title: Videocassette recorder

paragraphs: Videocassette recorder (VCR) is an electronic device that records and plays videotapes. Most use VHS or Beta cassettes that contain recordings of movies and other programs (such as music videos, exercise videos, and so on). To watch a recording using a VCR, the VCR has to be connected to a television set.

paragraphs: VCRs at first were mainly used to record programs from television broadcasts. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, many people used VCRs to record their favorite television shows to watch them later. This was called time-shifting.

paragraphs: In the mid-1980s, VCRs became a very popular way for people to watch movies and other recorded programs on their home television. Until the 21st century, video rental stores offered a large selection of movies recorded on VHS tapes that customers could rent. In the 1980s, some video rental stores also offered a smaller number of movies recorded on Beta tapes.

paragraphs: In the 1980s, VHS was involved in a format war with Sony's Betamax. VHS won the format war. Betacam, a variant of Betamax designed specifically for professional camcorders, did become popular in television studios, but consumers used VHS at home.

paragraphs: In 1974, the Japanese government's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) tried to force the Japanese video industry to agree on just one home video recording format, in order to avoid consumer confusion. Later, Sony built a prototype of a Betamax VTR. Sony presented the prototype to MITI, and convinced them to use Betamax as the technical standard. Sony was then allowed to charge other companies licensing fees to use the Betamax technical standard, so that they could also build and sell Betamax machines.

paragraphs: JVC believed that an open standard (a technical standard that is open and free for anyone to use) like VHS was better for the consumer, so they fought against the MITI and Sony. JVC attempted to convince other companies, including Matsushita, to use VHS instead of Betamax. Matsushita agreed with JVC because Matsushita worried that Sony might become the most powerful company in the video recording industry if the Betamax format was the only one that the MITI allowed them to sell. Matsushita also disliked the fact that Betamax systems could only record one hour of video.

paragraphs: Because Matsushita agreed with JVC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Sharp began to support the VHS technical standard. When Sony released its Betamax machines in Japan in 1975, it pressured the MITI to support Sony even more. However, the combination of JVC and the other companies was much stronger, and eventually the MITI stopped trying to create a single technical standard for the whole industry. JVC released the first VHS machines in Japan in late 1976, and then in the United States in early 1977. Sony continued to sell Betamax machines, and they competed with VHS throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s.

paragraphs: In countries that use the NTSC technical standard for television broadcasting, the Beta I version of Betamax was able to record one hour of video at a tape speed of 1.5 inches per second (ips), which was similar to a VHS standard-play mode (SP). Originally, VHS recorded two hours of video at 1.31 ips. Betamax's smaller-sized cassettes were not able to contain as much magnetic tape as VHS cassettes. They could not compete fit longer lengths of tape into the cassettes to match VHS's two-hour recording time. Instead, Sony had to slow the tape speed down to 0.787 ips (Beta II) in order to reach two hours of video recording in the same cassette size. This meant that the television picture produced by a Betamax tape was worse than VHS when comparing two-hour recordings. Sony eventually released a longer Betamax cassette called Beta III which allowed NTSC Betamax to record more than two hours, but by then VHS had already won the format war.

paragraphs: VHS also used a less complicated set of mechanisms to read the magnetic tape than Betamax, and VHS machines were faster at rewinding (winding the magnetic tape back to its starting place so that the video starts from the beginning the next time) and fast-forwarding than Betamax machines.

paragraphs: In countries that use the PAL and SECAM technical standards for their television broadcasting, Betamax's recording time was similar to VHS and the picture on the television was at least as good as VHS.

paragraphs: In the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, the DVD player replaced the VCR as the most common way to watch movies on a home television. The VCR sales dropped later, causing the VCR to be used less by people. VCRs are still available, but fewer stores offer them, because fewer people want them.


title: DVD player

paragraphs: A DVD player is a home media device that plays DVDs (also called "digital versatile discs"). The first DVD player was created by Sony and Pacific Digital Company and released in Japan on November 1, 1996. The DVD player would later be released in the United States on March 19, 1997.


title: Labour (economics)

paragraphs: Labor is work done by people. Labor is one of three factors of production. The other two factors are land and capital.

paragraphs: People who can work are also known as human capital, referring not necessarily to what they actually do, but to their abilities.


title: Zach Braff

paragraphs: Zachary Braff (born April 6, 1975, South Orange, New Jersey) is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. He became famous in the early 2000s playing the part of "Dr. John Dorian" on the NBC series "Scrubs". Since then, he has written, starred in and directed the "Garden State". He also has directed multiple music videos. Braff is a Democrat and attended the 2012 Democratic National Convention in support of President Obama's re-election. He directed his first movie. It is called "Wish I Was Here".


title: Scrubs (TV series)

paragraphs: Scrubs is an American sitcom. It is about doctors and nurses in a hospital, and the title "Scrubs" comes from the name of the clothes they wear to keep themselves from getting dirty.

paragraphs: The series, which ran for nine seasons, was well known for its creative flashbacks and fantasies.

paragraphs: The first season introduces John Michael "J.D." Dorian and his best friend Christopher Turk in their first year out of medical school as interns at Sacred Heart Hospital.


title: Flashback

paragraphs: A flashback is a technique used by writers which is often used in movies, television and literature. It involves a character remembering something that happened to him in the past. "Scrubs" is a television show that uses "flashbacks" often.

paragraphs: The term is also used colloquially, to describe lingering effects of a drug (such as LSD), or memories of a bad experience triggered by things in the present.


title: Widescreen

paragraphs: Widescreen is a video format often used in movies. It is much used for television and other things like Computer monitors.

paragraphs: Widescreen is often used as it let more of an image to be seen on the screen.

paragraphs: Widescreen is often used as a nickname for the aspect ratio of television screens. This means that if the television screen was sixteen inches wide it would have to be nine inches tall. Most 20th century television screen were 4:3 which means if it was four inches wide it would have to be three inches tall . In addition to these small screens, a screen could be any size with the same ratio. For example, a screen could be 32 inches wide and 18 inches tall and still be considered widescreen.


title: Marketing

paragraphs: Marketing is activity that connects producers with customers.

paragraphs: Marketing has 2 types, which are B2B (business to business) marketing and B2C (business to consumer).


title: Kirkkonummi

paragraphs: Kirkkonummi () is a municipality in Uusimaa, Finland. As of January 2014, almost 38,000 people lived in Kirkkonummi. It has an area of .

paragraphs: Kirkkonummi is close to the capital city, Helsinki. Other neighbouring municipalies are Espoo, Vihti and Siuntio.


title: K/T extinction event

paragraphs: The Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, now called the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction event, was about 65.5 million years ago. It may be called the K/T extinction event or K/Pg event for short. This is the famous event which killed the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period.

paragraphs: It was a large-scale mass extinction of animal and plant species. The event marks the end of the Mesozoic era and the beginning of the Cainozoic era.

paragraphs: Dinosaur fossils are only found below the K/T boundary. This shows they became extinct before, or during the event. Mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and many species of plants and invertebrates also became extinct.

paragraphs: Mammalian and bird groups got through the event with some extinctions. Those that survived became widespread and varied during their later evolutionary radiation.

paragraphs: The K/T extinctions were so sudden and far-reaching that they must have been caused by something sudden and powerful. One or more massive asteroid or meteor impacts, and increased volcanic activity have been suggested.

paragraphs: How quickly animals died out around the world is an important clue. Patterns in rocks also suggest causes. There are several impact craters and massive volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in India dated to about the same time as the extinctions. Those impacts and volcanoes would have reduced sunlight and hindered photosynthesis, disrupting Earth's ecology.

paragraphs: The best supported theory is that the meteorite strike in the Yucatan was the main cause of the extinction at the end of the Mesozoic era.

paragraphs: There were several impact events across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary, such as the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, Boltysh crater in Ukraine, Silverpit crater in North Sea, and the Shiva crater offshore western India.

paragraphs: The Shiva crater is a sea floor structure under the continental shelf in the Indian Ocean, west of Mumbai, India. It was named by paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee after Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and renewal.


title: John Rutter

paragraphs: John Rutter (born London 24 September 1945) is an English composer and choral conductor. He has composed a lot of church music. Many of his anthems and songs are very popular indeed with church choirs as well as choral societies. He writes in a style that can be enjoyed easily, and at the same time it is excellent music.

paragraphs: Rutter was born in London. He went to school at Highgate School. Another pupil in the school was John Tavener who was also to become a famous composer, although his style of music is very different.

paragraphs: Rutter studied music at Clare College, Cambridge. He became director of music at Clare College in 1975 and made the choir internationally famous.

paragraphs: In 1974, Rutter visited the United States where he conducted his new cantata "Gloria" which became a great favourite. He also conducted his "Eight Childhood Lyrics".

paragraphs: In 1981 Rutter started a choir of his own, the Cambridge Singers. He still conducts them. They have made many recordings. Rutter still lives near Cambridge and spends his time composing and conducting all over the world.

paragraphs: Rutter has been given many honours, including honorary Fellow of Westminster Choir College, Princeton (1980), Fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians (1988). In 1996 the Archbishop of Canterbury gave him the Lambeth Doctorate of Music to celebrate all he has done for church music. He was made a CBE in 2007.

paragraphs: Rutter also works as an arranger and editor. His collection of "Carols for Choirs" which he prepared together with Sir David Willcocks is extremely widely used in Britain.

paragraphs: Rutter's compositions include Christmas carols, anthems and longer choral works such as a "Gloria", a "Magnificat", and a "Requiem".

paragraphs: In 2002 his setting of "Psalm 150", written for the Queen's Golden Jubilee, was performed at the thanksgiving service in St Paul's Cathedral, London. He has also written an opera for young people called "Bang!". His "Mass for Children" was first performed in 2003 in the Carnegie Hall, New York.

paragraphs: Most of his songs and anthems were written at first with piano or organ accompaniment, but he has also arranged many of them for orchestral accompaniment as well.


title: Danny Bonaduce

paragraphs: Dante Daniel "Danny" Bonaduce (born August 13, 1959) is an American radio and TV host, and he was a child actor.

paragraphs: He is famous for being on the 1970s sitcom/television series "The Partridge Family".


