title: Dejima content: of the city of Nagasaki. The 25 local Japanese families who owned the land received an annual rent from the Dutch. Dejima was a small island, by , linked to the mainland by a small bridge, guarded on both sides, and with a gate on the Dutch side. It contained houses for about twenty Dutchmen, warehouses, and accommodation for Japanese officials. The Dutch were watched by a number of Japanese officials, gatekeepers, night watchmen, and a supervisor ("otona" 乙名) with about fifty subordinates. Numerous merchants supplied goods and catering, and about 150 interpreters ("tsūji" 通詞) served. They all had to


title: Dejima content: be paid by the "VOC". Like the city of Nagasaki, Dejima was under the direct supervision of Edo through a governor ("Nagasaki bugyō"). Every ship that arrived in Dejima was inspected. Its sails were held by the Japanese until they released the ship to leave. They confiscated religious books and weapons. The Dutch were not allowed to hold any religious services on the island. Despite the financial burden of maintaining the isolated outpost on Dejima, the trade with Japan was very profitable for the Dutch, initially yielding profits of 50% or more. Trade declined in the 18th century, as only


title: Dejima content: two ships per year were allowed to dock at Dejima. After the bankruptcy of the East-India Company in 1795, the Dutch government took over exchange with Japan. Times were especially hard when the Netherlands (then called the Batavian Republic) was under French Napoleonic rule. All ties with the homeland were severed at Dejima, and for a while, it was the only place in the world where the Dutch flag was flown. The chief Dutch official in Japan was called the "Opperhoofd" by the Dutch, or "Kapitan" (from Portuguese "capitão") by the Japanese. This descriptive title did not change when the


title: Dejima content: island's trading fell under Dutch state authority. Throughout these years, the plan was to have one incumbent per year—but sometimes plans needed to be flexible. Originally, the Dutch mainly traded in silk, cotton, and "materia medica" from China and India, but sugar became more important later. Also, deer pelts and shark skin were transported to Japan from Taiwan, as well as books, scientific instruments and many other rarities from Europe. In return, the Dutch traders bought Japanese copper, silver, camphor, porcelain, lacquer ware and rice. To this was added the personal trade of VOC employees on Dejima, which was an


title: Dejima content: important source of income for them and their Japanese counterparts. They sold more than 10,000 foreign books on various scientific subjects to the Japanese from the end of the 18th to the early 19th century. These became the basis of knowledge and a factor in the "Rangaku" movement, or Dutch studies. In all, 606 Dutch ships arrived at Dejima during its two centuries of settlement, from 1641 to 1847. For two hundred years, foreign merchants were generally not allowed to cross from Dejima to Nagasaki. The Japanese were likewise banned from entering Dejima, except interpreters, cooks, carpenters, clerks and 'Women


title: Dejima content: of Pleasure' from the Maruyama teahouses. These "yūjo" were handpicked from 1642 by the Japanese, often against their will. From the 18th century, there were some exceptions to this rule, especially following Tokugawa Yoshimune's doctrine of promoting European practical sciences. A few "Oranda-yuki" ("those who stay with the Dutch") were allowed to stay for longer periods, but they had to report regularly to the Japanese guard post. Once a year the Europeans were allowed to attend the festivities at the Suwa-Shrine under escort. Sometimes physicians such as Engelbert Kaempfer, Carl Peter Thunberg, and Philipp Franz von Siebold were called to


title: Dejima content: high-ranking Japanese patients with the permission of the authorities. Starting in the 18th century, Dejima became known throughout Japan as a center of medicine, military science, and astronomy. Many samurai traveled there for "Dutch studies" (Rangaku). In addition, the "Opperhoofd" was treated like the representative of a tributary state, which meant that he had to pay a visit of homage to the "shōgun" in Edo. The Dutch delegation traveled to Edo yearly between 1660 and 1790, and once every four years thereafter. This prerogative was denied to the Chinese traders. The lengthy travel to the shogunal court broke the boredom


title: Dejima content: of the Dutch stay, but it was a costly affair. Government officials told them in advance and in detail which (expensive) gifts were expected at the court, such as astrolabes, a pair of glasses, telescopes, globes, medical instruments, medical books, or exotic animals and tropical birds. In return, the Dutch delegation received some gifts from the "shōgun". On arrival in Edo, the "Opperhoofd" and his retinue (usually his scribe and the factory physician) had to wait in the "Nagasakiya" (), their mandatory residence, until they were summoned at the court. During the reign of the somewhat eccentric "shōgun" Tokugawa Tsunayoshi,


title: Dejima content: they were expected to perform Dutch dances and songs for the amusement of the "shōgun" after their official audience, according to Engelbert Kaempfer. But they also used the opportunity of their stay of about two to three weeks in the capital to exchange knowledge with learned Japanese and, under escort, to visit the town. Following the forced opening of Japan by US Navy Commodore Perry in 1854, the Bakufu suddenly increased its interactions with Dejima in an effort to build up knowledge of Western shipping methods. The , a naval training institute, was established in 1855 by the government of


title: Dejima content: the "shōgun" at the entrance of Dejima, to enable maximum interaction with Dutch naval know-how. The center was equipped with Japan's first steamship, the "Kankō Maru", given by the government of the Netherlands the same year. The future Admiral Enomoto Takeaki was one of the students of the Training Center. The Dutch East India Company's trading post at Dejima was abolished when Japan concluded the Treaty of Kanagawa with the USA in 1858. This ended Dejima's role as Japan's only window on the Western world during the era of national isolation. Since then, the island was expanded by reclaimed land


title: Dejima content: and merged into Nagasaki. Extensive redesigning of Nagasaki Harbor in 1904 obscured its original location. The original footprint of Dejima Island has been marked by rivets; but as restoration progresses, the ambit of the island will be easier to see at a glance. Dejima today is a work in progress. The island was designated a national historical site in 1922, but further steps were slow to follow. Restoration work was started in 1953, but that project languished. In 1996, restoration of Dejima began with plans for reconstructing 25 buildings in their early 19th-century state. To better display Dejima's fan-shaped form,


title: Dejima content: the project anticipated rebuilding only parts of the surrounding embankment wall that had once enclosed the island. Buildings that remained from the Meiji period were to be used. In 2000, five buildings including the Deputy Factor's Quarters were completed and opened to the public. In the spring of 2006, the finishing touches were put on the Chief Factor's Residence, the Japanese Officials' Office, the Head Clerk's Quarters, the No. 3 Warehouse, and the Sea Gate. Currently some 10 buildings throughout the area have been restored. In 2017, six new buildings as well as the 'Omotemon-bashi Bridge' (the old bridge to


title: Dejima content: the mainland) were restored. The bridge was officially opened in attendance of members of the Japanese and Dutch royal families. The long-term planning intends that Dejima will be surrounded by water on all four sides; its characteristic fan-shaped form and all of its embankment walls will be fully restored. This long-term plan will include large-scale urban redevelopment in the area. To make Dejima an island again will require rerouting the Nakashima River and moving a part of Route 499. Opperhoofd is a Dutch word (plural "opperhoofden") which literally means 'supreme head[man]'. The Japanese used to call the trading post chiefs


title: Dejima content: "kapitan" which is derived from Portuguese "capitão" (cf. Latin "caput", head). In its historical usage, the word is a gubernatorial title, comparable to the English Chief factor, for the chief executive officer of a Dutch "factory" in the sense of trading post, as led by a Factor, i.e. agent. Dejima , in old Western documents Latinised as "Deshima", "Decima", "Desjima", "Dezima", "Disma", or "Disima", was a Dutch trading post notable for being the single place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and the outside world during the Edo period. It was a small fan-shaped artificial island formed by digging


title: "Deng Xiaoping" content: 5 June 1989, a year in which many other socialist governments collapsed. The protests were sparked by the death of Hu Yaobang, a reformist official backed by Deng but ousted by the Eight Elders and the conservative wing of the politburo. Many people were dissatisfied with the party's slow response and relatively subdued funeral arrangements. Public mourning began on the streets of Beijing and universities in the surrounding areas. In Beijing this was centered on the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square. The mourning became a public conduit for anger against perceived nepotism in the government, the unfair


title: Dorians content: invasion presupposes that West Greek speakers resided in northwest Greece but overran the Peloponnesus replacing the East Greek there with their own dialect. No records other than Mycenaean ones are known to have existed in the Bronze Age so a West Greek of that time and place can be neither proved nor disproved. West Greek speakers were in western Greece in classical times. Unlike the East Greeks, they are not associated with any evidence of displacement events. That provides circumstantial evidence that the Doric dialect disseminated among the Hellenes of northwest Greece, a highly-mountainous and somewhat-isolated region. The Dorian invasion


title: "Doris Day" content: film "Romance on the High Seas", and its success sparked her twenty-year career as a motion picture actress. She starred in a series of successful films, including musicals, comedies, and dramas. She played the title role in "Calamity Jane" (1953), and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956) with James Stewart. Her most successful films were the bedroom comedies she made co-starring Rock Hudson and James Garner, such as "Pillow Talk" (1959) and "Move Over, Darling" (1963), respectively. She also co-starred in films with such leading men as Clark Gable, Cary Grant, David Niven, and Rod


title: "Darwin, Northern Territory" content: within this area is still contestable. The Dutch visited Australia's northern coastline in the 1600s and landed on the Tiwi Islands only to be repelled by the Tiwi peoples. The Dutch created the first European maps of the area. This accounts for the Dutch names in the area, such as Arnhem Land and Groote Eylandt. The first British person to see Darwin harbour appears to have been Lieutenant John Lort Stokes of on 9 September 1839. The ship's captain, Commander John Clements Wickham, named the port after Charles Darwin, the British naturalist who had sailed with them both on the


title: "Deus Ex (video game)" content: is just plain awful in some spots," referring to the limited capabilities of the Unreal Engine used to design the game. The website, later on, stated that "overall Deus Ex certainly looks better than your average game." Reviewers and players also complained about the size of "Deus Ex"s save files. An Adrenaline Vault reviewer noted that "Playing through the entire adventure, [he] accumulated over 250MB of save game data, with the average file coming in at over 15MB." The game developed a strong cult following, leading to a core modding and playing community that remained active over 15 years after


