scars (different looking skin after a bad injury heals) on the body, might be a result of mutilation.


title: Heiner Zieschang

paragraphs: Heiner Zieschang (born 12 November 1936 in Kiel; died 5 April 2004) was a German mathematician. He was a professor at Ruhr-University Bochum from 1968 till 2002. In 1996 he was made an honorary doctor of the University of Toulouse and in 1997 he was an honorary professor of Moscow State University.


title: Jan Mayen

paragraphs: Jan Mayen is an island in the Arctic Ocean. It is part of Norway. The island's area is 373 km². A large part of the island is an active volcano, the Beerenberg, which is 2,277m high. Jan Mayen is 600 km north of Iceland, 500 km east of Greenland and 1000 km west of the Norwegian mainland.

paragraphs: There is a radio station and a meteorological station on the island. The staff at these stations are the only people living on the island.

paragraphs: There are many claims and stories about discovery of the island. Some claims and possible discoveries are as early as the beginning of the 6th century. However, the first discovery that is certain was in 1614. The Dutchman Jan Jacobs May van Schellinkhout visited the island then and it is named for him. His first mate made maps of some of the coast.

paragraphs: It is incorrectly assumed that Henry Hudson discovered the island in 1607 and called it "Hudson's Tutches" or "Touches", but there is no evidence for this. Thereafter it was allegedly seen several times by navigators who claimed its discovery and renamed it. Thus, in 1611 or the following year whalers from Hull named it "Trinity Island"; in 1612 Jean Vrolicq, a French whaler, claimed in 1629 that he had discovered the island and called it "Île de Richelieu;" and in 1614 English captain John Clarke named it Isabella.

paragraphs: The island has very few residents. The Long Range Navigation (Loran-C) base has a staff of 14 and a weather services station has a staff of four. The staff members of both stations live in Olonkinbyen. The island has no native people living on it, but is given the ISO 3166-1 country code SJ, the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .no (.sj is allocated but not used) and data code JN. Its amateur radio call sign prefix is JX.


title: Gate

paragraphs: In the beginning, a gate was a place between two parts of a wall, or a fence which could be opened and closed to let people go through it.

paragraphs: In the Middle Ages, a city gate also allowed people to go into a (walled) city.

paragraphs: Nowadays, people also talk about "gates" at airports. When going on an aircraft, people need to get together in a certain area of the airport first. They then pass through some kind of doorway to get onto the plane. That is what is called "gate".


title: City gate

paragraphs: A city gate is a gate that is found in many medieval cities. It was the place where people could enter or leave a walled city. Very often, city gates were closed during the night.


title: Bern

paragraphs: Bern is the capital city of Switzerland. It is also the capital of the canton of Bern.

paragraphs: As of early 2006, 127.000 people live in the city.

paragraphs: Bern was started in 1191 by Berchthold V. von Zähringen. A legend says that he said he would name the city after the next animal he caught. So when he caught a bear (German: "Bär") the city was named Bern. Zähringen built the city in the half-circle the river Aare makes.

paragraphs: Public streetcars and buses are run by an organization called BernMobil. There are 3 streetcar lines and about 15 bus lines. Most of the lines are in the city but some travel away from the city. There is also the Marzilibahn, a funicular (inclined- or cliff-railway) which goes from the banks of the Aare up to the Federal Building (German: "Bundeshaus"). The Marzilibahn is 105 meters long. It is the shortest funicular in Europe. Another funicular, called the Gurtenbahn, goes from the section of Bern called Wabern, which is on the river Aare, up to the top of Gurten, a large hill 585 meters high that is just south of Bern. A small airport, Belpmoos, is located a short distance south of Bern in Belp.

paragraphs: Each year, on the 4th Monday in November, there is the Onion Market in Bern, where onions are sold. Many people visit the market in the early morning and throw confetti. They also hit other people with hammers made out of plastic

paragraphs: Since 1996, every August 1 (a national holiday in Switzerland) they hold the Aareleuchten. The Aareleuchten is paid for by SwissAid. During the festival, people put small ships with a light in them into the river Aare. All of these small lights make the Aare "glow."


title: Demo (software)

paragraphs: A demo is a small portion or sample of a product. Usually the product is music, video game, or computer program. Demos are usually given to people who might be interested the product to try it before buying and advertise the product.


title: Preview

paragraphs: A preview is a small piece of something used to show what the whole is like before it is generally available. Typically, previews exist for movies and possibly video games. They usually are a small portion of video showing what the game or movie is like to advertise it.

paragraphs: In software, a preview can be a feature that allows a user to see what a document looks like before the user prints it out, or posts it on a website.


title: Atomic mass

paragraphs: An atomic mass (symbol: "m") is the mass of a single atom of a chemical element. It includes the masses of the 3 subatomic particles that make up an atom: protons, neutrons and electrons.

paragraphs: Atomic mass can be expressed in grams. However, because each atom has a very small mass, this is not very helpful. Instead, atomic mass is expressed in unified atomic mass units (unit symbol: u). 1 atomic mass unit is defined as 1/12 of the mass of a single carbon-12 atom. 1 u has a value of 1.660 539 066 60(50) × 10 kg.

paragraphs: A carbon-12 atom has a mass of 12 u. Because electrons are so light, we can say that the mass of a carbon-12 atom is made of 6 protons and 6 neutrons. Because the masses of protons and neutrons are almost exactly the same, we can say that both protons and neutrons have a mass of roughly 1 u. Hence, we can get a rough value of an atom's mass in atomic mass units by working out the sum of the number of protons and the number of neutrons in the nucleus, which is called the mass number. The atomic mass of an atom is usually within 0.1 u of the mass number.

