title: Tokyo Metro

paragraphs: Tokyo Metro (東京メトロ, とうきょうめとろ) is one of two rapid transit systems making up the Tokyo subway system, the other being Toei.

paragraphs: "Note:" Including the 8.3 km stretch between Wakoshi and Kotake-mukaihara shared with Yurakucho Line.


title: Glomma

paragraphs: Glomma is the longest river in Norway. It is long and runs from Aursund to Fredrikstad.


title: Random sample

paragraphs: A random sample is a sample taken at random from a population of data.

paragraphs: In a random sample every element in the population has an equal chance of being selected. For instance, to do an election poll, calling people randomly out of the phone book would be better than asking people at a labor union meeting or at a small business convention. A page of the phone book is a more random sample of voters than a union meeting, so the result is more likely to tell who will really be elected. But neither sample is really random because for one thing, some people do not have phones.


title: Urban contemporary

paragraphs: Urban contemporary or urban music is a kind of music played on the radio. It comes from cities. The first person to use this word was the now dead New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations play only hip hop/rap, contemporary R&B, more urban-styled pop, and on occasion, Caribbean music such as reggae and reggaeton. Urban contemporary came from R&B and Soul. Almost all Urban contemporary type radio stations are found in cities that have lots of African-American people. Some cities that have Urban contemporary stations are; Los Angeles, California, New York City, Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, Fayetteville, North Carolina, Charlotte, and Norfolk, Virginia, etc.

paragraphs: The words "urban contemporary" make people think of African American music, like R&B. For Latino people, the music is more like music from Latin neighborhoods, such as Reggaeton, Hip hop from South America, or bachata.

paragraphs: These stations try to sell their music to African-Americans between the ages of 18 and 34. Their playlists are mainly singles by popular hip hop and R&B artists. Sometimes, an urban contemporary station will play classic soul music songs from the '70s and early '80s to make old people happy.

paragraphs: Some radio stations in cities, like KJLH, KMEL, KDAY, and WVEE, will play gospel and Christian R&B/hip-hop music on Sundays.


title: Cleo Laine

paragraphs: Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth, DBE (born 28 October 1927) is a British jazz singer and an actress. She was born in Southall, Middlesex to a white English mother and black Jamaican father. She is famous for her scat singing and for being able to sing very high and very low notes.

paragraphs: She is the only female performer to have received Grammy nominations in the jazz, popular and classical music categories. Laine is the widow of jazz composer Sir John Dankworth.


title: State Senator

paragraphs: A state senator is a member of a state's Senate, the upper house in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a legislator in Nebraska's one house State Legislature.

paragraphs: There are usually fewer state senators than there are members in a state's lower house. In the past, this meant that senators represented different regions within a state, not according to the population of the region. This was a way of balancing the power of the lower house, where the numbers for each state were related to the state's population. In 1963, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that state legislatures must give seats in both houses depending on the population of the state.


title: Bicameral

paragraphs: A Bicameral system of government is one where there are two legislative or parliamentary chambers. The word comes from the Latin "bi" (meaning two) and "camera" (meaning chamber). In most cases they have different numbers of members. The smaller legislature is often called the "upper house" or "senate" and the larger is called the "lower house", and sometimes also called by another name such as "assembly" or "commons". For legislation to be passed, bicameral legislatures normally need a majority of members of both chambers to vote for the legislation.

paragraphs: Experts sometimes point out that often deadlocks occur in this kind of system. This can make it harder to pass laws. But others point out the checks and balances this system maintains. This prevents laws from being passed that favor a certain political faction, the government or group of people.


title: Unicameralism

paragraphs: In government, unicameralism is when there is only one legislative or parliamentary chambers. Therefore, a unicameral legislature or unicameral parliament is a legislature with one chamber. It comes from the Latin "uni" (meaning one) and "camera" (meaning chamber).

paragraphs: Unicameral legislatures are used around the world.

paragraphs: Since 1937, the US State of Nebraska’s Nebraska Legislature has been unicameral, however all other US states use a bicameral system.


title: Nebraska Legislature

paragraphs: The Nebraska Legislature is the highest legislative body of the U.S. state of Nebraska. It meets at the Nebraska State Capitol in the City of Lincoln in Lancaster County.

paragraphs: Nebraska's Legislature is unusual because it is unicameral. It is also the smallest state legislature in the United States of America, as it only has 49 members.


title: Upper house

paragraphs: An upper house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature. The other chamber is called the lower house.


title: Lower house

paragraphs: A lower house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature. The other chamber is called the upper house.

paragraphs: Although it is called the "lower" house, in many legislatures in the world it actually has more power than the "upper" house.


title: William-Adolphe Bouguereau

paragraphs: William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French painter born November 30, 1825. Bouguereau was a traditionalist and his style did not change much throughout his painting career. He was a popular artist in his day. Rich customers liked his photo-realistic style. He liked to paint classical scenes and scenes from ancient mythology.

paragraphs: As a boy Bouguereau was born into a family of wine and olive oil sellers. His parents wanted him to join the family business when he became an adult. His uncle, however, arranged for him to get a proper education at school. Bouguereau showed great talent for art. One of his father’s customers talked him into sending William to a famous art college. There he won first place for one of his paintings. To earn extra money he designed labels for fruit jellies and jams.

paragraphs: Bouguereau liked to paint pictures of women. He was known for being able to make his subject look prettier than she really was.

paragraphs: In 1856, he married Marie-Nelly Monchablon and had five children. In the late 1850s he made a profitable friendship with a successful art dealer. This art dealer made William famous even in other countries. William was able to buy a big house and studio with his growing fortune.

paragraphs: He was a hard working painter. He would make a thorough study and sketch of what he planned to paint. The great way he painted skin, hands and feet was well known. He eventually became a teacher at a French art college.

paragraphs: Near the end of his life he described his love of his art: “Each day I go to my studio full of joy; in the evening when obliged to stop because of darkness I can scarcely wait for the next morning to come…if I cannot give myself to my dear painting I am miserable”. He painted eight hundred and twenty-six paintings.

paragraphs: Bouguereau died at the age of 79 on August 19, 1905 from heart disease.


title: Carrot cake

paragraphs: Carrot cake is a sweet and moist spice cake, full of cut carrots and toasted nuts, and covered in cream cheese icing. One part of the cake is that the orange flakes of cut carrot give the cake color and texture, along with sweetness and moisture.

paragraphs: Carrot cake more closely is a quick bread in method of preparation. All the wet ingredients, such as the typical eggs, vegetable oil, yogurt, melted butter and, are mixed together. Then, all the dry ingredients; such as flour, grated carrots, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, sugar, brown sugar are typically then mixed together, and the wet are then added to the dry. Many carrot cake recipes have optional ingredients, such as nuts, raisins, pineapple, or coconut.

paragraphs: Carrot cake may be eaten plain, but it is commonly either glazed or covered with white icing or cream cheese icing and walnuts, often cut. Often they are decorated with frosting or marzipan made to look like carrots. They are popular in loaf, sheet cake and cupcake form, and (in the United Kingdom as well as North America) can be found pre-packaged at grocery stores, and fresh at bakeries. Some carrot cakes are even layered.


title: Rann of Kutch

paragraphs: Rann of Kutch (Urdu:رن کچھ) is a large area of Salt marshes located mostly in Gujarat (primarily the Kutch District), Republic of India and the southern tip of Sindh province, Pakistan. It is divided into two main parts; Great Rann of Kutch and Little Rann of Kutch. It is entirely claimed by Pakistan as part of Sindh. It is about big and is reputed to be the largest salt desert in the world. The Rann of Kachchh is Homeland of the Kutchi people.

paragraphs: The Rann of Kachchh is located in the Thar Desert bio-geographic area in Gujarat with some parts in Pakistani province of Sindh. It is a seasonally marshy region, the word "Rann" meaning "salt marsh", alternating with "medaks", elevated pieces of land where vegetation grows.

paragraphs: Kachchh is the name of the District currently in Gujarat (Western India), but as part of Sindh where this region is situated. The Marsh covers a huge area of around 10,000 square miles and is positioned between the Gulf of Kutch and the mouth of the Indus River in southern Pakistan. To the northeast corner of the Rann of Kachchh lies the Luni River, originating in Sakastan.

paragraphs: This inhospitable salty lowland, rich in Natural gas, is one scene of the perennial border disputes between Bharat and Pakistan that, in April 1965, contributed to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. Later the same year, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Wilson persuaded the combatants to end hostilities and establish a Tribunal to resolve the Territorial dispute. A verdict was reached in 1968 which saw Pakistan getting 10% of its claim of . 90% was awarded to India, although India still claims 100% of the region. Tensions may spurt again if the issue one many between them is not resolved.

paragraphs: The Rann of Kachchh is the only large Flooded grasslands zone in the whole Indo-Malayan region of the planet.

paragraphs: The fact that the area has desert on one side and the sea on the other provides the Rann of Kachchh with a variety of ecosystems, including Mangroves and Desert vegetation. The grassland and deserts of the Rann of Kachchh are home to forms of wildlife that have adapted to the often harsh conditions of this vast area. These include Endemic and Endangered animal and plant species. The marsh covers an area of around . It is between the Gulf of Kutch and the mouth of the Indus River in southern Pakistan.

paragraphs: The region is important for Biodiversity.

paragraphs: The unique handicrafts of Kutch are world famous. A lot of women and young girls make their living by selling different types of embroidered cloths. The embroidery is of various styles such as Rabari, Ahir, Sindhi, Banni, Mutwa, Ari and Soof - and some styles include mirror or bead inlay.


title: Kachchh District

paragraphs: Kutch district (also spelled Kutch or Kachchh, ) is a formerly-independent district of Gujarat state in western Republic of India. Covering an area of 45,612 km², it is the largest district in the state of Gujarat and also the largest district of within India. Only the Leh, in Indian-administered Kashmir is larger.


title: Atari 5200

paragraphs: The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, or simply the Atari 5200, was a video game console which came out in 1982. It was made by Atari Inc. and was meant as a replacement to the popular Atari 2600. Atari wanted the 5200 to compete with the Intellivision, but it competed more closely with the ColecoVision.