title: Digitalis content: Digitalis Digitalis ( or ) is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and biennials commonly called foxgloves. This genus was traditionally placed in the figwort family Scrophulariaceae, but recent phylogenetic research has placed it in the much enlarged family Plantaginaceae. This genus is native to western and southwestern Europe, western and central Asia and northwestern Africa. The scientific name means "finger-like" and refers to the ease with which a flower of "Digitalis purpurea" can be fitted over a human fingertip. The flowers are produced on a tall spike, are tubular, and vary in colour with species,


title: Digitalis content: from purple to pink, white, and yellow. The best-known species is the common foxglove, "Digitalis purpurea". This biennial plant is often grown as an ornamental plant due to its vivid flowers which range in colour from various purple tints through pink, light grey, and purely white. The flowers can also possess various marks and spottings. The first year of growth produces only the stem with its long, basal leaves. During the second year of the plant's life, a long, leafy stem from 50 to 255 centimetres tall grows atop the roots of healthy plants. Other garden-worthy species include "D. ferruginea",


title: Digitalis content: "D. grandiflora", "D. lutea" and "D. parviflora". Larvae of the foxglove pug, a moth, consume the flowers of the common foxglove for food. Other species of Lepidoptera eat the leaves, including the lesser yellow underwing. The term "digitalis" is also used for drug preparations that contain cardiac glycosides, particularly one called digoxin, extracted from various plants of this genus. The name "foxglove" was first recorded in the year 1542 by Leonhard Fuchs, whose family name, Fuchs, is the German word for "fox" (the plant genus "Fuchsia" is also named for him). The genus "digitalis" is from the Latin "digitus" (finger),


title: Digitalis content: perhaps referencing the shape of the flowers, which accommodate a finger when fully formed. Thus the name is recorded in Old English as "foxes glofe/glofa" or "fox's glove." Over time, folk myths obscured the literal origins of the name, insinuating that foxes wore the flowers on their paws to silence their movements as they stealthily hunted their prey. The woody hillsides where the foxes made their dens were often covered with the toxic flowers. Some of the more menacing names, such as "witch's glove," reference the toxicity of the plant. Henry Fox Talbot (1847) proposed "folks' glove", where "folk" means


title: Digitalis content: fairy. Similarly, R. C. A. Prior (1863) suggested an etymology of "foxes-glew", meaning 'fairy music'. However, neither of these suggestions account for the Old English form "foxes glofa". "Digitalis" species thrive in acidic soils, in partial sunlight to deep shade, in a range of habitats, including open woods, woodland clearings, moorland and heath margins, sea-cliffs, rocky mountain slopes and hedge banks. It is commonly found on sites where the ground has been disturbed, such as recently cleared woodland, or where the vegetation has been burnt. A group of medicines extracted from foxglove plants are called digitalin. The use of "D.


title: Digitalis content: purpurea" extract containing cardiac glycosides for the treatment of heart conditions was first described in the English-speaking medical literature by William Withering, in 1785, which is considered the beginning of modern therapeutics. It is used to increase cardiac contractility (it is a positive inotrope) and as an antiarrhythmic agent to control the heart rate, particularly in the irregular (and often fast) atrial fibrillation. Digitalis is hence often prescribed for patients in atrial fibrillation, especially if they have been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Digoxin was approved for heart failure in 1998 under current regulations by the Food and Drug Administration


title: Digitalis content: on the basis of prospective, randomized study and clinical trials. It was also approved for the control of ventricular response rate for patients with atrial fibrillation. American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines recommend digoxin for symptomatic chronic heart failure for patients with reduced systolic function, preservation of systolic function, and/or rate control for atrial fibrillation with a rapid ventricular response. Heart Failure Society of America guidelines for heart failure provide similar recommendations. Despite its relatively recent approval by the Food and Drug Administration and the guideline recommendations, the therapeutic use of digoxin is declining in patients with heart failure—likely


title: Digitalis content: the result of several factors. Safety concerns regarding a proposed link between digoxin therapy and increased mortality in women may be contributing to the decline in therapeutic use of digoxin. A group of pharmacologically active compounds are extracted mostly from the leaves of the second year's growth, and in pure form are referred to by common chemical names, such as digitoxin or digoxin, or by brand names such as Crystodigin and Lanoxin, respectively. The two drugs differ in that digoxin has an additional hydroxyl group at the C-3 position on the B-ring (adjacent to the pentane). Both molecules include a


title: Digitalis content: lactone and a triple-repeating sugar called a glycoside. Digitalis works by inhibiting sodium-potassium ATPase. This results in an increased intracellular concentration of sodium ions and thus a decreased concentration gradient across the cell membrane. This increase in intracellular sodium causes the Na/Ca exchanger to reverse potential, i.e., transition from pumping sodium into the cell in exchange for pumping calcium out of the cell, to pumping sodium out of the cell in exchange for pumping calcium into the cell. This leads to an increase in cytoplasmic calcium concentration, which improves cardiac contractility. Under normal physiological conditions, the cytoplasmic calcium used in


title: Digitalis content: cardiac contractions originates from the sarcoplasmic reticulum, an intracellular organelle that specializes in the storage of calcium. Human newborns, some animals, and patients with chronic heart failure lack well developed and fully functioning sarcoplasmic reticula and must rely on the Na/Ca exchanger to provide all or a majority of the cytoplasmic calcium required for cardiac contraction. For this to occur, cytoplasmic sodium must exceed its typical concentration to favor a reversal in potential, which naturally occurs in human newborns and some animals primarily through an elevated heart rate; in patients with chronic heart failure it occurs through the administration of


title: Digitalis content: digitalis. As a result of increased contractility, stroke volume is increased. Ultimately, digitalis increases cardiac output (Cardiac Output=Stroke Volume x Heart Rate). This is the mechanism that makes this drug a popular treatment for congestive heart failure, which is characterized by low cardiac output. Digitalis also has a vagal effect on the parasympathetic nervous system, and as such is used in re-entrant cardiac arrhythmias and to slow the ventricular rate during atrial fibrillation. The dependence on the vagal effect means digitalis is not effective when a patient has a high sympathetic nervous system drive, which is the case with acutely


title: Digitalis content: ill persons, and also during exercise. Digitalis toxicity (also known as digitalis intoxication and digitalism) results from an overdose of digitalis and causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, as well as sometimes resulting in xanthopsia (jaundiced or yellow vision) and the appearance of blurred outlines (halos), drooling, abnormal heart rate, cardiac arrhythmias, weakness, collapse, dilated pupils, tremors, seizures, and even death. Bradycardia also occurs. Because a frequent side effect of digitalis is reduction of appetite, some individuals have used the drug as a weight-loss aid. Digitalis is an example of a drug derived from a plant that was formerly used by


title: Digitalis content: folklorists and herbalists; herbalists have largely abandoned its use because of its narrow therapeutic index and the difficulty of determining the amount of active drug in herbal preparations. Once the usefulness of digitalis in regulating the human pulse was understood, it was employed for a variety of purposes, including the treatment of epilepsy and other seizure disorders, which are now considered to be inappropriate treatments. Depending on the species, the digitalis plant may contain several deadly physiological and chemically related cardiac and steroidal glycosides. Thus, the digitalis plants have earned several, more sinister, names: dead man’s bells and witch's gloves.


title: Digitalis content: The entire plant is toxic (including the roots and seeds). Mortality is rare, but case reports do exist. Most plant exposures occur in children younger than six years and are usually unintentional and without associated significant toxicity. More serious toxicity occurs with intentional ingestions by adolescents and adults. Early symptoms of ingestion include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, wild hallucinations, delirium, and severe headache. Depending on the severity of the toxicosis, the victim may later suffer irregular and slow pulse, tremors, various cerebral disturbances, especially of a visual nature (unusual colour visions (see xanthopsia) with objects appearing yellowish to green,


title: Digitalis content: and blue halos around lights), convulsions, and deadly disturbances of the heart. For a case description, see the paper by Lacassie. Vincent van Gogh's "Yellow Period" may have been influenced by digitalis therapy which, at the time, was thought to control seizures. As noted above, other oculotoxic effects of digitalis include generalized blurry vision, as well as seeing a "halo" around each point of light. In some instances, people have confused digitalis with the relatively harmless comfrey ("Symphytum") plant, which is often brewed into a tea, with fatal consequences. Other fatal accidents involve children drinking the water in a vase


title: Digitalis content: containing digitalis plants. Drying does not reduce the toxicity of the plant. The plant is toxic to animals, including all classes of livestock and poultry, as well as felines and canines. Digitalis poisoning can cause heart block and either bradycardia (decreased heart rate) or tachycardia (increased heart rate), depending on the dose and the condition of one's heart. Notably, the electric cardioversion (to "shock" the heart) is generally not indicated in ventricular fibrillation in digitalis toxicity, as it can increase the dysrhythmia. Also, the classic drug of choice for ventricular fibrillation in emergency setting, amiodarone, can worsen the dysrhythmia caused


title: Digitalis content: by digitalis, therefore, the second-choice drug lidocaine is more commonly used. Digoxigenin (DIG) is a steroid found exclusively in the flowers and leaves of the plants "D. purpurea" and "D. lanata". It is used as a molecular probe to detect DNA or RNA. It can easily be attached to nucleotides by chemical modifications. DIG molecules are often linked to uridine nucleotides; DIG-labelled uridine (DIG-U) can then be incorporated into RNA probes via "in vitro" transcription. Once hybridisation occurs "in situ", RNA probes with the incorporated DIG-U can be detected with anti-DIG antibodies that are conjugated to alkaline phosphatase. To reveal


title: Digitalis content: the hybridised transcripts, alkaline phosphatase can be reacted with a chromogen to produce a coloured precipitate. Digitalis Digitalis ( or ) is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and biennials commonly called foxgloves. This genus was traditionally placed in the figwort family Scrophulariaceae, but recent phylogenetic research has placed it in the much enlarged family Plantaginaceae. This genus is native to western and southwestern Europe, western and central Asia and northwestern Africa. The scientific name means "finger-like" and refers to the ease with which a flower of "Digitalis purpurea" can be fitted over a human fingertip.