paragraphs: The number of protons an atom has determines what element it is. However, most elements in nature consist of atoms with different numbers of neutrons. An atom of an element with a certain number of neutrons is called an isotope. For example, the element chlorine has two common isotopes: chlorine-35 and chlorine-37. Both isotopes of chlorine have 17 protons, but chlorine-37 has 20 neutrons, 2 more neutrons than chlorine-35, which has 18. Each isotope has its own atomic mass, called its isotopic mass. In the case of chlorine, chlorine-35 has a mass of around 35 u, and chlorine-37 around 37 u.

paragraphs: As mentioned above, note that the atomic mass of an atom is not the same as its mass number. The mass number (symbol: A) of an atom is the sum of the number of protons and the number of neutrons in the nucleus. Mass numbers are always whole numbers with no units. Also, "relative" isotopic mass is not the same as isotopic mass, and relative atomic mass (also called "atomic weight") is not the same as atomic mass.

paragraphs: A relative isotopic mass is the mass of an isotope relative to 1/12 of the mass of a carbon-12 atom. In other words, a relative isotopic mass tells you the number of times an isotope of an element is heavier than one-twelfth of an atom of carbon-12. The word "relative" in relative isotopic mass refers to this scaling relative to carbon-12. Relative isotopic mass is similar to isotopic mass and has exactly the same numerical value as isotopic mass, whenever isotopic mass is expressed in atomic mass units. However, unlike isotopic mass, relative isotopic mass values have no units.

paragraphs: Like relative isotopic mass, a relative atomic mass (symbol: "A") is a ratio with no units. A relative atomic mass is the ratio of the average mass per atom of an element from a given sample to 1/12 the mass of a carbon-12 atom. We find the relative atomic mass of a sample of an element by working out the abundance-weighted mean of the relative isotopic masses. For example, to continue the chlorine example from above, if there is 75% of chlorine-35 and 25% of chlorine-37 in a sample of chlorine,


title: Price

paragraphs: There are different definitions of price. Perhaps the simplest definition is to say "price is the value of a product (good) or service". A price is expressed in other goods, services, or in money.

paragraphs: Here is an example about price: Peter raises sheep for their wool. Sally raises chickens for their eggs. Winter is coming, so Sally wants to make a warm wool coat.

paragraphs: She first measures how much wool she needs for a coat. She thinks she needs the wool from 2 sheep for the coat. She then goes to Peter and asks him what he wants for the wool she needs. Peter then tells her the price he is asking for his wool. Sally might trade some of her chicken eggs for the wool.

paragraphs: Sometimes trading eggs for wool is difficult. So people invented something they called "money". This is cash or currency used for trading.

paragraphs: If Peter does not need eggs, he will not trade his wool for eggs. The price for his wool "in eggs" is zero, but Peter does need something else. So Sally goes to a market and sells some of her eggs for money. Then she goes to Peter and gives him money for the wool. How much money Peter wants for his wool is the price.


Doping


title: Gaza Strip

paragraphs: The Gaza Strip is a self-governing stretch of land along the Mediterranean. The main city in the Gaza Strip is called Gaza. The strip is currently governed by Hamas, a group declared as terrorists by many western nations for its launching of rockets into Israel.

paragraphs: The territory is 41 kilometers (25 mi) long, and from 6 to 12 kilometers (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide, with a total area of 365 square kilometers (141 sq mi). About 1.8 million Palestinians live on a surface of roughly 360 km², making Gaza the 3rd most densely populated area on Earth.

paragraphs: Gaza was formed in 1967 when Israel moved Jewish settlements and troops into Gaza. Israel controlled the Strip's borders, coastline and airspace until 2005, when it withdrew. An election was held in January 2006, which Hamas won. Since then, Israel has conducted several wars with Hamas due to alleged terrorist acts, causing much of the infrastructure of Gaza to be non functional. It has been placed under an Israeli and U.S.-led international economic and political boycott since 2006.


title: Unemployment

paragraphs: Unemployment or Joblessness is when a person who is of normal working age (usually about 15-18 to about 60-65) does not have a paid job. They therefore do not get paid a salary. In some parts of the world, there are social networks to care for the unemployed.

paragraphs: The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed people divided by the total population of that age group of a country. The unemployment rate is influenced by many things, including the government of a country to the average age of a country's population. Unemployment is a bad thing for society.

paragraphs: A certain amount of unemployment is natural. 'Full employment' does not mean no-one is out of work. Governments now aim to increase the number of jobs (which can be done) rather than cut out all unemployment (which cannot be done).


title: Salary

paragraphs: A salary is a type of payment a person gets for work done for a job. A "salary" is usually paid for a fixed period of time, such as a month or a week. Generally, it does not matter how many hours are worked, the salary remains the same. If someone is not a salaried employee, they are generally an "hourly" employee and are paid a certain amount for each hour's which is known as "wages."


title: Instant noodles

paragraphs: Instant noodles is a dish used in cooking. These noodles were cooked at the factory and packaged as dried noodles, often with a special powder that adds flavor to the noodles. The dish is prepared very quickly (usually 5 minutes or less), simply by putting the noodles together in hot water and then adding the powder. A kind of noodle soup is then ready to eat.

paragraphs: "Instant noodles" are very popular in Asia, and among many students and poorer people, because they are very cheap to produce and to buy. In the United States, a package of instant noodles sometimes costs only ten cents.

paragraphs: There are many companies who manufacture Instant Noodles, some of them being:


title: Louis Armstrong

paragraphs: Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971) nicknamed Satchmo or Pops was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana. He sang the blues and played the trumpet and the cornet. He was famous in many countries. He was also known for his good singing voice and he also encouraged the style of scat to the jazz world. Armstrong won many awards during his career.

paragraphs: He died of a heart attack in July 6, 1971 in Corona, Queens, New York City.