title: Permian–Triassic extinction event

paragraphs: The Permian/Triassic extinction event (P/Tr for short) was the largest extinction event in the Phanerozoic eon. 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates became extinct. It is the only known extinction event of insects. It ended the Palaeozoic era, and began the Mesozoic era.

paragraphs: The event forms the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods, at about 252 million years ago. Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of life on earth took much longer than after other extinction events. This event has been described as the "mother of all mass extinctions".

paragraphs: The pattern of extinction is still unclear, as different studies suggest one to three different pulses.

paragraphs: There are several proposed mechanisms for the extinctions. These include: large or multiple meteorite impacts, increased volcanism, sudden release of methane hydrates from the sea floor. Gradual changes include sea level change, oceanic anoxic events, increasing aridity, and a shift in ocean circulation driven by climate change.

paragraphs: One thing is probably significant. One of the largest ever flood basalt eruptions took place across the P/Tr junction. These eruptions, from 251 to 250 million years ago, produced the Siberian Traps, a huge volcanic province in Siberia. This would certainly have made the world's climate much worse, and is now thought to be the main cause of this great extinction.

paragraphs: Another factor is that global sea levels were at an historic low point at the time.


title: Camille Pissarro

paragraphs: Camille Pissarro (10 July 1830 – 12 November 1903) was a French Impressionist painter. He was born on Saint Tomas in the Virgin Islands. Pissarro died in Paris.

paragraphs: He was the only artist to exhibit in both Impressionism and Post-impressionism forms. Pissarro learnt from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.

paragraphs: In 1873 he helped establish a society of fifteen aspiring artists, holding the group together and encouraging the other members. Art historian John Rewald called Pissarro the “dean of the Impressionist painters", not only because he was the oldest of the group, but also "by virtue of his wisdom and his balanced, kind, and warmhearted personality”. Cézanne said "he was a father for me. A man to consult and a little like the good Lord". He was also one of Gauguin's mentors. Renoir referred to his work as “revolutionary”, through his artistic portrayals of the common man. Pissarro insisted on painting individuals in natural settings without "artifice or grandeur".

paragraphs: Pissarro is the only artist to have shown his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886. He acted as a father figure to the Impressionists and, in varying degress, to all four of the major Post-impressionists including Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

paragraphs: The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 compelled Pissarro to flee his home in September 1870; he returned in June 1871 to find that the house, and along with it many of his early paintings, had been destroyed by Prussian soldiers. By December 1870 he and his family had taken refuge in London and settled in Crystal Palace, southwest London.

paragraphs: Through the paintings Pissarro completed at this time, he records Sydenham and Norwood at a time when they were just recently connected by railways. One of the largest of these paintings is a view of "St. Bartholomew's Church" at Lawrie Park Avenue, commonly known as "The Avenue, Sydenham", in the collection of the National Gallery, London.

paragraphs: Whilst in Upper Norwood Pissarro was introduced to the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who bought two of his 'London' paintings. Durand-Ruel subsequently became the most important art dealer of the new school of French Impressionism.

paragraphs: Returning to France, in 1890 Pissarro again visited England and painted some ten scenes of central London. He came back again in 1892, painting in Kew Gardens and Kew Green, and also in 1897, when he produced several oils of Bedford Park, Chiswick.


title: Snowball Earth

paragraphs: Snowball Earth or Icehouse Earth refers to times when the Earth's surface was nearly or entirely frozen. The occurrence of Snowball (or Slushball) Earths is still controversial, but it is now probable that widespread glaciation occurred in periods of the Proterozoic. What is still debatable is how widespread those glaciations were. Proponents claim the theory explains sedimentary deposits of glacial origin at tropical latitudes and other enigmatic features of the geological record. Opponents do not draw the same inferences from the geological evidence, and doubt the geophysical feasibility of an ice or slush-covered ocean.

paragraphs: The Snowball Earth hypothesis explains glacial deposits in the Huronian supergroup of Canada. The palaeomagnetic evidence, which suggests ice sheets at low latitudes, is contested. The glacial sediments of the Makganyene formation of South Africa are slightly younger than the Huronian glacial deposits (~2.25 billion years old) and were deposited at tropical latitudes. Perhaps the rise of free oxygen that occurred during this part of the Paleoproterozoic removed methane in the atmosphere through oxidation. As the Sun was notably weaker at the time, the Earth's climate may have relied on methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to maintain surface temperatures above freezing. In the absence of this methane greenhouse, temperatures plunged and a snowball event could have occurred.

paragraphs: There were three or four significant ice ages during the late Neoproterozoic. Of these, the Marinoan was the most significant, and the Sturtian glaciations were also truly widespread. These were both in the Cryogenian period, before the Ediacaran. The million year long Gaskiers glaciation did not lead to global glaciation, although it was probably as intense as the late Ordovician glaciation. The status of the Kaigas glaciation or "cooling event" is unclear. Some do not recognise it as glacial, and others believe it may indeed be a third ice age. It was certainly less significant than the Sturtian or Marinoan glaciations, and probably not global in extent. Evidence does suggest that the Earth underwent a number of glaciations during the Neoproterozoic.


title: Rivallo

paragraphs: Rivallo () was a legendary king of the Britons as told by Geoffrey of Monmouth. He was the son of King Cunedagius.

paragraphs: During the time he ruled he was troubled by disasters: a rain of blood which lasted three days, a terrible plague, and a great swarm of flies. After he died his son Gurgustius became king.


title: Pat Fenlon

paragraphs: Pat Fenlon (born 15 March 1969) is an Irish football manager who is currently managing Bohemians F.C..

paragraphs: His first job as a manager was at Shelbourne where he won the league in 2003, 2004 and 2006. In that time they also made history by managing the first Irish club to reach the third qualifying round of the Champions League, where they were knocked out by Deportivo de La Coruña from Spain. He left Shelbourne at the end of 2006.

paragraphs: He was made the Derry City manager at the end of 2006 but left halfway through the 2007 season after making a poor start with his new club.

paragraphs: He was made manager of Bohemians in early 2008 and so far has won back-to-back titles, an FAI Cup and a League Cup. He has stated that his desire is to get Bohemians into the Champions League group stages in 2010.


title: Victoria Wood

paragraphs: Victoria Wood (19 May 1953, Prestwich, Lancashire – 20 April 2016, Highgate, North London) was an English comedienne, actress, singer, writer and television presenter.

paragraphs: Victoria Wood went to Bury Grammar Girls' School. She wrote and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms. She was a stand-up comedian. She sang and accompanied herself on the piano.

paragraphs: Her humour was usually about everyday life, known as observational comedy. It was often satirical. It referred to popular British media and brand names of British products.

paragraphs: She started her career in 1974 by winning the ATV talent show "New Faces". It was not until the 1980s that she began to be known as a comedy star, with the award-winning television series "Victoria Wood As Seen On TV" and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comedians.

paragraphs: In 1998, she wrote and starred in the sitcom "dinnerladies" (deliberately spelt with a small-case "d") which ran for 16 episodes over two seasons.

paragraphs: Wood often worked with Anne Reid, Maxine Peake, Julie Walters, Duncan Preston and Celia Imrie.

paragraphs: She won many awards, including the BAFTA award. She was made a CBE in 2008.

paragraphs: Wood married magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980. They separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2003. They had a daughter, Grace (born 1988) who is a singer and son Henry (born 1992).

paragraphs: Wood's brother is the politician Chris Foote Wood.

paragraphs: Wood was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late 2015, but kept her illness private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, aged 62.


title: Niccolò Piccinni

paragraphs: Niccolò Piccinni (born Bari, Italy, 16 January 1728; died near Paris, 7 May 1800) was an Italian composer. He wrote over 80 operas. During his life, he worked with the greatest librettists of his age, including Metastasio.

paragraphs: Piccinni’s music is hardly ever played today, but in his day many of his operas were extremely popular. He is mainly remembered today because he was invited to Paris where people wanted him to be a rival of Gluck. There were lots of arguments between the people who supported Piccinni and those who supported Gluck.

paragraphs: Piccinni was born in Bari. His father, who was a musician, did not want his son to study music, but the bishop persuaded him to change his mind. Niccolò went to the music conservatoire in Naples. He started to write comic operas (opera buffa). His opera "La Cecchina, ossia la buona Figliuola" with a libretto by Goldoni played for two years in Rome and was produced in all the important European capital cities. It was probably the most popular opera buffa of the 18th century.

paragraphs: Piccinni wrote music with a sentimental feeling that was very popular in the mid-18th century. It was typical of a lot of music in the early Classical music period.

paragraphs: A few years later Piccinni was invited by Queen Marie Antoinette to go and live in Paris. He had married in 1756 his pupil Vincenza Sibilla. She was a singer, but he never allowed his wife to sing on stage again after they married.

paragraphs: The people who had invited Piccinni to Paris were people who did not like Gluck’s music. They wanted Piccinni to be a rival to Gluck. They enjoyed arguments, and they wanted to try to make the two composers enemies. There were a lot of arguments between the people who supported Piccinni and those who supported Gluck. The whole affair is often called: the war between the Piccinnists and the Gluckists. It was very stupid, because the arguments had nothing to do with music. Both composers were asked to compose an opera about the same story: Roland. Gluck never finished the opera because he wanted to finish his career by writing Alceste. He did not want to be compared to Piccinni. Then both composers were asked to write operas about the story "Iphigénie en Tauride" . Gluck’s opera was first produced on 18 May 1779. Piccinni's "Iphigénie" followed on 23 January 1781. The rival parties went on arguing, even after Gluck left Paris in 1780. Then some people tried to get a new rival for Piccinni: they invited Sacchini to Paris. But Piccinni continued to be popular. When Gluck died, in 1787, Piccinni suggested that a public monument should be built to his memory. Gluck’s supporters refused to support the idea.

paragraphs: In 1784 Piccinni became professor at the Royal School of Music, a school which later became part of the Conservatoire. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, Piccinni returned to Naples. At first he was warmly welcomed by King Ferdinand IV; but when his daughter married a French democrat the Neapolitans were angry. They said he was a revolutionist. He was not allowed to leave his house for four years.