title: "Dalai Lama" content: other eight sons had settled in Amdo but fought amongst themselves over territory so the Fifth Dalai Lama sent governors to rule them in 1656 and 1659, thereby bringing Amdo and thus the whole of Greater Tibet under his personal rule and Gelugpa control. The Mongols in Amdo became absorbed and Tibetanised. In 1636 the Manchus proclaimed their dynasty as the Qing dynasty and by 1644 they had completed their conquest of China under the prince regent Dorgon. The following year their forces approached Amdo on northern Tibet, causing the Oirat and Khoshut Mongols there to submit in 1647 and


title: Deuterium content: most natural occurrence in the universe is bonded with a typical atom, a gas called hydrogen deuteride (HD or ). The existence of deuterium on Earth, elsewhere in the solar system (as confirmed by planetary probes), and in the spectra of stars, is also an important datum in cosmology. Gamma radiation from ordinary nuclear fusion dissociates deuterium into protons and neutrons, and there are no known natural processes other than the Big Bang nucleosynthesis, which might have produced deuterium at anything close to its observed natural abundance (deuterium is produced by the rare cluster decay, and occasional absorption of naturally


title: "Dead Sea" content: Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( lit. Sea of Salt; ) is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, Earth's lowest elevation on land. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. With a salinity of 342 g/kg, or 34.2% (in 2011), it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean and one of the world's saltiest bodies of water. This salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name.


title: "Dead Sea" content: The Dead Sea's main, northern basin is long and wide at its widest point. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River. The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean Basin for thousands of years. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from asphalt for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilisers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics and herbal sachets. The Dead Seawater has


title: "Dead Sea" content: a density of 1.24 kg/litre, which makes swimming similar to floating. The Dead Sea is receding at an alarming rate. Multiple canals and pipelines were proposed to reduce its recession, which had begun causing many problems. The Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance project, carried out by Jordan, will provide water to neighbouring countries, while the brine will be carried to the Dead Sea to help stabilise its levels. The first phase of the project is scheduled to begin in 2018 and be completed in 2021. In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is ' (), meaning "sea of salt" (Genesis 14:3). The


title: "Dead Sea" content: Bible uses this term alongside two others: the Sea of the Arabah (' ), and the Eastern Sea ("" ). The designation "Dead Sea" never appears in the Bible. In prose sometimes the term ' (, "sea of death") is used, due to the scarcity of aquatic life there. In Arabic the Dead Sea is called ("the Dead Sea"), or less commonly ' (, "the Sea of Lot"). Another historic name in Arabic was the "Sea of Zoʼar", after a nearby town in biblical times. The Greeks called it "Lake Asphaltites" (Attic Greek , "", "the Asphaltite sea"). The Dead


title: "Dead Sea" content: Sea is an endorheic lake located in the Jordan Rift Valley, a geographic feature formed by the Dead Sea Transform (DST). This left lateral-moving transform fault lies along the tectonic plate boundary between the African Plate and the Arabian Plate. It runs between the East Anatolian Fault zone in Turkey and the northern end of the Red Sea Rift offshore of the southern tip of Sinai. It is here that the Upper Jordan River/Sea of Galilee/Lower Jordan River water system comes to an end. The Jordan River is the only major water source flowing into the Dead Sea, although there


title: "Dead Sea" content: are small perennial springs under and around the Dead Sea, forming pools and quicksand pits along the edges. There are no outlet streams. The Mujib River, biblical Arnon, is one of the larger water sources of the Dead Sea other than the Jordan. The Wadi Mujib valley, 420 m below the sea level in the southern part of the Jordan valley, is a biosphere reserve, with an area of . Other more substantial sources are Wadi Darajeh (Arabic)/Nahal Dragot (Hebrew), and Nahal Arugot. Wadi Hasa (biblical Zered) is another wadi flowing into the Dead Sea. Rainfall is scarcely per year


title: "Dead Sea" content: in the northern part of the Dead Sea and barely in the southern part. The Dead Sea zone's aridity is due to the rainshadow effect of the Judaean Mountains. The highlands east of the Dead Sea receive more rainfall than the Dead Sea itself. To the west of the Dead Sea, the Judaean mountains rise less steeply and are much lower than the mountains to the east. Along the southwestern side of the lake is a tall halite formation called "Mount Sodom". There are two contending hypotheses about the origin of the low elevation of the Dead Sea. The older


title: "Dead Sea" content: hypothesis is that the Dead Sea lies in a true rift zone, an extension of the Red Sea Rift, or even of the Great Rift Valley of eastern Africa. A more recent hypothesis is that the Dead Sea basin is a consequence of a "step-over" discontinuity along the Dead Sea Transform, creating an extension of the crust with consequent subsidence. Around 3.7 million years ago, what is now the valley of the Jordan River, Dead Sea, and the northern Wadi Arabah was repeatedly inundated by waters from the Mediterranean Sea. The waters formed in a narrow, crooked bay that is


title: "Dead Sea" content: called by geologists the Sedom Lagoon, which was connected to the sea through what is now the Jezreel Valley. The floods of the valley came and went depending on long-scale climate change. The Sedom Lagoon deposited beds of salt that eventually became thick. Approximately two million years ago, the land between the Rift Valley and the Mediterranean Sea rose to such an extent that the ocean could no longer flood the area. Thus, the long lagoon became a landlocked lake. The Sedom Lagoon extended at its maximum from the Sea of Galilee in the north to somewhere around south of


title: "Dead Sea" content: the current southern end of the Dead Sea, and the subsequent lakes obviously never surpassed this expanse. The Hula Depression was never part of any of these water bodies due to its higher elevation and the high threshold of the Korazim block separating it from the Sea of Galilee basin. The first prehistoric lake to follow the Sedom Lagoon is named Lake Amora, followed by Lake Lisan and finally by the Dead Sea. The water levels and salinity of these lakes have either risen or fallen as an effect of the tectonic dropping of the valley bottom, and due to


title: "Dead Sea" content: climate variation. As the climate became more arid, Lake Lisan finally shrank and became saltier, leaving the Dead Sea as its last remainder. In prehistoric times, great amounts of sediment collected on the floor of Lake Amora. The sediment was heavier than the salt deposits and squeezed the salt deposits upwards into what are now the Lisan Peninsula and Mount Sodom (on the southwest side of the lake). Geologists explain the effect in terms of a bucket of mud into which a large flat stone is placed, forcing the mud to creep up the sides of the bucket. When the


title: "Dead Sea" content: floor of the Dead Sea dropped further due to tectonic forces, the salt mounts of Lisan and Mount Sodom stayed in place as high cliffs (see salt dome). From 70,000 to 12,000 years ago, the lake's level was to higher than its current level. This lake, Lake Lisan, fluctuated dramatically, rising to its highest level around 26,000 years ago, indicating a very wet climate in the Near East. Around 10,000 years ago, the lake's level dropped dramatically, probably even lower than today. During the last several thousand years, the lake has fluctuated approximately , with some significant drops and rises.


title: "Dead Sea" content: Current theories as to the cause of this dramatic drop in levels rule out volcanic activity; therefore, it may have been a seismic event. The Dead Sea's climate offers year-round sunny skies and dry air. It has less than mean annual rainfall and a summer average temperature between . Winter average temperatures range between . The region has weaker ultraviolet radiation, particularly the UVB (erythrogenic rays). Given the higher atmospheric pressure, the air has a slightly higher oxygen content (3.3% in summer to 4.8% in winter) as compared to oxygen concentration at sea level. Barometric pressures at the Dead Sea


title: "Dead Sea" content: were measured between 1061 and 1065 hPa and clinically compared with health effects at higher altitude. (This barometric measure is about 5% higher than sea level standard atmospheric pressure of 1013.25 hPa, which is the global ocean mean or ATM.) The Dead Sea affects temperatures nearby because of the moderating effect a large body of water has on climate. During the winter, sea temperatures tend to be higher than land temperatures, and vice versa during the summer months. This is the result of the water's mass and specific heat capacity. On average, there are 192 days above annually. With 34.2%


title: "Dead Sea" content: salinity (in 2011), it is one of the world's saltiest bodies of water, though Lake Vanda in Antarctica (35%), Lake Assal in Djibouti (34.8%), Lagoon Garabogazköl in the Caspian Sea (up to 35%) and some hypersaline ponds and lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica (such as Don Juan Pond (44%)) have reported higher salinities. Until the winter of 1978–79, when a major mixing event took place, the Dead Sea was composed of two stratified layers of water that differed in temperature, density, age, and salinity. The topmost or so of the Dead Sea had an average salinity of


title: "Dead Sea" content: 342 parts per thousand (in 2002), and a temperature that swung between and . Underneath a zone of transition, the lowest level of the Dead Sea had waters of a consistent temperature and complete saturation of sodium chloride (NaCl). Since the water near the bottom is saturated, the salt precipitates out of solution onto the sea floor. Beginning in the 1960s, water inflow to the Dead Sea from the Jordan River was reduced as a result of large-scale irrigation and generally low rainfall. By 1975, the upper water layer was saltier than the lower layer. Nevertheless, the upper layer remained


title: "Dead Sea" content: suspended above the lower layer because its waters were warmer and thus less dense. When the upper layer cooled so its density was greater than the lower layer, the waters mixed (1978–79). For the first time in centuries, the lake was a homogeneous body of water. Since then, stratification has begun to redevelop. The mineral content of the Dead Sea is very different from that of ocean water. The exact composition of the Dead Sea water varies mainly with season, depth and temperature. In the early 1980s, the concentration of ionic species (in g/kg) of Dead Sea surface water was