title: CBS

paragraphs: CBS Broadcasting Inc. (CBS) (full name: Columbia Broadcasting System) is an American television network. Along with ABC, NBC and FOX, it is one of the country's four major television networks.


title: Prime Minister of Canada

paragraphs: The Prime Minister of Canada () is the head of government and cabinet ministers of Canada. The position is indirectly elected as the leader of the most seats in the House of Commons of Canada. In 2015, Justin Trudeau became the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada.

paragraphs: As of , there are six living former prime ministers of Canada, the oldest being Jean Chrétien (born 1934). The most recent former Prime Minister to die was John Turner, on September 18, 2020. The living former prime ministers, in order of service, are:


title: Magnetism

paragraphs: In physics, magnetism is a force that can attract (pull closer) or repel (push away) objects that have a magnetic material like iron inside them ("magnetic objects"). In simpler words, it is a property of certain substances which pull closer or repel other objects.

paragraphs: Magnetism can be made by a permanent "magnet", or by electricity in a wire. This is called an electromagnet. When magnets are put near magnetic objects, the magnet and the object are pulled toward each other. This is called magnetic attraction. Magnets can also repel (push away) other magnets. Most objects that are attracted to magnets have iron in them. This is ferromagnetism. Some metals, such as aluminum, are much more weakly attracted. This is paramagnetism. A few metals are weakly repelled. This is diamagnetism.

paragraphs: Magnets have an unseen area around them called a "magnetic field". Magnetic objects inside this unseen field are attracted to the magnet. Magnetic things outside the magnetic field are not attracted to the magnet. This is why a magnet must be close to an object to attract it.

paragraphs: The poles of two magnets repel or attract each other. Different poles attract each other. For example, if the south pole of one magnet is put near the south pole of another magnet, the magnets will repel each other. This will also happen with two north poles that are put near each other. If a north pole is put near a south pole, the magnets will attract each other until they stick to each other and can be hard to pull apart.

paragraphs: Magnetism is caused by electrons (the negative particles in atoms that are also electric charges) spinning. The more a group of electrons spin in the same direction, the stronger the magnetic force. In a magnet, many electrons are spinning in the same direction.

paragraphs: We can magnetize a small piece of iron by 'rubbing' it with a magnet. The electrons in the iron get 'spun' by the passing magnet just like a basketball player spinning a basketball.

paragraphs: Magnets have many uses. One of them was found long ago when explorers found that a magnet could be used as a compass to show the direction of north & south.

paragraphs: Electromagnets are another kind of magnet. They only work when electricity is running through them. An electric current makes a magnetic field. If you wrap the wire into a coil, the electrons spin around the coil and make a stronger magnetic domain.

paragraphs: Often, these magnets work by using a coil of wire that makes a magnetic field when there is a current in it. In addition to this coil of wire, a large piece of metal, usually iron, is placed inside the coil to increase the magnetic field made. Though most large electromagnets employ many solenoids to lift heavy objects, smaller solenoids are used in everyday electronics. For example, they are used to change voltage in a transformer.

paragraphs: Electromagnets are used to make many things work like computers, televisions and radios and also doorbells.

paragraphs: Electromagnetic radiation including radio waves and light waves are used for communication including broadcasting and optical fiber, and for many other purposes.

paragraphs: The North Magnetic Pole is the point on the surface of Earth's northern hemisphere where the planet's magnetic field points vertically downwards. There is only one place where this occurs, near to (but distinct from) the Geographic North Pole.

paragraphs: Its southern hemisphere counterpart is the South Magnetic Pole. Since the Earth's magnetic field is not exactly symmetrical, a line drawn from one to the other does not pass through the geometric centre of the Earth.

paragraphs: The North Magnetic Pole moves over time due to magnetic changes in the Earth's core. In 2001, it was near Ellesmere Island in northern Canada at . As of 2015, the pole is thought to have moved east beyond the Canadian Arctic territorial claim to .

paragraphs: Earth does change its magnetic poles every million years (plus or minus 200,000 years). Before a change of magnetic field, the Earth's magnetic field becomes weaker and moves around, like a spinning top would before it falls. The Earth has already had hundreds of changes ("flip flops"). Scientists know this as a result of studies of magnetism on the sea floor, near the mid-Atlantic ridge. The lava slowly moves out of this crevasse (gap in the sea floor) and then it cools with its iron oxide molecules all pointing in the new direction of the Earth's magnetic field. We can look at the history of this magnetic field today to look back at the many flips in the past.

paragraphs: Reversals occur at intervals from less than 0.1 million years to as much as 50 million years. The most recent geomagnetic reversal, called the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, occurred about 780,000 years ago. Another global reversal of the Earth's field, called the Laschamp event, occurred during the last ice age (41,000 years ago). However, because of its brief duration it is called an "excursion".


title: Althing

paragraphs: The Althing () is the national parliament of Iceland. It is the oldest legislature in the world that still exists. It was founded in 930 at Thingvellir (the "assembly fields"), which is almost east of Iceland's capital, Reykjavík. When the Althing was formed, that was the beginning of Iceland as a country.

paragraphs: Iceland is divided into six electoral constituencies. Each constituency elects nine members. Another nine seats are divided between parties based on how many people in the whole country voted for them.

paragraphs: The Althing formed around the year 930, about 60 years after humans arrived on the island of Iceland. It started as a meeting of the country's most powerful leaders. They met to make laws and rule on matters of justice. All free men could attend the assemblies, which were usually the main social event of the year. Forming the centre of the meeting place was the "lögberg" (law rock), a rock where the speaker of the assembly sat. It was his responsibility to say the laws and decisions out loud to the people.

paragraphs: The most important group within the Althing was the "lögrétta". It was made up of the country's 36 district leaders, nine other members, and the speaker. This group made the laws and ruled on legal disputes.