paragraphs: For the next nine years he tried to make a living in Venice, Naples and Rome; but he returned in 1798 to Paris, where the public gave him a warm welcome, but he made no money. He died at Passy, near Paris.

paragraphs: He produced over eighty operas, but although his later work shows the influence of the French and German stage, his music is typical of Italian musicians of the 18th century.


title: William P. Murphy

paragraphs: William Parry Murphy (February 6, 1892 – October 9, 1987) was an American doctor. He won the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with George Whipple and George Minot, for discovering how eating liver could cure anaemia.


title: Silent Night

paragraphs: "Silent Night" () is a very popular Christmas carol and song. It was first performed in 1818, by Franz Xaver Gruber and Joseph Mohr. Gruber was an organist and headmaster of a primary school. Mohr was a priest. Mohr had written the poem in 1816; Gruber wrote the melody for it before Christmas 1818. Little else is known on how the song came to be.

paragraphs: One of the theses is that at the time it was not possible to play the organ in the church. For this reason Gruber and Mohr created a song that could be accompanied by a guitar. There are many other stories about how the song came to be.

paragraphs: The audience liked the performance very much. Gruber sang, and Mohr played the guitar. It is because of an organ-maker called "Mauracher" that the song became known to a wider audience. Mauracher could capture the attention of the crowd at a performance in Leipzig in 1832. From there it spread, first to the German-speaking countries, then to the world. Today there are translations into more than 300 languages and dialects.

paragraphs: The song was first published on a leaflet in 1833, with other "authentic Tyrolean songs". Frederick William IV of Prussia wanted to know the authors of the song, and asked St. Peter's Archabbey, Salzburg, in 1854. The abbey found Gruber, who was still alive. In the meantime, the song had been attributed to Michael Haydn.

paragraphs: The author Hertha Pauli, who was born in Austria had to flee from the persecutions during the Second World War. In 1943, she found that many Americans thought that "Silent Night" was an American popular tune. She then wrote the children's book, "Silent Night. The Story of a Song", where she explained where the song was from.


title: Indonesian Rupiah

paragraphs: The Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) is the money used in Indonesia. Rupiah started to be used in 1946.

paragraphs: The coins that are used now are 25 rupiah, 50 rupiah, 100 rupiah, 200 rupiah, 500 rupiah and 1000 rupiah.

paragraphs: The banknotes that are used are 1000 rupiah, 2000 rupiah, 5000 rupiah, 10 000 rupiah, 20 000 rupiah, 50 000 rupiah and 100 000 rupiah.


title: Horseshoes

paragraphs: Horseshoes is a game played outside. This game is played using four horseshoes and two stakes.


title: Hans Spemann

paragraphs: Hans Spemann (27 June 1869 – 9 September 1941) was a German doctor. He won the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for his discovery of the 'organizer effect' in embryonic development


title: Henry Hallett Dale

paragraphs: Sir Henry Hallett Dale, OM, GBE, PRS, (9 June 1875 - 23 July 1968) was an English pharmacologist. He won the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Otto Loewi, for their discoveries about the chemical transmission of nerve impulses.


title: Paul Dukas

paragraphs: Paul Abraham Dukas (October 1, 1865 – May 17, 1935) was a French composer and teacher of classical music.

paragraphs: Paul Dukas was born in Paris to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. He was taught music by Théodore Dubois and Ernest Guiraud at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he became friends with the composer Claude Debussy. He then worked as a music critic and orchestrator.

paragraphs: Although Dukas wrote a lot of music, he destroyed many of his pieces because he was unhappy with them. Only a few are left. His first important surviving work is the "Symphony in C" (1896). This is in the style of Beethoven and César Franck. Like Franck's only symphony, Dukas' is in three movements not the usual four: Allegro non troppo, ma con fuoco; Andante espressive e fuoco; Allegro spiritoso.

paragraphs: In 1897 Dukas wrote another work for orchestra, "L'apprenti sorcier" (English: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice") based on Goethe's poem "Der Zauberlehrling". A short version of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was used in the Walt Disney film "Fantasia". Dukas's use of rhythm and his skill in writing for orchestras can be seen in both the "Symphony in C" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice".

paragraphs: For the piano, Dukas wrote two complex and difficult works, a Sonata in E-flat minor (1901) and "Variations, interlude and finale on a theme of Rameau" (1902), again in the style of Beethoven and Franck. The Sonata has not been performed very often, but lately pianists, such as Marc-André Hamelin, have started to add it to their concerts. There are also two smaller works for piano solo.

paragraphs: The opera "Ariane et Barbe-Bleue" ("Ariadne and Bluebeard"), which he wrote between 1899 and 1907, has often been compared to Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande". This is because it is similar in its musical style, and both operas are based on words by Maurice Maeterlinck. Dukas's last big work was the grand oriental ballet "La Péri" (1912). This is about a man who goes to the Ends of the Earth to find immortality, and finds a mythical Peri, holding The Flower of Immortality.

paragraphs: Because the opening of the ballet is very quiet, Dukas later added a short 'Fanfare pour preceder La Peri' which gave the usually noisy audiences time to settle in their seats before the main opera began.

paragraphs: In later life, Dukas became well known as a music teacher, with many famous students including Joaquín Rodrigo, Manuel Ponce, Maurice Duruflé, Xian Xinghai, Olivier Messiaen, Jehan Alain, Carlos Chávez, and David Van Vactor. After Dukas died he was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.


title: Blaise Compaoré

paragraphs: Blaise Compaoré (born February 3, 1951) is a former President of Burkina Faso. He served from 1987 until his resignation in 2014. He started a political party called the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP). This is the ruling party of Burkina Faso. Compaoré became president in 1987 after a military coup and the assassination of Thomas Sankara, who was president then.

paragraphs: His attempt to change the constitution to extend his 27-year term caused the 2014 Burkinabé uprising. The uprising began due to attempts at changing the constitution to allow him to run again and extend his rule. He resigned on 31 October 2014 after ruling for 27 years.


title: Mossi

paragraphs: The Mossi are an ethnic group of people who live mostly in Burkina Faso in Africa, and also in Ivory Coast and Ghana. They make up 40% of all the people in Burkina Faso. They speak a language called Mòoré or More.

paragraphs: The Mossi believe that they came from the marriage of a Dagomba princess called Yennenga (or Nyennega) and a Mandé hunter called Rialé. Yennenga was a warrior princess, daughter of a Dagomba king in Ghana. One day she lost her way and was rescued by Rialé. They got married and had a son called Ouedraogo. Ouedraogo is known as the father of the Mossi people.


title: Cassiopeia (constellation)

paragraphs: Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky. It was named after a queen in Greek mythology called Cassiopeia. It looks like a letter W or M, with five bright stars. It has two very bright stars called ρ Cas and V509 Cas.

paragraphs: In 1572, a supernova called Tycho's Star, or SN 1572, was seen in Cassiopeia by many people.


title: Vikash Dhorasoo

paragraphs: Vikash Dhorasoo (born 10 October 1973) is a former French football player. He has played for France national team.


title: Park Kun-Ha

paragraphs: Park Kun-Ha (born 25 July 1971) is a former South Korean professional athlete. He is best known as an football player. He was a member of Korean national team.


title: Willy Sagnol

paragraphs: Willy Sagnol (born 18 March 1977) is a former French football player. He has played for France national team.


Ediacara


title: Jathera

paragraphs: A Jathera is a shrine constructed to commemorate common clan ancestors. Each village in the Punjab has a Jathera which can be visited by members of different surnames. Many villages have a Jathera for each clan/surname.

paragraphs: When members of a clan form a new village, they continue to visit the Jathera in the ancestral village. If this is not possible, a link is brought from the old Jathera to construct a new Jathera in the new village.

paragraphs: People visit the Jathera when getting married, on the 15th day of the Indian month, and sometimes on the first Sunday of an Indian month.


title: Ediacaran

paragraphs: The Ediacaran period (about 635–541 million years ago), was named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia. It is the last geological period of the Proterozoic eon. The Edicaran is followed by the Cambrian, the first period of the Palaeozoic.

paragraphs: The period is famous for the first larger-bodied fossils, which are probably the first recorded metazoans. These were impressions or trace fossils, first found in England's Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire. Geologists did not know what they had found. It was over 60 years later before fossils from the same period were found in South Australia.

paragraphs: The status of the Ediacaran as an official geological period was confirmed in 2004 by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). This made it "the first new geological period declared in 120 years".

paragraphs: The Ediacaran period was previously called the Vendian period. The Vendian period was proposed in 1952 by Russian geologist/paleontologist Boris Sokolov. The term "Vendian" is still widely used.

paragraphs: The two terms are not the same. The Vendian was a longer period: it included the whole of the Marinoan glaciation, of Snowball Earth fame. In other words, the Vendian included the last part of the Cryogenian period.

paragraphs: The Ediacaran lasted for about 90 million years. It began at the end of the Cryogenian Snowball Earth. It ended with the first appearance worldwide of some kinds of trace fossils ("Trichophycus pedum") at the base of the Cambrian. The Ediacaran period's start is defined at the base of a carbonate layer, referred to as a "cap carbonate". This caps glacial deposits and shows a sudden climatic change at the end of the Marinoan ice age. The period ended with the mass extinction of almost all the Ediacaran fauna.

paragraphs: No exact dating has been possible at the type section of the Ediacaran period in South Australia.

paragraphs: The Ediacaran biota include the oldest definite multicellular organisms. The fossils are traces or impressions of soft-bodies forms with segments, fronds, disks, or bags. Skeletons or shells are not found.


title: Ediacaran biota

paragraphs: The Ediacaran biota are the somewhat puzzling fauna of the Ediacaran period. This geological period was from 635–542 million years ago (mya), but the fossil biota was only from 575–542 mya. This was after a series of ice ages and just before the Cambrian period. The biota consists of soft-bodied multicellular organisms, probably animals, which left trace fossils in rocks of Ediacaran age.

paragraphs: The biota is quite unusual, and there is no sign of it in the preceding Marinoan glaciation. The biota appears to suffer a fairly severe extinction event at the boundary with the Cambrian. Some of the biota may have survived into the early Cambrian.