title: "Dead Sea" content: Cl (181.4), Br (4.2), SO (0.4), HCO (0.2), Ca (14.1), Na (32.5), K (6.2) and Mg (35.2). The total salinity was 276 g/kg. These results show that the composition of the salt, as anhydrous chlorides on a weight percentage basis, was calcium chloride (CaCl) 14.4%, potassium chloride (KCl) 4.4%, magnesium chloride (MgCl) 50.8% and sodium chloride (NaCl) 30.4%. In comparison, the salt in the water of most oceans and seas is approximately 85% sodium chloride. The concentration of sulfate ions (SO) is very low, and the concentration of bromide ions (Br) is the highest of all waters on Earth. The


title: "Dead Sea" content: salt concentration of the Dead Sea fluctuates around 31.5%. This is unusually high and results in a nominal density of 1.24 kg/l. Anyone can easily float in the Dead Sea because of natural buoyancy. In this respect the Dead Sea is similar to the Great Salt Lake in Utah in the United States. An unusual feature of the Dead Sea is its discharge of asphalt. From deep seeps, the Dead Sea constantly spits up small pebbles and blocks of the black substance. Asphalt-coated figurines and bitumen-coated Neolithic skulls from archaeological sites have been found. Egyptian mummification processes used asphalt imported


title: "Dead Sea" content: from the Dead Sea region. The Dead Sea area has become a location for health research and potential treatment for several reasons. The mineral content of the water, the low content of pollens and other allergens in the atmosphere, the reduced ultraviolet component of solar radiation, and the higher atmospheric pressure at this great depth each may have specific health effects. For example, persons experiencing reduced respiratory function from diseases such as cystic fibrosis seem to benefit from the increased atmospheric pressure. The region's climate and low elevation have made it a popular center for assessment of putative therapies: Climatotherapy


title: "Dead Sea" content: at the Dead Sea may be a therapy for psoriasis by sunbathing for long periods in the area due to its position below sea level and subsequent result that UV rays are partially blocked by the increased cloud cover over the Dead Sea. Rhinosinusitis patients receiving Dead Sea saline nasal irrigation exhibited improved symptom relief compared to standard hypertonic saline spray in one study. Dead Sea mud pack therapy has been suggested to temporarily relieve pain in patients with osteoarthritis of the knees. According to researchers of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, treatment with mineral-rich mud compresses can


title: "Dead Sea" content: be used to augment conventional medical therapy. The sea is called "dead" because its high salinity prevents macroscopic aquatic organisms, such as fish and aquatic plants, from living in it, though minuscule quantities of bacteria and microbial fungi are present. In times of flood, the salt content of the Dead Sea can drop from its usual 35% to 30% or lower. The Dead Sea temporarily comes to life in the wake of rainy winters. In 1980, after one such rainy winter, the normally dark blue Dead Sea turned red. Researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem found the Dead Sea to


title: "Dead Sea" content: be teeming with a type of alga called "Dunaliella". "Dunaliella" in turn nourished carotenoid-containing (red-pigmented) halobacteria, whose presence caused the color change. Since 1980, the Dead Sea basin has been dry and the algae and the bacteria have not returned in measurable numbers. In 2011 a group of scientists from Be'er Sheva, Israel and Germany discovered fissures in the floor of the Dead Sea by scuba diving and observing the surface. These fissures allow fresh and brackish water to enter the Dead Sea. They sampled biofilms surrounding the fissures and discovered numerous species of bacteria and archaea. Many animal species


title: "Dead Sea" content: live in the mountains surrounding the Dead Sea. Hikers can see ibex, hares, hyraxes, jackals, foxes, and even leopards. Hundreds of bird species inhabit the zone as well. Both Jordan and Israel have established nature reserves around the Dead Sea. The delta of the Jordan River was formerly a jungle of papyrus and palm trees. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus described Jericho as "the most fertile spot in Judea". In Roman and Byzantine times, sugarcane, henna, and sycamore fig all made the lower Jordan valley wealthy. One of the most valuable products produced by Jericho was the sap of the


title: "Dead Sea" content: balsam tree, which could be made into perfume. By the 19th century, Jericho's fertility had disappeared. There are several small communities near the Dead Sea. These include Ein Gedi, Neve Zohar and the Israeli settlements in the Megilot Regional Council: Kalya, Mitzpe Shalem and Avnat. There is a nature preserve at Ein Gedi, and several Dead Sea hotels are located on the southwest end at Ein Bokek near Neve Zohar. Highway 90 runs north-south on the Israeli side for a total distance of from Metula on the Lebanese border in the north to its southern terminus at the Egyptian border


title: "Dead Sea" content: near the Red Sea port of Eilat. Potash City is a small community on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, and others including Suweima. Highway 65 runs north-south on the Jordanian side from near Jordan's northern tip down past the Dead Sea to the port of Aqaba. Dwelling in caves near the Dead Sea is recorded in the Hebrew Bible as having taken place before the Israelites came to Canaan, and extensively at the time of King David. Just northwest of the Dead Sea is Jericho. Somewhere, perhaps on the southeastern shore, would be the cities mentioned in the


title: "Dead Sea" content: Book of Genesis which were said to have been destroyed in the time of Abraham: Sodom and Gomorra (Genesis 18) and the three other "Cities of the Plain", Admah, Zeboim and Zoar (Deuteronomy 29:23). Zoar escaped destruction when Abraham's nephew Lot escaped to Zoar from Sodom (Genesis 19:21–22). Before the destruction, the Dead Sea was a valley full of natural tar pits, which was called the vale of Siddim. King David was said to have hidden from Saul at Ein Gedi nearby. In there is a specific prophecy that the sea will "be healed and made fresh", becoming a normal


title: "Dead Sea" content: lake capable of supporting marine life. A similar prophecy is stated in , which says that "living waters will go out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea [likely the Dead Sea] and half to the western sea [the Mediterranean]." Aristotle wrote about the remarkable waters. The Nabateans and others discovered the value of the globs of natural asphalt that constantly floated to the surface where they could be harvested with nets. The Egyptians were steady customers, as they used asphalt in the embalming process that created mummies. The Ancient Romans knew the Dead Sea as ""Palus Asphaltites""


title: "Dead Sea" content: (Asphalt Lake). King Herod the Great built or rebuilt several fortresses and palaces on the western bank of the Dead Sea. The most famous was Masada, where in 70 CE a small group of Jewish zealots fled after the fall of the destruction of the Second Temple. The zealots survived until 73 CE, when a siege by the X Legion ended in the deaths by suicide of its 960 inhabitants. Another historically important fortress was Machaerus (מכוור), on the eastern bank, where, according to Josephus, John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod Antipas and died. Also in Roman times, some


title: "Dead Sea" content: Essenes settled on the Dead Sea's western shore; Pliny the Elder identifies their location with the words, "on the west side of the Dead Sea, away from the coast ... [above] the town of Engeda" ("Natural History", Bk 5.73); and it is therefore a hugely popular but contested hypothesis today, that same Essenes are identical with the settlers at Qumran and that "the Dead Sea Scrolls" discovered during the 20th century in the nearby caves had been their own library. Josephus identified the Dead Sea in geographic proximity to the ancient Biblical city of Sodom. However, he referred to the


title: "Dead Sea" content: lake by its Greek name, Asphaltites. Various sects of Jews settled in caves overlooking the Dead Sea. The best known of these are the Essenes of Qumran, who left an extensive library known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The town of Ein Gedi, mentioned many times in the Mishna, produced persimmon for the temple's fragrance and for export, using a secret recipe. "Sodomite salt" was an essential mineral for the temple's holy incense, but was said to be dangerous for home use and could cause blindness. The Roman camps surrounding Masada were built by Jewish slaves receiving water from the


title: "Dead Sea" content: towns around the lake. These towns had drinking water from the Ein Feshcha springs and other sweetwater springs in the vicinity. Intimately connected with the Judean wilderness to its northwest and west, the Dead Sea was a place of escape and refuge. The remoteness of the region attracted Greek Orthodox monks since the Byzantine era. Their monasteries, such as Saint George in Wadi Kelt and Mar Saba in the Judaean Desert, are places of pilgrimage. In the 19th century the River Jordan and the Dead Sea were explored by boat primarily by Christopher Costigan in 1835, Thomas Howard Molyneux in


title: "Dead Sea" content: 1847, William Francis Lynch in 1848, and John MacGregor in 1869. The full text of W. F. Lynch's 1949 book "" is available online. Charles Leonard Irby and James Mangles travelled along the shores of the Dead Sea already in 1817–18, but didn't navigate on its waters. Explorers and scientists arrived in the area to analyze the minerals and research the unique climate. After the find of the "Moabite Stone" in 1868 on the plateau east of the Dead Sea, Moses Wilhelm Shapira and his partner Salim al-Khouri forged and sold a whole range of presumed "Moabite" antiquities, and in


title: "Dead Sea" content: 1883 Shapira presented what is now known as the "Shapira Strips", a supposedly ancient scroll written on leather strips which he claimed had been found near the Dead Sea. The strips were declared to be forgeries and Shapira took his own life in disgrace. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, hundreds of religious documents dated between 150 BCE and 70 CE were found in caves near the ancient settlement of Qumran, about inland from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea (presently in the West Bank). They became known and famous as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The world's lowest


title: "Dead Sea" content: roads, Highway 90, run along the Israeli and West Bank shores of the Dead Sea, along with Highway 65 on the Jordanian side, at below sea level. A golf course named for Sodom and Gomorrah was built by the British at Kalia on the northern shore. The first major Israeli hotels were built in nearby Arad, and since the 1960s at the Ein Bokek resort complex. Israel has 15 hotels along the Dead Sea shore, generating total revenues of $291 million in 2012. Most Israeli hotels and resorts on the Dead Sea are on a stretch of the southern shore.