paragraphs: After the union with Norway in 1264, the speaker was replaced by two administrators called "lögmenn", who were appointed by the Norwegian king. The "lögrétta" shared legislative power with the king. Laws adopted by the Althing had to be approved by the king, and if the king made a law, it had to be approved by the Althing.

paragraphs: In the 14th century, the monarchies of Norway and Denmark were united and Iceland was ruled from Copenhagen. This became an absolute monarchy and the Althing gave up the right to make laws for Iceland. It served only as a court of law until June 1800, when the king dissolved it completely. It was replaced by a High Court of three judges who met in Reykjavik.

paragraphs: In July 1843, the king said the Althing could be recreated. Elections were held the year after, and the new parliament met for the first time on 1 July 1845. A constitution was created in 1874. It granted the Althing joint legislative power with the crown in matters relating only to Iceland. It increased the number of members of the Althing to 36: 30 of them were elected and the other six appointed by the king.

paragraphs: Iceland was given home rule in October 1903. In December 1918, Iceland was brought into a personal union with the King of Denmark. It was set so that after 25 years, the country could choose to leave the union. The Althing was given unlimited legislative power. The king no longer had any law-making powers in the country. The number of members of the Althing was increased to 42 in 1920, and to 52 in 1942.

paragraphs: Women were given the right to vote in 1915. The first female member of parliament was elected in 1922.

paragraphs: When Denmark was occupied by Germany on 9 April 1940, its union with Iceland was no longer in effect. On the next day, the Althing gave the Icelandic cabinet executive power. It made the prime minister head of state. A year later the Althing appointed a regent to represent the king. This office continued until 1944, when the personal union with the Danish king expired. The modern-day Republic of Iceland was established at a session of the Althing held at Thingvellir on 17 June 1944.


title: Amapá

paragraphs: Amapá is one of the states of Brazil. It is in the far north, bordering French Guiana in the north. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south and west is the Brazilian state Pará.

paragraphs: The state is mostly covered by rainforest. The state is known for producing iron and other metals.

paragraphs: Amapá has only been a Brazilian state since 1988.


title: Fictional character

paragraphs: A fictional character is a person or animal in a narrative work of art (such as a novel, play, television series, or movie) The character can be completely fictional or based on a real-life person. In that case, the difference between a "fictional" and "real" character can be made. Coming from the ancient Greek word χαρακτήρ, the English word dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in "Tom Jones" in 1749. From this, the sense of "a part played by an actor" developed. Character, mainly when played by an actor in the theatre or cinema, involves "the illusion of being a human person." In literature, characters guide readers through their stories, helping them to understand plots and ponder themes. Since the end of the 18th century, the phrase "in character" has been used to describe an effective impersonation by an actor. Since the 19th century, the art of creating characters, as practiced by actors or writers, has been called characterisation.

paragraphs: The word character can also mean "personality". We can say that someone has a "strong character" meaning a strong, confident personality. It is sometimes used as a noun in this sense: "He is a real character" (meaning someone you cannot easily forget).

paragraphs: A character role in a play means one of the people in the play who have a particular character (personality). They contrast with the main characters of the play. For example, there may be two lovers who are the main characters of the story. The character roles might be: a wicked step-mother, a kind nurse, an old wise man, a stupid fool, a domestic worker who is very old etc.


title: Blues

paragraphs: The blues is a form of music that started in the United States during the start of the 20th century. It was started by former African slaves from spirituals, praise songs, and chants. The first blues songs were called Delta blues. These songs came from the area near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Many African Americans were taken to the north esp. in the northwest of the United States, to find work. They took the blues with them and developed it into new styles. The most important is the Chicago Blues, which is played with electric amplified instruments. But other cities and states have their own form of Blues developed from the Delta Blues (f. e. Texas Blues, West Coast Blues and others).

paragraphs: Blues is based on a simple pattern. "“Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel”"-Jimi Hendrix. A common form for the blues is a repeating 12 bar form (each bar has 4 beats). This is put together as 3 phrases or sections, each being 4 bars long. The basic blues only needs 3 chords, one based on the first note of the scale - the tonic chord, one based on the fourth note of the scale - the subdominant chord, and one based on the fifth note of the scale - the dominant chord. The first section or phrase of 4 bars only uses the tonic chord. A common variation is to use the subdominant chord in the second bar. The second phrase has 2 bars (8 beats) of subdominant chord then 2 bars of tonic chord. The third phrase has 1 bar (4 beats) of dominant chord, 1 bar of subdominant chord and finishes with 2 bars of tonic chord.

paragraphs: In a scale based on the note C (C is the 1st or tonic, F is the 4th or subdominant, and G is the 5th or dominant), the chord pattern of a 12 bar blues would be like this:

paragraphs: C C C C |C C C C or F F F F |C C C C |C C C C |

paragraphs: The melody of the simplest blues scales are based on the minor pentatonic scale for example C Eflat G A Bflat C, with extra notes (called "blue notes") added like this C Eflat Gflat G A Bflat C. Blue notes do not normally fit a scale, but they give the music a special feeling.

paragraphs: The lyrics (words) are usually about life, more specifically, the bad things in life. They are simple blues songs that are also based around the form of 3 phrases. The first phrase is set over the first 4 bars of music. The second phrase words are a repetition of the first phrase, this always happens and emphasises the message. The third phrase completes the "story" and rhymes (ends with the same sound) as the first line. This verse from Robert Johnson's ""Crossroad Blues"" shows how these phrases work in a song:

paragraphs: "I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees"

paragraphs: "Asked the Lord above, have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please"

paragraphs: The blues have made a difference in newer American and Western popular music, such as jazz, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, hip-hop, and country music, as well as common pop songs.


title: Macroeconomics

paragraphs: Macroeconomics studies large-scale economic decisions. For example, a whole country's economy (or, its economic output) is summarised by the GDP (gross domestic product). Many governments use macroeconomic ideas to decide how much tax to collect and what interest rates should be.