paragraphs: There have been several different interpretations of the biota. The standard view is that the traces are fossils of well-known phyla (Cnidaria, annelids, early arthropods) with body plans that disappeared before the Cambrian.

paragraphs: Quite different ideas have been put forward. Seilacher thought few if any of the forms belonged to living phyla. Conway Morris opposed this idea. Rentallak suggested the biota might be lichens.

paragraphs: As Narbonne explains, the Ediacaran biota occupies a critical position in the fossil record. Before them, for a long period of the Archaean and most of the Protoerozoic, the only fossils were those of bacteria and bacterial mats, a form of life which continues to the present day. The Ediacaran biota is found worldwide, and the most typical forms disappeared just before the Cambrian radiation, which begins with the 'small shelly fossils'. That is probably enough to justify the description of the change as an extinction event, though what caused it is not clear. One suggestion is that the evolution of animals which grazed upon the soft-bodied forms would have been sufficient to cause a collapse of the biota.

paragraphs: The biota was extremely varied, having many different body forms, and hence species. The ecology was benthic (sea bottom), in both shallow and deeper water. Narbonne notes the absence of different life and different depths, the apparent absence of burrowing organisms, and the absence of animals capable of preying on the soft-bodied forms. If these conditions changed, the soft forms would be in peril.

paragraphs: Ediacaran-type fossils are recognised globally in 25 localities, and a variety of depositional conditions, and are commonly grouped into three main types, named after typical localities. Each assemblage occupies its own habitat, and after a burst of diversification changes little for the rest of its existence.

paragraphs: In the White Sea region of Russia, all three assemblage types have been found close together. This, and the faunas' overlap in time, makes it unlikely that they represent evolutionary stages. Since they are found on all continents except Antarctica, geographical boundaries do not appear to be a factor. The same fossils are found at all palæolatitudes.

paragraphs: Probably the three assemblages mark organisms adapted to survival in different environments. An analysis of one of the White Sea fossil beds, where the layers cycle from continental seabed to inter-tidal to estuarine and back again a few times, found that a specific set of Ediacaran organisms was associated with each environment.

paragraphs: It is no surprise that not all environments are exploited. Of 92 possible modes of life — combinations of feeding style, tiering and motility — no more than a dozen are occupied by the end of the Ediacaran. Just four are represented in the Avalon assemblage. The lack of large-scale predation and vertical burrowing are perhaps the most significant factors limiting the ecological diversity; the emergence of these during the early Cambrian allowed the number of lifestyles occupied to rise to 30.


title: Antonio de Trueba

paragraphs: Antonio de Trueba (24 December 1821-10 March 1889) was a Spanish poet, novelist, and folklorist born at Montellana, Biscay, in 1821 (some sources say 1819), where he was privately educated.


title: Arrangement (music)

paragraphs: An arrangement of a musical composition is a reworking of a piece of music so that it can be played by a different instrument or combination of instruments from the original. For example, a song written for one voice with piano accompaniment might be arranged so that it can be sung in parts by a choir, or a piece for violin might be arranged so that it can be played on a clarinet instead. The person who does the arrangement may be the composer themself, or it may be someone else.

paragraphs: In music history, composers often published their compositions, saying that the music could be played or sung by various instruments. For example, when English composers published madrigals in the late 16th century they often stated that they could be sung by singers or played on viols (“apt for voices as for viols”). In the Classical music period a composer might publish a sonata, stating that it could be played on the violin or flute or recorder. This helped to sell more copies, because violinists, flautists and recorder players might all want to buy the music. In a sense this is not really an arrangement, because no changes have been made to the music.

paragraphs: However, when violin or cello music is arranged so that it can be played on a viola, some changes may be necessary as the viola may be playing in a different key, or some chords may be more awkward the way they were originally written. This is an arrangement.

paragraphs: A popular piece such as "The Flight of the Bumble Bee" by Rimsky-Korsakov can be played by almost any melodic instrument: violin, xylophone, tuba etc. These are all arrangements.

paragraphs: When a piece for choir and orchestra is printed for choir members to use, the orchestral part is printed on two staves so that it can be played on a piano for rehearsals. This is another kind of arrangement.

paragraphs: In music history, many composers have made arrangements of music composed by others. They did this in order to learn about musical composition, as well as in order to be able to play it on another instrument. For example, Johann Sebastian Bach made arrangements of four concertos by Vivaldi so that they could be played on the organ.

paragraphs: Arrangements are often made by people who play instruments that have not had much music written for them. People who play the viola, guitar, tuba etc. often arrange other music so that they have a larger repertoire (more music to play).

paragraphs: Sometimes composers have made changes to the orchestration of works for orchestra written by others. They may have done this because instruments had changed since the music was written, or simply because they thought they could do it better. For example, Mozart made an arrangement of Handels "Messiah ", adding instruments such as clarinets which Handel would not have known. Rimsky-Korsakov made arrangements of the operas by Musorgsky thinking that he was improving them.

paragraphs: Arrangements are sometimes made because a player has some disability. Cyril Smith, a pianist who only had one arm, played piano duets with his wife Phyllis Sellick. They arranged piano duets so that they could be played by three hands.

paragraphs: Sometimes arrangements are made of well-known classical pieces in which the music is “jazzed up” or made to sound more popular for movie or theatre performances. Sometimes musicians think this is not a good thing. Sometimes small vocal groups such as the Swingle Singers make lighthearted versions of works by Bach and others.


title: Fernando Botero

paragraphs: Fernando Botero Angulo (born 19th April 1932) is a Colombian painter and sculptor. Botero is one of the best-known artists of Latin America. Since 1976, he has done figure-sculpting. His figures are special because they are all "thick", which makes them look different from others.


title: Abelian group

paragraphs: In group theory, an abelian group is a group that is commutative.

paragraphs: An abelian group is a set, "A", together with an operation "•". It combines any two elements "a" and "b" to form another element denoted . For the group to be abelian, the operation and the elements must follow some requirements. These are known as the "abelian group axioms":

paragraphs: An abelian group is a commutative group. A group in which the group operation is not commutative is called a "non-abelian group" or "non-commutative group".


title: Homing pigeon

paragraphs: A Homing pigeon is a special breed of pigeons. These pigeons have been domesticated. They have been selectively bred to find their way home. They can do this over very long distances. The wild rock pigeon from which these birds are bred also has this homing ability. This means that it will generally return to its own nest and its own mate. This made it relatively easy to breed from the birds that repeatedly found their way home over long distances. Flights as long as 1800 kilometers have been recorded by birds in competition pigeon racing. Speeds of up to 95 km/h (59 mph) have been observed.

paragraphs: Homing pigeons are called carrier pigeons when they are used to carry messages. This is possible where a message is written on thin light paper (such as cigarette paper) and rolled into a small tube attached to the bird's leg; this is called pigeon post. Pigeons can only go back to one "mentally marked" point that they have identified as their home. So "pigeon mail" can only work when the sender is actually holding the receiver's pigeons. White homing pigeons are used in Release Dove ceremonies at weddings, funerals, and some sporting events.


title: Roberto de Assis Moreira

paragraphs: Roberto de Assis Moreira (born 10 January 1971) is a former Brazilian football player.


title: Rafael Scheidt

paragraphs: Rafael Scheidt (born 10 February 1976) is a former Brazilian football player. He has played for the Brazil national team.


title: Alex Sandro Santana de Oliveira

paragraphs: Alex Sandro Santana de Oliveira (born 30 October 1973) is a Brazilian football player. He plays for Bahia.


title: David Soria Yoshinari

paragraphs: David Soria Yoshinari (born 18 September 1977) is a Peruvian football player. He has played for Peru national team.


title: Mikaël Silvestre

paragraphs: Mikaël Silvestre (born 9 August 1977) is a French football player. He plays for Arsenal.


title: Éric Abidal

paragraphs: Éric Abidal (born 11 September 1979) is a French football player. He plays for Barcelona and France national team.


title: Pavel Badea

paragraphs: Pavel Badea (born 10 June 1967) is a former Romanian football player. He has played for Romania national team.


title: Julio Hernán Rossi

paragraphs: Julio Hernán Rossi (born 22 February 1977) is an Argentine football player. He plays for Neuchâtel Xamax.


title: Regis Pitbull

paragraphs: Regis Fernandes Silva (born 22 September 1976), also known by the nickname Regis or Regis Pitbull, is a Brazilian professional athlete. He is best known as a football player.


title: Otto Loewi

paragraphs: Otto Loewi (June 3, 1873 - December 25, 1961) was a German doctor. He won the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Henry Hallett Dale, for their discoveries about chemical transmission of nerve impulses

paragraphs: In his most famous experiment, Loewi took fluid from a frog heart with a slowed beat and applied it to another. That slowed the second heart. This showed that synaptic signalling used chemical messengers.

paragraphs: It is now known that there are two different kinds of nerve synapses. One kind releases chemicals, and is a neurotransmitter synapse. The other is an electrical synapse which transmits voltage charges over gap junctions between nerve cells.


title: Heinrich Lübke

paragraphs: Heinrich Lübke (October 14, 1894 – April 6, 1972) was the second President of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was President from 1959 to 1969.


title: Elisha Levy

paragraphs: Elisha Levy (; born on 18 November 1957 in Jerusalem) is a former professional football player and he is currently manager of Israeli side Maccabi Haifa.

paragraphs: Levy played in Hapoel Hapoel Beit Sha'an youth team from 1968-1974.

paragraphs: After playing in Hapoel Beit Sha'an youth team, Elisha Levy was playing for Hapoel Beit Sha'an from 1974-1982. For 1 year, 1982-1983, Elisha Levy was played for Maccabi Haifa. In 1983-1987, Levy played in Maccabi Petah Tikva Elisha Levy was playing for Hapoel Beit Sha'an at 1987-1989.

paragraphs: Elisha Levy was retired from football after those last two years in Hapoel Beit Sha'an

paragraphs: Levy managed teams for 20 years. Currently, Elisha Levy manages Maccabi Haifa.