title: "Dead Sea" content: On the Jordanian side, nine international franchises have opened seaside resort hotels near the King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Center, along with resort apartments, on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The 9 hotels have boosted the Jordanian side's capacity to 2,800 rooms. On November 22, 2015, the Dead Sea panorama road was included along with 40 archaeological locations in Jordan, to become live on Google Street View. The Palestinian Dead Sea Coast is about long. The World Bank estimates that a Palestinian Dead Sea tourism industry could generate $290 million of revenues per year and 2,900 jobs. However,


title: "Dead Sea" content: Palestinians have been unable to obtain construction permits for tourism-related investments on the Dead Sea. According to the World Bank, Officials in the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities state that the only way to apply for such permits is through the Joint Committees established under the Oslo Agreement, but the relevant committee has not met with any degree of regularity since 2000. In the early part of the 20th century, the Dead Sea began to attract interest from chemists who deduced the sea was a natural deposit of potash (potassium chloride) and bromine. The Palestine Potash Company was chartered


title: "Dead Sea" content: in 1929, after its founder, Siberian Jewish engineer and pioneer of Lake Baikal exploitation, Moses Novomeysky, worked for the charter for over ten years. The first plant was on the north shore of the Dead Sea at Kalya and produced potash by solar evaporation of the brine. Employing Arabs and Jews, it was an island of peace in turbulent times. The company quickly grew into the largest industrial site in the Middle East, and in 1934 built a second plant on the southwest shore, in the Mount Sodom area, south of the 'Lashon' region of the Dead Sea. Palestine Potash


title: "Dead Sea" content: Company supplied half of Britain's potash during World War II. Both plants were destroyed by the Jordanians in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Dead Sea Works was founded in 1952 as a state-owned enterprise based on the remnants of the Palestine Potash Company. In 1995, the company was privatized and it is now owned by Israel Chemicals. From the Dead Sea brine, Israel produces (2001) 1.77 million tons potash, 206,000 tons elemental bromine, 44,900 tons caustic soda, 25,000 tons magnesium metal, and sodium chloride. Israeli companies generate around US$3 billion annually from the sale of Dead Sea minerals (primarily potash


title: "Dead Sea" content: and bromine), and from other products that are derived from Dead Sea Minerals. On the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, Arab Potash (APC), formed in 1956, produces 2.0 million tons of potash annually, as well as sodium chloride and bromine. The plant is located at Safi, South Aghwar Department, in the Karak Governorate. Jordanian Dead Sea mineral industries generate about $1.2 billion in sales (equivalent to 4 percent of Jordan’s GDP). The Palestinian Dead Sea Coast is about long. The Palestinian economy is unable to benefit from Dead Sea chemicals due to restricted access, permit issues and the uncertainties


title: "Dead Sea" content: of the investment climate. The World Bank estimates that a Palestinian Dead Sea chemicals industry could generate $918M incremental value added per year, "almost equivalent to the contribution of the entire manufacturing sector of Palestinian territories today". Both companies, Dead Sea Works Ltd. and Arab Potash, use extensive salt evaporation pans that have essentially diked the entire southern end of the Dead Sea for the purpose of producing carnallite, potassium magnesium chloride, which is then processed further to produce potassium chloride. The ponds are separated by a central dike that runs roughly north-south along the international border. The power plant


title: "Dead Sea" content: on the Israeli side allows production of magnesium metal (by a subsidiary, Dead Sea Magnesium Ltd.). Due to the popularity of the sea's therapeutic and healing properties, several companies have also shown interest in the manufacturing and supplying of Dead Sea salts as raw materials for body and skin care products. Since 1930, when its surface was and its level was below sea level, the Dead Sea has been monitored continuously. In recent decades, the Dead Sea has been rapidly shrinking because of diversion of incoming water from the Jordan River to the north. The southern end is fed by


title: "Dead Sea" content: a canal maintained by the Dead Sea Works, a company that converts the sea's raw materials. From a water surface of below sea level in 1970 it fell to below sea level in 2006, reaching a drop rate of per year. As the water level decreases, the characteristics of the Sea and surrounding region may substantially change. The Dead Sea level drop has been followed by a groundwater level drop, causing brines that used to occupy underground layers near the shoreline to be flushed out by freshwater. This is believed to be the cause of the recent appearance of large


title: "Dead Sea" content: sinkholes along the western shore—incoming freshwater dissolves salt layers, rapidly creating subsurface cavities that subsequently collapse to form these sinkholes. In May 2009 at the World Economic Forum, Jordan announced its plans to construct the "Jordan National Red Sea Development Project" (JRSP). This is a plan to convey seawater from the Red Sea near Aqaba to the Dead Sea. Water would be desalinated along the route to provide fresh water to Jordan, with the brine discharge sent to the Dead Sea for replenishment. Israel has expressed its support and will likely benefit from some of the water delivery to its


title: "Dead Sea" content: Negev region. At a regional conference in July 2009, officials expressed concern about the declining water levels. Some suggested industrial activities around the Dead Sea might need to be reduced. Others advised environmental measures to restore conditions such as increasing the volume of flow from the Jordan River to replenish the Dead Sea. Currently, only sewage and effluent from fish ponds run in the river's channel. Experts also stressed the need for strict conservation efforts. They said agriculture should not be expanded, sustainable support capabilities should be incorporated into the area and pollution sources should be reduced. Sources: Israel Oceanographic


title: "Dead Sea" content: and Limnological Research, "Haaretz", Jewish Virtual Library, Jordan Valley Authority. In October 2009, the Jordanians announced accelerated plans to extract around of water per year from the Red Sea, desalinate it for use as fresh water and send the waste water to the Dead Sea by tunnel, despite concerns about inadequate time to assess the potential environmental impact. According to Jordan's minister for water, General Maysoun Zu'bi, this project could be considered as the first phase of the Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance. In December 2013, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement for laying a water pipeline


title: "Dead Sea" content: to link the Red Sea with the Dead Sea. The pipeline will be long and is estimated to take up to five years to complete. In January 2015 it was reported that the level of water is now dropping by a year. On 27 November 2016, it was announced that the Jordanian government is shortlisting five consortiums to implement the project. Jordan's ministry of Water and Irrigation said that the $100 million first phase of the project will begin construction in the first quarter of 2018, and will be completed by 2021. Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( lit. Sea


title: "Diesel engine" content: bulb, Rudolf Diesel however, was subsequently credited with the true compression ignition engine relying solely on heat of compression and not any other form of retained heat. Higher compression and thermal efficiency along with injection timing of fuel and vaporization of fuel through injection system and not by heated surface is what distinguishes Diesel's patent of 3,500 kilopascals (508 psi). In 1892, Diesel received patents in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States for "Method of and Apparatus for Converting Heat into Work". In 1893, he described a "slow-combustion engine" that compressed air, thereby raising its temperature above


title: "Differential topology" content: Differential topology In mathematics, differential topology is the field dealing with differentiable functions on differentiable manifolds. It is closely related to differential geometry and together they make up the geometric theory of differentiable manifolds. Differential topology considers the properties and structures that require only a smooth structure on a manifold to be defined. Smooth manifolds are 'softer' than manifolds with extra geometric structures, which can act as obstructions to certain types of equivalences and deformations that exist in differential topology. For instance, volume and Riemannian curvature are invariants that can distinguish different geometric structures on the same smooth manifold—that is,


title: "Damascus steel" content: parts are often referred to as "Stainless Damascus". The exceptionally strong, fictitious Valyrian steel mentioned in the television series, "Game of Thrones", as well as George R. R. Martin's book series, "A Song of Ice and Fire", appears to have been inspired by Damascus steel. Damascus steel Damascus steel was the forged steel comprising the blades of swords smithed in the Near East from ingots of wootz steel imported from India and Sri Lanka. These swords are characterized by distinctive patterns of banding and mottling reminiscent of flowing water. Such blades were reputed to be tough, resistant to shattering, and


title: "Stephen Donaldson (activist)" content: that they required surgery, and he had to spend a week in the Washington D.C. Veterans' Hospital. He later said: "The government sewed up the tears in my rectum which the government occasioned." In a 1974 account in the "Friends Journal", Donaldson asked: In 1982, Donaldson wrote about his lack of success in getting needed psychological counseling after the rapes: Donaldson wrote that he was aided in his sexual recovery by an understanding woman who helped him regain his confidence. After a year and a half, he returned to his prior level of sexual activity. In 1975, "the suppressed emotions


title: Dolmen content: Dolmen A dolmen () or cromlech is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more vertical megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BC) and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus. Small pad-stones may be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance. In many instances, the covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone "skeleton" of the mound intact. It remains unclear when, why and by whom the earliest dolmens were made. The oldest known are


title: Dolmen content: found in Western Europe, dating from c 7,000 years ago. Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it. They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite the absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artefacts, have been found in or close to the dolmens which could be scientifically dated using radiocarbon dating. However, it has been impossible to prove that these remains date from the time when the stones were originally set in place. The word "dolmen" has an unclear history. The


title: Dolmen content: word entered archaeology when Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne used it to describe megalithic tombs in his "Origines gauloises" (1796) using the spelling "dolmin" (the current spelling was introduced about a decade later and had become standard in French by about 1885). The "Oxford English Dictionary" does not mention "dolmin" in English and gives its first citation for "dolmen" from a book on Brittany in 1859, describing the word as "The French term, used by some English authors, for a cromlech ...". The name was supposedly derived from a Breton language term meaning "stone table" but doubt has been


title: Dolmen content: cast on this, and the "OED" describes its origin as "Modern French". A book on Cornish antiquities from 1754 said that the current term in the Cornish language for a cromlech was "tolmen" ("hole of stone") and the OED says that "There is reason to think that this was the term inexactly reproduced by Latour d'Auvergne [sic] as "dolmen", and misapplied by him and succeeding French archaeologists to the "cromlech"". Nonetheless it has now replaced cromlech as the usual English term in archaeology, when the more technical and descriptive alternatives are not used. Dolmens are known by a variety of


title: Dolmen content: names in other languages, including , Galician and , , Afrikaans and , , , Adyghe Ispun, "dysse" (Danish and Norwegian), "dös" (Swedish), "goindol (mordenized word: stacked stone)", "dol (stone)", "dolmaengi (pebble-stones, varied stones)", and . Granja is used in Portugal, Galicia, and Spain. The rarer forms "anta" and "ganda" also appear. In the Basque Country, they are attributed to the "jentilak", a race of giants. The etymology of the and - with "Hüne/hune" meaning "giant" - all evoke the image of giants buried (bett/bed/grab = bed/grave)there. Of other Celtic languages, was borrowed into English and "quoit" is commonly used


title: Dolmen content: in English in Cornwall. Dolmen A dolmen () or cromlech is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more vertical megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BC) and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus. Small pad-stones may be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance. In many instances, the covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone "skeleton" of the mound intact. It remains unclear when, why and by whom the earliest dolmens were made.