paragraphs: The 5200 was based on Atari Inc.'s 400/800 computers. Even though the internal hardware was almost identical, the code in the software was not. Design mistakes meant that the 5200 had problems with its use. These problems made it a market failure.

paragraphs: The game's Atari 400-based design made for a design which Atari Inc. could quickly build and sell.

paragraphs: While it was being designed, the Atari 5200 called the "Atari Video System X - Advanced Video Computer System." Atari protected the design with a codename, "Pam," after a female employee at Atari. A rumor said that "Pam" or "PAM" actually stood for "Personal Arcade Machine." This was because most games for the system were based on existing arcade games. Actual working "Atari Video System X" machines, whose hardware is 100% identical to the Atari 5200 do exist, but they are extremely rare.

paragraphs: The first 1982 release had four controller ports, where nearly all other systems of the day had only two. The 5200 also featured a very special new controller with an analog joystick, numeric keypad, two fire buttons on both sides of the controller and game function keys for Start, Pause, and Reset. Another special thing was the first automatic TV switchbox. Older game systems which attached to a television's antenna leads required the user to slide a switch on the adapter by hand. This RF box was also where the game's power supply connected in a unique dual power/television signal setup similar to the RCA Studio II's. A single cable coming out of the 5200 plugged into the switch box and was used for both electricity and the television signal.

paragraphs: The 1983 version of the Atari 5200 has two controller ports instead of four. Atari changed back to the a simpler separate power supply and manual RF switch. It also had changes in the cartridge port to allow for the Atari 2600 adapter released that year. While the adapter was only made to work on the two-port version, modifications can be made to the four-port to make it compatible. In fact, towards the end of the four-port model's production run, there were a limited number of consoles produced which included these modifications. These consoles can be identified by an asterisk in their serial number.

paragraphs: The prototypes used to design the controller's electrical systems used a so-called "yoke and gimbal" taken from a radio control system used to fly model airplanes. This simple design gave very nice control and was highly reliable. The actual controllers sold with the game were quite different and a great disappointment to the development teams. The design of the analog joystick, which used a weak rubber boot rather than springs to center the stick, caused many joysticks to have no ability to center. Another major flaw of the controllers was that the design did not provide smooth control through the travel of the stick. This made controlling games awkward. The controllers did, however, include a pause button. This was a novelty at the time, but would become standard on almost all future game systems. Replacement joysticks were also released by other manufacturers.

paragraphs: Atari Inc. released the Pro-Line Trak-Ball controller for the system, which was used for titles such as "Centipede" or "Defender". A paddle controller and an updated self-centering version of the original controller were also being worked on, but never made it to market.

paragraphs: In the web-video-game review show, James Rolfe's "The Angry Video Game Nerd", Rolfe's character is shown as being very frustrated with trying to use the controllers and Pro-Line Trak Ball as neither of them work properly. Other instances of web game review shows disliking the controller are on shows such as Mark Bussler's "Classic Game Room", where the host is shown stating that the Atari 5200 controllers are the worst game console controllers of all time.

paragraphs: The controller was ranked the 10th worst video game controller by IGN editor Craig Harris.

paragraphs: Although the Atari 5200's insides were very much like that of the 400/800 home computers, the differences were enough so that games designed for one would not run directly on the other.

paragraphs: One of the most obvious differences was the 5200's lack of a keyboard. However, there were several others:

paragraphs: Atari Corp.'s later XE Games System revisited the idea of a console based on the 400/800 hardware. However, as this was essentially just a 65XE computer with a keyboard which could be removed, it was able to run most of the home computer titles directly.

paragraphs: The Atari 5200 could not run software for the still-popular Atari 2600. An adapter was later released in 1983 allowing it to play all Atari 2600 games, using the more reliable controllers from the 2600.

paragraphs: Another problem was the lack of attention that Atari Inc. gave to the console; most of its attention went to the older Atari 2600. It faced an uphill battle competing with the ColecoVision's head start and a video game market which was beginning to fade.

paragraphs: At one point, Atari Inc. planned on developing a smaller, less expensive version of the Atari 5200 which would have gotten rid of the controller storage bin. Code-named the "Atari 5100" (a.k.a. "Atari 5200 Jr."), only a few fully-working prototype Atari 5100s were made before the project was canceled.

paragraphs: On May 21, 1984, during a press conference at which the Atari 7800 was introduced, company executives revealed that the 5200 had been discontinued. Total sales of the 5200 were reportedly in excess of 1 million units.

paragraphs: "Note: These descriptions are very technical. They are meant to be understood by people with lots of computer experience."


title: Absinthe spoon

paragraphs: An absinthe spoon is simply a special spoon, placed over a glass of absinthe. There are holes in the spoon, over which a sugar cube is placed. Then, cold water is poured over the sugar to dilute and sweeten the absinthe.


title: Domain name

paragraphs: A domain name is a human-readable web address (e.g. "google.com") that points to an IP address and helps users to access websites or other resources in a convenient way.

paragraphs: Domain names have extensions (called "top-level domains") at the end of the URL. For example ".com", ".net" and ".org" are the most commonly used domain name extensions. The most popular domain extension is .com with more than 100 million domains registered.

paragraphs: .com domain stands for "commercial", .org for organization and .net for network.

paragraphs: There are also country-specific domain name extensions. For example, the United Kingdom has the ".uk" domain extension and Japan has ".jp".

paragraphs: Domains can be a good way to create a business identity. For example "MySpace.com" indicates that it provides personal space for users.


title: Edinburgh International Festival

paragraphs: The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of music, theatre, opera, dance, visual arts and literature that takes place every year in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Each year it is held for about three weeks in late August and early September.

paragraphs: The festival started in 1947. Since 1999 the permanent home of the festival is at The Hub, near Edinburgh Castle. Several large theatres, concert halls and churches in Edinburgh are used for the events, e.g. Usher Hall, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh Playhouse, The Queen's Hall and The Hub.

paragraphs: Since 2006 the director of the festival has been Jonathan Mills.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

paragraphs: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (The Fringe) is the world’s largest arts festival. It started in 1947. It takes place every year at the same time as the Edinburgh International Festival: late August and early September. There are hundreds of different events, ranging from concerts, theatre, opera, dance to many informal events such as street performers.

paragraphs: The organisers are the Festival Fringe Society: they publish a programme every year, sell tickets and give advice to performers from the Fringe office on the Royal Mile.


title: Ante Pavelić

paragraphs: Ante Pavelić (14 July 1889 – 28 December 1959) was the founding member of the Croatian national socialist/fascist Ustaše movement and terrorist organization in the 1930s. Later, during World War II, he will be the leader ("Poglavnik" - Head) of the Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state of Nazi Germany.

paragraphs: Ante Pavelić was born in Bradina, a small village roughly 15 kilometres south west of Hadžići in Bosnia and Herzegovina, then Austria-Hungary, although he draws his roots from southern Lika, in the small town of Krivi Put on the central part of the Velebit plain. His parents moved to Bosnia. As an adult, Ante Pavelić decided to move to Zagreb to study the law. An extremist even in his youth, he became a member of the organization known as the "Frankovci" whose founder, Dr. Josip Frank, was the father-in-law of Slavko Kvaternik, an Austro-Hungarian army officer. In 1919 he was the interim secretary of the Pure Party of Rights. In 1921 he was arrested along with several other members of the party but was released; he defended them at the trial and lost. Kvaternik had long been a strong advocate of Croat separatism and the German ideas on a separate Croat state found in him a ready tool.

paragraphs: Pavelić's quarrelsome nature became more and more apparent in the years immediately after the first war when he became involved in one dispute after another with the Centralist Party and the Croat Peasant Party of Radić. He was the sole representative of his Party in the "Skupština" (Yugoslav Parliament) but rarely attended sessions and, when he did, he sulked in his seat and only occasionally indulged in a long harangue in protest against some measure which he did not approve.

paragraphs: In the early 1920s, Pavelić began to establish his contacts with Croat émigrées in Vienna and Budapest and later entered into close accord with the Macedonian terrorist society IMRO. In 1927 he acted as counsel for the defense of the Macedonian terrorists at the Skopje trials.

paragraphs: In 1927 he was elected to the Zagreb city council. He held the position of the party secretary in the Party of Rights until 1929 and the beginning of royal government in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Shortly after the proclamation of the establishment of the government Alexander I of Yugoslavia in January 1929, Pavelić fled abroad and was subsequently sentenced to death in absentia at Belgrade for his part in anti-Serb demonstrations organized at Sofia by Bulgarian and Macedonian terrorists. He then co-founded the Ustaše terrorist organization and went underground.

paragraphs: Camps for training terrorists and saboteurs were set up in Italy and Hungary, chiefly at Brescia and Borgotaro in Italy and Janka Puszta in Hungary and an armed insurrection was attempted in 1933 when the Ustaše, armed by the Italians, attempted to invade the country by crossing the Adriatic sea in motorboats. This was unsuccessful but its lack of success probably was instrumental in the decision to assassinate King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. Two attempts were made, the last one successful and Aleksandar was slain at Marseilles 9 October 1934 along with the French Foreign Minister, Louis Barthou.

paragraphs: The singular lack of armed protection afforded to the Yugoslav monarch, and the general laxity of security precautions when it was well-known that one attempt had already been made on Alexander's life are grim tributes to Pavelić organizational abilities; he had apparently been able to bribe a high official in the Surete General. The Prefect of Police of Marseilles, Jouhannaud, was subsequently removed from office.

paragraphs: Pavelić remained in Italy until the beginning of World War II. As the leader of the Ustaše he directly ordered, organized and conducted a campaign of terror against Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and communist Croats and Bosniaks. The extent of this campaign reached the proportions of genocide. Pavelić's Ustaše regime was the most murderous Nazi puppet state in the whole of occupied Europe. Numerous surviving testimonies from the Nuremberg Trials and the German and the Italian war archives bear witness to bestialities perpetrated against the civilian population of the state. According to these testimonies, the German officers themselves were horrified by the scenes of atrocities committed by his Ustaše, forcing them to stop the bloodshed (Jasenovac, 1941), arrest one of the most notorious Ustaše (Fra Miroslav Filipović-Majstorović, Banja Luka, 1942) and disarm an Ustaše detachment (Eastern Bosnia, 1942).