title: Transcription (music)

paragraphs: A musical transcription is musical notation for an existing piece of music that had been previously unnotated. Musicians often disagree about what should be called a “transcription” and what is an “arrangement”. Usually transcriptions are a direct notation of the source, whereas a musician who makes an arrangement may insert new interpretations into the music (i.e. changing the instrumentation, reharmonization, or even new sectionalization of the piece as with cover songs). A transcription, as Klapuri writes, would require that the pitch, timing, and instrumentation of all sound events to be resolved; difficult as this may be for some cases, this goal is usually redefined such that a transcription constitutes the notation of as many of the constituent sounds as possible or some well-defined part of the music signal (i.e. the dominant melody or the most prominent drum sounds).

paragraphs: Transcriptions can be created for all kinds of music in order to help the performer to learn the piece. Transcriptions are common for music such as jazz (which usually consists of improvisation) and folk, which traditionally is taught from one generation to another by listening and imitating. In the early 20th century, some composers became interested in writing down the traditional folk songs of their countries. Béla Bartók and Zoltan Kodaly in Hungary as well as Cecil Sharpe and Ralph Vaughan Williams in England notably transcribed various folk songs they heard being sung in the villages of their respective countries.

paragraphs: Sometimes transcriptions are made for practical reasons. Mozart made transcriptions of some music from his own operas, arranging them for small groups of instruments so that they could play it for popular entertainment. Stravinsky transcribed some of his ballet music for piano, e.g. The Rite of Spring for piano duet and some dances from Petrouchka for piano solo. These types of transcriptions are often referred to as a "": the simplification of a large work to be performed by a smaller ensemble or a soloist.


title: VY Canis Majoris

paragraphs: VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) is a red hypergiant star in the constellation Canis Major. It is about distant from Earth. It is one of the Largest known Stars in the universe, and one of the most luminous of its type.

paragraphs: VY Canis Majoris is 1,420 times wider than the Sun. If placed at the center of the Solar System, VY Canis Majoris's surface would extend beyond Jupiter's orbit. However, there is still some variation in the size estimates as other estimates of the radius make it larger than the orbit of Saturn.

paragraphs: VY CMa is a single star, a "semiregular" variable with a period of about 2,001 days. It has an average density of 5 to 10 mg/m.

paragraphs: When it dies it is expected to explode to a Supernova and then turn into a Black hole.


title: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

paragraphs: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or "Kungliga Vetenskapsakademin" ("KVA") is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, scientific, non-governmental organization, set up to support the sciences, mainly the natural sciences and mathematics.

paragraphs: The Academy was started on 2 June 1739 by naturalist Carl Linnaeus, economist Jonas Alströmer, mechanical engineer Mårten Triewald, civil servants Sten Carl Bielke and Carl Wilhelm Cederhielm, and politician Anders Johan von Höpken.

paragraphs: The academy was set up to find useful knowledge, and to write about it in Swedish. The academy was meant to be different from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala, which had been started in 1719 and published in Latin. It was built near the main business centre in Stockholm, (which unlike Uppsala did not have a university at this time). The Swedish scientists wanted it to be like the Royal Society in London and Academie Royale des Sciences in Paris, France.

paragraphs: Groups of the Academy meet to give out international prizes:


title: Karolinska Institutet

paragraphs: Karolinska Institutet (in English Karolinska Institute), and before 1968, the Royal Caroline Institute is one of Europe's biggest medical universities.

paragraphs: It was started in 1810 on Kungsholmen island on the west side of Stockholm. It later moved to Solna, just outside Stockholm, and a second campus has been built in Flemingsberg/Huddinge, south of Stockholm.

paragraphs: A committee of the institute decides on the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

paragraphs: The Karolinska University Hospital, in Solna and Huddinge, is the university's research and teaching hospital. It is one of Sweden's largest centres for training and research, with 30 percent of the medical training and 40 percent of the medical academic research. While most of the medical programs are taught in Swedish, most of the Ph.D. programs are taught in English.

paragraphs: The institute is a member of the League of European Research Universities. In the 2009 Academic Ranking of World Universities, the institute is the best university for medicine and pharmacy in Europe, 8th in the world. It is listed as the best university in Sweden.

paragraphs: Karolinska Institutet was started between 1810 and 1811 to teach army surgeons. It was called the 'Medico-Chirurgiska Institutet'.

paragraphs: In 1817 the name 'Karolinska' was added as a reference to 'Karoliner' which was the name of soldiers under the Swedish king Karl XII. The full name became 'Kongl. Carolinska Medico Chirurgiska Institutet'.

paragraphs: In 1968 this name was changed to 'Karolinska Institutet'.


title: Florent Malouda

paragraphs: Florent Malouda (born 13 June 1980) is a French football player. He plays for Chelsea and France national team.


title: Wim Jonk

paragraphs: Wim Jonk (born 12 October 1966) is a former Dutch football player. He has played for Netherlands national team.


title: Ramon Menezes Hubner

paragraphs: Ramon Menezes Hubner (born 30 June 1972) is a Brazilian football player. He has played for Brazil national team.


title: Reinhard Stumpf

paragraphs: Reinhard Stumpf (born 26 November 1961) is a former German football player.


title: Fumagalli

paragraphs: José Fernando Fumagalli (born 5 October 1977) is a Brazilian professional athlete. He is best known as a football player.


title: Osmar Donizete Cândido

paragraphs: Osmar Donizete Cândido (born 24 October 1968) is a former Brazilian football player. He has played for Brazil national team.


title: Jan Veenhof

paragraphs: Jan Veenhof (born 28 January 1969) is a former Dutch football player.


title: Leonard Henriques da Silva

paragraphs: Leonard Henriques da Silva (born 22 July 1982) is a Brazilian football player.


title: Swedish Academy

paragraphs: The Swedish Academy () was started in 1786 by the Swedish King Gustav III. It was copied from the Académie française, the first Academy ever. The Swedish Academy has 18 members. The motto of the Academy is "Talent and Taste" (""Snille och Smak"" in Swedish).

paragraphs: Since 1901 the Academy has decided who will win the Nobel Prize in Literature The prize is given in memory of Alfred Nobel.

paragraphs: The other thing the Academy does is to help to keep the Swedish language clean. They work for the "purity, strength, and greatness of the Swedish language" (""Svenska folkets renhet, styrka och höghet""). To help do this, the Academy publishes two dictionaries.

paragraphs: The first is a dictionary in only one big book, called "Svenska Akademiens ordlista" (or "SAOL"). In 2015, it was up to its 14th edition. The second dictionary has many volumes. It is called "Svenska Akademiens ordbok" (or "SAOB"). The content it is so big that it needs many books, like the "Oxford English Dictionary". The first book in the set was printed in 1898 and in 2015 work had got as far as words beginning with the letter "V".

paragraphs: The Academy uses a building now known as the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building. The bottom floor was used as a trading exchange (which became the stock exchange) and the upper floor was used for dances, New Years Eve parties, etc. In 1786, the ballroom was the biggest room in Stockholm that could be heated and be used in the winter. The king asked if he could use it. The Academy has met there every year since. In 1914 the Academy gained the right to use the upper floor as their own forever. This is where they meet and, amongst other business, choose the Nobel Prize winners. Because of this, the Academy is one of the most important literary groups in the world. The Swedish Academy is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden.

paragraphs: The current members of the Swedish Academy listed by seat number :


title: Norwegian Nobel Committee

paragraphs: The Norwegian Nobel Committee is the group which gives the Nobel Peace Prize every year. It has five members who are elected by the Norwegian Parliament and has the same political makeup as the parliament.

paragraphs: Alfred Nobel died in December 1896, and in his will he left a lot of money to start a number of prizes to given each year, to be called the Nobel Prize. The money would be looked after by the Nobel Foundation, and the prizes would be given out by a number of different groups.

paragraphs: The other Nobel Prizes would be given by existing Swedish groups, the Swedish Academy, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the Karolinska Institutet. The job of giving the Nobel Peace Prize was given to the Norwegian Parliament. A group of five people, to be called the Norwegian Nobel Committee, would decide who should win the prize. The Peace Prize would be given to the person who had done the most work to get countries to work together, to make the world's armies smaller, or to hold peace talks when needed.

paragraphs: Legal expert Fredrik Heffermehl has said that a parliament could not be expected to handle a legal jobs like looking after a will. Parliaments make and change laws, but a will can not be changed unless it has clearly become out of date. At the time this problem was not talked about very much, as the Norwegian Parliament felt that they needed to act quickly in case the money was lost in a legal battles. They agreed to give the Peace Prize on 26 April 1897 and on August 5, 1897 they worked out the rules for who could be elected to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

paragraphs: The first Peace Prize was given in 1901 to Henri Dunant and Frédéric Passy. At first, the committee was filled with active members of the parliament and every year its reports were talked about in parliamentary sessions. These links to the Norwegian Parliament were later weakened so that the committee became more independent.

paragraphs: The name was changed from the Norwegian Nobel Committee to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament () in 1901, but changed back in 1977. Now, members of parliament cannot be on the committee, unless they have said that they will be leaving the parliament soon. The committee is currently made up of five people who have all left the parliament.

paragraphs: But the committee is still mainly made up of politicians. A 1903 idea to elect a law expert (Ebbe Hertzberg) was rejected. In 1948, the election system was changed to make the committee have the same political makeup as the parliament. The Norwegian Labour Party, which had a majority of seats in the Norwegian Parliament made this change. Many people do not like this change, but it is still the way the committee is elected. There have been suggestions about having non-Norwegian members in the committee, but this has never happened.

paragraphs: The Norwegian Nobel Committee is helped by the Norwegian Nobel Institute, started in 1904. The committee might get more than a hundred different names for people to be given the prize. It asks the Nobel Institute in February every year to study about twenty possible winners.

paragraphs: The director of the Nobel Institute is also the secretary to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Currently this position is held by to Geir Lundestad. Thorbjørn Jagland has been the Norwegian Nobel Committee's leader since 2009.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

paragraphs: Andaz Apna Apna is a Hindi language comedy movie directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. Main actors in this movie are Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Raveena Tandon, Karisma Kapoor, Paresh Rawal and Shakti Kapoor. The movie was released on 11 April 1994. This movie was nominated for Filmfare Awards 1995 in four categories: Best Film, Best Director (Rajkumar Santoshi), Best Actor (Aamir Khan) and Best Comedian (Shakti Kapoor for the role of 'Crime Master Gogo').