title: Dhole content: Dhole The dhole ("Cuon alpinus") is a canid native to Central, South and Southeast Asia. Other English names for the species include Asiatic wild dog, Indian wild dog, whistling dog, red dog, and mountain wolf. It is genetically close to species within the genus "Canis", though its skull is convex rather than concave in profile, it lacks a third lower molar and the upper molars sport only a single cusp as opposed to between two to four. During the Pleistocene, the dhole ranged throughout Asia, Europe and North America but became restricted to its historical range 12,000–18,000 years ago. The


title: Dhole content: dhole is a highly social animal, living in large clans without rigid dominance hierarchies and containing multiple breeding females. Such clans usually consist of 12 individuals, but groups of over 40 are known. It is a diurnal pack hunter which preferentially targets medium and large sized ungulates. In tropical forests, the dhole competes with tigers and leopards, targeting somewhat different prey species, but still with substantial dietary overlap. It is listed as Endangered by the IUCN as populations are decreasing and are estimated at fewer than 2,500 adults. Factors contributing to this decline include habitat loss, loss of prey, competition


title: Dhole content: with other species, persecution due to livestock predation and disease transfer from domestic dogs. The etymology of "dhole" is unclear. The possible earliest written use of the word in English occurred in 1808 by soldier Thomas Williamson, who encountered the animal in Ramghur district. He stated that "dhole" was a common local name for the species. In 1827, Charles Hamilton Smith claimed that it was derived from a language spoken in 'various parts of the East'. Two years later, Smith connected this word with ‘mad, crazy’, and erroneously compared the Turkish word with and (cfr. also ; ), which are


title: Dhole content: in fact from the Proto-Germanic *"dwalaz" ‘foolish, stupid’. Richard Lydekker wrote nearly 80 years later that the word was not used by the natives living within the species' range. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary theorises that it may have come from the (‘wolf’). The species was first described in European literature in 1794 by an explorer named Pesteref, who encountered dholes during his travels in far eastern Russia. He described the animal as being a regular pack hunter of Alpine ibex, and of bearing many similarities with the Eurasian golden jackal. It was given the binomial name "Canis alpinus" in 1811 by


title: Dhole content: Peter Pallas, who described its range as encompassing the upper levels of Udskoi Ostrog in Amurland, towards the eastern side and in the region of the upper Lena River, though he wrote that it also occurred around the Yenisei River and that it occasionally crossed into China. This northern Russian range reported by this "nearly impeccable" author Pallas, during the 18th and 19th centuries, is "considerably north" of where this species occurs today. The British naturalist Brian Hodgson gave the dhole the binomial name "Canis primaevus" and proposed that it was the progenitor of the domestic dog. Hodgson later took


title: Dhole content: note of the dhole's physical distinctiveness from the genus "Canis" and assigned it to a new genus, "Cuon". The first study on the origins of the species was conducted by paleontologist Erich Thenius, who concluded that the dhole was a post-Pleistocene descendant of a golden jackal-like ancestor. The earliest known member of the genus "Cuon" is the Chinese "Cuon majori" of the Villafranchian period. It resembled "Canis" in its physical form more than the modern species, which has greatly reduced molars, whose cusps have developed into sharply trenchant points. By the Middle Pleistocene, "C. majori" had lost the last lower


title: Dhole content: molar altogether. "C. alpinus" itself arose during the late Middle Pleistocene, by which point the transformation of the lower molar into a single cusped, slicing tooth had been completed. Late Middle Pleistocene dholes were virtually indistinguishable from their modern descendants, save for their greater size, which closely approached that of the gray wolf. The dhole became extinct in much of Europe during the late Würm period, though it may have survived up until the early Holocene in the Iberian Peninsula. and at Riparo Fredian in northern Italy The vast Pleistocene range of this species also included numerous islands in Asia


title: Dhole content: that this species no longer inhabits, such as Sri Lanka, Borneo and possibly Palawan in the Philippines. The fossil record indicates that the species also occurred in North America, with remains being found in Beringia and Mexico. The dhole's distinctive morphology has been a source of much confusion in determining the species' systematic position among the Canidae. George Simpson placed the dhole in the subfamily Simocyoninae alongside the African wild dog and the bush dog, on account of all three species' similar dentition. Subsequent authors, including Juliet Clutton-Brock, noted greater morphological similarities to canids of the genera "Canis", "Dusicyon", and


title: Dhole content: "Alopex" than to either "Speothos" or "Lycaon", with any resemblance to the latter two being due to convergent evolution. Some authors consider the extinct "Canis" subgenus named "Xenocyon" as ancestral to both the genus "Lycaon" and the genus "Cuon". Subsequent studies on the canid genome revealed that the dhole and African wild dog are closely related to members of the genus "Canis". This closeness to "Canis" may have been confirmed in a menagerie in Madras, where according to zoologist Reginald Pocock, a dhole interbred with a Eurasian golden jackal. In 2018, whole genome sequencing was used to compare all members


title: Dhole content: of the genus "Canis", apart from the black-backed and side-striped jackals, along with the dhole and the African hunting dog ("Lycaon pictus"). There was strong evidence of ancient genetic admixture between the dhole and the African hunting dog. Today, their ranges are remote from each other, however during the Pleistocene era the dhole could be found as far west as Europe. The study proposes that the dhole's distribution may have once included the Middle East, from where it may have admixed with the African hunting dog in North Africa. However, there is no evidence of the dhole having existed in


title: Dhole content: the Middle East nor North Africa. Historically, up to 10 subspecies of dholes have been recognised. , only three subspecies are recognised by MSW3. However, studies on the dhole's mtDNA and microsatellite genotype showed no clear subspecific distinctions. Nevertheless, two major phylogeographic groupings were discovered in dholes of the Asian mainland, which likely diverged during a glaciation event. One population extends from South, Central and North India (south of the Ganges) into Burma, and the other extends from India north of the Ganges into northeastern India, Burma, Thailand and the Malaysian Peninsula. The origin of dholes in Sumatra and Java


title: Dhole content: is, , unclear, as they show greater relatedness to dholes in India, Burma and China rather than with those in nearby Malaysia. In the absence of further data, the researchers involved in the study speculated that Javan and Sumatran dholes could have been introduced to the islands by humans. In appearance, the dhole has been variously described as combining the physical characteristics of the gray wolf and the red fox, and as being "cat-like" on account of its long backbone and slender limbs. It has a wide and massive skull with a well-developed sagittal crest, and its masseter muscles are


title: Dhole content: highly developed compared to other canid species, giving the face an almost hyena-like appearance. The rostrum is shorter than that of domestic dogs and most other canids. The species has six rather than seven lower molars. The upper molars are weak, being one-third to one-half the size of those of wolves and have only one cusp as opposed to between two to four, as is usual in canids, an adaptation thought to improve shearing ability, thus allowing it to compete more successfully with kleptoparasites. Adult females can weigh from , while the slightly larger male may weigh from . The


title: Dhole content: mean weight of adults from three small samples was . Occasionally, dholes may be sympatric with the Indian wolf ("Canis lupus pallipes"), which is one of the smallest races of the gray wolf, but is still approximately 25% heavier on average. It stands 17–22 in (43–56 cm) at the shoulder and measures 3.0 ft (0.91 m) in body length. Like the African wild dog, its ears are rounded rather than pointed. The general tone of the fur is reddish, with the brightest hues occurring in winter. In the winter coat, the back is clothed in a saturated rusty-red to reddish


title: Dhole content: colour with brownish highlights along the top of the head, neck and shoulders. The throat, chest, flanks, and belly and the upper parts of the limbs are less brightly coloured, and are more yellowish in tone. The lower parts of the limbs are whitish, with dark brownish bands on the anterior sides of the forelimbs. The muzzle and forehead are greyish-reddish. The tail is very luxuriant and fluffy, and is mainly of a reddish-ocherous colour, with a dark brown tip. The summer coat is shorter, coarser, and darker. The dorsal and lateral guard hairs in adults measure 20–30 mm in


title: Dhole content: length. Dholes in the Moscow Zoo moult once a year from March to May. Dholes produce whistles resembling the calls of red foxes, sometimes rendered as "coo-coo". How this sound is produced is unknown, though it is thought to help in coordinating the pack when travelling through thick brush. When attacking prey, they emit screaming "KaKaKaKAA" sounds. Other sounds include whines (food soliciting), growls (warning), screams, chatterings (both of which are alarm calls) and yapping cries. In contrast to wolves, dholes do not howl or bark. Dholes have a complex body language. Friendly or submissive greetings are accompanied by horizontal


title: Dhole content: lip retraction and the lowering of the tail, as well as licking. Playful dholes open their mouths with their lips retracted and their tails held in a vertical position whilst assuming a play bow. Aggressive or threatening dholes pucker their lips forward in a snarl and raise the hairs on their backs, as well as keep their tails horizontal or vertical. When afraid, they pull their lips back horizontally with their tails tucked and their ears flat against the skull. In Central Asia, dholes primarily inhabit mountainous areas; in the western half of their range, they live mostly in alpine


title: Dhole content: meadows and high-montane steppes high above sea level, while in the east, they mainly range in montane taigas, though they may appear along coastlines. In India, Myanmar, Indochina, Indonesia and China, they prefer forested areas in alpine zones and occasionally also in plains regions. The dhole might still be present in the Tunkinsky National Park in extreme southern Siberia near Lake Baikal. It possibly still exists in the Primorsky Krai province in far eastern Russia, where it was considered a rare and endangered species in 2004, with unconfirmed reports in the Pikthsa-Tigrovy Dom protected forest area; no sighting was reported