paragraphs: These atrocities were recorded in novelistic literature and poetry: Malaparte's Kaputt "Basket of oysters chapter", inspired by the widespread practices of the Ustaše gouging out the eyes of Serbs; Kovačić's "Jama (The Pit)", where Ustaše tied Serbs with barbed wire and dropped them into pits; Oljača's "Kozara"; Svetina's "Volčiči (The Wolf Puppies)". As far as the Serb population of the puppet state was concerned, the stated aim was the extermination of a third of their numbers, exile for another third, and a forced conversion to Catholicism for yet another. The Ustaše succeeded in reaching their first goal, exterminating close to one third of the Serbs and possibly more. A Gestapo report to Himmler (17 February 1942) on increased Partisan activities stated that "Increased activity of the bands is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustasha units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustashas committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand."

paragraphs: Pavelić's regime was not officially recognized by the Vatican, but at no point did the Church condemn the genocide and forced conversions to Catholicism perpetrated by the Ustaše. Soon after coming to power in April 1941 Pavelić was given a private audience in Rome by Pope Pius XII, an act for which the Pope was widely criticized. A British Foreign Office memo on the subject described Pius as "the greatest moral coward of our age" for receiving Pavelić. Pavelic remained Hitler's servant to the end of war. His servitude toward Hitler was described by A. Veesenmayer

paragraphs: What Pavelic meant by "independence" he explained to German foreign minister Ribentrop's trusted troubleshooter for the southeast Europe, Anton Veesenmeyer. Pavelic had only two wishes, Veesenmayer reported to Berlin: first to obtain German recognition of Croatia; and second, an opportunity to thank Hitler in person and promise him "to live and die for the Fuehrer".

paragraphs: A Yugoslavian court declared that Pavelić had been responsible for the deaths of 700,000 people during his reign.

paragraphs: In May 1945 Pavelić fled via Bleiburg to Austria, where he stayed for a few months before transferring to Rome, where he was hidden by members of the Roman Catholic Church (as is documented in de-classified US Intelligence documents).

paragraphs: Six months later, he fled to South America. Upon arriving in Argentina via the ratlines, he became a security advisor to Juan Perón. Perón issued 34,000 visas to Croatians: both the Nazi collaborators and the anti-communists that fled from the new communist government led by Josip Broz Tito.

paragraphs: On April 10, 1957, the 16th anniversary of the founding of the Independent State of Croatia, the 67 year old Pavelić was shot and seriously wounded by an unknown assailant in Buenos Aires. The operation was attributed to Tito's Yugoslav intelligence, although the anniversary also suggested an attempt at revenge by a Chetnik activist. Despite having a bullet in his spine, Pavelić elected not to be hospitalized. Two weeks later, the Argentine government agreed to the Tito government's request to extradite Pavelić, and he went into hiding. Although there were reports that he had fled to work for the Stroessner regime in Paraguay, Pavelić's whereabouts remained unknown until late 1959, where it was learned that he had been granted asylum in Spain. Pavelić died on 28 December 1959, at the German hospital in Madrid, reportedly from complications due to the bullet in his spine.


title: Protea

paragraphs: The Protea (giant Protea known as Protea cynaroides) is part of an ancient plant family, the Proteaceae, which had already divided into two subfamilies before the break-up of the Gondwanaland continent about 140 million years ago. Both subfamilies, the Proteoideae and the Grevilleoideae, occur mainly in the southern hemisphere. In southern Africa there are about 360 species, mainly from the subfamily Proteoideae, of which more than 330 species are confined to the Cape Foral Kingdom, between Nieuwoudtville in the northwest and Grahamstown in the east. Protea cynaroides belongs to the genus Protea, which has more than 92 species, subspecies and varieties. Other well-known genera of the Proteaceae are the Leucospermum with the brightly coloured "pincushion" flowers, Leucadendron with yellow or red-brown foliage and Serruria, of which the Serruria Florida or "Blushing Bride" with its pale pink flowers is widely used in bridal bouquets. Plants in the subfamily Grevilleoideae occur mainly in Australia. The Protea (Protea cynaroides) is the national flower of South Africa.

paragraphs: The variety in plant size, habit, flower size and colour of the genus Protea was the reason it was named after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape at will. The flower bud of Protea cynaroides looks remarkably like the globe artichoke vegetable with the Latin name of Cynara scolymus and this led the botanist Linnaeus to give it the species name cynaroides.

paragraphs: The protea can grow only after a fire. As a simple explanation, it is because the head of this national flower has seeds inside, which can stay tightly sealed in a hard shell for almost 20 years. The shell does not open until it becomes scorched and the fire is all over. The light, fluffy seeds are then blown to the ground by the wind, where they all begin to grow again.


title: Air pollution

paragraphs: Air pollution is a type of environmental pollution that affects the air and is usually caused by smoke or other harmful gases, mainly oxides of carbon, sulphur and nitrogen.

paragraphs: In other words, air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence or introduction of a substance which has a poisonous effect.

paragraphs: Many of the world's large cities today have polluted air or low air quality.

paragraphs: Even 2,000 years ago, the Romans were complaining about the polluted air in their cities. At that time, the air was thick with smoke from fires and the smell of sewers. Air pollution has been classified as a danger to human health and Earth's many ecosystems for a long time.

paragraphs: Pollution can be gas or liquid or solid. It can also be classified chemically, such as:- oxide, hydrocarbon, acid or other kinds. Pollution can also be classified by what makes it.

paragraphs: Many pollutants go into the air from natural sources. These pollutants include dust, sea salt, volcanic ashes and gases, smoke from forest fires, pollen, and many other materials. In fact, there are many more natural pollutants than pollutants that humans make. However, humans and other living things have adapted to most of these natural pollutants.

paragraphs: Air pollution is usually described as either "primary pollutants" or "secondary pollutants".Primary pollutants are pollutants that are put directly into the air by humans or natural sources. Examples of primary pollutants are exhaust fumes (gas) from cars, soot from smoke, dust storms and ash from volcanic eruptions (as seen in the picture on the left).

paragraphs: Secondary pollutants are pollutants that are made from chemical reactions when pollutants mix with other primary pollutants or natural substances like water vapor. Many secondary pollutants are made when a primary pollutant reacts with sunlight. Ozone and smog are secondary pollutants. Ozone is a gas that stops harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. When it is near the ground, though, it can poison people and other organisms.

paragraphs: Human-made air pollution comes from many things. Most air pollution made by humans today is because of transportation. Automobiles , for instance, make about 60% of the human-made air pollution. The gases inside car exhaust, like nitrogen oxide, make smog and acid rain.

paragraphs: Farmlands and forests sometimes burn in wildfires producing soot (a black powder composed mainly of carbon, produced when coal, grasses, wood etc. is burned) from smoke. Soot can affect people and other life. People start many of those fires.

paragraphs: Many industrial power plants burn fossil fuels to get their energy. However, burning fossil fuels can make a lot of oxides (chemical compounds that have oxygen and other elements inside). In fact, the burning of fossil fuels makes 96% of the sulphur oxides in the atmosphere. Some industries also make chemicals that make poisonous fumes (smoke).

paragraphs: Air pollution is not only on the outside. Homes, schools, and buildings can also have air pollution. Sometimes the air inside a building is even worse than the air outside. Many things which humans use every day can pollute the air. Compounds inside carpets, paints, building materials and furniture also pollute the air, especially when they are new.

paragraphs: In buildings where the windows are tightly shut to stop air leaks, the air inside can be polluted more than the air outside.

paragraphs: Acid precipitation is precipitation, like rain, sleet, or snow, that contains acids from air pollution. When fossil fuels are burned, they let out oxides into the air. When these oxides mix with water in the atmosphere, they make acid, which fall as precipitation. Acid precipitation can kill living things like fish and trees, by making the place where they live too acidic. Acid rain can also damage buildings made of limestone and concrete.

paragraphs: A global concern is the hole in the ozone layer in the stratosphere. The Earth's ozone layer protects life from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, but in the 1970s, scientists found out that some chemicals let out into the atmosphere makes the ozone turn into oxygen. This lets more ultraviolet rays reach the Earth. During the 1980s, scientists found that the ozone layer above the South Pole had thinned by 50 to 98%.

paragraphs: On March 17, 1992, in Mexico City, all children under the age of 14 could not go to school because of air pollution. This does not often happen, but being exposed to air pollution every day can make people have many health problems. Children, elderly (old) people, and people with allergies especially, can have a lot of problems because of air pollution. Studies from the University of Birmingham showed that deaths because of pneumonia and air pollution from motor vehicles like cars are related.

paragraphs: The World Health Organization said that 2.4 million people died because of the direct problems of air pollution. Some of the problems include:

paragraphs: In India in 2014, it was reported that air pollution had cut crop yields in the most affected areas by almost half in 2010 when compared to 1980 levels. There can also be increased yield of crops due to some air quality conditions.


title: Louis-Antoine de Bougainville

paragraphs: Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was an admiral and navigator from France. In 1766 he was sent by his government to make a trip around the world, called "circumnavigation", which took from 1766 to 1769. He rediscovered (found again) the Solomon Islands in 1768 (the largest island is named for him). He also collected plants and made a trustworthy chart of some parts of the center of the Pacific Ocean. Bougainville saw a part of the Great Barier Reef, but could not find Australia.