paragraphs: It also considers the amount of unemployment, the rate that prices go up (inflation), and the exchange rates of its currency. The exchange rate affects the amount of imports and exports. Exchange rates and taxation are "levers of the economy".

paragraphs: Less dramatic, but also very important, are decisions about government spending inside the country. Such policy decisions are politically controversial due to differing political ideas on government spending. Another factor in macroeconomics is the make-up of the population. A growing population is economically different from a stable population (one which is not growing).


title: Game theory

paragraphs: Game theory is the study of how and why people make decisions. (Specifically, it is "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers".) It helps people understand parts of science and politics. An alternative term suggested "as a more descriptive name for the discipline" is interactive decision theory.

paragraphs: In the Cold War period, the strategic decisions of the United States and the Soviet Union were sometimes viewed as an exercise in game theory. In that case the "players" being studied were the United States and the Soviet Union.

paragraphs: Game theory is not just about games, but how and why businesses make decisions, and just about any decision based on valuing likely outcomes. In game theory, all of these situations are "games" since the people involved make choices based on how they value the possible outcomes of the choices. This is true even of cases where the decisions of a single person only affect that one person.

paragraphs: Game theory is found in the financial choices people make, and is found in the study of economics.

paragraphs: One example is the prisoner's dilemma. It gives an example where co-operation may not be the "best choice" in game theory.

paragraphs: Suppose two people are arrested for a crime, and the police are uncertain which person committed the crime, and which person abetted the crime. Each is given a choice: If each remains silent, they are both soon released. If one betrays the other, the betrayer goes free, and the other is imprisoned for a long time. If each betrays the other, they both are held for a shorter time.

paragraphs: If you are a prisoner in this situation and you only care about yourself, the way to get the smallest sentence is to betray the other prisoner. No matter what, you get a shorter sentence when you betray than when you do not. Imagine a situation where you are one of the prisoners, if the other prisoner stays silent and does not betray, then betraying means you do not go to jail at all instead of going to jail for 6 months. If the other prisoner betrays, then betraying lets you go to jail for 2 years instead of 10 years. In short, "betrayal" is the best strategy, and is called the "dominant strategy."

paragraphs: The prisoner's dilemma does not have same result if some of the details are different. If the prisoners (or countries) can talk with each other and plan for the future, they might both decide to cooperate (not betray) because they hope that will make the other country help them in the future. In game theory, this is called a "repeated game." If the players are altruistic (if they care about each other), they might be okay with going to jail so they can help the other person.

paragraphs: Game theory has also been used in philosophy. Responding to two papers by W.V.O. Quine from 1960 and 1967, used game theory to develop a philosophical account of convention. With this, he provided the first analysis of common knowledge and used it to analyze play in coordination games. In addition, he first suggested that it is possible to understand meaning in terms of signaling games. This suggestion has been pursued by several philosophers since Lewis. Following game-theoretic account of conventions, Edna Ullmann-Margalit (1977) and Bicchieri (2006) have developed theories of Social norms that define them as Nash equilibria that result from transforming a mixed-motive game into a coordination game.

paragraphs: Game theory has also challenged philosophers to think in terms of interactive Epistemology: what it means for a collective to have common beliefs or knowledge, and what are the consequences of this knowledge for the social outcomes resulting from agents' interactions. Philosophers who have worked in this area include Bicchieri (1989, 1993), Skyrms (1990), and Stalnaker (1999).

paragraphs: Using the ethics part of philosophy pursues Thomas Hobbes' project of deriving morality from self-interest. Since games like the Prisoner's dilemma present an apparent conflict between morality and self-interest, explaining why cooperation is required by self-interest is an important part of this project. This general strategy is a component of the general Social contract view in Political philosophy (for examples, see and ).

paragraphs: Other authors have attempted to use Evolutionary game theory to explain the emergence of human attitudes about morality and corresponding animal behaviors. These authors look at several games including the prisoner's dilemma, Stag hunt, and the Nash bargaining game as providing an explanation for the emergence of attitudes about morality (see, e.g., and ).


title: Taj Mahal

paragraphs: The Taj Mahal is a mosque like building and tomb built in the 16th century by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

paragraphs: The building is in the city of Agra, Uttar Pradesh. Widely thought as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, it is one of India's biggest tourist attractions.

paragraphs: It is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, together with the Agra Fort, 2.5 kilometers away. It was listed as one of the 7 Wonders of the World in 2007.It is located on the south bank of Yamuna river in Agra. It is a splendid monument, but because of pollution, the Taj Mahal is turning yellow. It Is one of the most notable Islamic architectures built by the Mughals in India.

paragraphs: The Taj Mahal is an example of Muslim Architecture – a mixture of building design ideas from ancient Indian Indian, persian, and mughal arts.

paragraphs: The Taj Mahal was constructed with materials from all over the world, and over 20,000 people were used to move building materials. It is generally thought that Ustad Ahmad Lahauri was in charge of the construction. The construction was finished in 1648. The construction of Taj Mahal is about 6000 feet..

paragraphs: The Taj Mahal had 2 million visitors in 2001 and in 2014-2017 there are more than 7-8 million visitors.


title: Aryan

paragraphs: Aryan is the name that an ancient people of India and Iran gave to themselves. Descendants of the Aryans include speakers of Sanskrit and Avestan which are related to the Indo-European languages. Ancient Iranians used the name "Aryan" to mean nobles. The name "Iran" itself means the "Land of the Aryans".