paragraphs: The movie has 4 songs composed by Tushar Bhatia with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri.


title: Karisma Kapoor

paragraphs: Karisma Kapoor (also spelled as Karishma Kapoor), is an Indian actress. She was born on 25 June 1974 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Karishma Kapoor acts in Hindi language movies. She has won a Filmfare Best Actress Award. She also won a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award and a National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.

paragraphs: She is the sister of actress Kareena Kapoor. She is the daughter of Bollywood Actors Randhir Kapoor and Babita. She is the first-cousin of actor Ranbir Kapoor. Kapoor studied at the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai until Grade Six.

paragraphs: She married Sanjay in 2003 and they have two children.


title: Parides erithalion

paragraphs: The Variable Cattleheart ("Parides erithalion") is a species of butterfly. It belongs in the family Papilionidae. It is found in North America and South America.

paragraphs: The upper side of the wings is black. The hind wing (bottom wing) has a row of red spots. The underside of the wings is also black. The hind wing has a row of pink and whitish-colored spots.

paragraphs: The eggs are a brownish color. The caterpillar is brownish-black. It has white and reddish-brown areas.

paragraphs: The Variable Cattleheart feeds on "Aristolochia cordiflora".


title: Ava Gardner

paragraphs: Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for acting in "Mogambo" (1953). She was in several popular movies during the 1950s, and got BAFTA Award nominations for her performances in "Bhowani Junction" (1956), "On the Beach" (1959) and "The Night of the Iguana" (1964).

paragraphs: She is listed as one of the American Film Institute's greatest stars of all time.


title: Oswaldo Sánchez

paragraphs: Oswaldo Sánchez (born 21 September 1973) is a Mexican football player. He plays for Santos Laguna and Mexico national team.


title: Costinha

paragraphs: Costinha (born 1 December 1974) is a former Portuguese football player. He has played for Portugal national team.


Shigeru Morioka


title: Yoann Gourcuff

paragraphs: Yoann Miguel Gourcuff (born 11 July 1986) is a French football player. He plays for the France national team and Olympique Lyonnais in Ligue 1. Gourcuff plays as a midfielder and sometimes as a striker.

paragraphs: Yoann Gourcuff began his career in 1992 with F.C. Lorient. In 2001 he began to play for Rennes. While playing for Rennes, he attracted many supporters and the interest of other teams. Gourcuff moved to the Italian club AC Milan in 2003. He achieved many club honors with AC Milan, but did not play with the starting eleven players. In 2008 Goucuff was loaned to the French football team Girordins Bordeaux. After playing a good season, he became a permanent player for Bordeaux. Gourcuff has been compared to Zinedine Zidane because of his playing style and ability. Gourcuff has won the UNFP Ligue Player of the Year award. He was named French Player of the Year by the magazine "France Football" in 2009. In August 2010, he joined Olympique Lyonnais.

paragraphs: Gourcuff played his first game with the France national football team in August 2008. He scored his first international goal against Romania two months later. Since joining the national team, Gourcuff has been the team's playmaker. The role of playmaker had been empty since Zidane's retirement in 2006.


title: Daniel Sanabria

paragraphs: Daniel Sanabria (born 2 February 1977) is a former Paraguayan football player. He has played for Paraguay national team.


title: Gláucio de Jesus Carvalho

paragraphs: Gláucio de Jesus Carvalho (born 11 November 1975) is a Brazilian football player.


title: Ali Boumnijel

paragraphs: Ali Boumnijel (born 13 April 1966) is a former Tunisian football player. He has played for Tunisia national team.


title: Takafumi Yoshimoto

paragraphs: Takafumi Yoshimoto (born 13 May 1978) is a former Japanese football player.


title: Daishi Hiramatsu

paragraphs: Daishi Hiramatsu (born 3 July 1983) is a Japanese football player. He plays for Tokyo.


title: Oligocene

paragraphs: The Oligocene is the last geological epoch in the Palaeogene. It lasted for about 11 million years, from 34 mya to 23 mya. It was preceded by the Eocene and followed by the Miocene. During the Oligocene, the world continued to get cooler from its peak in the mid-Eocene. The world was still largely forested, but grasslands began to spread. Ice formed in Antarctica. The period is seen as one of "transition", both in climate and in the biota.


title: Sidney Poitier

paragraphs: From 1997 through 2007, he was the Bahamian ambassador to Japan.

paragraphs: Poitier was born in Miami, Florida. He grew up with his family on remote Cat Island, in the Bahamas. His mother was called Evelyn and his father was called Reginald James Poitier. They had a farm. Poitier's birth was premature and people did not expect him to survive, but his parents stayed three months in Miami until he became well. Since he was born in Miami, Poitier automatically gained U.S. citizenship.

paragraphs: When he was 15, Poitier's parents sent him off Miami to live with his older brother. At 17, he moved to New York City and got several menial jobs. During this time, he was arrested for vagrancy (being homeless) after having to leave his home for not paying rent. He decided to join the United States Army. He worked as a dishwasher until he got a job with the American Negro Theater.

paragraphs: Poitier was tone deaf, and could not sing or dance. This is what black actors did at the time, so audiences did not like him. He worked very hard to improve his acting skills, and to get rid of his Bahamian accent. He eventually got a leading role in the Broadway play called "Lysistrata" and he got excellent reviews. At the end of 1949, he got a job working for Darryl F. Zanuck in the movie "No Way Out" (1950). He played a doctor treating a white bigot. After this job, he soon got more movie roles. The acting jobs he got were better and more interesting than the roles most black actors played at the time.

paragraphs: In 1955, he played a member of an badly behaved high school class in "Blackboard Jungle". This was an important role in Poitier's career.

paragraphs: Poitier was the first black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for "Lilies of the Field" in 1963).

paragraphs: He acted in the first production of "A Raisin in the Sun" on Broadway in 1959, and later starred in the movie version released in 1961. He was also in "The Bedford Incident" (1965), and "A Patch of Blue" (1965) co-starring Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters. In 1967, he was the most successful actor at the box office, with three successful movies, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"; "To Sir, with Love" and "In the Heat of the Night". The last movie featured his most successful character, Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania detective.

paragraphs: However, Poitier began to be criticized for typecasting himself, playing black characters who had only good personalities, like his character in "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner". Poitier agreed with this but although he wanted more different roles, but also wanted to set a good example with his characters and go against the negative stereotypes that had come before. He was the only major black actor in the American movie industry at the time.

paragraphs: Poitier has directed several movies, the most successful being the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder comedy "Stir Crazy". The first movie he directed was the western "Buck and the Preacher". He was also the star, with Harry Belafonte. Other movies he has directed are "Uptown Saturday Night", "Let's Do It Again", "A Piece of the Action", and "Ghost Dad".

paragraphs: Poitier was first married to Juanita Hardy from April 29, 1950 until 1965. He has been married to Joanna Shimkus, a Canadian-born actress, since January 23, 1976. He has four daughters by his first marriage and two by his second.

paragraphs: He has written three autobiographical books, "This Life" (1980), "" (2000) and "Life Beyond Measure - letters to my Great-Granddaughter" (2008).

paragraphs: In April 1997, Poitier was became ambassador of the Bahamas to Japan. He is also the ambassador of the Bahamas to UNESCO. From 1998 to 2003, he was a Member of the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company.

paragraphs: In 2001, Poitier received an Academy Honorary Award for his overall contribution to American cinema. In August 2009, he received the Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.


title: Pliocene

paragraphs: The Pliocene (Pleiocene in older texts) was a short geological epoch at the end of the Neogene. It began 5.3 million years ago (mya), and ended 2.6 mya. The Pliocene follows the Miocene and is followed by the Pleistocene.

paragraphs: The world continued to get cooler and drier in the Pliocene. Tropical rain forests and deciduous forests shrank. Grasslands grew, and many herbivorous mammals became grazers instead of browsers. A new land bridge at Panama brought a Great American Interchange. Hominid evolution took a new turn as some apes started to live on the savannah instead of the forests (Australopithecines). Late in the Pliocene the Greenland ice cap grew and became permanent, and the ice sheet of Antarctica grew to cover most of Antarctica.


title: Grazer

paragraphs: A grazer is an animal, usually a herbivorous mammal, which eats grass. It is contrasted with browsers, which eat trees & shrubs.

paragraphs: The life-style, dentition (teeth), and digestive system of grazers is different from browsers, to handle the problems of eating and digesting grass. This is well illustrated in the evolution of such groups as horses. Ruminants are the largest group of grazers, though many other animals such as giant pandas also graze.

paragraphs: When grazers keep eating grass in an area without giving the plants time to grow back, that is called overgrazing.


title: Fauna

paragraphs: Fauna means animal life. It is a group term; it means the animal life typical of the time or place. It is a similar term to flora in Botany.

paragraphs: So one might speak of the Eocene fauna as being different from the Miocene fauna. Or say, the fauna of a particular habitat. The flora and fauna of a savannah differ from those of a rain forest.

paragraphs: Another use of the word is for published lists of animals, such as:


title: Butterscotch

paragraphs: Butterscotch is a confection (like candy) made from brown sugar, butter and cream. It is a bit like toffee but is made differently. Butterscotch is made by boiling sugar until it is at the "soft crack" stage, which is a slightly lower temperature than for toffee. Butterscotch can be used as a sauce for desserts like ice cream.


title: Jiffy Lube

paragraphs: Jiffy Lube is a chain of businesses that services automobiles. It is most well known for quick oil changes. The one-way design of the building allows for fast service.

paragraphs: In addition to oil changes, Jiffy Lube mechanics are trained to inspect cars and suggest service when needed. They can do many services themselves.

paragraphs: Jiffy Lube is owned by Pennzoil-Quaker State, part of SOPUS (Shell Oil Products United States), part of Royal Dutch Shell Group.


title: National Endowment for the Arts

paragraphs: The National Endowment for the Arts is a branch of the United States government that gives money for art, music, television, and film projects. It is supposed to promote enjoyment and participation in the arts.