Bougainville


title: Gerardus Mercator

paragraphs: Gerardus Mercator, also called Gerhard Kremer, and born Gérard de Crémère (1512 – 1594), was a Flemish geographer and mathematician from Belgium. He explored Flanders and made globes about the earth and the sky. He became one of the best mapmakers of the 16th century. The Mercator projection that has his name is a flat map projection of the features of the surface of the earth that can be seen and made only mathematically. It was found to be excellent for navigating on oceans and is still used today. In 1585 he began a great atlas that was later finished by his son. His last years he used for studying theology.

paragraphs: Mercator was born in Rupelmonde and died in Duisburg.


title: Almond cake

paragraphs: The Almond cake is a cake, made of butter, sugar, almond essence, eggs, ground almonds, and flour, with whole almonds for decoration.


title: Countries of the United Kingdom

paragraphs: The number of countries that make up the United Kingdom is often the subject of debate. In decreasing order of area they are:

paragraphs: The United Nations and UK government says that the United Kingdom is officially made up of 2 countries (England and Scotland), one principality (Wales) and one province (Northern Ireland). However, Wales has not formally been a principality since the 16th century with the . In 2011 the International Organization for Standards Wales the status of country to clear ambiguity and avoid further confusion, thus the first statement may be corrected to 3 countries and 1 province.


title: Ante Starčević

paragraphs: Ante Starčević (23 May, 1823 - 28 February, 1896) was a Croatian politician and publisher.

paragraphs: Starčević was born in Žitnik near Gospić, a small town of the Military Frontiers, in what was then part of Austria-Hungary. He was the son of a Serb Orthodox mother and Catholic father. In 1845, he graduated from secondary school in Zagreb. He started his studies at the seminary (school where people can learn how to become a priest or minister) in Senj, but moved to Pest in the year of 1845 so he could go to a Roman Catholic theological (of the study of God or gods) seminary - which he finished in 1848. After passing a number of philosophy and free sciences classes, he earned a honoris causa degree in the year of 1846. Starčević quickly returned to Croatia and continued studying theology in Senj. Instead of becoming a priest, he chose to get involved in secular pursuits and started working in the law firm of Ladislav Šram in Zagreb.

paragraphs: He then tried to get an academic post with the University of Zagreb. As he was unsuccessful, he stayed in Šram's office until 1861 even though he was no longer allowed to practice law since 1857. He was also a member of the committee of Matica ilirska, a Croatian cultural society, in the Historical Society and in the editorial board of "Neven", a literary magazine.

paragraphs: In 1861, he was appointed the chief notary of the Fiume county. That same year, he was elected to the Croatian Parliament as the representative of Fiume and started the Croatian Party of Rights with Eugen Kvaternik. Starčević would be reelected to the parliament in 1865, 1871, and from 1878 to his death.

paragraphs: In 1862, when Fiume was the scene of protests against Austrian Empire, he had to stay in prison for one month because he was thought to be enemy of the government. When he was released, Starčević returned to Šram's office, where he stayed until 11 October 1871, when he was arrested again, this time on the occasion of the Rakovica Revolt. The rebellion was started by Kvaternik, who was not a Serb hater as his political ally Starčević. Kvaternik had become convinced that a political solution, as Starčević called for, was not possible. While several hundred men were rebelling against the government, both Croats and Serbs, it was soon defeated by Imperial Austrian troops. The Croatian Party of Rights didn't exist anymore. Starčević was released after two months in prison.

paragraphs: In the last decade of the 19th century, he moved to Starčević House ("Starčevićev dom"), built for him by the Party of Rights in 1895. He died in his house a year later, when he was 73. According to his wish, he was buried in the Church of St Mirko in the Zagreb suburb of Šestine. His statue was made by Ivan Rendić. At his deathbed, he requested that no monuments be raised to his honor, but his statue was put up in front of Starčević House in 1998.

paragraphs: After being banned from practicing law in 1857, Starčević travelled to Russia where he hoped he would gather support from the empire's eastern rival. When this failed, he travelled to France, pinning his hopes on French emperor Napoleon III. While in Paris, he published his work "La Croatie et la confédération italienne", considered by some to be the precursor to his Party of Rights' political program. In 1859, the Austrian Empire was defeated in the Second Italian War of Independence, during which time Starčević returned to Croatia. Austria lost control over Italy, and Austria's weakening status in the world paved the way for Starčević's career.

paragraphs: As the chief notary in Fiume in 1861, Starčević wrote "the four petitions of the Rijeka county", which are considered the basis of the political program of the Croatian Party of Rights. He pointed out that Croatia needed to determine its relationships with Austria and Hungary through international agreements. He demanded the reintegration of the Croatian lands, "the large kingdom of Croatia of old" (the Middle Age's Kingdom of Croatia), the homeland of one people, "with the same blood, language, past and (God willing) future".

paragraphs: On that ideological basis, he founded the Croatian Party of Rights with his school friend Eugen Kvaternik in 1861. The Party of Rights was clerical, conservative, and pro-Habsburg. Its only concession to nationalism was hostility to the Serbs who, since the incorporation of the "military frontiers" into Croatia in 1868, made up a quarter of the population. Starčević was the only parliamentary representative who agreed with Kvaternik's draft constitution of 26 June 1861. He advocated the termination of the Military Frontier and persuaded parliament to pass on 5 August 1861 the decision annulling any joint business with Austria.

paragraphs: He advocated the resolution of Bosnian issues by reforms and cooperation between the people and the nobility. Starčević believed that Bosniaks were the "the best Croats", and claimed that "Bosnian Muslims are a part of the Croatian people and of the purest Croatian blood".

paragraphs: Starčević wrote literary criticism, short stories, newspaper articles, philosophical essays, plays and political satire. He was also a translator.

paragraphs: His travelogue "From Lika" was published in Kušlan's magazine "Slavenski Jug" on 22 October 1848. He wrote four plays in the period 1851-52, but only the "Village Prophet" has been preserved. His translation of Anacreon from Ancient Greek was published in "Danica" in 1853. His critical review (1855) of Đurđević's "Pjesni razlike" was described by the Croatian literary historian Branko Vodnik as "our first genuine literary essay about older Dubrovnik literature". His opus shows an affinity with practical philosophy, which he calls "the science of life". As Josip Horvat said: "His literary work from 1849 to the end of 1853 made Ante Starčević the most prolific and original Croatian writer along with Mirko Bogović."

paragraphs: In 1850, incited by Ljudevit Gaj, Starčević started working on the manuscript of "Istarski razvod", a crucial Croatian document from 1325. He transcribed the text from the Glagolitic alphabet to the Latin alphabet, analyzed it and published it in 1852. In the foreword, young Starčević elaborated his linguistic ideas, pointing out that the mixture of all three Croatian dialects (Shtokavian, Chakavian) and Kajkavian) and the Krajina dialect is called the Croatian language, which Starčević considers from the perspective of its six hundred years of history. Starčević accepted the etymological orthography and used the ekavian form for his entire life, considering it the heir of the old Kajkavian. His language is a "synthetic" form of Croatian, never used before or after him, most similar to the Ozalj idiom of Petar Zrinski, whom he probably never read.

paragraphs: In that period, in the "Call for Subscriptions to the Croatian Grammar" (8 December, 1851) he stated his opposition to the Vienna Language Agreement of 1850 and the linguistic concept of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić. He continued his dispute with the followers of Karadžić in a series of articles published in 1852. His opposition to the Vuk's work he 'supported' by utter denial of the Serbs as the nation, their language, their culture and history. In his vain and racistic effors to oppose and derail Karadžić's work, he was loner and loser - mainstream of the Croatian educated men, headed by Strossmayer and Gaj, highly appreciated and supported Karadžić. It was demonstrated publicly immediately after Karadžić's death - when Croatian Parliament (Sabor) collected a considerable amount of money in order to erect a monument to honor Karadžić in Croatia and the Court chanchellor Ivan Mažuranić got the Viennese Imperial Court to financially support the Karadžić' widow.

paragraphs: When "Srbski dnevnik" from Novi Sad published an article saying that "Croatians write in Serbian", Starčević wrote a fierce reply: "(...) Instead of claiming that the Croats use anything else but the Croatian language, those writers who consider themselves Serbs (or whatever they like) would do well to write in the educated and pure Croatian language, like some of them are already doing, and they can call their language Coptic for all I care. (...)" He published the reply as an unsigned article in "Narodne novine", the newspaper of Ljudevit Gaj, so the Serbian side attacked Gaj, wrongly attributing the article to him. Starčević subsequently proclaimed he was the author, but Gaj, who cared to maintain good relations with Serbia, distanced himself from his friend.

paragraphs: For his political activity and literary work, Starčević is commonly called Father of the Nation ("Otac domovine") in Croatia. His portrait is depicted on the obverse of the Croatian 1000 Croatian kuna banknote, issued in 1993.

paragraphs: Starčević was a racist and an anti-Semite. His understanding of the basic human rights and the way he linked them to the civil liberties were extremely primitive and selective. For example, Starčević criticized the socialism as ""unshaped"" and he was delighted by the colonialism and claimed that ""Algeria should be densely populated by a few million of happy Frenchmen and not to allow to have one hundred fifty thousand of them against two and half million of Arabs"".

paragraphs: Starčević had based his ideological views on writings of those ancient Greek writers who thought that some people, by their very nature, are slaves, for they had ""just half of the human mind"" and, for that reason, they ""shall be governed by people of the human nature"". About the people and nations which he saw as cursed and lower ranked races - he spoke as of the animal breeds and uses the "breed" word to mark them.

paragraphs: He wrote a whole tract about the Jews that could be summarized in a few sentences: ""Jews ... are the breed, except a few, without any morality and without any homeland, the breed of which every unit strives to its personal gain, or to its relatives' gain. To let the Jews to participate in public life is dangerous: throw a piece of mud in a glass of the clearest water - then all the water will be puddled. That way the Jews spoiled and poisoned the French people too much"".

paragraphs: But, for Starčević, there was a race worse than the Jews. For him, the ""Slavoserb"" notion was firstly of a political nature: the ""Slavoserbs"" are his political opponents who ""sold themselves to a foreign rule"". Then all those who favorably look on the South Slavs unity not regarding them (the South Slavs) as the Croats.

paragraphs: Later, and with years, Starčević more and more marked the ""Slavoserbs"" as a separate ethnic group, or - as he used to say the ""breed"", ranked, as humans, lower than the Jews: ""The Jews are less harmful than the Slavoserbs. For the Jews care for themselves and their people ... but the Slavoserbs are always for the evil: if they cannot gain a benefit, then they tend to harm the good or just affair, or to harm those who are for the affair."" - he wrote once.

paragraphs: Further, he claimed that the injustice was done to different ""cursed breeds"" what spoiled those breeds even more and made them ""to be vengeful against their oppressors"". As a convinced racist, he stresses that to the ""cursed breeds"", i.e. to the lower races should not be given any role in the public life.

paragraphs: As an aged man, he makes the Serbs identical to the ""Slavoserb breed"" and mocks them for their defeats they suffered long ago - which provoked negative reactions even in his ""Party of Rights"". On that occasion, the Party member Erazmo Barčić (1894.) described Starčević's mockery and racism as ""throwing mud at people and primitive cheeky invectives"".

paragraphs: However, when once face with negative reactions to his open racism, he temporarily retreated. That was a reason that he wrote an article in Sloboda, issue of 23 March, 1883: "The main thing is this: everybody should work for the people and the homeland, and let them call themselves as they wish... We have disputes and dissensions only because they are supported and strengthened from the outside... We believe that hungry and cold Serbs and Croats feel the same... Therefore, everybody can assume the name of Hottentots, every person can choose their own name, as long as we are all free and happy!..."

paragraphs: The British historian A.P.J.Taylor wrote (pages 188-189):

paragraphs: Starčević's racism was further fully elaborated by Ivo Pilar [under pseudonym L. von Südland] The book was translated into Croatian language in the year of 1943, by Pavelić's regime, as one of the tenets of his Ustaše and his Independent State of Croatia. This racist work was reprinted in 1990. In the preface to this reprint edition, Dr. Vladimir Veselica, a Zagreb University professor, expresses his enthusiasm that the author had given "relevant answers" at the highest intellectual level. What thrilled him so was the consistently expressed racist hatred against the Serbs. It is sufficient to submit one quotation that explains the sense and content of this book, which far outdoes the current demonization of the Serbs: " it was not without reason that I tried to show how the Serbs today are dangerous for their ideas and their racial composition, how a bent for conspiracies, revolutions and coups is in their blood."


title: Oligosaccharide

paragraphs: An oligosaccharide is a polymer of a few different simple sugars. Oligosacchardides are carbohydrates. When they are hydrolized, oligosaccharides give 2 to 9 monosaccharides.

paragraphs: Oligosacharides are formed when 2 to 9 monosaccharide units combine with each other by the loss of water molecules, resulting in the formation of a glycosidic linkage. Conversely hydrolysis of an oligosaccharide in water in the presence of an acid or enzyme yields 2 to 9 monosaccharide units. Oligosaccharides which consist of two monosaccharides units are called as disaccharide. Oligosaccharides containing 3 monosaccharides are called trisaccharides.


title: Think tank

paragraphs: A think tank is a special organization which helps other organizations and groups with problems they do not know how to solve. They do this by providing data or knowledge, and by discussing the options in detail. They get their information by doing research, and by collecting ideas and data from a wide range of sources.

paragraphs: The first think tank was the British Royal United Services Institute (1831), though of course the term "think tank" is much later, post World War II. Non-government institutions in the United States started early in the 20th century. The Arthur D. Little consultancy, incorporated in 1909, pioneered the idea of contracted professional services. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was founded in 1910. The Institute for Government Research, which later merged into the Brookings Institution, was formed in 1916. Other early twentieth century organizations now classified as think tanks include the Hoover Institution (1919), and Chatham House in London (1920). The Great Depression and its aftermath spawned several economic policy organizations, such as the National Planning Association (1934) and the Committee for Economic Development (1943).

paragraphs: Think tanks of the modern kind started after the Second World War, in the cold war era. The RAND Corporation was started in 1946 inside the Douglas Aircraft Company, and was set up as an independent corporation in 1948. The name was taken from R&D (research and development), though in fact it did no development. The RAND used the same operations research (O.R.) methods which scientists had developed during the war. This was the application of knowledge, scientific methods and thinking to solve the new problems posed by the war. After the war, the RAND used very similar techniques, mostly based on the hard sciences like maths, physics and economics. It was and still is funded mainly by the American government.

paragraphs: The cold war period raised the question of how the American government might handle nuclear weapons in bargaining and negotiating with the Soviet Union. This was the speciality of Herman Kahn, a RAND staff member who set up his own think tank in 1961, called the Hudson Institute. His publications on how to think about these issues, and those of Thomas Schelling, were landmarks in the post-war history of negotiating strategy.

paragraphs: More recently, think tanks have specialised into particular areas of interest, such as foreign policy. Many have become advocates for political interests, doing research which can be used by public relations and lobbying groups.


title: Solar calendar

paragraphs: A solar calendar shows the earth's position compared to the sun. There are tropical solar calendars, sidereal solar calendars, non-solar calendars (like lunar - moon - calendars), and lunisolar calendars.


title: Major League Baseball on FOX

paragraphs: Fox Major League Baseball (shortened as Fox MLB and MLB on FS1) is FOX Sports's broadcast of Major League Baseball. It began on June 1, 1996 and continue through at least 2021.

paragraphs: Major League Baseball made a deal with FOX and NBC on November 7, 1995. FOX televised regular season games (about 16 weekly telecasts normally beginning on Memorial Day weekend) on Saturday afternoons, selected Division Series games, and alternated the All-Star Game, League Championship Series and the World Series with NBC each year. To better state this, FOX aired the All-Star Game aired American League Championship Series in odd-numbered years while airing the National League Championship Series and World Series in even-numbered years.

paragraphs: In September 2000, Major League Baseball and FOX signed a 6-year contract to air Saturday baseball, the All-Star Game, selected Division Series games, and exclusive coverage of the League Championship Series and the World Series.

paragraphs: Rumors about the end of "Major League Baseball on FOX" were laid to rest on July 11, 2006 when the network announced they would still air the World Series through the 2013 season. It was announced on October 17, 2006 that FOX would retain the All-Star Game and World Series, except they would air the regular season beginning with the first Saturday of the regular season, and postseason coverage beyond the World Series was limited to one League Championship Series a year, alternating one for the other with TBS each year, airing the other LCS.


title: National League Championship Series

paragraphs: In Major League Baseball, the National League Championship Series (NLCS), played in October, is a playoff round that decides the winner of the National League pennant. The winner of the series moves on to play the winner of the American League Championship Series in baseball's championship, the World Series.

paragraphs: In 1969, the LCS began play as the leagues were expanded to two divisions. Initially, it was a best-of-five series. In 1985, it became best-of-seven. Since 1995, the two winners from the National League Division Series advance to the NLCS.


paragraphs: The 2004 American League Championship Series (ALCS) was a best-of-seven playoff series in the 2004 Major League Baseball season. It featured the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox beat the Yankees in seven games. It was a rematch of the 2003 ALCS.

paragraphs: The Yankees won the first three games of the series. The Red Sox then won the next four to win the series. This was the first time a team won a best-of-seven playoff series after losing the first three games.

paragraphs: The Red Sox would go on to win the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals in four games. It was the Red Sox's first World Series title since 1918.


title: Verizon

paragraphs: Verizon Communications Inc. (), is a telephone, internet service provider, and television company in the United States. It also owns a mobile phone company, Verizon Wireless. Verizon was created in 2000 by merging GTE and Bell Atlantic. These companies had already absorbed other companies, some of them more than a hundred years old. The biggest ones were formerly owned by AT&T.

paragraphs: In 2015, Verizon bought the Internet company AOL, and the next year it bought Yahoo!. Both of these purchases were for about US$4.4 billion. Today, both AOL and Yahoo! are part of a subsidiary created by Verizon called Oath Inc.

paragraphs: Verizon is one of the few publicly-traded companies to have a stock on both the NYSE and the NASDAQ. Its NYSE listing has been one of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 2004.


title: Devil's food cake

paragraphs: The Devil's food cake is an old fashioned chocolate cake made of chocolate or cocoa and baking powder. It is moist, soft, rich, and very good for keeping. It is a light-textured chocolate layer-type cake with a deep reddish brown color. The cake gets this bright red color from the large amount of red food dye used in the preparation. Devil's food cake is usually thought of in terms of dark chocolate, but originally it was red. Today cooks, using modern processed cocoa, sometimes add a touch of red food coloring to bring back the authentic color.

paragraphs: Devil's Food Cakes can be stored in the refrigerator for about 3 days.

paragraphs: The Devil's Food Cake may also be called a Red velvet cake.


title: Partridge

paragraphs: The Partridge is a medium sized bird. They are known as game birds because they are hunted and eaten by humans. They are in the Pheasant family (Phasianidae).

paragraphs: Partridges are in the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas". The line "...and a Partridge in a pear tree" is sung.

paragraphs: Most partridges are brown, gray and white. They are camouflaged and difficult to see. They have short legs and short bills. Partridges are smaller than Pheasants but they are bigger than Quails.

paragraphs: Partridges can not fly very well and they do not migrate. This means they always stay in the same area all year round.

paragraphs: Partridges live in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. They live in places such as moors, grassland and farmland. They feed mostly on seeds, and nest on the ground. This means their nests are not very safe from predators such as foxes. Partridges use their camouflage to make it difficult for predators to see them and their nests.


title: Bromsgrove

paragraphs: Bromsgrove is a town in the north of Worcestershire. The town is about north-east of Worcester and south-west of Birmingham. 29,237 people lived there in 2001.

paragraphs: The layer of rock underneath Bromsgrove is mainly sandstone. The soil is very good for growing vegetables. The altitude of the town is above sea level.

paragraphs: The climate in Bromsgrove is like most of the United Kingdom. It is an "oceanic climate." This means it is cool in summer and not very cold in winter. It can rain at any time of the year.

paragraphs: The main A38 road goes through Bromsgrove. The M5 motorway passes by the west side of the town. The M42 motorway starts at the north of the town.

paragraphs: Bromsgrove train station is in the south of the town. The station is at the bottom of the "Lickey Incline". The Lickey Incline is the steepest hill for trains in Britain. An extra locomotive has to help push heavy freight trains up the hill. There are many passenger trains to Birmingham, Worcester and Hereford. There is a plan to build a new, better train station in Bromsgrove. The new station will cost about £10 million to £12 million.

paragraphs: There is also a bus station in the town centre. Buses travel from the bus station to many places in Worcestershire and the West Midlands.


title: Diploglossus

paragraphs: Diploglossus is a genus of lizards in the family Anguidae. It has nineteen described species. They are found in North and South America.


title: Graham's number

paragraphs: Graham's number is a very big natural number that was defined by a man named Ronald Graham. Graham was solving a problem in an area of mathematics called Ramsey theory. He proved that the answer to his problem was smaller than Graham's number.

paragraphs: Graham's number is one of the biggest numbers ever used in a mathematical proof. Even if every digit in Graham's number were written in the tiniest writing possible, it would still be too big to fit in the observable universe.

paragraphs: Ramsey theory is an area of mathematics that asks questions like the following:

paragraphs: It turns out that for this simple problem, the answer is "yes" when we have 6 or more points, no matter how the lines are colored. But when we have 5 points or fewer, we can color the lines so that the answer is "no".

paragraphs: Graham's number comes from a variation on this question.

paragraphs: By asking that the 4 points lie on a plane, we have made the problem much harder. We would like to know: for what values of "n" is the answer "no" (for some way of coloring the lines), and for what values of "n" is it "yes" (for all ways of coloring the lines)? But this problem has not been completely solved yet.

paragraphs: In 1971, Ronald Graham and B. L. Rothschild found a partial answer to this problem. They showed that for "n"=6, the answer is "no". But when "n" is very large, as large as Graham's number or larger, the answer is "yes".

paragraphs: One of the reasons this partial answer is important is that it means that the answer is eventually "yes" for at least some large "n". Before 1971, we didn't know even that much.

paragraphs: Graham's number is not only too big to write down all of its digits, it is too big even to write in scientific notation. In order to be able to write it down, we have to use Knuth's up-arrow notation.

paragraphs: We will write down a sequence of numbers that we will call g1, g2, g3, and so on. Each one will be used in an equation to find the next. g64 is Graham's number.

paragraphs: First, here are some examples of up-arrows:

paragraphs: After that, g2 is equal to formula_16; the number of arrows in this number is g1.

paragraphs: g3 is equal to formula_17, where the number of arrows is g2.

paragraphs: We keep going in this way. We stop when we define g64 to be formula_17, where the number of arrows is g63.


title: Kristin Hogan

paragraphs: Kristin Hogan (born March 24, 1989 in Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian-American singer, actress, model and socialite. She is working on her first album called "The Stripped Experience". In 2007 her debut album "The Soul Of My Heart" was never released. Her uncle is the semi-retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. She released her debut single in 2007 called "Crazy Love", in seven versions, including a Spanish version.


title: Laguna

paragraphs: Laguna City is a little city of south of the Brazil, in Santa Catarina State. This city have more than 50000 people. It was the capital of the short-lived Juliana Republic in 1839. The city is known for having dolphins


title: Takalik Abaj

paragraphs: Tak'alik A'baj' is an ancient ruin in Guatemala; it used to be called Abaj Takalik. It is one of several Mesoamerican sites that have Olmec and Maya features. The site was inhabited the during the Preclassic and Classic periods, from the 9th century BC through to at least the 10th century AD. It was an important place for trade. It traded with Kaminaljuyu and Chocolá. It is one of the largest sites with carved monuments on the Pacific coast. Olmec-style sculptures include a possible colossal head, rock carvings and others. The site has one of the biggest collections of Olmec-style sculpture outside of the Gulf of Mexico.

paragraphs: Takalik Abaj shows the first signs of Maya culture that happened by about 400 BC. The site includes a Maya royal tomb and examples of Maya writing that are among the first from the Maya region. Studies continue at the site; the monumental buildings and long tradition of sculpture in a variety of styles suggest the site was important.

paragraphs: Finds from the site indicate contact with the distant city of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico. They imply that Takalik Abaj was conquered by it or its allies. Takalik Abaj was linked to long-distance Maya trade routes that let the city take part in a trade network that included the Guatemalan highlands and the Pacific coastal plain from Mexico to El Salvador.

paragraphs: Takalik Abaj was a large city with the main buildings in four main groups spread across nine terraces. While some of these were natural, others were man-made, needing a lot of work and materials. The site had a clever water drainage system and many stone sculptures.


title: Currys

paragraphs: Currys is a British electrical retailer operating in the UK and Ireland.

paragraphs: In 2009, some Curry stores in the UK were combined with the PCWorld name


title: Alfonso García Robles

paragraphs: Alfonso García Robles (20 March 1911 – 2 September 1991) was a Mexican diplomat and politician.

paragraphs: García Robles received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982, together with Sweden's Alva Myrdal. García Robles was the driving force behind the Treaty of Tlatelolco. This treaty established a nuclear-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean.


title: Ouangolodougou, Ivory Coast

paragraphs: Ouangolodougou, Côte d'Ivoire is a small town in the northern part of Ivory Coast, a country in western Africa. It is located in the Ferkessédougou Department. Ouangolodougou is near the border of Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso.


title: Pinto horse

paragraphs: A Pinto horse is a spotted horse. They are not a breed, but a coat color. In fact, any horse breed can be a Pinto as long as they have patches of white or another color. Pintos are often confused with Paints, a horse breed. They look very similar. The difference is that a Paint is a breed, and a Pinto is a coat color that can be on any breed, including Paints.

paragraphs: Pintos are so old that they were found in tombs in Ancient Egypt dating back to 4 B.C. In the 16th century Cortez brought thousands to the New World. Some of them were set free, and Native Americans caught them. The Native Americans liked them for their toughness and their color. Their color blended in with the environment and made a natural camouflage. They were known to make great war horses. Their name came from the Spanish word "pintado", which means “painted”.

paragraphs: Pintos have pink skin, blue eyes, and white or multicolored hooves. They can be either a white horse with colored patches, or a colored horse with white patches. It has been said that no two Pintos are exactly alike.


title: Darrell Waltrip

paragraphs: Darrell Lee Waltrip (born February 5, 1947) is a retired American racecar driver. Waltrip won three Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championships and 84 races, including the 1989 Daytona 500. He is now part of the broadcast team for Fox Sports. Waltrip’s younger brother, Michael Waltrip, owned and raced for his own team in NASCAR. In June of 2011 Waltrip was given a spot in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. He is a part of the Hall of Fame class of 2012.


title: Black Forest cake

paragraphs: The Black Forest Cake, also called the "Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte", is an authentic German cake is made up of a chocolate layer cake with cherries in the middle and whipped cream on top. They are traditionally made with fresh Morello cherries, poached in a sugar syrup and pitted. It is a variation of the chocolate cake, and sometimes decorated with chocolate curls.


title: Jeremy Clarkson

paragraphs: Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English television host, writer who reports on cars. He was born in Doncaster, West Riding of Yorkshire. He is best known for presenting BBC TV show "Top Gear" with Richard Hammond and James May. He is also known for controversial remarks.

paragraphs: He also writes columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun.

paragraphs: Clarkson was ranked 49th on Motor Trend Magazine's Power List for 2011. It is a list of the the fifty most important figures in the automotive industry.

paragraphs: On 26 March 2015, while Clarkson was not allowed to be at work, the BBC announced it will not keep paying him after he said cruel things to and attacked a producer.


title: Syd Ward

paragraphs: Sydney William Ward (5 August 1907 – 31 December 2010) was an Australian-born New Zealand cricketer.

paragraphs: Ward was a right-handed batsman who bowled right-arm medium pace. He was born in Sydney, New South Wales. He is the second longest-lived cricketer, behind England's Jim Hutchinson, who at the time of his death was 103 years and 344 days old.


title: Hypothermia

paragraphs: Hypothermia is a condition when a person is so cold that the body temperature drops below normal. Hypothermia is any body temperature lower than . Someone with hypothermia starts shivering and cannot stop. The person then becomes confused and acts strange. Their words don't make sense and they may be clumsy. Sometimes they become very tired. If someone gets hypothermia, wrap the person in blankets and take them to the hospital. If that's impossible, warm up the person slowly and give them a warm drink.

paragraphs: When hypothermia begins, a person feels cold, starts shivering and can't stop. The person cannot do complicated things with his or her hands. They are also unable to touch their thumb with their little finger, because their hand muscles don't work well.

paragraphs: Mild hypothermia is sometimes used on purpose by doctors for treating some medical problems. It takes blood away from the skin, hands and feet, and puts it to the brain and important internal organs. This helps when the person is bleeding from cuts or other wounds, and also helps when the patient goes into cardiac arrest.

paragraphs: The person begins shivering very strongly. Their large muscles do not work well. They move slowly and with difficulty, growing a little confused and walking unsteadily. The person becomes pale, and lips, ears, fingers, and toes might become blue. This is because the body is trying to keep the most important organs warm. The person might feel sick in their stomach and very tired, wanting to go to sleep, anywhere.

paragraphs: Body temperature drops even more, but the person usually stops shivering. They cannot talk clearly; they think slowly, and they cannot move their hands. Sometimes a person will feel suddenly warm, as if they are getting better, but this just means they are getting worse. They may take off warm clothes or lay down to go to sleep. If this continues, they cannot walk or answer questions. Their pulse becomes weaker, but the heart may beat faster. Finally, the person dies.


title: Rapids

paragraphs: Rapids are found on rivers. Rapids are where the river bed is rocky, and the river runs fast over and around the rocks. Rapids are found in the mountains near the beginning or "headwaters" of a river. The word "rapids" is always plural, (like "scissors" and "trousers"). The word "rapid" means "very fast".

paragraphs: Because of the splash made by the water going over rocks, rapids are also called "whitewater". Some people enjoying whitewater canoeing or whitewater rafting as a sport.


title: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad

paragraphs: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad () (February 13, 1835–May 26, 1908), a religious figure belonging to India, was the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. He claimed to be the Mahdi as well as the being the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century.

paragraphs: Ghulam was born in Qadian, Punjab in India in 1835 the surviving child of twins born to a rich family. He is reported to have spent a lot of time in the mosque and with the study of the Qur'an and his religion, Islam. This did not lead him to fulfill his father's wishes of his son becoming a lawyer or civil servant. He did attempt to become a lawyer but failed the test. In his course of studying religious topics, he would often interact with many Muslims, non-Muslims, and with Christian missionaries whom he would engage in debates.

paragraphs: When Ghulam was thirty-five years old his father died. At this time Ghulam claimed that God had begun communicating with him, often through direct revelation. Initially, Ghulam's writings from this time were intended to counter what he perceived to be anti-Islamic writings originating from various Christian missionary groups. He also focused on countering the effects of various groups such as the Brahmo Samaj. During this period of his life he was well received by the Islamic clerics of the time.

paragraphs: As time progressed, his writings began to exhibit his claims of being the mujaddid or reformer of his era. These writings were compiled in one of his most well-known works: Barahin Ahmadiyya, a work consisting of 5 volumes while originally planned 50 volumes. He explained that since there is only a dot difference between 50 & 5, therefore his promise was fulfilled. In later volumes, he would essentially claim to be the messiah of Islam. This proved and continues to be very controversial, as traditional Islamic thought holds that Jesus is the Messiah, who himself will return in the flesh at the end of times. Ghulam countered this by claiming that Jesus was dead, and had in fact escaped crucifixion and died in India. According to Ghulam, the promised Mahdi was a spiritual, not military leader as is believed by most Muslims. With this proclamation, he also began to step away from the traditional idea of militant Jihad, and redefined it as a “spiritual” battle rather than a physical one. In addition to these controversial claims, he would later claim that Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru, was in fact a Muslim.

paragraphs: These writings began to turn the general Muslims ulema (religious clerics) against him, and he was often branded as a heretic. Some accused Ghulam of working for the British who were trying to use him to remove the concept of Jihad from Indian Muslims.

paragraphs: Ghulam founded the Ahmadiyya movement in 1889. He claimed that the Ahmadiyya Movement stood in the same relation to Islam, as Christianity stood to Judaism at the time of Jesus. The mission of the movement according to Ghulam was the prorogation of what he considered to be Islam in its pristine form. Mirza Ghulam's teachings which differed from other Muslims of the time can be summarized as follows:

paragraphs: Mirza Ghulam is widely acknowledged to have devoted his life to furthering the cause of his movement and countering allegations of heresy against his person till his death at Lahore in 1908.

paragraphs: The Ahmadiyya movement in Islam was founded in 1889, but the name Ahmadiyya was not adopted until about a decade later. In a manifesto dated November 4, 1900, the founder explained that the name referred to Ahmad, the alternative name of the prophet Mohammed. According to him, ‘Mohammed’, which means ‘the praised one’, refers to the glorious destiny of the prophet who adopted the name from about the time of the Hegira; but ‘Ahmad’ stands for the beauty of his sermons, and for the peace that he was destined to establish in the world through his teachings. According to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, these names thus refer to two aspects of Islam, and in later times it was the latter aspect that commanded greater attention. In keeping with this, he believed, his object was to establish peace in the world through the spiritual teachings of Islam. He believed that his message had special relevance for the Western world which according to him had descended into materialism.

paragraphs: One of the main sources of dispute during his lifetime and continuing since then is Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's use of the terms “Nabi” (prophet) and “Rasool” (messenger) when referring to himself. Muslims consider the prophet Muhammad to be the last of the prophets and believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's use of these terms is a violation of the concept of “finality of prophet hood”. His followers fall into two camps in this regard: the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, who believe in a literal interpretation of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's prophethood (with some qualifications), and the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement, who believe in a symbolic interpretation of these two terms. This among other reasons caused a split in the movement soon after Ahmad's death.

paragraphs: Followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad have faced relentless persecution of various types over the years. In 1974, the Pakistani parliament amended the Pakistani constitution to declare Ahmadi Muslims as non-Muslims for purposes of the constitution of the Islamic Republic. In 1984, a series of changes in the Pakistan Penal Code sections relating to blasphemy that, in essence, made it illegal for Ahmadis to preach their religion openly as Islam, leading to 1000s of arrests and prosecutions.


title: Pharmacology

paragraphs: Pharmacology is the study of how medicine and other things have an effect on living organisms and change how they function. Pharmacology could also be defined as the study of how medicine actually works.

paragraphs: Pharmacology is not exactly the same as pharmacy, and a pharmacologist is not exactly the same as a pharmacist. A pharmacologist is a scientist who studies how medicine actually works, and usually works in a science lab. A pharmacist is a health care provider who usually works at a pharmacy. However, there is quite a bit of overlap between these two fields. A pharmacist could be considered a type of pharmacologist. While in school, pharmacists do take many classes in pharmacology.

paragraphs: If something can be used as a medicine, it is called a pharmaceutical. Pharmacology includes how drugs are made, how they interact with living organisms, what harmful effects they could have, how they can be used as medicines, and if they can be used to prevent illness. A person who works in the study of pharmacology is called a pharmacologist. Pharmacologists work in a team with biochemists, geneticists, microbiologists, toxicologists and pharmacists to run clinical tests on how drugs work.

paragraphs: The development of drugs is very important to medicine, but it also has strong economical and political uses. To protect people and prevent abuse, some countries try to control the way in which drugs are made, sold, and administered.

paragraphs: To study chemicals, a person needs to know a lot about what will be affected if it is ingested (taken into the body). As more people know about cell biology and biochemistry, the field of pharmacology has changed as well. It is now possible to design chemicals that do specific things.

paragraphs: A chemical can have different properties. Pharmacokinetics describes the what effect the body will have on the chemical, and pharmacodynamics describes the chemical's effect on the body (desired or toxic).

paragraphs: When a pharmacologist is talking about pharmacokinetic properties of a chemical, they are interested in four things: ADME.

paragraphs: Medication is said to have a narrow or wide therapeutic index. This describes the ratio of desired effect to toxic effect. A medicine with a narrow therapeutic index (close to one) only does what people want it to do when the amount given is enough to put the organism in danger. A medicine with a wide therapeutic index (greater than five) does what people want it to do and does not necessarily put the organism in danger. Medication with a narrow margin are more difficult to dose and give to a person, and may require therapeutic drug monitoring (examples are warfarin, some antiepileptics, aminoglycoside antibiotics). Most anti-cancer drugs have a narrow therapeutic margin; toxic side-effects are almost always encountered at doses needed to kill tumours.

paragraphs: Drugs that are given to people to help cure them of a medical condition or help reduce the symptoms are often licensed. They can be divided into three groups: over-the-counter, where anybody can buy the drug from a shop; prescription-only medicine, where a doctor has to say that a person is allowed to take a drug; and in some countries, pharmacy medicines, where only a registered pharmacy can sell a drug. Most over-the-counter medication will not hurt a person if they take a bit more than they are meant to. Medications are often produced by pharmaceutical companies and are often patented. Drugs that are not patented are called generic drugs.


title: Indo-European languages

paragraphs: The Indo-European languages are the world's largest family of languages.

paragraphs: Linguists believe they all came from a single language, Proto-Indo-European, which was originally spoken somewhere in Eurasia. They are now spoken all over the world.

paragraphs: The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages in Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia. Some linguists also believe that the Ainu language of northern Japan is (distantly) related to Indo-European languages.

paragraphs: Historically, this language family was also important in Anatolia and Central Asia.

paragraphs: The earliest Indo-European writing is from the Bronze Age in Anatolian and Mycenaean Greek. The origin of Indo-European is after the invention of farming since some Proto-Indo-European words are farming words.

paragraphs: Although it may have fewer different languages than some other language families, it has the most native speakers, about 2.7 billion.

paragraphs: Of the 20 languages with the most speakers, 12 are Indo-European: English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, German, Sindhi, Punjabi, Marathi, French, and Urdu.

paragraphs: Four of the six official languages of the United Nations are Indo-European: English, Spanish, French, and Russian.

paragraphs: These are the main Indo-European language groups:

paragraphs: Most Indo-European languages use the Latin script, but others use the Devanagari, Cyrillic, or Arabic scripts.

paragraphs: The number of speakers derived from statistics or estimates (2019) and were rounded:

paragraphs: Suggestions of similarities between Indian and European languages began to be made by European visitors to India in the 16th century. In 1583, Thomas Stephens S.J. an English Jesuit missionary in Goa, India, noticed similarities between Indian languages and Greek and Latin and included them included in a letter to his brother, but it was not published until the 20th century.

paragraphs: The first account to mention Sanskrit is from Filippo Sassetti. Born in Florence, Italy, in 1540, he was a merchant who was among the first Europeans to study the Sanskrit. Writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian such as "devaḥ"/"dio" "God", "sarpaḥ"/"serpe" "serpent", "sapta"/"sette" "seven", "aṣṭa"/"otto" "eight", "nava"/"nove" "nine"). However, neither observation led to further scholarly inquiry.

paragraphs: In 1647, Dutch linguist and scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn noted the similarity among Indo-European languages and supposed that they derived from a primitive common language. He included in his hypothesis Dutch, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German and later added Slavic, Celtic and Baltic languages. However, his suggestions did not become widely known and did not stimulate further research.

paragraphs: Gaston Coeurdoux and others had made similar observations. Coeurdoux made a thorough comparison of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek conjugations in the late 1760s to suggest a relationship between the languages. Similarly, Mikhail Lomonosov compared different languages groups of the world, including Slavic, Baltic, Iranian, Finnish, Chinese, Hottentot and others.

paragraphs: The hypothesis reappeared in 1786, 20 years after Coeurdoux, when Sir William Jones first lectured on the striking similarities between three of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. He later tentatively added Gothic, Celtic, and Old Persian but made some errors and omissions in his classification.

paragraphs: In 1813, Thomas Young was first to use the term "Indo-European". It became the standard scientific term except in Germany through Franz Bopp's "Comparative Grammar". Appearing between 1833 and 1852, it was the starting point of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline.

paragraphs: Some 20th-century scholars thought Indo-European languages started in Armenia or India, but most think that it was in Eastern Europe or Anatolia. Recently newer studies support an origin in northern Iran and Armenia.


title: Gulf of Mexico

paragraphs: The Gulf of Mexico is a round sea, called a gulf. Land in North America is around much of it. The United States of America, Mexico, and Cuba are the countries around it. The Straits of Florida connect to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Yucatán Channel connects to the Caribbean Sea.

paragraphs: Petroleum is found near the north and west coast of this gulf. Many hurricanes hit this area, for example, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita hurt many of the oil wells in 2005 in the United States. There is also a big fishing industry in the gulf.


title: Zaire

paragraphs: Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire () was the name of a country that is now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It used this name from 27 November 1971 to 17 May 1997. The name "Zaire" comes from a Portuguese corruption of the Kongo word "nzare", meaning "river".


title: Pneumonia

paragraphs: Pneumonia is a disease of the lungs and the respiratory system. The lung contains many small bulbs, or sacs, called alveoli. These help to take out oxygen from the air. In the case of pneumonia, these bulbs become inflamed. They fill up with a fluid, and can no longer absorb as much oxygen as before. This makes it hard for the person with pneumonia to breathe. They may feel out of breath, or like they are drowning. They may also feel pain when they breathe. Sometimes people die of pneumonia, even when they go to a hospital and take medicine.

paragraphs: Pneumonia can be caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites. It can also be caused by chemical or physical damage done to the lungs. Other illnesses, like alcohol abuse or lung cancer, can also result in pneumonia.

paragraphs: People with pneumonia usually have difficulty breathing. They may also cough, or have pains in the chest area. The treatment of pneumonia depends on how the illness was caused. If it was caused by bacteria, antibiotics can be used to treat it.

paragraphs: People of all ages can have pneumonia. The disease is dangerous. Many people die from pneumonia, especially old people, or people with a weak immune system.

paragraphs: According to some research in 2010, in some parts of the world where people are very poor like India, Nigeria, and Pakistan, pneumonia was the cause of death for more children under the age of five than any other disease. Statistically, however, for every 2,000 children in the developing world who die of pneumonia, only one child in the developed world dies from the disease. This is because of differences in health care and because of differences in rates of breastfeeding, not because of differences in children. Breastfeeding newborn babies greatly increases their ability to survive pneumonia, but some cultures think of breastfeeding as taboo.


title: Encino, Los Angeles

paragraphs: Encino, California is a district of Los Angeles.


title: Winter Olympic Games

paragraphs: Winter Olympic Games were originally considered to be linked with the nation hosting the Summer Olympic Games. The country holding the summer games was preferred as the host for the winter games. Since 1948, the locations of summer and winter games have developed independent of each other.


title: Woodside, California

paragraphs: Woodside is a town in California with a population of about 5,000 people and over 5,000 horses. It is in the northern region of Silicon Valley and has the highest percapita population of billionaires, as well as being the home of celebrities including Shirley Temple, Neil Diamond, Joan Baez, Michelle Pfeiffer and a gorilla named Koko that knows more than a thousand words of American Sign Language.


title: Pathogen

paragraphs: A pathogen is an infectious thing, such as a virus, bacteria, fungi or parasite, which causes a disease. This ability is called pathogenicity.

paragraphs: The body has many ways to defend against some of the common pathogens (such as "Pneumocystis") in the form of the human immune system and by some "helpful" bacteria present in the human body's normal human flora. However, if the immune system or "good" bacteria is damaged in any way (for example, chemotherapy, HIV, or antibiotics being taken to kill other pathogens), pathogenic bacteria that were being held back can grow and cause harm to the host. Such cases are opportunistic infections.

paragraphs: Some pathogens cause epidemics. These include the bacterium "Yersinia pestis" which may have caused the Black Death, the "Variola" virus, and the malarial protozoa. They hurt or even kill large numbers of people.

paragraphs: The most famous and lethal outbreak was the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic (type A influenza, H1N1 subtype), which lasted from 1918 to 1919. It is not known exactly how many it killed, but estimates range from 20 to 100 million people. This pandemic has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in history" and may have killed as many people as the Black Death.

paragraphs: The huge death toll was caused by an extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms. One observer wrote, "One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and skin also occurred". The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive bleeding and oedema in the lungs.

paragraphs: In plants, fungi are the main cause of infectious disease.


title: Pesticide

paragraphs: A pesticide is a chemical that is used to kill or prevent small animals (or organisms) which are considered to be unwanted. These organisms are called pests. Some of these pests that people do not want are insects, microbes that destroy plants, and other things that affect humans in a bad way and it may kill humans too. Many pesticides are poisonous, and are bad for not only the organisms they kill, but for humans too. A pesticide also affects the environment

paragraphs: The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants lists chemicals that are very hard to destroy, or very toxic. In total, twelve chemicals are listed. Nine of them can be used as pesticides.

paragraphs: There are different types of pesticides for getting rid of different pests.

paragraphs: Pesticides are used to kill pests, but many are bad for human health. They may pollute water, and go into rivers, lakes, and ponds. This will cause acid rain, and organisms living in the water can get sick and die, because the water where they live has more acid.

paragraphs: Pesticide is very bad for animals, especially amphibians.

paragraphs: In many cases, there are alternatives to the use of (chemical) pesticides. These include:


title: Inhalation

paragraphs: Inhalation is half of what occurs when people or animals breathe. Air is moved from the outside through the respiratory system into the lungs. The lungs take out some oxygen and put it into the blood. Drugs can also be inhaled with an inhaler to put them into the blood. The air is then moved out of the lungs again. This is the other half of breathing, called exhalation.


title: Severe acute respiratory syndrome

paragraphs: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was an atypical pneumonia. It started in November 2002 in Guangdong Province, in the city of Foshan, of the People's Republic of China. The disease was caused by the SARS coronavirus (SARS CoV), a new coronavirus. It was also a part-time STD, it can be spread through both sexual and casual contact.

paragraphs: SARS was first reported in Asia in February 2003. Over the next few months, the illness spread to more than 24 countries in Asia, North America, South America, and Europe before the SARS global outbreak of 2003 was contained. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a total of 8098 people worldwide became sick with SARS during the 2003 outbreak; 774 of these died.

paragraphs: After the Chinese government suppressed news of the SARS outbreak, the disease spread rapidly, reaching Hong Kong and Vietnam in late February 2003, and then to other countries via international travellers. The last case in this outbreak occurred in June 2003. There were a total of 8437 known cases of the disease, with 813 deaths (a mortality rate of 9.636%).

paragraphs: In May 2005 the disease itself was declared 'eradicated' by the WHO and it became the second disease in mankind to receive this label (the other was smallpox). The "New York Times" reported that "not a single case of severe acute respiratory syndrome has been reported this year or in late 2004. It is the first winter without a case since the initial outbreak in late 2002. Also, the epidemic strain of SARS that caused at least 813 deaths worldwide by June of 2003 has not been seen outside a laboratory since then."


title: Ballet

paragraphs: Ballet is a type of dance. It is only done by dancers who have had special training. The dancers are employed by a dance company, and they perform in theatres. The first reference to ballet is found in a work of Domenico da Piacenza, who lived in the early 14th century. The ballet's first complete United States performance was on 24 December 1944, by the San Francisco Ballet.

paragraphs: Ballet involves the creation of the dance itself, often a type of imaginary story.The story is told with the help of dance and mime. Ballet is a form of expression. It presents a story in a new form to the audience. The creation of dance is called choreography set by professional dancers. The choreography is learnt by the dancers under the supervision of a trainer, called a ballet master or mistress. Ballet is always performed to music, and in many cases the music was specially composed for a particular ballet. Ballet is a major part of theatre, and a popular example is "The Nutcracker which was fist performed on the 24th of December by the San Francisco ballet company."

paragraphs: Ballet grew out of Renaissance spectacles which, rather like big pop music events today, used every type of performance art. These Italian ballets were further developed in France. "Le Ballet Comique de la Reine" (The Queen's Ballet Comedy) was performed in Paris in 1581. It was staged by Balthazar de Beaujoyeux, a violinist and dancing master at the court of Catherine de Medici. It was danced by amateurs in a hall. The royal family were watching at one end and the others in galleries on three sides. Poetry and songs came with the dances.

paragraphs: The basis of classical ballet was formed in the Court of Louis XIV in France, in the 17th century. Even his title (the 'Sun King') came from a role he danced in a ballet. Louis founded the first ballet company, the Ballet de l'Opera de Paris. Many of the ballets presented at his court were created by the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and the choreographer Pierre Beauchamp. Also during this time, the playwright Molière invented the comedie-ballet.

paragraphs: In the early 19th century ballet technique was codified (sorted out and written down) by Carlo Blasis (1797–1878) of Naples. His dance classes, four hours long, were famous for being the toughest training there was at that time. 'Romantic ballet' flourished in France in the first half of the 19th century.

paragraphs: Ballet with a more athletic style was developed in Imperial Russia of the late 19th century. This company performed in the Mariinsky Theatre at St. Petersburg. The three famous Tchaikovsky ballets, "Swan Lake", "The Sleeping Beauty", and "The Nutcracker", date from that time. The next stage was the Diaghilev ballet. Diageilev was a great impresario (showman). In 1909 he founded Les Ballets Russes de Sergei Diaghilev, considered by many to be the greatest ballet company of all time.

paragraphs: His dancers included the legendary Nijinsky and the Imperial primaballerina Karsavina; also Pavlova, Danilova and Spessivtseva. His choreographers included Fokine, Massine and Balanchine; his composers included Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Ravel and Debussy; his set designers included Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse, Utrillo, Bakst and Braque; and the ballets created changed the course of ballet history.

paragraphs: Later in the 20th century, permanent ballet companies were set up in English-speaking countries. The Royal Ballet in London was started, and in New York a company called the "Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo" was founded (1938–1962).

paragraphs: Technique is the physical ability to perform whatever steps a dance may need. Specific methods for refining technique are named after the ballet master or mistress who started them, such as the Vaganova method after Agrippina Vaganova, the Balanchine method after George Balanchine, and the Cecchetti method after Enrico Cecchetti.