paragraphs: The Avestan name "Airiianəm vaēǰō" "Aryan expanse", is a reference in the Zoroastrian Avesta (Vendidad, Fargard 1) to the Aryans’ mother country and one of Ahura Mazda's "sixteen perfect lands". Other Avestan names are "airyō.šayana", the “Aryan people”, and "airyā daiŋˊhāvā" “the Aryan lands”. These names were known to old Greek writers as "Ariana". Also the Sanskrit name "Āryāvarta" "abode of the Aryans", was a region in north of today's India. The Middle Persian name of the Sassanian Empire, an empire that ruled Persia from the 3rd century to the 7th century, was "Eran-shar" meaning the "Aryan Empire". Today, the name "Iran" is simply the Persian word for "Aryan".

paragraphs: Sanskrit is the oldest written language of the Indo-European family of languages. The Vedas are composed in this language. Some portions of the Rigveda are thought to be the oldest writing in any Indo-European language.

paragraphs: In the late 18th century, Europeans began using the term "Aryan" to refer to the original prehistoric Proto-Indo-Europeans and their descendents up to the present day (i.e., the Indo-European peoples—those Caucasians who are speakers of the Indo-European languages). This was the most common definition of "Aryan" in the 19th century and early 20th century.

paragraphs: In the late 19th century, some Europeans began to use the name "Aryan" for only the Nordic peoples of Europe (one branch of the Indo-European peoples), as a "pure," "noble" and "superior" race they claimed were descended from the original Aryans.

paragraphs: The theory that the Aryans first came from Europe became especially accepted in Germany. It was widely believed that the "Vedic Aryans" were the same people as the Goths, Vandals and other ancient Germanic peoples who brought the Western Roman Empire to an end. This idea was often mixed with anti-Semitic ideas. The Master Race theory became a main idea for Nazis. After the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, these ideas led to horrible persecutions of the Jews which culminated in the Holocaust.

paragraphs: The idea of racism that the Nazi theory means has been totally put aside by modern scientists, some of whom also disagree with the idea that the original Aryans ever lived in Europe. Most other scientists do maintain that the original Proto-Indo-Europeans did live about 5,000 years ago in the area in Europe east of Ukraine and north of the Caucasus Mountains and that the original Aryans (the "Indo-Iranians" or eastern branch of the Indo-European peoples) did migrate east to Iran and India from there, and the original ancestors of the modern "European peoples" (the western or "European" branch of the Indo-European peoples) did migrate west from there. This is called the Kurgan hypothesis.


title: Uzbekistan

paragraphs: Uzbekistan is a country in Central Asia. Its capital and largest city is Tashkent. There are about 32 million people living in Uzbekistan, now. The neighbouring countries are Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. It is a doubly landlocked country, of which there are only two in the world. Most people in Uzbekistan speak a language called Uzbek, a Turkic language similar to Uyghur and Turkish. In the Uzbek language, Uzbekistan is called "O‘zbekiston" and it means "the land of the true nobles". Uzbekistan has a long history. Humans first lived in Uzbekistan from before the 2nd millennium BC. The current president today is Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Human rights in Uzbekistan are 'atrocious' according to Human Rights Watch

paragraphs: Uzbekistan is divided into twelve provinces, one autonomous republic, and one independent city. The provinces are divided into districts.


title: United Arab Emirates

paragraphs: The United Arab Emirates or the UAE is a country in the Middle East. It is made up of seven emirates located in the north-eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, on the south side of the Persian Gulf.

paragraphs: People from this country are called Emiratis or Emirati citizens. Emirians used to be called Trucial Coasters or just Trucials before independence. Emirians from ancient history are called Maganites.

paragraphs: It borders Saudi Arabia to the south, Oman to the east, and Qatar to the west. The capital city of the UAE is Abu Dhabi, and the biggest city is Dubai. These cities have become global cities and are often visited by tourists. They have many skyscrapers and one of them, the Burj Khalifa, is the world's tallest structure.

paragraphs: The United Arab Emirates were previously a British colony known as the Trucial States. Independence was granted from the British in 1971.

paragraphs: As a member of the Arab League, the country's official language is Arabic. The country has some traditions and one of them is eating dates. That is why date palms are often grown in the UAE.

paragraphs: The seven emirates (territories which have an Islamic emir as its monarch and head of state) which make up the UAE used to have a special peace treaty (or "truce") with the United Kingdom. This is why their old name was the Trucial States. These are:


title: Wok

paragraphs: A wok is a Chinese pan used for cooking. It has a round bottom. The most common use for the wok is stir frying, though it can also be used for deep frying, smoking, braising, roasting, grilling, and steaming.

paragraphs: In Indonesia, the wok is known as a "wadjang", "kuali" in Malaysia, and "kawali" (small wok) and "kawa" (big wok) in the Philippines.


title: United States Navy

paragraphs: The United States Navy is part of the United States Armed Forces (the military of the USA). It is the largest navy in the world.

paragraphs: The navy was called the Continental Navy from 1775 until Congress disbanded it and sold the ships in 1785. It was started again as the Department of the Navy on April 30, 1798. The Department of the Navy needed places to make ships, which are called shipyards. So it paid slaveowners to borrow their slaves, then forced the slaves to build and run the shipyards in Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Virginia, and Pensacola, Florida.

paragraphs: Today, the US Navy has over 300,000 sailors and officers, and almost another 100,000 workers who are not official sailors.

paragraphs: The US Navy has about 300 warships, or ships designed for fighting. The largest warships are aircraft carriers, which have large and flat decks that act as small airports for planes carrying weapons. The US Navy has more of these aircraft carriers than any other navy in the world, and a large number of planes in Naval Aviation. Aircraft carriers are often protected by smaller ships, called cruisers or destroyers.


title: Pro bono

paragraphs: Pro bono is a Latin phrase meaning "for [the] good", that is used to mean that a legal professional (lawyer) who would otherwise be paid money for their work,

paragraphs: works without being paid, for the benefit of society,

paragraphs: typically on behalf of a person or organization who cannot pay for some reason, such as poverty.


title: Chemical formula

paragraphs: A chemical formula is a way that chemists describe a molecule. The formula says what atoms, and how many of each type, are in the molecule. Sometimes the formula shows how the atoms are linked, and sometimes the formula shows how the atoms are arranged in space.

paragraphs: The letter shows what chemical element each atom is. The subscript shows the number of each type of atom. For example, hydrogen peroxide has the formula HO. Methane has one carbon (C) atom and four hydrogen atoms; the chemical formula is CH. The sugar molecule glucose has six carbon atoms, twelve hydrogen atoms, and six oxygen atoms, so its chemical formula is CHO.

paragraphs: Chemical formulas are used in chemical equations to describe chemical reactions.

paragraphs: The 19th-century Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius worked out this system for writing chemical formulas.

paragraphs: Chemical formulas are another way to represent the number of atoms. Chemical formulas are used to represent kinds of atoms in a combination. Chemical formulas use subscripts to tell how many of each atom are present in a combination. Subscripts are small numbers to the lower right of a symbol. They represent the number of atoms of that element in the equation. Before writing Chemical formulas, write down the symbol of each atom present in your equation. Writing chemical formula is a way of informing the chemical figure. It is most easily found in the periodic table. The periodic table is a chart of all well-known parts. Use the periodic table to reference the figure that cannot be remembered.

paragraphs: Different elements are found in the periodic table. Each element has a family. An element family is an arrangement of elements. This element family has common properties. They are sharing the same characteristics.

paragraphs: Elements are displayed in order. Each element is put into families. There are three main categories such as metals, nonmetals, and semimetals. Each element family is displayed by the number of electrons in the outer shell. They can also display the same properties and valence electrons.


title: Harvard University

paragraphs: Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the Ivy League. Harvard was started on September 8, 1636, and it is the oldest university in the United States. Harvard's current president is Lawrence Bacow. The school color is crimson, which is a dark red color.

paragraphs: Harvard is on the Charles River. Some students go to the Charles River for rowing. On the other side of the Charles River is the city of Boston. Boston's subway system has a stop at Harvard. Some of Harvard's graduate schools are in Boston, but most of Harvard's schools are in Cambridge. Together, these schools are Harvard University.

paragraphs: Harvard has many libraries like Widener Library. There are other facilities like skating rinks and the Malkin Athletic Center where students can swim and exercise.

paragraphs: Harvard is almost always ranked as one of the best universities in the world. Another famous school close to Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Eight Presidents of the United States have graduated from Harvard. Harvard has over $40 billion.


title: Tamil language

paragraphs: Tamil is a Dravidian language. It is spoken in the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry states of India and parts of Sri Lanka. Many people in Singapore and Malaysia also speak it. Many people speaking Tamil live in various places around the world.

paragraphs: The Tamil language is part of the Dravidian language family, which includes Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. According to a survey, 1863 newspapers are published in the Tamil language only every day.. The oldest text found in Tamil is Tolkāppiyam. Tamil has a long literary history, and is spoken by almost 90 million people.

paragraphs: The script of the language is very old. It has 12 consonants, 18 vowels, and the "āytam" ஃ, which is neither a consonant nor a vowel. The "āytam "can be used with other letters to represent sounds not in the Tamil script, such as" "'f"'. "The consonants and vowels can mix to form compound letters. Altogether, there are 247 sounds/sets of sounds in the Tamil script. Tamil, like English, is written from left to right.

paragraphs: It is a Brahmi script, and it has been said that most of the other Indian scripts are basically derived from the letters of Tamil. In a few cases, the words themselves were used in other Indian languages for better understanding. Tamil numbers have certainly shaped the numbers in other Dravidian language family.

paragraphs: Tamil is the dominant language in Tamil Nadu, India, and Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is also spoken in places like the United States, Germany, Fiji, Indonesia, France, Africa and Thailand. This is because of the Tamil diaspora.


title: Kerala

paragraphs: Kerala is a state in the Republic of India. It is in the south-west of the country. The west coast of the state is on the Arabian Sea. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are to the east.

paragraphs: The capital city of the state is Thiruvananthapuram, even though the city of Kochi is more densely populated. The area of Kerala is 15,005 mi (38,863 km), which is bigger than Bhutan but smaller than Switzerland. In traditional Indian geography it is part of South India.

paragraphs: There are 14 districts in Kerala. They are: Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Idukki, Kannur, Kasaragod, Kollam, Kottayam, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, and Wayanad.

paragraphs: People in Kerala speak Malayalam. More than 99% of the people can read.

paragraphs: Kerala is known for traditional arts and people enjoy traditional, percussion-filled music. They also enjoy tribal ceremonies, martial arts, and sports such as soccer, cricket, and badminton. Kerala is popular for Kalaripayattu, a martial arts form and Kathakali Kathakali, a Hindu performance art. Most of the people have access to the internet, TVs, newspapers, and books. The average amount of reading per week is about seven hours. The literacy rate is approximately 99.7%.

paragraphs: The most famous festivals held by Keralites are Onam, the harvest festival and Vishu, the Malayalam Calendar New Year. In addition to these, temples as well as churches hold festivals in several days of the year. A common tradition in all these festivals is the hosting of the holy flag, which is brought down on the last day of the festival. Some temple festivals are called poorams, and the most famous one among these is 'Thrissur Pooram'. The main attractions of poorams are firecrackers, traditional dance forms like 'Theyyam, Kathakali, Chakyar Koothu etc.'. Festivals are locally known as "utsavams" .

paragraphs: Kerala is one of the biggest tourist attractions in India, both for Indians as well as foreigners. It has beautiful beaches, hill stations and extensive backwaters. Kerala is also known for its diverse nature.


title: Malayalam

paragraphs: Malayalam is a language. Most people that speak Malayalam live in Kerala, in India. A speaker of Malayalam is called a "Malayali".

paragraphs: Malayalam (/malayALam/) is the main language of the South Indian state of Kerala and also of the Lakshadweep Islands (Laccadives) of the west coast of India.

paragraphs: Malayalis (speakers of Malayalam), who - males and females alike - are almost totally literate, constitute 4 percent of the population of India and 96 percent of the population of Kerala (29.01 million in 1991).

paragraphs: In terms of the number of speakers, Malayalam ranks eighth among the 18 major languages of India.

paragraphs: Malyalam language has 52 phonemes. A few of the phonemes are unique for Malayalam.

paragraphs: The word /malayALam/ originally meant mountainous country (/mala/- mountain + /aLam/-place). Tamil Nadu is its neighbour on the south and east and Karnataka on the north and east.


title: Coimbatore

paragraphs: Coimbatore (Tamil: கோயம்புத்தூர்), also known as Kovai (Tamil: கோவை), is the second largest city in the Tamil Nadu, after Chennai. It is the administrative headquarters of the Coimbatore District and a major textile and engineering hub of South India. It forms a part of the ancient Kongu Nadu region of South India, where its people were the first to establish a territorial state. Coimbatore city, including its suburban areas has a population of 2.4 million people.

paragraphs: It is referred as the Manchester of South India in business circles, and has textile mills, engineering firms, automobile parts manufacturers, health care facilities and educational institutions. The hill stations of Ooty, Coonoor and Valparai are close to the city, making it a good tourist attraction throughout the year. The city is on the banks of the Noyyal River and is close to the Siruvani Waterfalls.This city is a textile based one.

paragraphs: Avinashi is a nearby town where a famous Shiva Temple is located.


title: Madurai

paragraphs: Madurai is a city in Tamil Nadu, India. It was the capital of the earlier Pandyan Kingdom.

paragraphs: Meenakshi Amman Temple, Ayiram Kal Mandabam (Hall of Thousand Pillars) are some of the important tourist places in Madurai.

paragraphs: Madurai is always considered to be a good pilgrim center. Tourists from various part of the country and world are coming to madurai and enjoying a historical excellence.

paragraphs: The main attraction of the city is meenakshi amman temple. Various other tourist and pilgrimage places also there such as Alagar Koil, Thiruparangkundram, Palarmuthir solai (means garden with fruits), Thirumalai naicker Mahal (palace of Naickers), Teppakulam (a square tank almost half a kilometer length as one side length), gandi museum (where we can find blood spotted final dress of Gandiji), etc.

paragraphs: The city is said to be as City of Festivals almost all the days in year is having at least a small festival. The city is also called 'thoonganagaram' which means Non-sleeping city.

paragraphs: Road side shops are very famous in Madurai where all can get good foods in cheaper costs. Jigardhanda, a typical Muslim cool drink is one of the famous drink from madurai. Madurai is very famous for jasmine flowers and Alanganallur located near Madurai is famous for Jallikattu.


title: Assam

paragraphs: Assam () is a state in the north eastern region of India. It has an area of 78,438 km² (30,285 mi²). It is bigger than Panama but smaller than the Czech Republic. There is one major river (Brahamputra) that flows through the length of the state. The state lies on the foothills of the Himalayas. There are two international borders touched by Assam: Bhutan and Bangladesh. In traditional Indian geography it falls under the North-east Indian zone.

paragraphs: According to a 2011 survey, about 62% of the people were Hindus. About 34% were Muslim. There is a small (3-4%) Christian minority. Others (Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Animism) account for less than 0.2% each.


title: Arunachal Pradesh

paragraphs: Arunachal Pradesh or South Tibet is a state between India and China. The country that owns this region is disputed. China says that they own it and call it South Tibet (Zangnan 藏南). In 2017, China started renaming places in this territory. In 2019 China destroyed 30,000 "incorrect" world maps that showed South Tibet as part of India.

paragraphs: The territory's northern boundary is about 550 miles long. It is known as the McMahon Line.

paragraphs: It is part of the border dispute between India and China. There is another dispute to the northwest in Aksai Chin (also with Pakistan).

paragraphs: In 1962, the Sino-Indian War was fought here. The war was short and ended in India's defeat. However, China withdrew back to the modern borders voluntarily. They still say that they own the region.

paragraphs: Most of the population look East Asian. The people look like their neighbors in Tibet and the Myanmar hill region.

paragraphs: As of 2001, there were 1,091,117 people living in South Tibet. The total area is 32,333 mi² (83,743 km²).

paragraphs: Most people speak Han–Tibetan languages like Nyishi and Adi (over 50%). The rest speak Indo-Aryan languages like Nepali, Bengali, and Hindi.


title: Bihar

paragraphs: Bihar (; ) is a state in the Republic of India, covering an area of 38,202 mi² (99,200 km²). It is bigger than Hungary but smaller than South Korea. The capital is Patna. Bihar is bordered by the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh to the west, Jharkhand to the south, and West Bengal to the east. To the north of Bihar is the country of Nepal. In traditional Indian geography it falls under the East Indian zone. It is one of the poorest regions in India.


title: Chhattisgarh

paragraphs: Chhattisgarh is a state within the Republic of India. It occupies . In traditional Indian geography it falls under the East Indian zone.

paragraphs: The capital at present is Raipur which would change to 'Naya Raipur' near Raipur. It has eighteen districts: Raigarh, Bilaspur, Bijapur, Korba, Durg, Janjgir, Raipur, Koria, Sarguja, Bastar, Dantewada, Narayanpur, Rajnandgaon, Kanker, Mahasamund, Dhamtari, Jashpur and Kabirdham (Kawardha).

paragraphs: The main languages spoken are Hindi and Chhattisgarhi. The main religion is Hindu.