title: Dhole content: in other areas such as the Mataisky Zakaznik forest since the late 1970s. Currently, no other recent reports are confirmed of dhole being present in Russia, with no recent reports from Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan, though one specimen was caught in southern China's Jiangxi district. Also, in 2011 to 2013, local government officials and herders reported the presence of several packs at altitudes of 2,000 to 3,500 m near the Taxkorgan Reserve in the Karakoram/Pamir Mountains region of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, on China's border with Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. Dholes have been also recently reported from the Altyn-Tagh


title: Dhole content: (Altun) Mountains in the southern portion of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region close to Tibet, as well. It is unknown if dholes continue to inhabit the Tian Shan, though they occur in small numbers in the Gansu Province, with one pack being sighted in the Qilian Mountains within that province in 2006; camera-trap surveys in the Yanchiwan National Nature Reserve in the northern edge of the Gansu Province in 2013-2014 confirmed the continued presence of several packs and a female adult with pups in this area at altitudes around 2,500 to 4,000 m. Dholes still occur in Tibet and possibly also


title: Dhole content: in North Korea. They once occurred in the alpine steppes extending into Kashmir to the Ladakh area, but have not been recorded in Pakistan. They occur in most of India south of the Ganges, particularly in the Central Indian Highlands and the Western and Eastern Ghats. In northeast India, it is present in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, and West Bengal and in the Indo-Gangetic Plain's Terai region. Dhole populations in the Himalayas and northwest India are fragmented. In 2011, dhole packs were recorded by camera traps in the Chitwan National Park. Its presence was confirmed in the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area


title: Dhole content: in 2011 by camera-traps. In Bhutan, dholes have recovered from a poisoning campaign during the 1970s and became re-established in the 1990s. Today they occur in the Jigme Dorji National Park. Dholes still occur in northeastern Bangladesh's forest reserves in the Sylhet area, as well the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the southeast. These zones are unlikely to contain viable populations, considering most sightings involve small groups or solitary specimens, and they are likely decreasing in number due to the lack of prey. The presence of dholes in Myanmar was confirmed by camera-trapping in 11 areas, and alongside leopards, have apparently


title: Dhole content: replaced tigers as the country's top predators. In 2015, dholes and tigers were recorded by camera-traps for the first time in the hill forests of Karen State. Their range is highly fragmented in the Malaysian Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Vietnam and Thailand. In 2014, camera-trap videos in the montane tropical forests at 2,000 m in the Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sumatra revealed the continued presence of this species. A camera-trapping survey in the Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand from January 2008 to February 2010 revealed at least one healthy dhole pack. In northern Laos, dholes have been


title: Dhole content: studied (2012) in protected areas. A disjunct population of this species has been reported from the area of Trabzon and Rize in northeastern Turkey near the border with Georgia in the 1990s by two Turkish zoologists. Some authorities have accepted this report, but others considered it to be unreliable. Also, one single individual was claimed to have been shot in 2013 in the nearby Kabardino-Balkaria Republic (a subject republic of Russia immediately north of Georgia in the Central Caucasus); its remains (including a skull) were analyzed by a biologist from the Kabardino-Balkarian State University in May 2015, who concluded the


title: Dhole content: skull was from a dhole. Recently, in August 2015, researchers from the National Museum of Natural History from Sofia, Bulgaria (including Dr. Nikolai Spassov, the current director of this museum) and the Karadeniz Technical University began an expedition to track and document this possible Turkish population of dhole. On October 12, 2015, this research team reported the preliminary conclusion that no real evidence exists of a living population of the dhole in Turkey (or in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic), pending DNA analysis of samples from the original 1994 Serez-Eroglu skins. Dholes are more social than gray wolves, and have less of


title: Dhole content: a dominance hierarchy, as seasonal scarcity of food is not a serious concern for them. In this manner, they closely resemble African wild dogs in social structure. They live in clans rather than packs, as the latter term refers to a group of animals that always hunt together. In contrast, dhole clans frequently break into small packs of 3–5 animals, particularly during the spring season, as this is the optimal number for catching fawns. Dominant dholes are hard to identify, as they do not engage in dominance displays as wolves do, though other clan members will show submissive behaviour toward


title: Dhole content: them. Intragroup fighting is rarely observed. Dholes are far less territorial than wolves, with pups from one clan often joining another without trouble once they mature sexually. Clans typically number 5-12 individuals in India, though clans of 40 have been reported. In Thailand, clans rarely exceed three individuals. Unlike other canids, there is no evidence of dholes using urine to mark their territories or travel routes. When urinating, dholes, especially males, may raise one hind leg or both to result in a handstand. Handstand urination is also seen in bush dogs ("Speothos venaticus"). They may defecate in conspicuous places, though


title: Dhole content: a territorial function is unlikely, as faeces are mostly deposited within the clan's territory rather than the periphery. Faeces are often deposited in what appear to be communal latrines. They do not scrape the earth with their feet, as other canids do, to mark their territories. Four kinds of den have been described; simple earth dens with one entrance (usually remodeled striped hyena or porcupine dens); complex cavernous earth dens with more than one entrance; simple cavernous dens excavated under or between rocks; and complex cavernous dens with several other dens in the vicinity, some of which are interconnected. Dens


title: Dhole content: are typically located under dense scrub or on the banks of dry rivers or creeks. The entrance to a dhole den can be almost vertical, with a sharp turn three to four feet down. The tunnel opens into an antechamber, from which extends more than one passage. Some dens may have up to six entrances leading up to of interconnecting tunnels. These "cities" may be developed over many generations of dholes, and are shared by the clan females when raising young together. Like African wild dogs and dingoes, dholes will avoid killing prey close to their dens. In India, the


title: Dhole content: mating season occurs between mid-October and January, while captive dholes in the Moscow Zoo breed mostly in February. Unlike wolf packs, dhole clans may contain more than one breeding female. More than one female dhole may den and rear their litters together in the same den. During mating, the female assumes a crouched, cat-like position. There is no copulatory tie characteristic of other canids when the male dismounts. Instead, the pair lie on their sides facing each other in a semicircular formation. The gestation period lasts 60–63 days, with litter sizes averaging four to six pups. Their growth rate is


title: Dhole content: much faster than that of wolves, being similar in rate to that of coyotes. Pups are suckled at least 58 days. During this time, the pack feeds the mother at the den site. Dholes do not use rendezvous sites to meet their pups as wolves do, though one or more adults will stay with the pups at the den while the rest of the pack hunts. Once weaning begins, the adults of the clan will regurgitate food for the pups until they are old enough to join in hunting. They remain at the den site for 70–80 days. By the


title: Dhole content: age of six months, pups accompany the adults on hunts and will assist in killing large prey such as sambar by the age of eight months. Maximum longevity in captivity is 15–16 years. Before embarking on a hunt, clans go through elaborate prehunt social rituals involving nuzzling, body rubbing and homo- and heterosexual mounting. Dholes are primarily diurnal hunters, hunting in the early hours of the morning. They rarely hunt nocturnally, except on moonlit nights, indicating they greatly rely on sight when hunting. Although not as fast as jackals and foxes, they can chase their prey for many hours. During


title: Dhole content: a pursuit, one or more dholes may take over chasing their prey, while the rest of the pack keeps up at a steadier pace behind, taking over once the other group tires. Most chases are short, lasting only 500 m. When chasing fleet-footed prey, they run at a pace of 30 mph. Dholes frequently drive their prey into water bodies, where the targeted animal's movements are hindered. Once large prey is caught, one dhole will grab the prey's nose, while the rest of the pack pulls the animal down by the flanks and hindquarters. They do not use a killing


title: Dhole content: bite to the throat. They occasionally blind their prey by attacking the eyes. Serows are among the only ungulate species capable of effectively defending themselves against dhole attacks, due to their thick, protective coats and short, sharp horns capable of easily impaling dholes. They will tear open their prey's flanks and disembowel it, eating the heart, liver, lungs and some sections of the intestines. The stomach and rumen are usually left untouched. Prey weighing less than 50 kg is usually killed within two minutes, while large stags may take 15 minutes to die. Once prey is secured, dholes will tear


title: Dhole content: off pieces of the carcass and eat in seclusion. Unlike wolf packs, in which the breeding pair monopolises food, dholes give priority to the pups when feeding at a kill, allowing them to eat first. They are generally tolerant of scavengers at their kills. Both mother and young are provided with regurgitated food by other pack members. Prey animals in India include chital, sambar deer, muntjac, mouse deer, barasingha, wild boar, gaur, water buffaloes, banteng, cattle, nilgai, goats, Indian hares, Himalayan field rats and langurs. There is one record of a pack bringing down an Indian elephant calf in Assam,


title: Dhole content: despite desperate defense of the mother, resulting in numerous losses to the pack. In Kashmir, they prey on markhor, and thamin in Myanmar, Malayan tapir, Sumatran serow in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula and Javan rusa in Java. In the Tian Shan and Tarbagatai Mountains, dholes prey on Siberian ibexes, arkhar, roe deer, maral and wild boar. In the Altai and Sayan Mountains, they prey on musk deer and reindeer. In eastern Siberia, they prey on roe deer, Manchurian wapiti, wild pig, musk deer and reindeer, while in Primorye they feed on sika deer and goral. In Mongolia, they prey


title: Dhole content: on argali and rarely Siberian ibex. Like African wild dogs, but unlike wolves, dholes are not known to attack people. Dholes eat fruit and vegetable matter more readily than other canids. In captivity, they eat various kinds of grasses, herbs and leaves, seemingly for pleasure rather than just when ill. In summertime in the Tian Shan Mountains, dholes eat large quantities of mountain rhubarb. Although opportunistic, dholes have a seeming aversion to hunting cattle and their calves. Livestock predation by dholes has been a problem in Bhutan since the late 1990s, as domestic animals are often left outside to graze


title: Dhole content: in the forest, sometimes for weeks at a time. Livestock stall-fed at night and grazed near homes are never attacked. Oxen are killed more often than cows, probably because they are given less protection. In some areas, dholes are sympatric to tigers and leopards. Competition between these species is mostly avoided through differences in prey selection, although there is still substantial dietary overlap. Along with leopards, dholes typically target animals in the 30–175 kg range (mean weights of 35.3 kg for dhole and 23.4 kg for leopard), while tigers selected for prey animals heavier than 176 kg (but their mean