title: Art Blakey

paragraphs: Arthur "Art" Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990), also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. With Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. His band, the Jazz Messengers, was made up of many jazz musicians became famous and important in jazz.

paragraphs: Blakey was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. By the time he was a teenager he played the piano professionally. He then taught himself to play the drums in the style of Chick Webb, Sid Catlett and Ray Bauduc. He played in New York in 1942 with Mary Lou Williams. He then went on tour with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. From 1944 to 1947 he played with the Billy Eckstine big band, along with Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Fats Navarro.

paragraphs: In 1947 Blakey recorded with an octet called the Jazz Messengers. In the early 1950s he performed and broadcast with musicians like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, and Horace Silver. Blakey and Silver recorded together several times, like the album "A Night at Birdland" in 1954. Over the years the Jazz Messengers included jazz musicians such as Donald Byrd, Johnny Griffin, Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Chuck Mangione, Woody Shaw, JoAnne Brackeen and Wynton Marsalis. Blakey made a world tour in 1971–2 with the Giants of Jazz (with Dizzy Gillespie, Kai Winding, Sonny Stitt, Thelonious Monk and Al McKibbon).

paragraphs: He converted to Islam during a visit to West Africa in the late 1940s and took the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina. (He had the nickname "Bu").

paragraphs: Up to the 1960s Blakey recorded as a sideman with many other musicians like Jimmy Smith, Herbie Nichols, Cannonball Adderley, Grant Green, and Jazz Messengers musicians Lee Morgan and Hank Mobley. After the mid-1960s he mostly worked as a bandleader.

paragraphs: Blakey continued performing and touring with his group into the late 1980s. He died in 1990 of lung cancer in New York City.


title: Jethro Tull (agriculturist)

paragraphs: Jethro Tull (1674-1741) was an agricultural engineer from England who helped start the British Agricultural Revolution. He helped improve the seed drill, which is a tool that put seeds in the ground to plant them faster. This seed drill was normally pulled by a horse or strong cattle. Jethro was one of the most influential engineers of this century. He began these inventions and soon after the economy thrived. The seed drill spaced out the seeds as well to keep the plants growing. In 1703 he perfected the seed drill, and the farmers in England began to use it. A short while after, Welsh farmers were introduced to this new machinery.


paragraphs: Carrier sense multiple access with collision detection or CSMA/CD is a protocol (or rule) used by computer ethernet networks. It stops computers from sending information on the same ethernet wire at the same time. With this rule, a computer will check that the wire is not being used before it sends information. This ability to check is called "carrier sense." This rule is used when many computers can use the same connection. This is called "multiple access." If computers do send information at exactly the same time, the computers can tell a mistake has been made and stop sending. This is called "collision detection." When this collision occurs, the computers stop sending information, wait for a random amount of time, and then check before resending the information.


title: Crash Test Dummy

paragraphs: A crash test dummy is a test device ( commonly abbreviated 'ATD') that is made to be close to the same shape, size, heaviness, proportions and articulation of the human body. They sometimes have equipment embedded in them that measures data about how hard things are hitting it and how fast the ATD is moving around. ATDs have many applications but are commonly used in simulated (test) car crashes to see how safe the cars are for people when they crash.


title: Parides montezuma

paragraphs: Montezuma's Cattleheart ("Parides montezuma") is a species of butterfly. It belongs in the family Papilionidae. It is found in North America and South America.

paragraphs: The upper side of the wings is black. The hind wing (bottom wing) has one row of red crescents along the edge. The underside of the wings is black. The hind wing has a row of red crescents like the ones on the upper side.

paragraphs: Here is a list of host plants used by Montezuma's Cattleheart. (The host plant is the plant that the caterpillar feeds on.):


title: Parides alopius

paragraphs: The white-dotted cattleheart (Parides alopius) a species of butterfly. It is in the family Papilionidae.

paragraphs: It is endemic to Mexican. It has also been found once in the United States in southeastern Arizona.

paragraphs: The upper side of the wings is black. The hind wing (bottom wing) has two rows of spots. The first row is white. The second row is pink. Males have fewer white spots than females. The underside of the wings is similar to the upper side. The row of pink spots on the underside are more noticeable than the pink spots on the upper side. It has a wingspan of 3-3.5 inches.

paragraphs: The caterpillar is ringed with black and white bands. It has yellow and reddish-brown fleshy areas. Each side of the body has red, orange, and white spots. The chrysalis is a blue-green color. The head, parts of the thorax, and the abdomen are a bright yellow-green color. It is not known whether the chrysalis has a brown form or not. The chrysalis has a similar shape to that of the pipevine swallowtail's ("Battus philenor") chrysalis.

paragraphs: The imago (adult) is seen from March-November. It lives in pine-oak forests.

paragraphs: The only known host plant the caterpillar feeds on is Watson's pipevine ("Aristolochia watsoni").


title: Innocence (Avril Lavigne song)

paragraphs: Innocence is a song by written by Avril Lavigne with Evan Taubenfeld, featured on her third studio album The Best Damn Thing.


title: Unwanted (Avril Lavigne song)

paragraphs: Unwanted is a song by Avril Lavigne and was released on her first studio album "Let Go". It was released as a radio single. The song is known for its very heavy guitar. It was one of the four songs released on her 2003 EP "The Angus Drive EP".


title: Angus Drive

paragraphs: The Angus Drive EP is an EP that was released in 2003 by Canadian singer Avril Lavigne and it contains songs that were already released on her 2002 album "Let Go".


title: Keisuke Mori

paragraphs: Keisuke Mori (born 17 April 1980) is a former Japanese football player.


title: Silva Jose Reinaldo Fernandes

paragraphs: Silva Jose Reinaldo Fernandes (born 28 December 1976) is a former Brazilian football player.


title: Thomas Bickel

paragraphs: Thomas Bickel (born 6 October 1963) is a former Swiss football player. He played for Switzerland national team.


title: Chris Birchall

paragraphs: Chris Birchall (born 5 May 1984) is a Trinidad and Tobago football player. He plays for Los Angeles Galaxy and Trinidad and Tobago national team.


title: Sami Al-Jaber

paragraphs: Sami Al-Jaber (born 11 December 1972) is a former Saudi Arabian football player. He has played for Saudi Arabia national team.


title: Tobias Linderoth

paragraphs: Tobias Linderoth (born 21 April 1979) is a Swedish football player. He has played for Sweden national team.


title: Marcus Allbäck

paragraphs: Marcus Allbäck (born 5 July 1973) is a Swedish football player. He has played for Sweden national team.


title: Markus Rosenberg

paragraphs: Markus Rosenberg (born 27 September 1982) is a Swedish football player. He plays for Werder Bremen and Sweden national team.


title: Marcelo Miguel Pelissari

paragraphs: Marcelo Miguel Pelissari (born 20 August 1975) is a former Brazilian football player.


title: Richard Dutruel

paragraphs: Richard Dutruel (born 24 December 1972) is a former French football player. He has played for France national team.


title: Masahiko Nakagawa

paragraphs: Masahiko Nakagawa (born 26 August 1969) is a former Japanese football player.


title: Masao Kiba

paragraphs: Masao Kiba (born 6 September 1974) is a retired Japanese football player.


title: Foraminifera

paragraphs: Foraminifera or forams, as they are called, are an important group of tiny single-celled rhizarian eukaryotes. They are mostly marine, though a few live in fresh-water, and even on damp land areas. In the sea, they live both in the plankton (pelagic), and in the deeper water (the benthos). They have "tests" (like shells) made of calcium carbonate (CaCO).

paragraphs: The organism has pseudopodia like an amoeba. It uses these to capture and eat bacteria and small diatoms. Also, many of them keep algal endosymbionts. Some are "idioplastic", which means they eat the algae, but keep the algal chloroplasts for their own benefit.

paragraphs: Forams are often used to date strata in palaeontology. The detailed record of forams from deep sea drilling projects are the basis of a fossil index for geological periods or stages. This is called "biostratigraphy".

paragraphs: Deep sea forams from the Mariana Trench are below the "carbonate compensation depth", below which all CaCO dissolves. They have evolved organic tests, instead of calcium carbonate ones. This suggests that the tests are a vital part of their life-style, perhaps protecting them from other micro-predators.


title: Take Me Away (Avril Lavigne song)

paragraphs: Take Me Away is a song by Canadian singer Avril Lavigne from her second album, "Under My Skin". Like the single before it ("Losing Grip"), "Take Me Away" has an edgy, post-grunge sound and started playing on Canadian rock radio in March of 2004. At around the same time that Don't Tell Me was being promoted, as the lead single from "Under My Skin", "Take Me Away" was being released as the B-side on some copies of the "Don't Tell Me" single.

paragraphs: "Take Me Away" was released to radio only in Australia in 2005.


title: Strata

paragraphs: Strata are layers of rock, or sometimes soil. In nature, strata come in many layers. It is a term in sedimentary and historical geology; the singular is stratum. The study of strata is called stratigraphy.

paragraphs: These layers are laid down as sediment, often in the sea, and are slowly changed by pressure, heat and chemical action into rocks.

paragraphs: The strata are often typical of a particular time and place, and allow geologists to relate rocks in different places. For instance, chalk was laid down in the Upper Cretaceous period, and consists mainly of the remains of microscopic algae called coccoliths.

paragraphs: In normal strata, the later strata are laid down on earlier strata in horizontal layers. In the long passage of time, sedimentary rocks may get "deformed" by huge forces in the Earth: volcanism, orogeny (mountain building) or other causes. Then it requires research to work out what has happened to the strata.

paragraphs: When strata rise above sea level they get worn down by erosion, such as weather. This causes gaps in the sequence of strata, which may have risen and sunk many times in Earth history. These gaps are called unconformities in geological jargon.

paragraphs: In many formations of strata there are repeating patterns. For example, clay layers alternate with sandstone layers; or carbonate layers alternate with shales. This is usually caused by repeating cycles of climate. In warmer times the sea rises, and carbonate rocks are deposited in shallow subtropical seas. Later, ice builds up at the poles and the sea level drops. Then the same area is close to shore, and gets sand and mud washed down by rivers.

paragraphs: Rocks showing repeat patterns of strata are called rhythmites. Sometimes the patterns are caused by annual climate changes. Geologists call those varves.


title: Live Acoustic (Avril Lavigne EP)

paragraphs: Live Acoustic EP is an EP that was released in 2004 by Canadian singer Avril Lavigne. It was made up of songs from her 2004 album, "Under My Skin", and her hit single "Sk8er Boi" from her 2002 album "Let Go".

paragraphs: It is an acoustic album that was only released in United States Target stores. All the songs were recorded live during Avril's North American mall tour.


title: Sarah Vaughan

paragraphs: Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer. She was described by jazz writer Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century". She had a contralto (alto) vocal range.

paragraphs: Vaghan had the nicknames "Sassy" and "The Divine One", and she was a Grammy Award winner. The National Endowment for the Arts gave her its "highest honor in jazz," the NEA Jazz Masters Award, in 1989.


title: Gish

paragraphs: Gish is the first album of the alternative rock group The Smashing Pumpkins. It was released on May 28, 1991.


title: Maureen Tucker

paragraphs: Maureen ("Mo" or "Moe") Tucker (born August 26, 1944 in Levittown, New York) is an American musician, best known as the drummer for the Velvet Underground, a band from the 1960s and early 1970s.

paragraphs: Tucker worked in a factory during the day, but played drums as a hobby. Two of her brother Jim's friends were college , Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison, who had started a band. (Jim gave the band its name, after he brought them a copy of a book titled "The Velvet Underground".) When their drummer suddenly quit, she was asked to fill in for him. She did so, and ended up staying with the band full-time. She left her factory job.

paragraphs: Early on she was asked to "do something different" with her drums. Tucker turned her bass drum on its side, and began playing with instead of drumsticks, standing up. This became her signature style. (She also played a few times, after her drums were stolen.) She played on all the band's recordings for Verve Records and MGM's record label, and their concerts through the 1960s. She also sang lead vocals on "After Hours" and "I'm Sticking With You".

paragraphs: Tucker had to take a break from drumming in 1970, when she became pregnant. Billy Yule, teenage brother of Doug Yule, filled in for her on drums until after her baby Kerry was born. Tucker returned to the band, staying on even when Reed and Morrison left. She quit later, when the band thought about changing names. Instead of a solo career, she went back to factory work, and family life.

paragraphs: Later Tucker began drumming with other bands, including her own projects. She joined the Velvet Underground's 1990s reunions, and was present when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.


title: Avatar (2009 movie)

paragraphs: Avatar is a 2009 American science fiction adventure movie. The two main characters are played by Sam Worthington (Jake) and Zoë Saldaña (Neytiri). "Avatar" was directed by James Cameron. In 1994, Cameron wrote an 80-page story about Pandora. He did not start to develop the movie until 12 years later, in early 2006. He did this because the level of technology at the time was not good enough. The cost of the movie was high. It cost $280–310 million to make it and $150 million for marketing. The movie was released in traditional 2-D and 3-D. Only three weeks after it was released (December 18, 2009 in the United States), "Avatar" has earned more money worldwide than any movie other than Cameron's previous movie, "Titanic". In 2014, they announced that there will be a sequel in the 2020s. The Dates are December 2022, 2024, 2026 and 2028.

paragraphs: It has been nominated for 11 Academy Awards and eight BAFTA awards.

paragraphs: The story takes place on Pandora, a moon of a far away planet, in the year 2154. The movie opens with Jake getting into a fight in a bar on Earth before he goes to Pandora. Pandora is a fictional Earth-like moon in a distant planetary system.

paragraphs: Some humans have traveled from Earth to Pandora because it is a source of a very valuable mineral called unobtanium. The largest deposit of the mineral is under a large tree that the local Na'vi people have named "Hometree" ("kelutral" in the Na'vi language). The tree is very important to the Na'vi. Parker Selfridge (played by Giovanni Ribisi) is the military leader of the mining operation. He uses marines for security. The marines need to move the Na'vi people before they can start mining the unobtanium. They have tried to do this many times. They have offered the Na'vi clothing, education, and such, but none has been working. Their next plan is to just blow the place up.

paragraphs: Pandora is inhabited by the Na'vi. They are a blue-skinned species of humanoids with feline characteristics. Physically, the Na'vi are much stronger and taller than humans. They live in harmony with Nature and worship a mother goddess called Eywa. The human scientists on Pandora want to learn about the Na'vi's culture. To do this, they have created "avatars". Avatars are Na'vi bodies modified with human DNA. They are controlled mentally by human operators. These avatars are used to interact with the Na'vi people, to try to create peace. Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington) is a paraplegic marine . His brother was a scientist trained to be an avatar operator. After his brother dies, Jake replaces him to control his avatar. Jake receives the mission to form relations with the Na'vi. His goal is to get the Na'vi to move away from Hometree so the humans can mine for unobtanium there. To do this, he was to become friends with the Na'vi so he could learn what it would take to get them to move. Many people, like Grace (played by Sigourney Weaver), an avatar specialist, did not think Jake had enough experience and intelligence to be useful. On a mission in avatar form, he gets lost in the jungle.

paragraphs: Jake's avatar is saved by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a female Na'vi. Neytiri takes Jake to Hometree, where her clan, the Omaticaya, live. As a shaman, Neytiri's mother shows interest in Jake. She asks her daughter to teach Jake about their culture. Together, Jake and Neytiri have many adventures in Pandora. Neytiri shows Jake the spirit that every living thing has. Jake is respected when he first comes to the Na'vi. They call him a "sky-dreamer". Once he learns their culture, he impresses all of them and earns their respect. He becomes a member of the Omaticaya clan and is seen as one of them. At first, Neytiri does not like him. Their friendship forms as he becomes more skilled and her equal. They mate under the tree of Eywa. At first, Neytiri's father is quite mad about it. Over time, he accepts it.

paragraphs: Time passes and Jake has not gotten the Na'vi people to move. Park Selfridge sees this. He tells Jake that it has taken too long and that they are going to bomb Hometree. Jake tries to warn the Na'vi people. The Na'vi people feel that he has betrayed them because he knew this was going to happen. The Na'vi try to fight back but their bows and arrows are useless against the Marines. The Hometree is bombed and thousands of Na'vi people died. Neytiri's father is one of the dead. Jake and Grace have failed. They are jailed by the mining company because they fought with the Na'vi.

paragraphs: With the help of a woman marine pilot named Trudy (played by Michelle Rodriguez), they escape in a helicopter. They go to a nearby base to change into avatar mode. They then go to Hometree to see the Na'vi. Jake tells the Na'vi people that they still must fight. He joins with one of the Na'vi warriors to train them. Soon, more Na'vi come to defend their land. The marines choose to just destroy the Na'vi rather than try and move them. Many people do not think this was right. They think it is inhumane. These people are not listened to and the Marines went to attack the Na'vi. There is a very large battle between the Marines and Na'vi. When it looks as if the marines are going to win, many of the animals of Pandora join the battle. They fight with the Na'vi against the marines. Near the end of the battle, Jake, in his avatar, fights Parker Selfridge. When he is almost dead, Neytiri saves him. The Na'vi eventually win but many die. After the battle, the Marines are sent home to planet Earth. Jake Sully is changed into his avatar permanently and becomes the leader of the Na'vi with Neytiri.

paragraphs: If Cameron was inspired by every science fiction book he read when he was a kid, the look of the Na'vi was inspired by a dream that Cameron's mother had before he wrote Avatar. She dreamt about a 12-foot-tall blue woman and he thought that image was cool.

paragraphs: Cameron's aim was to make us think about how we interact with nature and others . Cameron said: "the Na'vi represent(...) our higher selves, or our aspirational selves..." and the humans represent "the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future".

paragraphs: Home media 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment & Sony Pictures Home Entertainmentreleased Avatar on Blu-ray and DVD on April 22nd Earth Day in the United States Japan South Korea and Canada and Peoples Republic of China. this release had no special features and no 3D. it was released in UK April 26th 2010 and Ireland and Mainland Europe Australia New Zealand April 23rd 2010 another edition was re released in 12 November 2010 with special features and audio commentary a 3D version is not available in shops only with special 3D package Sony 3D TV package until February 2012.


title: Paramecium

paragraphs: Paramecium is one of the best-known protists, often taught in school biology courses. It is a ciliate genus. Ciliates are a clade of protists which move by synchronous waves of tiny projections from their cuticle. These projections are called cilia (singular: "cilium"). The species range from 50 to 350 μm in length. They live in freshwater ponds, and eat bacteria, and other protists such as single-celled algae.

paragraphs: Paramecium species usually have bacterial symbionts, and some species have green algal symbionts.

paragraphs: Reproduction in "Paramecium" has been researched for many years.

paragraphs: "Paramecium" has two nuclei (a large macronucleus and a single compact micronucleus). They cannot survive without the macronucleus and cannot reproduce without the micronucleus. Reproduction is either by binary fission (asexual), conjugation (sexual), or, rarely, by "endomixis", a process of self-fertilisation. During binary fission a fully grown organism divides into two daughter cells. Conjugation consists of the temporary union of two organisms and the exchange of micro-nuclear elements. Without the rejuvenating effects of conjugation a paramecium ages and dies. Only opposite mating types, or genetically compatible organisms, can unite in conjugation.

paragraphs: This reproductive system is unique to ciliates, and is one of the reasons why we think the Protista is not a natural clade (monophyletic), but rather a polyphyletic collection of single-celled organisms.

paragraphs: This species consists of 14 "syngens", each genetically isolated from every other, and biochemically unique. Each syngen has two mating types. The syngens are so similar in appearance that they have not been given separate species names.

paragraphs: These are paramecia which secrete, into the medium around them, particles which kill other paramecia. This killer trait is caused by kappa particles, which are are symbiotic bacteria. The kappa particles are only found in paramecia with a dominant K gene. The killing is done by smaller particles which are defective DNA phages. The kappa bacterium is just one of many found in natural populations of "Paramecium aurelia".


title: Kingston, Wisconsin

paragraphs: Kingston is a village of Green Lake County in the state of Wisconsin in the United States. 288 people were living in Kingston as of 2000. Kingston has a total area of 1.5 square miles.