title: Dhole content: prey weight was 65.5 kg). Also, other characteristics of the prey, such as sex, arboreality and aggressiveness, may play a role in prey selection. For example, dholes preferentially select male chital, whereas leopards kill both sexes more evenly (and tigers prefer larger prey altogether), dholes and tigers kill langurs rarely compared to leopards due to the leopards' greater arboreality, while leopards kill wild boar infrequently due to the inability of this relatively light predator to tackle aggressive prey of comparable weight. On some occasions, dholes may attack tigers. When confronted by dholes, tigers will seek refuge in trees or stand


title: Dhole content: with their backs to a tree or bush, where they may be mobbed for lengthy periods before finally attempting escape. Escaping tigers are usually killed, while tigers which stand their ground have a greater chance of survival. Tigers are dangerous opponents for dholes, as they have sufficient strength to kill a dhole with a single paw strike. Dhole packs may steal leopard kills, while leopards may kill dholes if they encounter them singly or in pairs. Since leopards are smaller than tigers and are more likely to hunt dholes, dhole packs tend to react more aggressively toward them than they


title: Dhole content: do towards tigers. There are numerous records of leopards being treed by dholes. Dholes sometimes drive tigers, leopards, snow leopards and bears (see below) from their kills. Dholes were once thought to be a major factor in reducing Asiatic cheetah populations, though this is doubtful, as cheetahs live in open areas as opposed to forested areas favoured by dholes. Dhole packs occasionally attack Asiatic black bears, snow leopards, and sloth bears. When attacking bears, dholes will attempt to prevent them from seeking refuge in caves and lacerate their hindquarters. Although usually antagonistic toward wolves, they may hunt and feed alongside


title: Dhole content: one another. There is at least one record of a lone wolf associating with a pair of dholes in Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary. They infrequently associate in mixed groups with Eurasian golden jackals. Domestic dogs may kill dholes, though they will feed alongside them on occasion. Dholes are vulnerable to a number of different diseases, particularly in areas where they are sympatric with other canid species. Infectious pathogens such as "Toxocara canis" are present in their faeces. They may suffer from rabies, canine distemper, mange, trypanosomiasis, canine parvovirus and endoparasites such as cestodes and roundworms. The dhole only rarely takes domestic


title: Dhole content: livestock. Certain people, such as the Kurumbas and some Mon Khmer-speaking tribes will appropriate dhole kills; some Indian villagers welcome the dhole because of this appropriation of dhole kills. Dholes were persecuted throughout India for bounties until they were given protection by the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. Methods used for dhole hunting included poisoning, snaring, shooting and clubbing at den sites. Native Indian people killed dholes primarily to protect livestock, while British sporthunters during the British Raj did so under the conviction that dholes were responsible for drops in game populations. Persecution of dholes still occurs with varying degrees


title: Dhole content: of intensity according to the region. Bounties paid for dholes used to be 25 rupees, though this was reduced to 20 in 1926 after the number of presented dhole carcasses became too numerous to maintain the established reward. In Indochina, dholes suffer heavily from nonselective hunting techniques such as snaring. The fur trade does not pose a significant threat to dholes. The people of India do not eat dhole flesh and their fur is not considered overly valuable. Due to their rarity, dholes were never harvested for their skins in large numbers in the Soviet Union and were sometimes accepted


title: Dhole content: as dog or wolf pelts (being labeled as "half wolf" for the latter). The winter fur was prized by the Chinese, who bought dhole pelts in Ussuriysk during the late 1860s for a few silver rubles. In the early 20th century, dhole pelts reached eight rubles in Manchuria. In Semirechye, fur coats made from dhole skin were considered the warmest, but were very costly. In India, the dhole is protected under Schedule 2 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The creation of reserves under Project Tiger provided some protection for dhole populations sympatric with tigers. In 2014, the Indian government


title: Dhole content: sanctioned its first dhole conservation breeding centre at the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park (IGZP) in Visakhapatnam. The dhole has been protected in Russia since 1974, though it is vulnerable to poison left out for wolves. In China, the animal is listed as a category II protected species under the Chinese wildlife protection act of 1988. In Cambodia, the dhole is protected from all hunting, while conservation laws in Vietnam limit extraction and utilization. In 2016, the Korean company Sooam Biotech was reported to be attempting to clone the dhole using dogs as surrogate mothers to help conserve the species. Three


title: Dhole content: dhole-like animals are featured on the coping stone of the Bharhut stupa dating from 100 BC. They are shown waiting by a tree, with a woman or spirit trapped up it, a scene reminiscent of dholes treeing tigers. The animal's fearsome reputation in India is reflected by the number of pejorative names it possesses in Hindi, which variously translate as "red devil", "devil dog", "jungle devil", or "hound of Kali". According to zoologist and explorer Leopold von Schrenck, he had trouble obtaining dhole specimens during his exploration of Amurland, as the local Gilyaks greatly feared the species. This fear and


title: Dhole content: superstition was not however shared by neighbouring Tungusic peoples. Von Schrenk speculated that this differing attitude towards dholes was due to the Tungusic people's more nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Dhole-like animals are described in numerous old European texts, including the Ostrogoth sagas, where they are portrayed as hellhounds. The demon dogs accompanying Hellequin in Mediaeval French passion plays, as well as the ones inhabiting the legendary forest of Brocéliande, have been attributed to dholes. According to Charles Hamilton Smith, the dangerous wild canids mentioned by Scaliger as having lived in the forests of Montefalcone could have been based on dholes, as


title: Dhole content: they were described as unlike wolves in habits, voice and appearance. The Montefalcone family's coat of arms had a pair of red dogs as supporters. Dholes appear in Rudyard Kipling's "Red Dog", where they are portrayed as aggressive and bloodthirsty animals which descend from the Deccan Plateau into the Seeonee Hills inhabited by Mowgli and his adopted wolf pack to cause carnage among the jungle's denizens. They are described as living in packs numbering hundreds of individuals, and that even Shere Khan and Hathi make way for them when they descend into the jungle. The dholes are despised by the


title: Dhole content: wolves because of their destructiveness, their habit of not living in dens and the hair between their toes. With Mowgli and Kaa's help, the Seeonee wolf pack manages to wipe out the dholes by leading them through bee hives and torrential waters before finishing off the rest in battle. Japanese author Uchida Roan wrote 犬物語 ("Inu monogatari"; A dog's tale) in 1901 as a nationalistic critique of the declining popularity of indigenous dog breeds, which he asserted were descended from the dhole. A fictional version of the dhole, imbued with supernatural abilities, appears in the Season 6 episode of "The


title: Dhole content: X-Files" titled "Alpha". Dholes also appear as enemies in the game "Far Cry 4", alongside other predators such as the Bengal tiger, honey badger, snow leopard, clouded leopard, Tibetan wolf and Asian black bear. They can be found hunting the player and other NPC's across the map, but are easily killed, being one of the weakest enemies in the game. They once again appear in the game "Far Cry Primal", where they play similar roles as their counterparts in the previous game, but can now also be tamed and used in combat by Takkar, the main protagonist of the game.


title: Dhole content: Brian Houghton Hodgson kept captured dholes in captivity, and found, with the exception of one animal, they remained shy and vicious even after 10 months. According to Richard Lydekker, adult dholes are nearly impossible to tame, though pups are docile and can even be allowed to play with domestic dog pups until they reach early adulthood. A dhole may have been presented as a gift to Ibbi-Sin as tribute. Dhole The dhole ("Cuon alpinus") is a canid native to Central, South and Southeast Asia. Other English names for the species include Asiatic wild dog, Indian wild dog, whistling dog, red


title: "Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications" content: by the phone, it was possible to implement a man-in-the-middle attack impersonating a DECT base station and revert to unencrypted mode – which allows calls to be listened to, recorded, and re-routed to a different destination. After an unverified report of a successful attack in 2002, members of the deDECTed.org project actually did reverse engineer the DECT Standard Cipher in 2008, and as of 2010 there has been a viable attack on it that can recover the key. In 2012, an improved authentication algorithm, the DECT Standard Authentication Algorithm 2 (DSAA2), and improved version of the encryption algorithm, the DECT


title: Detroit content: Few of them have permanent residency after schooling ends. They are mostly Chinese and Indian but the population also includes Filipinos, Koreans, and Pakistanis. In Southwest Detroit and western Detroit there are smaller, scattered Asian communities including an area in the westside adjacent to Dearborn and Redford Township that has a mostly Indian Asian population, and a community of Vietnamese and Laotians in Southwest Detroit. Several major corporations are based in the city, including three Fortune 500 companies. The most heavily represented sectors are manufacturing (particularly automotive), finance, technology, and health care. The most significant companies based in Detroit include


title: "Don't ask, don't tell" content: account the value the military lost from the departures. They said that that total cost was closer to $363 million, including $14.3 million for "separation travel" following a service member's discharge, $17.8 million for training officers, $252.4 million for training enlistees, and $79.3 million in recruiting costs. In 2006, Soulforce, a national LGBT rights organization, organized its Right to Serve Campaign, in which gay men and lesbians in several cities attempted to enlist in the Armed Forces or National Guard. In 2006, a speaking tour of gay former service members, organized by SLDN, Log Cabin Republicans, and Meehan, visited 18


title: "Davis, California" content: The topography is flat, which has helped Davis to become known as a haven for bicyclists. The Davis climate resembles that of nearby Sacramento and is typical of California's Central Valley Mediterranean climate region: dry, hot summers and cool, rainy, winters. It is classified as a Köppen Csa climate. Average temperatures range from in December and January to in July and August. Thick ground fog called tule fog settles into Davis during late fall and winter. This fog can be dense with visibility nearly zero. As in other areas of northern California, the tule fog is a leading cause of


title: "Eiffel Tower" content: Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Constructed from 1887–1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair, it was initially criticized by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015.


title: "Eiffel Tower" content: The tower is tall, about the same height as an 81- building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by . Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing


title: "Eiffel Tower" content: structure in France after the Millau Viaduct. The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift.