title: "Music hall" content: provinces theatre management attempted to oblige artistes to sign a document promising never to join a trade union. The strike ended in arbitration, which satisfied most of the main demands, including a minimum wage and maximum working week for musicians. Several music hall entertainers such as Marie Dainton, Marie Lloyd, Arthur Roberts, Joe Elvin and Gus Elen were strong advocates of the strike, though they themselves earned enough not to be concerned personally in a material sense. Lloyd explained her advocacy: World War I may have been the high-water mark of music hall popularity. The artists and composers threw themselves


title: "Music hall" content: into rallying public support and enthusiasm for the war effort. Patriotic music hall compositions such as "Keep the Home Fires Burning" (1914), "Pack up Your Troubles" (1915), "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" (1914) and "We Don't Want to Lose You (but we think you ought to Go)", were sung by music hall audiences, and sometimes by soldiers in the trenches. Many songs promoted recruitment ("All the boys in khaki get the nice girls", 1915); others satirised particular elements of the war experience. "What did you do in the Great war, Daddy" (1919) criticised profiteers and slackers; Vesta Tilley's "I've


title: "Music hall" content: got a bit of a blighty one" (1916) showed a soldier delighted to have a wound just serious enough to be sent home. The rhymes give a sense of grim humour ("When they wipe my face with sponges / and they feed me on blancmanges / I'm glad I've got a bit of a blighty one"). Tilley became more popular than ever during this time, when she and her husband, Walter de Frece, managed a military recruitment drive. In the guise of characters like 'Tommy in the Trench' and 'Jack Tar Home from Sea', Tilley performed songs such as "The


title: "Music hall" content: army of today's all right" and "Jolly Good Luck to the Girl who Loves a Soldier". This is how she got the nickname "Britain's best recruiting sergeant" – young men were sometimes asked to join the army on stage during her show. She also performed in hospitals and sold war bonds. Her husband was knighted in 1919 for his own services to the war effort, and Tilley became Lady de Frece. Once the reality of war began to sink home, the recruiting songs all but disappeared – the Greatest Hits collection for 1915 published by top music publisher Francis and


title: "Music hall" content: Day contains no recruitment songs. After conscription was brought in 1916, songs dealing with the war spoke mostly of the desire to return home. Many also expressed anxiety about the new roles women were taking in society. Possibly the most notorious of music hall songs from the First World War was "Oh! It's a lovely war" (1917), popularised by male impersonator Ella Shields. Music hall continued during the interwar period, but no longer as the single dominant form of popular entertainment in Britain. The improvement of cinema, the development of radio, and the cheapening of the gramophone damaged its popularity


title: "Music hall" content: greatly. It now had to compete with jazz, swing and big band dance music. Licensing restrictions also changed its character. In 1914, the London County Council (LCC) enacted that drinking be banished from the auditorium into a separate bar and during 1923 even the separate bar was abolished by parliamentary decree. The exemption of the theatres from this latter act prompted some critics to denounce this legislation as an attempt to deprive the working classes of their pleasures, as a form of social control, whilst sparing the supposedly more responsible upper classes who patronised the theatres (though this could be


title: "Music hall" content: due to the licensing restrictions brought about due to the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, which also applied to public houses as well). Even so, the music hall gave rise to such major stars as George Formby, Gracie Fields, Max Miller, Will Hay, and Flanagan and Allen during this period. In the early 1950s, rock and roll, whose performers initially topped music hall bills, attracted a young audience who had little interest in the music hall acts while driving the older audience away. The final demise was competition from television, which grew very popular after the Queen's coronation was


title: "Music hall" content: televised. Some music halls tried to retain an audience by putting on striptease acts. In 1957, the playwright John Osborne delivered this elegy: Moss Empires, the largest British music hall chain, closed the majority of its theatres in 1960, closely followed by the death of music hall stalwart Max Miller in 1963, prompting one contemporary to write that: "Music-halls ... died this afternoon when they buried Max Miller". Miller himself had sometimes said that the genre would die with him. Many music hall performers, unable to find work, fell into poverty; some did not even have a home, having spent


title: "Music hall" content: their working lives living in digs between performances. Stage and film musicals, however, continued to be influenced by the music hall idiom, including "Oliver!", "Dr Dolittle" and "My Fair Lady". The BBC series "The Good Old Days", which ran for thirty years, recreated the music hall for the modern audience, and the "Paul Daniels Magic Show" allowed several speciality acts a television presence from 1979 to 1994. Aimed at a younger audience, but still owing a lot to the music hall heritage, was the late '70s series "The Muppet Show". The music hall was first imported into France in its


title: "Music hall" content: British form in 1862, but under the French law protecting the state theatres, performers could not wear costumes or recite dialogue, something only allowed in theaters. When the law changed in 1867, the Paris music hall flourished, and a half-dozen new halls opened, offering acrobats, singers, dancers, magicians, and trained animals. The first Paris music call built specially for that purpose was the Folies-Bergere (1869); it was followed by the Moulin Rouge (1889), the Alhambra (1866), the first to be called a music hall, and the Olympia (1893). The "Printania" (1903) was a music-garden, open only in summer, with a


title: "Music hall" content: theater, restaurant, circus, and horse-racing. Older theaters also transformed themselves into music halls, including the Bobino (1873), the Bataclan (1864), and the Alcazar (1858). At the beginning, music halls offered dance reviews, theater and songs, but gradually songs and singers became the main attraction. Paris music halls all faced stiff competition in the interwar period from the most popular new form of entertainment, the cinema. They responded by offering more complex and lavish shows. In 1911, the Olympia had introduced the giant stairway as a set for its productions, an idea copied by other music halls. The singer Mistinguett made


title: "Music hall" content: her debut the Casino de Paris in 1895 and continued to appear regularly in the 1920s and 1930s at the Folies Bergère, Moulin Rouge and Eldorado. Her risqué routines captivated Paris, and she became one of the most highly-paid and popular French entertainers of her time. One of the most popular entertainers in Paris during the period was the American singer Josephine Baker. Baker sailed to Paris, France. She first arrived in Paris in 1925 to perform in a show called ""La Revue Nègre"" at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She became an immediate success for her erotic dancing, and for


title: "Music hall" content: appearing practically nude on stage. After a successful tour of Europe, she returned to France to star at the Folies Bergère. Baker performed the 'Danse sauvage,' wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas. The music-halls suffered growing hardships in the 1930s. The Olympia was converted into a movie theater, and others closed. Others continued to thrive. In 1937 and 1930, the Casino de Paris presented shows with Maurice Chevalier, who had already achieved success as an actor and singer in Hollywood. In 1935, a twenty-year old singer named Édith Piaf was discovered in


title: "Music hall" content: the Pigalle by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, whose club, Le Gerny, off the Champs-Élysées, was frequented by the upper and lower classes alike. He persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness. Leplée taught her the basics of stage presence and told her to wear a black dress, which became her trademark apparel. Leplée ran an intense publicity campaign leading up to her opening night, attracting the presence of many celebrities, including Maurice Chevalier. Her nightclub appearance led to her first two records produced that same year, and the beginning of a legendary career. Competition from movies and television largely


title: "Music hall" content: brought an end to the Paris music hall. However, a few still flourish, with tourists as their primary audience. Major music halls include the Folies-Bergere, Crazy Horse Saloon, Casino de Paris, Olympia, and Moulin Rouge. The musical forms most associated with music hall evolved in part from traditional folk song and songs written for popular drama, becoming by the 1850s a distinct musical style. Subject matter became more contemporary and humorous, and accompaniment was provided by larger house-orchestras as increasing affluence gave the lower classes more access to commercial entertainment and to a wider range of musical instruments, including the


title: "Music hall" content: piano. The consequent change in musical taste from traditional to more professional forms of entertainment arose in response to the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation of previously rural populations during the Industrial Revolution. The newly created urban communities, cut off from their cultural roots, required new and readily accessible forms of entertainment. Music halls were originally tavern rooms which provided entertainment, in the form of music and speciality acts, for their patrons. By the middle years of the nineteenth century, the first purpose-built music halls were being built in London. The halls created a demand for new and catchy popular songs


title: "Music hall" content: that could no longer be met from the traditional folk song repertoire. Professional songwriters were enlisted to fill the gap. The emergence of a distinct music hall style can be credited to a fusion of musical influences. Music hall songs needed to gain and hold the attention of an often jaded and unruly urban audience. In America, from the 1840s, Stephen Foster had reinvigorated folk song with the admixture of Negro spiritual to produce a new type of popular song. Songs like "Old Folks at Home" (1851) and "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" (James Bland, 1879) spread round the globe, taking


title: "Music hall" content: with them the idiom and appurtenances of the minstrel song. Other influences on the rapidly developing music hall idiom were Irish and European music, particularly the jig, polka, and waltz. Typically, a music hall song consists of a series of verses sung by the performer alone, and a repeated chorus which carries the principal melody, and in which the audience is encouraged to join. In Britain, the first music hall songs often promoted the alcoholic wares of the owners of the halls in which they were performed. Songs like "Glorious Beer", and the first major music hall success, "Champagne Charlie"


title: "Music hall" content: (1867) had a major influence in establishing the new art form. The tune of "Champagne Charlie" became used for the Salvation Army hymn "Bless His Name, He Sets Me Free" (1881). When asked why the tune should be used like this, William Booth is said to have replied "Why should the devil have all the good tunes?" "The people the Army sought to save, knew nothing of the hymn tunes or gospel melodies used in the churches, but 'the music hall had been their melody school. By the 1870s, the songs were free of their folk music origins, and particular


title: "Music hall" content: songs also started to become associated with particular singers, often with exclusive contracts with the songwriter, just as many pop songs are today. Towards the end of the style the music became influenced by ragtime and jazz, before being overtaken by them. Music hall songs were often composed with their working class audiences in mind. Songs like "My Old Man (Said Follow the Van)'", "Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road", and "Waiting at the Church" expressed in melodic form situations with which the urban poor were very familiar. Music hall songs could be romantic, patriotic, humorous or sentimental, as


title: "Music hall" content: the need arose. The most popular music hall songs became the basis for the pub songs of the typical Cockney "knees up". Although a number of songs show a sharply ironic and knowing view of working class life, there were, too, those which were repetitive, derivative, written quickly and sung to make a living rather than a work of art. The typical music hall comedian was a man or woman, usually dressed in character to suit the subject of the song, or sometimes attired in absurd and eccentric style. Until well into the twentieth century, the acts were essentially vocal,


title: "Music hall" content: with songs telling a story, accompanied by a minimum of patter. They included a variety of genres, including: [[File:King, Hetty - 1910 (male impersonator).jpg|thumb|200px|Male impersonator [[Hetty King]]]] [[File:Falk, Benjamin J. (1853-1925) - Eugen Sandow (1867-1925).jpg|thumb|200px|Strongman [[Eugen Sandow]]]] The vocal content of the music hall bills, was, from the beginning, accompanied by many other kinds of act, some of them quite weird and wonderful. These were known collectively as "speciality acts" (abbreviated to "spesh"), which, over time, have included: [[File:1867 NationalStandardTheatre.jpg|thumb|1867 Poster from the National Standard Theatre, [[Shoreditch]] (1837-1940). Not "strictly" a Music Hall, but a theatre where many of these


title: "Music hall" content: artists performed their Music Hall acts.]] The music hall has been evoked in many films, plays, TV series, and books. [[File:Hackney_Empire%2C_Hackney%2C_E8_%283749526243%29.jpg|thumb|The Hackney Empire, 2009]] London was the centre of music hall with hundreds of venues, often in the entertainment rooms of public houses. With the decline in popularity of music hall, many were abandoned, or converted to other uses such as cinemas, and their interiors lost. There are a number of purpose-built survivors, including the [[Hackney Empire]], an outstanding example of the late music hall period ([[Frank Matcham]] 1901). This has been restored to its Moorish splendour and now provides


title: "Music hall" content: an eclectic programme of events from opera to "Black Variety Nights". A mile to the south is [[Hoxton Hall]], an 1863 example of the saloon style. It is unrestored but maintained in its original layout, and currently used as a community centre and theatre. In the neighbouring borough, Collins Music Hall (built about 1860) still stands on the north side of [[Islington Green]]. The hall closed in the 1960s and currently forms part of a bookshop. In [[Clapham]], [[Grand Theatre, Clapham|The Grand]], originally the Grand Palace of Varieties (1900), has been restored, but its interior reflects its modern use as


title: "Music hall" content: a music venue and nightclub. The [[Greenwich Theatre]] was originally the Rose and Crown Music Hall (1855), and later became Crowder's Music Hall and Temple of Varieties. The building has been extensively modernised and little of the original layout remains. [[File:London-coliseum.jpg|thumb|left|1904 London Coliseum, Matcham theatre with London's widest proscenium arch]] In the nondescript Grace's Alley, off Cable Street, [[Stepney]], stands [[Wilton's Music Hall]]. This 1858 example of the "giant pub hall" survived use as a church, fire, flood and war intact, but was virtually derelict, after its use as a rag warehouse, in the 1960s. The Wilton's Music Hall Trust


title: "Music hall" content: has embarked on a fund-raising campaign to restore the building. In June 2007, the [[World Monuments Fund]] added the building to its list of the world's "100 most endangered sites". The music video of the [[Frankie Goes to Hollywood]] single "[[Relax (song)|Relax]]" was shot here. Many of these buildings can be seen as part of the annual [[London Open House]] event. There are also surviving music halls outside London, a notable example being the [[Leeds City Varieties]] (1865) with a preserved interior. This was used for many years as the setting for the BBC television variety show "[[The Good Old


title: "Music hall" content: Days (UK TV series)|The Good Old Days]]", based on the music-hall genre. The [[Bradford Alhambra|Alhambra Theatre, Bradford]] was built in 1914 for theatre impresario Francis Laidler, and later owned by the [[Oswald Stoll|Stoll]]-[[Edward Moss|Moss]] Empire. It was restored in 1986, and is a fine example of the late [[Edwardian era|Edwardian style]]. It is now a "receiving theatre" for touring productions and opera. In [[Nottingham]], the [[Malt Cross]] music hall retains its restored cast-iron interior. It is run as a cafe bar by a Christian charitable trust promoting responsible drinking, also as the location of a safe space late at night


title: "Music hall" content: and for operating a street pastor service. It is an award-winning and popular venue true to its original purpose of providing a venue for up-and-coming musical acts. In [[Northern Ireland]], the [[Grand Opera House, Belfast]], Frank Matcham 1895, was preserved and restored in the 1980s. The [[Gaiety Theatre, Isle of Man|Gaiety Theatre]], [[Isle of Man]] is another Matcham design from 1900 that remains in use after an extensive restoration programme in the 1970s. In [[Glasgow]], the [[Britannia Music Hall]] (1857), by architects Thomas Gildard and H.M. McFarlane, remains standing, with much of the theatre intact but in a poor state,


title: "Music hall" content: having closed in 1938. There is a preservation trust attempting to rescue the theatre. One of the few fully functional music hall entertainments is at the Brick Lane Music Hall in a former church in [[North Woolwich]]. The Players' Theatre Club is another group performing a Victorian-style music hall show at a variety of venues, and [[The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America]] stage music hall-style entertainments. The term "music hall" is used to describe some large musical venues, such as: the [[Paris Olympia]], [[Radio City Music Hall]], [[Friedrichstadt-Palast]] in Berlin and Music Hall in [[Cincinnati, Ohio]] (see


title: "Music hall" content: [[Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra]]). [[Category:Music hall| ]] [[Category:British popular music]] [[Category:British styles of music]] [[Category:Theatre in the United Kingdom]] [[Category:Theatrical genres]] Music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It ended, arguably, after the First World War, when the halls rebranded their entertainment as Variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Britain between bold and scandalous Victorian "Music Hall" and subsequent, more respectable "Variety" differ. Music hall involved a mixture of popular songs, comedy, speciality acts, and variety entertainment. The term is derived from a type of theatre


title: "Fucus vesiculosus" content: Fucus vesiculosus Fucus vesiculosus, known by the common names bladder wrack, black tang, rockweed, bladder fucus, sea oak, black tany, cut weed, dyers fucus, red fucus, and rock wrack is a seaweed found on the coasts of the North Sea, the western Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It was the original source of iodine, discovered in 1811, and was used extensively to treat goitre, a swelling of the thyroid gland related to iodine deficiency. The fronds of "F. vesiculosus" grow to long and wide and have a prominent midrib throughout. It is attached by a basal disc-shaped


title: "Fucus vesiculosus" content: holdfast. It has almost spherical air bladders which are usually paired, one on either side of the mid-rib, but may be absent in young plants. The margin is smooth and the frond is dichotomously branched. It is sometimes confused with "Fucus spiralis" with which it hybridises and is similar to "Fucus serratus". "Fucus vesiculosus" is a common large alga on the shores of the British Isles. It has been recorded from the Atlantic shores of Europe, Northern Russia, the Baltic Sea, Greenland, Azores, Canary Islands, Morocco and Madeira. It is also found on the Atlantic coast of North America from


title: "Fucus vesiculosus" content: Ellesmere Island, Hudson Bay to North Carolina. The species is especially common on sheltered shores from the middle littoral to lower intertidal levels. It is rare on exposed shores where any specimens may be short, stunted and without the air vesicles. "F. vesiculosus" supports few colonial organisms but provides a canopy and shelter for the tube worm "Spirorbis spirorbis", herbivorous isopods, such as "Idotea" and surface grazing snails such as "Littorina obtusata". Phlorotannins in "Fucus vesiculosus" act as chemical defences against the marine herbivorous snail "Littorina littorea". Nevertheless, galactolipids, rather than phlorotannins, act as herbivore deterrents in this species against


title: "Fucus vesiculosus" content: the sea urchin "Arbacia punctulata". Methyl-jasmonate may induce the phlorotannins production. Fucophlorethol A is a type of phlorotannin found in "F. vesiculosus". Plants of "F. vesiculosus" are dioecious. Gametes are generally released into the seawater under calm conditions and the eggs are fertilised externally to produce a zygote. Eggs are fertilised shortly after being released from the receptacle. A study on the coast of Maine showed that there was 100% fertilisation at both exposed and sheltered sites. Continuously submerged populations in the Baltic Sea are very responsive to turbulent conditions. High fertilisation success is achieved because the gametes are only


title: "Fucus vesiculosus" content: released when water velocities are low. Individuals of "F. vesiculosus" from the North Sea colonized the Baltic Sea less than 8 000 years ago. The event is paralleled by a switch from what seems to be obligate sexual recruitment to facultative asexual recruitment. Asexual reproduction in Baltic Sea populations is accomplished by the production of adventitious branches that come loose and reattach to the bottom by the formation of rhizoids. Adventitious branches are present in thalli of "F. vesiculosus" also in other areas, but asexual formation of new thalli has never been reported outside the Baltic Sea. Primary chemical constituents


title: "Fucus vesiculosus" content: of this organism include mucilage, algin, mannitol, fucitol, beta-carotene, zeaxanthin, iodine, bromine, potassium, volatile oils, and many other minerals. Some people may suffer an allergic reaction to the iodine in bladder wrack. Fucus vesiculosus Fucus vesiculosus, known by the common names bladder wrack, black tang, rockweed, bladder fucus, sea oak, black tany, cut weed, dyers fucus, red fucus, and rock wrack is a seaweed found on the coasts of the North Sea, the western Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It was the original source of iodine, discovered in 1811, and was used extensively to treat goitre, a


title: "Huzita–Hatori axioms" content: the line. If the discriminant is equal to 0, then there is a single solution, where the line is tangent to the circle. And if the discriminant is greater than 0, there are two solutions, representing the two points of intersection. Let us call the solutions "d" and "d", if they exist. We have 0, 1, or 2 line segments: A fold "F"("s") perpendicular to "m" through its midpoint will place "p" on the line at location "d". Similarly, a fold "F"("s") perpendicular to "m" through its midpoint will place "p" on the line at location "d". The application of


title: "Spencer Perceval" content: England. Rioting had broken out in the Midlands and North, and been harshly repressed. Henry Brougham's motion for a select committee was defeated in the Commons, but, under continuing pressure from manufacturers, the government agreed to set up a Committee of the Whole House to consider the Orders in Council and their impact on trade and manufacture. The committee began its examination of witnesses in early May 1812. At 5:15 pm, on the evening of 11 May 1812, Perceval was on his way to attend the inquiry into the Orders in Council. As he entered the lobby of the House


title: "Ko Phi Phi Le" content: Ko Phi Phi Le Ko Phi Phi Le or Ko Phi Phi Leh (, , ) is an island of the Phi Phi Archipelago, in the Strait of Malacca. It is in Krabi Province of Thailand and is part of Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park Ko Phi Phi Le, 6.6 km in area, is the second largest island of the archipelago, the largest being Ko Phi Phi Don. The island consists of a ring of steep limestone hills surrounding two shallow bays, Maya Bay and Loh Samah. During low tide, Maya Bay cannot be accessed directly from


title: "Ko Phi Phi Le" content: the sea via boat, due to shallow waters and coral. Boats must anchor at the deeper Loh Samah, requiring people to walk through a short section of rocks and jungle to reach Maya Bay itself. There is also one large shallow fjord-like inlet called Pi Ley with a small coral reef at the entrance. Maya Bay harbors bioluminescent plankton. Hat Noppharat Thara-Mu Ko Phi Phi Marine National Park as a whole, from October 2015 to May 2016 generated revenues of 362 million baht from 1.2 million tourists, 77 percent foreign. Controversy arose regarding the 1999 production of the film "The


title: "Ko Phi Phi Le" content: Beach", released February 2000, due to 20th Century Fox bulldozing and landscaping the natural beach setting of Ko Phi Phi Le to make it more "paradise-like". The production altered some sand dunes and cleared some coconut trees and grass to widen the beach. Fox set aside a fund to reconstruct and return the beach to its natural state. Nevertheless, lawsuits were filed as many believed the damage to the ecosystem is permanent and restoration attempts failed. The lawsuits dragged on for years. In 2006, Thailand's supreme court upheld an appeals court ruling that the filming had harmed the environment and


title: "Ko Phi Phi Le" content: ordered that damage assessments be made. Defendants in the case included 20th Century Fox and some Thai government officials. The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation claims to be investigating ways to control tourist numbers amid concerns that visitors are destroying the environment at marine tourism spots. The move was prompted by marine scientist Thon Thamrongnawasawat, who posted photos of large numbers of low-season tourists packed onto small Maya Beach. According to Mr Thon, during low season 2016, about 5,000 tourists a day crowd onto Maya beach, which is just 250 metres long and 15 metres wide. The


title: "Ko Phi Phi Le" content: beach has 14 available toilets. Tourists are worth 1.6 million baht a day to the park. Thon said that state agencies were running campaigns to drum up tourist numbers with no regard for the environment's carrying capacity. In March 2018 Thai authorities announced that Maya Beach would be closed to tourists for four months to allow it to recover from environmental damage due to excessive visitor numbers. The beach receives an estimated 5,000 visitors per day, while 200 boats per day set anchor in the bay. Surveys by marine biologists have found that 80 percent of the coral reefs surrounding


title: "Ko Phi Phi Le" content: the bay have been destroyed by boat traffic and pollution; marine life is virtually nonexistent as a result. When Maya Beach reopens visitor numbers will be limited to 2,000 people per day and boats will have to dock outside the bay. The government will spend 100 million baht to construct a boat parking zone and floating pier to receive tourists. It will use an online ticketing system to manage sales and income from entry fees. On October 1, 2018, the Thai Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation announced that Maya Beach would be closed indefinitely, because tests performed


title: "Ko Phi Phi Le" content: during the four month closure earlier in the year found the ecological damage to be far more extensive than previously thought. The director of the office, Songtam Suksawang, said that the beach "was completely destroyed, along with the plants which covered it," and that reopening would not occur until the ecosystem "fully recovers to a normal situation." In December 2018, it was reported that blacktip reef sharks were seen swimming close to Maya Bay's beach. The bay was closed to tourism in June due to the damage caused by mass tourism. Marine biologists took the return of the sharks as


title: "Ko Phi Phi Le" content: a positive signal that the tourist ban was allowing the ecosystem to heal. Ko Phi Phi Le Ko Phi Phi Le or Ko Phi Phi Leh (, , ) is an island of the Phi Phi Archipelago, in the Strait of Malacca. It is in Krabi Province of Thailand and is part of Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park Ko Phi Phi Le, 6.6 km in area, is the second largest island of the archipelago, the largest being Ko Phi Phi Don. The island consists of a ring of steep limestone hills surrounding two shallow bays, Maya Bay


title: Anencephaly content: of the cerebral hemispheres, including the neocortex, which is responsible for cognition. The remaining structure is usually covered only by a thin layer of membrane—skin, bone, meninges, etc. are all lacking. With very few exceptions, infants with this disorder do not survive longer than a few hours or possibly days after their birth. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) describes the presentation of this condition as follows: "A baby born with anencephaly is usually blind, deaf, unaware of its surroundings and unable to feel pain. Although some individuals with anencephaly may be born with a main brain


title: Colpocephaly content: normal development after the formation of the Foramen of Magendie, which decompresses the ventricular cavities. Myelination of the ventricular walls and association fibers of the corpus callosum and the calcarine fissure helps shape the occipital horns. In cases where this developmental process is interrupted, occipital horns are disproportionately enlarged. Colpocephaly has been associated with chromosomal abnormalities such as trisomy 8 mosaic and trisomy 9 mosaic. A few reports of genetically transmitted colpocephaly are also found in literature. Some of these are of two siblings, monozygotic twins, and non-identical twins. The authors suggest a genetic origin with an autosomal or X-linked


title: "Candy cane" content: Candy cane A candy cane is a cane-shaped stick candy often associated with Christmastide, as well as Saint Nicholas Day. It is traditionally white with red stripes and flavored with peppermint, but may also be a variety of other flavors and colors. According to a popular but unverified modern story, in 1670, in Cologne, Germany, the choirmaster at Cologne Cathedral, wishing to remedy the noise caused by children in his church during the Living Crèche tradition of Christmas Eve, asked a local candy maker for some "sugar sticks" for them. In order to justify the practice of giving candy to


title: "Candy cane" content: children during worship services, he asked the candy maker to add a crook to the top of each stick, which would help children remember the shepherds who visited the infant Jesus. In addition, he used the white colour of the converted sticks to teach children about the Christian belief in the sinless life of Jesus. From Germany, candy canes spread to other parts of Europe, where they were handed out during plays reenacting the Nativity. As such, according to this legend, the candy cane became associated with Christmastide. The earliest verifiable reference to stick candy is a record of the


title: "Candy cane" content: 1837 Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, where confections were judged competitively. A recipe for straight peppermint candy sticks, white with coloured stripes, was published in 1844. The "candy cane" is found in literature in 1866, though no description of color or flavor was provided. Its earliest known association with Christmas was in 1874, and by 1882 canes were being hung on Christmas trees. As with other forms of stick candy, the earliest canes were manufactured by hand. Chicago confectioners the Bunte Brothers filed one of the earliest patents for candy cane making machines in the early 1920s. In


title: "Candy cane" content: 1919 in Albany, Georgia, Robert McCormack began making candy canes for local children and by the middle of the century, his company (originally the Famous Candy Company, then the Mills-McCormack Candy Company, and later Bobs Candies) had become one of the world's leading candy cane producers. Candy cane manufacturing initially required a fair bit of labor that limited production quantities; the canes had to be bent manually as they came off the assembly line to create their curved shape and breakage often ran over 20 percent. McCormack's brother-in-law, Gregory Harding Keller, was a seminary student in Rome who spent his


title: "Candy cane" content: summers working in the candy factory back home. In 1957, Keller, as an ordained Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Little Rock, patented his invention, the Keller Machine, which automated the process of twisting soft candy into spiral striping and cutting it into precise lengths as candy canes. In Saint Nicholas Day celebrations, candy canes are given to children as they are also said to represent the crosier of the Christian bishop, Saint Nicholas; crosiers allude to the Good Shepherd, an epithet associated with Jesus. Candy cane A candy cane is a cane-shaped stick candy often associated with Christmastide,


title: "UEFA Europa League" content: After the first knockout round, the 40 survivors entered a group phase, with the clubs being drawn into eight groups of five each. Unlike the Champions League group phase, the UEFA Cup group phase was played in a single round-robin format, with each club playing two home and two away games. The top three teams in each of the eight groups qualified for the main knockout round along with the eight third-placed teams in the Champions League group phase. From then on a series of two-legged knockout ties were played before a single-legged final, traditionally held on a Wednesday in


title: "Crystal radio" content: widespread confiscations of radio sets from the civilian population. This led determined listeners to build their own clandestine receivers which often amounted to little more than a basic crystal set. Anyone doing so risked imprisonment or even death if caught, and in most of Europe the signals from the BBC (or other allied stations) were not strong enough to be received on such a set. While it never regained the popularity and general use that it enjoyed at its beginnings, the crystal radio circuit is still used. The Boy Scouts have kept the construction of a radio set in their


title: "Tundra swan" content: Tundra swan The tundra swan ("Cygnus columbianus") is a small Holarctic swan. The two taxa within it are usually regarded as conspecific, but are also sometimes split into two species: Bewick's swan ("Cygnus bewickii") of the Palaearctic and the whistling swan ("C. columbianus") proper of the Nearctic. Birds from eastern Russia (roughly east of the Taimyr Peninsula) are sometimes separated as the subspecies "C. c. jankowskii", but this is not widely accepted as distinct, with most authors including them in "C. c. bewickii". Tundra swans are sometimes separated in the genus "Olor" together with the other Arctic swan species. Bewick's


title: "Tundra swan" content: swan was named in 1830 by William Yarrell after the engraver Thomas Bewick, who specialised in illustrations of birds and animals. "Cygnus" is the Latin for "swan", and " columbianus" comes from the Columbia River, the type locality. "C. columbianus" is the smallest of the Holarctic swans, at in length, in wingspan and a weight range of . In adult birds, the plumage of both subspecies is entirely white, with black feet, and a bill that is mostly black, with a thin salmon-pink streak running along the mouthline and – depending on the subspecies – more or less yellow in


title: "Tundra swan" content: the proximal part. The iris is dark brown. In birds living in waters that contains large amounts of iron ions (e.g. bog lakes), the head and neck plumage acquires a golden or rusty hue. Pens (females) are slightly smaller than cobs (males), but do not differ in appearance otherwise. Immatures of both subspecies are white mixed with some dull grey feathering, mainly on the head and upper neck, which are often entirely light grey; their first-summer plumage is quite white already, and in their second winter they moult into the adult plumage. Their bills are black with a large dirty-pink


title: "Tundra swan" content: patch taking up most of the proximal half and often black nostrils, and their feet are dark grey with a pinkish hue. Downy young are silvery grey above and white below. Bewick's swans are the smaller subspecies. There is a slight size cline, with the eastern birds being slightly larger; good measurement data only exists for the western populations however. These weigh , on average in males and in females. They measure in overall length; each wing is long, on average in males and in females. The tarsus measures in length, the bill , averaging . Bewick's swan is similar


title: "Tundra swan" content: in appearance to the parapatric whooper swan ("C. cygnus"), but is smaller, shorter-necked and has a more rounded head shape, with variable bill pattern, but always showing more black than yellow and having a blunt forward edge of the yellow base patch. Whooper swans have a bill that has more yellow than black and the forward edge of the yellow patch is usually pointed. The bill pattern for every individual Bewick's swan is unique, and scientists often make detailed drawings of each bill and assign names to the swans to assist with studying these birds. The eastern birds, apart from


title: "Tundra swan" content: being larger, tend towards less yellow on the bill, perhaps indicating that gene flow across Beringia, while marginal, never entirely ceased. An apparent case of hybridization between a Bewick's and a vagrant whistling swan has been reported from eastern Siberia. Whistling swans weigh – on average in males and in females –, and measure in length. Each wing is long; the tarsus measures in length, and the bill is long. "C. c. columbianus" is distinguished from "C. c. bewickii" by its larger size and the mostly black bill, with just a small and usually hard to see yellow spot of


title: "Tundra swan" content: variable size at the base. It is distinguished from the largely allopatric trumpeter swan ("C. buccinator") of North America by that species' much larger size and particularly long bill, which is black all over except for the pink mouthline, which is stronger than in the whistling swan. Note that color variations with more or less yellow, or pink instead of yellow or black, are not exceptional, especially in Bewick's swans, which very rarely may even have yellowish feet. The small size and particularly the rather short neck, which make it look like a large white goose, are still distinguishing marks.


title: "Tundra swan" content: Tundra swans have high-pitched honking calls and sound similar to a black goose ("Branta"). They are particularly vocal when foraging in flocks on their wintering grounds; any conspecific arriving or leaving will elicit a bout of loud excited calling from its fellows. Contrary to its common name, the ground calls of the whistling swan are not a whistle and neither notably different from that of Bewick's swan. The flight call of the latter is a low and soft ringing bark, "bow-wow..."; the whistling swan gives a markedly high-pitched trisyllabic bark like "wow-wow-wow" in flight. By contrast, the whooper and trumpeter


title: "Tundra swan" content: swans' names accurately describe their calls—a deep hooting and a higher-pitched French horn-like honk, respectively. Flying birds of these species are shorter-necked and have a quicker wingbeat than their relatives, but they are often impossible to tell apart except by their calls. As their common name implies, the tundra swan breeds in the Arctic and subarctic tundra, where they inhabit shallow pools, lakes and rivers. These birds, unlike mute swans ("C. olor") but like the other Arctic swans, are migratory birds. The winter habitat of both subspecies is grassland and marshland, often near the coast; they like to visit fields


title: "Tundra swan" content: after harvest to feed on discarded grains and while on migration may stop over on mountain lakes. According to National Geographic, when migrating these birds can fly at altitudes of in V formation. The breeding range of "C. c. bewickii" extends across the coastal lowlands of Siberia, from the Kola Peninsula east to the Pacific. They start to arrive on the breeding grounds around mid-May, and leave for winter quarters around the end of September. The populations west of the Taimyr Peninsula migrate via the White Sea, Baltic Sea and the Elbe estuary to winter in Denmark, the Netherlands and


title: "Tundra swan" content: the British Isles. They are common in winter in the wildfowl nature reserves of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. Some birds also winter elsewhere on the southern shores of the North Sea. Bewick's swans breeding in eastern Russia migrate via Mongolia and northern China to winter in the coastal regions of Korea, Japan, and southern China, south to Guangdong and occasionally as far as Taiwan. A few birds from the central Siberian range also winter in Iran at the south of the Caspian Sea; in former times these flocks also


title: "Tundra swan" content: migrated to the Aral Sea before the late 20th century ecological catastrophe turned most of the habitat there into inhospitable wasteland. Arrival in winter quarters starts about mid-October, though most spend weeks or even months at favorite resting locations and will only arrive in winter quarters by November or even as late as January. The birds leave winter quarters to breed starting in mid-February. Vagrants may occur south of the main wintering range in cold years and have been recorded from most European countries where the birds do not regularly winter, as well as Algeria, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Nepal, NE


title: "Tundra swan" content: Pakistan, and on the Marianas and Volcano Islands in the western Pacific. Vagrants on the spring migration have been sighted on Bear Island, Iceland and Svalbard, and in Alaska, Oregon and Saskatchewan in North America. "C. c. columbianus" breeds in the coastal plains of Alaska and Canada, leaving for winter quarters about October. They arrive in winter quarters by November/December. Birds breeding in western Alaska winter along the Pacific coast from southern Alaska to California; they often move inland – particularly to the rich feeding grounds in the Californian Central Valley – and some cross the Rocky Mountains again and


title: "Tundra swan" content: winter as far east as Utah and south to Texas and northern Mexico. The birds breeding along the Arctic Ocean coast migrate via Canada and the Great Lakes region to winter at the Atlantic coast of the USA, mainly from Maryland to South Carolina, but some move as far south as Florida. Whistling swans start leaving for the breeding grounds again by mid-March, and arrive by late May. Vagrants have been recorded on the Bermudas, Cuba the Hawaiian Islands, Puerto Rico, and in England, Ireland, Japan, northeastern Siberia and Sweden. In summer, their diet consists mainly of aquatic vegetation—e.g. mannagrass


title: "Tundra swan" content: ("Glyceria"), "Potamogeton" pondweeds and marine eelgrass ("Zostera"), acquired by sticking the head underwater or upending while swimming; they also eat some grass growing on dry land. At other times of year, leftover grains and other crops such as potatoes, picked up in open fields after harvest, make up much of their diet. Tundra swans forage mainly by day. In the breeding season, they tend to be territorial and are aggressive to many animals who pass by; outside the breeding season they are rather gregarious birds. Healthy adult birds have few natural predators. Arctic foxes ("Vulpes lagopus") may threaten breeding females


title: "Tundra swan" content: and particular the eggs and hatchlings. Adults typically can stand their ground and displace foxes but occasionally the foxes are successful. Another surprisingly serious nest predator for tundra swans are brown bears ("Ursus arctos"), which were apparently the primary cause of nesting failure in both the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Other potential nest predators include red fox ("Vulpes vulpes"), golden eagles ("Aquila chrysaetos"), parasitic jaegers ("Stercorarius parasiticus"), and glaucous gull ("Larus hyperboreus"). Brown bear, golden eagles and, rarely, gray wolves ("Canis lupus") may on occasion succeed at capturing and killing an adult. Small or avian


title: "Tundra swan" content: predators usually elicit either an aggressive response or the behavior of sitting tight on nests while larger mammals, perhaps more dangerous to adults, usually elicit the response of leading the cygnets into deep waters and standing still until they pass. About 15% of the adults die each year from various causes, and thus the average lifespan in the wild is about 10 years. The oldest recorded tundra swan was over 24 years old. The tundra swans mate in the late spring, usually after they have returned to the nesting grounds; as usual for swans, they pair monogamously until one partner


title: "Tundra swan" content: dies. Should one partner die long before the other, the surviving bird often will not mate again for some years, or even for its entire life. The nesting season starts at the end of May. The pair build the large mound-shaped nest from plant material at an elevated site near open water, and defend a large territory around it. The pen (female) lays and incubates a clutch of 2–7 (usually 3–5) eggs, watching for danger while sitting on the nest. The cob (male) keeps a steady lookout for potential predators heading towards his mate and offspring. When either of them


title: "Tundra swan" content: spots a threat, they give a warning sound to let their partner know that danger is approaching. Sometimes the cob will use his wings to run faster and appear larger in order to scare away a predator. The time from laying to hatching is 29–30 days for Bewick's swan and 30–32 days for the whistling swan. Since they nest in cold regions, tundra swan cygnets grow faster than those of swans breeding in warmer climates; those of the whistling swan take about 60–75 days to fledge—twice as fast as those of the mute swan for example—while those of Bewick's swan,


title: "Tundra swan" content: about which little breeding data is known, may fledge a record 40–45 days after hatching already. The fledglings stay with their parents for the first winter migration. The family is sometimes even joined by their offspring from previous breeding seasons while on the wintering grounds; Tundra swans do not reach sexual maturity until 3 or 4 years of age. The whistling swan is the most common swan species of North America, estimated to number almost 170,000 individuals around 1990. Its numbers seem to be slowly declining in the west of its range since the late 19th century, coincident with the


title: "Tundra swan" content: expansion of human settlement and habitat conversion in the birds' wintering areas; the eastern Whistling Swan populations on the other hand seem to be increasing somewhat, and altogether its numbers seem to have slightly risen in the late 20th century (the population was estimated at about 146,000 in 1972). Bewick's Swan remains far less known; the European winter population was estimated at 16,000–17,000 about 1990, with about 20,000 birds wintering in East Asia. The Iranian wintering population is small—1,000 birds or so at most—but they usually disperse to several sites, some of which are still unknown to scientists. Although tundra


title: "Tundra swan" content: swan numbers are stable over most of its range, they are increasingly dependent on agricultural crops to supplement their winter diet, as aquatic vegetation in their winter habitat dwindles due to habitat destruction and water pollution. But the main cause of adult mortality is hunting; 4,000 whistling swans are bagged officially each year, while a further 6,000–10,000 are killed by poachers and native subsistence hunter-gatherers. Bewick's swan cannot be hunted legally, but almost half the birds studied contained lead shot in their body, indicating they were shot at by poachers. Lead poisoning by ingestion of lead shot is a very


title: "Tundra swan" content: significant cause of mortality also, particularly in the whistling swan. The tundra swan is not considered threatened by the IUCN due to its large range and population. The proposed subspecies "jankowskii" was for some time placed on CITES Appendix II; it was eventually removed since it is not generally accepted as valid. Bewick's swan is one of the birds to which the "Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds" (AEWA) applies. Toxic mining wastes in the Silver Valley, Idaho in the United States has been known to be responsible for the death of migrating tundra swans. Tundra swan The


title: "Altamira oriole" content: Altamira oriole The Altamira oriole ("Icterus gularis") is a New World oriole. The bird is widespread in subtropical lowlands of the Mexican Gulf Coast and northern Central America, the Pacific coast and inland. They have since spread to southern Texas, but this was not until 1939. At and , this is the largest oriole in genus "Icterus". The bird nests in open woodland, with the nest being a very long woven pouch, attached to the end of a horizontal tree branch, sometimes to telephone wires. This bird forages high in trees, sometimes in the undergrowth. They mainly eat insects and


title: "Altamira oriole" content: berries. These birds are permanent residents, and unlike the migratory orioles that breed in the US, the species is sexually monomorphic—both the males and the females have elaborate coloration and patterning. Both males and females have a black mandible and throat, as well as a black back and long black tail. Wings are black, but the remiges and rectrices (flight feathers) are fringed with white. These form a single white wing bar and white wing spots when folded. The secondary coverts form orange epaulets. The underside is almost uniformly orange or yellowish-orange. In general, immature specimens have an olive back,


title: "Altamira oriole" content: and a dull yellow on its head and its body. The first-year bird is similar to the adult, but it has an olive, not black, back, and yellow-olive tail. The bird lives in semi-arid areas with scattered trees, and open riparian woodland. The bird is a solitary nester as well, with an average of a quarter kilometer between nests. Little aggression has been observed in breeding season from this bird, and it is not known to be territorial. In Texas, their breeding season ranges from late April to late July. Their nest resembles a small pouch made of moss, grass,


title: "Altamira oriole" content: palm fibers, weeds, strips of bark, and is lined with feathers. The nest may also hang from telephone wires. The nest is assumed to be built by the female, but it is not known how long this takes. 4-6 eggs are laid, and nestlings are fed and cared for by both parents. The Altamira oriole is a forage gleaner, searching for food through the tree-tops to the near-ground bottom of the tree. Its diet includes fruit (small fruits, hackberries and figs) and insects, such as grasshoppers, crickets, and caterpillars. The song of the Altamira oriole is a series of clear,


title: "Altamira oriole" content: slow musical whistles. In contrast, the Altamira's calls are harsh whistles, rasping chatter, and nasal "ike"s. Altamira oriole The Altamira oriole ("Icterus gularis") is a New World oriole. The bird is widespread in subtropical lowlands of the Mexican Gulf Coast and northern Central America, the Pacific coast and inland. They have since spread to southern Texas, but this was not until 1939. At and , this is the largest oriole in genus "Icterus". The bird nests in open woodland, with the nest being a very long woven pouch, attached to the end of a horizontal tree branch, sometimes to telephone


title: "Journey to the West" content: Taoist sages and deities. Towards the end of the book there is a scene where the Buddha literally "commands" the fulfillment of the last disaster, because Tang Sanzang is one short of the 81 tribulations he needs to face before attaining Buddhahood. In chapter 87, Tang Sanzang finally reaches the borderlands of India, and chapters 87–99 present magical adventures in a somewhat more mundane (though still exotic) setting. At length, after a pilgrimage said to have taken fourteen years (the text actually only provides evidence for nine of those years, but presumably there was room to add additional episodes) they


title: "Northern Expedition" content: to retreat north across the Yangtze. Meanwhile, the strike continued until 24 March, when Bai ordered its end. The general disorder caused by the strike is said to have resulted in the deaths of 322 people, with 2,000 wounded, contributing to KMT feelings of unease with its wayward communist allies. With Shanghai under their control, the NRA turned its attention to Nanjing. He Yingqin advanced from the south-east, whilst Cheng Qian came from the south-west. Zhang Zongchang ordered his Shandong Army to withdraw from Nanjing on 23 March, leaving the city undefended. Cheng arrived on the next day, entering the


title: "Police Quest" content: SWAT game—technically "Police Quest 5: SWAT"—was later re-released as part of the "Police Quest Collection Series" (the second "Police Quest" adventure compilation), and all six PQ games were released as part of the "SWAT Career Pack", the third "complete series" "Police Quest" collection. The first two were released in a double pack called Police Quest: SWAT Force and more recently in the "Police Quest: SWAT 1+2" pack on GoG.com. In the past, the first three SWAT games were released in a compilation entitled "Police Quest: SWAT Generation". "SWAT 3" is currently sold separately on GoG.com, separately from the "Police Quest"


title: "Tiger shark" content: Tiger shark The tiger shark ("Galeocerdo cuvier") is a species of requiem shark and the only extant member of the genus Galeocerdo. It is a large macropredator, capable of attaining a length over . Populations are found in many tropical and temperate waters, especially around central Pacific islands. Its name derives from the dark stripes down its body, which resemble a tiger's pattern, but fade as the shark matures. The tiger shark is a solitary, mostly nocturnal hunter. It is notable for having the widest food spectrum of all sharks, with a range of prey that includes crustaceans, fish, seals,


title: "Tiger shark" content: birds, squid, turtles, sea snakes, dolphins, and even other smaller sharks. It also has a reputation as a "garbage eater", consuming a variety of inedible, man-made objects that linger in its stomach. Though apex predators, tiger sharks are sometimes taken by groups of killer whales. It is considered a near threatened species due to finning and fishing by humans. The tiger shark is second only to the great white in recorded fatal attacks on humans. The shark was first described by Peron and Lesueur in 1822, and was given the name "Squalus cuvier". Müller and Henle in 1837 renamed it


title: "Tiger shark" content: "Galeocerdo tigrinus". The genus, "Galeocerdo", is derived from the Greek "galeos", which means shark, and "kerdo", the word for fox. It is often colloquially called the man-eater shark. The tiger shark is a member of the order Carcharhiniformes, the most species-rich order of sharks, with more than 270 species also including the small catsharks and hammerhead sharks. Members of this order are characterized by the presence of a nictitating membrane over the eyes, two dorsal fins, an anal fin, and five gill slits. It is the largest member of the Carcharhinidae family, commonly referred to as requiem sharks. This family


title: "Tiger shark" content: consists of mostly slender but powerful mid- to large-sized sharks and includes some other well-known sharks, such as the blue shark ("Prionace glauca"), lemon shark ("Negaprion brevirostris"), and bull shark ("Carcharhinus leucas"). The tiger shark commonly attains a length of and weighs around . It is dimorphic, with exceptionally large females reportedly measuring over , and the largest males . Weights of particularly large female tiger sharks can exceed . One pregnant female caught off Australia reportedly measured long and weighed . Even larger unconfirmed catches have been claimed. Some papers have accepted a record of an exceptional length for


title: "Tiger shark" content: a tiger shark, but since this is far larger than any scientifically observed specimen, verification would be needed. Among the largest extant sharks, the tiger shark ranks in average size only behind the whale shark ("Rhincodon typus"), the basking shark ("Cetorhinus maximus"), and the great white shark ("Carcharodon carcharias"). Some other species such as megamouth sharks ("Megachasma pelagios"), Pacific sleeper sharks ("Somniosus pacificus"), Greenland sharks ("Somniosus microcephalus"), and bluntnose sixgill sharks ("Hexanchus griseus") broadly overlap in size with the tiger shark, but as these species are comparatively poorly studied, whether their typical mature size matches that of the tiger shark


title: "Tiger shark" content: is unclear. The great hammerhead ("Sphyrna mokarran"), a member of the same taxonomic order as the tiger shark, has a similar or even greater average body length, but is lighter and less bulky, with a maximum known weight of . Tiger shark teeth are unique with very sharp, pronounced serrations and an unmistakable sideways-pointing tip. Such dentition has developed to slice through flesh, bone, and other tough substances such as turtle shells. Like most sharks, its teeth are continually replaced by rows of new teeth throughout the shark's life. Relative to the shark's size, tiger shark teeth are considerably shorter


title: "Tiger shark" content: than those of a great white shark, but they are nearly as broad as the root as the great white's teeth and are arguably better suited to slicing through hard-surfaced prey. A tiger shark generally has long fins to provide lift as the shark maneuvers through water, while the long upper tail provides bursts of speed. The tiger shark normally swims using small body movements. Its high back and dorsal fin act as a pivot, allowing it to spin quickly on its axis, though the shark's dorsal fins are distinctively close to its tail. The skin of a tiger shark


title: "Tiger shark" content: can typically range from blue to light green with a white or light-yellow underbelly. The advantage of this is that when it is hunting for its prey, when prey looks at the shark from above, the shark will b camouflaged, since the water below is darker And when prey is below the shark and looks up, of course because of the sun, it is lighter so that the light underbelly will also camouflage the shark. This is known as countershading. Dark spots and stripes are most visible in young sharks and fade as the shark matures. Its head is somewhat


title: "Tiger shark" content: wedge-shaped, which makes it easy to turn quickly to one side. They have small pits on the snout which hold electroreceptors called the ampullae of Lorenzini, which enable them to detect electric fields, including the weak electrical impulses generated by prey, which helps them to hunt. Tiger sharks also have a sensory organ called a lateral line which extends on their flanks down most of the length of their sides. The primary role of this structure is to detect minute vibrations in the water. These adaptations allow the tiger shark to hunt in darkness and detect hidden prey. Sharks do


title: "Tiger shark" content: not have moveable upper or lower eyelids, but the tiger shark—among other sharks—has a nictitating membrane, a clear eyelid that can cover the eye. A reflective layer behind the tiger shark's retina, called the tapetum lucidum, allows light-sensing cells a second chance to capture photons of visible light. This enhances vision in low-light conditions. The tiger shark is often found close to the coast, mainly in tropical and subtropical waters throughout the world. Its behavior is primarily nomadic, but is guided by warmer currents, and it stays closer to the equator throughout the colder months. It tends to stay in


title: "Tiger shark" content: deep waters that line reefs, but it does move into channels to pursue prey in shallower waters. In the western Pacific Ocean, the shark has been found as far north as Japan and as far south as New Zealand. It has also been recorded in the Mediterranean, but so far only on two occasions, firstly off Spain and then off Sicily. Tiger sharks can be seen in the Gulf of Mexico, North American beaches, and parts of South America. It is also commonly observed in the Caribbean Sea. Other locations where tiger sharks are seen include off Africa, China, India,


title: "Tiger shark" content: Australia, and Indonesia. Certain tiger sharks have been recorded at depths just shy of , but some sources claim they move into shallow water normally thought to be too shallow for a species of its size. A recent study showed the average tiger shark would be recorded at , making tiger sharks uncommonly seen in shallow water. However, tiger sharks in Hawaii have been observed in depths as shallow as and regularly observed in coastal waters at depths of . The tiger shark is an apex predator and has a reputation for eating almost anything. These predators swim close inland


title: "Tiger shark" content: to eat at night, and during the day swim out into deeper waters. Young tiger sharks are found to feed largely on small fish, as well as various small jellyfish, and mollusks including cephalopods. Around the time they attain , or near sexual maturity, their selection expands considerably, and much larger animals become regular prey. Numerous fish, crustaceans, sea birds, sea snakes, marine mammals (e.g. bottlenose dolphins ("Tursiops"), common dolphins ("Delphinus"), spotted dolphins ("Stenella"), dugongs ("Dugong dugon"), seals and sea lions, and sea turtles (including the three largest species: the leatherback ("Dermochelys coriacea"), the loggerhead ("Caretta caretta") and the green


title: "Tiger shark" content: sea turtles ("Chelonia mydas"),) are regularly eaten by adult tiger sharks. In fact, adult sea turtles have been found in up to 20.8% of studied tiger shark stomachs, indicating somewhat of a dietary preference for sea turtles where they are commonly encountered. They also eat other sharks (including adult sandbar sharks ("Carcharhinus plumbeus")), as well as rays, and sometimes even other tiger sharks. Due to high risk of predation, dolphins often avoid regions inhabited by tiger sharks. Injured or ailing whales may also be attacked and eaten. A group was documented killing an ailing humpback whale ("Megaptera novaeangliae") in 2006


title: "Tiger shark" content: near Hawaii. A scavenger, the tiger shark will feed on dead whales, and has been documented doing so alongside great white sharks. Evidence of dugong predation was identified in one study that found dugong tissue in 15 of 85 tiger sharks caught off the Australian coast. Additionally, examination of adult dugongs has shown scars from failed shark attacks. To minimize attacks, dugong microhabitats shift similarly to those of known tiger shark prey when the sharks are abundant. The broad, heavily calcified jaws and nearly terminal mouth, combined with robust, serrated teeth, enable the tiger shark to take on these large


title: "Tiger shark" content: prey. In addition, excellent eyesight and acute sense of smell enable it to react to faint traces of blood and follow them to the source. The ability to pick up low-frequency pressure waves enables the shark to advance towards an animal with confidence, even in murky water. The shark circles its prey and studies it by prodding it with its snout. When attacking, the shark often eats its prey whole, although larger prey are often eaten in gradual large bites and finished over time. Notably, terrestrial mammals, including horses ("Equus ferus caballus"), goats ("Capra aegagrus hircus"), sheep ("Ovis aries"), dogs


title: "Tiger shark" content: ("Canis lupus familiaris"), cats ("Felis catus"), and brown rats ("Rattus norvegicus"), are fairly common in the stomach contents of tiger sharks around the coasts of Hawaii. In one case, remains of two flying foxes were found in the stomach of this shark. Because of its aggressive and indiscriminate feeding style, it often mistakenly eats inedible objects, such as automobile license plates, oil cans, tires, and baseballs. All tiger sharks generally swim slowly, which, combined with cryptic coloration, may make them difficult for prey to detect in some habitats. They are especially well camouflaged against dark backgrounds. Despite their sluggish appearance,


title: "Tiger shark" content: tiger sharks are one of the strongest swimmers of the carcharhinid sharks. Once the shark has come close, a speed burst allows it to reach the intended prey before it can escape. Males reach sexual maturity at and females at . Typical weight of relatively young sexually mature specimens, which often locally comprise the majority of tiger sharks encountered per game-fishing and scientific studies, is around . Females mate once every three years. They breed by internal fertilization. The male inserts one of his claspers into the female's genital opening (cloaca), acting as a guide for the sperm. The male


title: "Tiger shark" content: uses his teeth to hold the female still during the procedure, often causing the female considerable discomfort. Mating in the Northern Hemisphere generally takes place between March and May, with birth between April and June the following year. In the Southern Hemisphere, mating takes place in November, December, or early January. The tiger shark is the only species in its family that is ovoviviparous; its eggs hatch internally and the young are born live when fully developed. The young develop inside the mother's body up to 16 months. Litters range from 10 to 80 pups. A newborn is generally long.


title: "Tiger shark" content: How long tiger sharks live is unknown, but they can live longer than 12 years. The tiger shark is captured and killed for its fins, flesh, and liver. It is caught regularly in target and nontarget fisheries. Several populations have declined where they have been heavily fished. Continued demand for fins may result in further declines in the future. They are considered a near threatened species due to excessive finning and fishing by humans according to International Union for Conservation of Nature. While shark fin has very few nutrients, shark liver has a high concentration of vitamin A, which is


title: "Tiger shark" content: used in the production of vitamin oils. In addition, the tiger shark is captured and killed for its distinct skin, as well as by big-game fishers. In 2010, Greenpeace International added the tiger shark to its seafood red list, which is a list of fish commonly sold around the world, and which have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries. Although sharks rarely bite humans, the tiger shark is reported to be responsible for a large share of fatal shark-bite incidents, and is regarded as one of the most dangerous shark species. They often visit shallow reefs,


title: "Tiger shark" content: harbors, and canals, creating the potential for encounter with humans. The tiger shark also dwells in river mouths and other runoff-rich water. While the tiger shark is considered to be one of the sharks most dangerous to humans, its bite rate is low. It is second on the list of number of recorded bites on humans, with the great white shark being first. Typically, three to four shark bites occur per year in Hawaii, but they are rarely fatal; one notable survivor of such an attack is surfing champion Bethany Hamilton, who lost her left arm at age 13 to


title: "Tiger shark" content: a tiger shark in 2003. This bite rate is very low, considering thousands of people swim, surf, and dive in Hawaiian waters every day. Human interactions with tiger sharks in Hawaiian waters have been shown to increase between September and November, when tiger shark females are believed to migrate to the islands to give birth. Between 1959 and 2000, 4,668 tiger sharks were culled in an effort to protect the tourism industry. Despite damaging the shark population, these efforts were shown to be ineffective in decreasing the number of interactions between humans and tiger sharks. Feeding sharks in Hawaii (except


title: "Tiger shark" content: for traditional Hawaiian cultural or religious practices) is illegal, and interaction with them, such as cage diving, is discouraged. South African shark behaviorist and shark diver Mark Addison demonstrated divers could interact and dive with them outside of a shark cage in a 2007 Discovery Channel special, and underwater photographer Fiona Ayerst swam with them in the Bahamas. At "Tiger Beach" off Grand Bahama, uncaged diving with - and even the handling of - female tiger sharks has become a routine occurrence. The tiger shark is considered to be sacred "na aumakua" (ancestor spirits) by some native Hawaiians, who think


title: "Tiger shark" content: their eyeballs have special powers of visual perception. This aligns with the generally known facts about sharks and their highly developed senses. Tiger shark The tiger shark ("Galeocerdo cuvier") is a species of requiem shark and the only extant member of the genus Galeocerdo. It is a large macropredator, capable of attaining a length over . Populations are found in many tropical and temperate waters, especially around central Pacific islands. Its name derives from the dark stripes down its body, which resemble a tiger's pattern, but fade as the shark matures. The tiger shark is a solitary, mostly nocturnal hunter.


title: Nablus content: the al-Rahma and at-Tadamon clinics, the al-Razi medical center, the Amal Center for Rehabilitation and 68 pharmacies. In addition to that, in 2001, Nablus Speciality Hospital was built, in which it is specialized in open heart surgery, angiograms and angioplasties. Nablus and its culture enjoy a certain renown throughout the Palestinian Territories and the Arab world with significant and unique contributions to Palestinian culture, cuisine and costume. "Nabulsi", meaning "from Nablus", is used to describe items such as handicrafts (e.g. Nabulsi soap) and food products (e.g. Nabulsi cheese) that are made in Nablus or in the traditional Nablus style. Nablus


title: Pollination content: explanations for pollinator decline include habitat destruction, pesticide, parasitism/diseases, and climate change. It has also been found that the more destructive forms of human disturbances are land use changes such as fragmentation, selective logging, and the conversion to secondary forest habitat. Defaunation of frugivores has also been found to be an important driver. These alterations are especially harmful due to the sensitivity of the pollination process of plants. There was a study done on tropical palms and the researchers concluded that defaunation has caused a decline in seed dispersal, which causes a decrease in genetic variability in this species. Habitat


title: Chiton content: Chiton Chitons are marine molluscs of varying size in the class Polyplacophora, formerly known as Amphineura. About 940 extant and 430 fossil species are recognized. They are also sometimes known as sea cradles or "coat-of-mail shells", or more formally as loricates, polyplacophorans, and occasionally as polyplacophores. Chitons have a shell composed of eight separate shell plates or valves. These plates overlap slightly at the front and back edges, and yet articulate well with one another. Because of this, the shell provides protection at the same time as permitting the chiton to flex upward when needed for locomotion over uneven surfaces,


title: Chiton content: and even allows the animal to curl up into a ball when dislodged from rocks. The shell plates are encircled by a skirt known as a girdle. Chitons live worldwide, from cold waters through to the tropics. They live on hard surfaces, such as on or under rocks, or in rock crevices. Some species live quite high in the intertidal zone and are exposed to the air and light for long periods. Most species inhabit intertidal or subtidal zones, and do not extend beyond the photic zone, but a few species live in deep water, as deep as . Chitons


title: Chiton content: are exclusively and fully marine. This is in contrast to the bivalves, which were able to adapt to brackish water and fresh water, and the gastropods which were able to make successful transitions to freshwater and terrestrial environments. All chitons bear a protective dorsal shell that is divided into eight articulating aragonite valves embedded in the tough muscular girdle that surrounds the chiton's body. Compared with the single or two-piece shells of other molluscs, this arrangement allows chitons to roll into a protective ball when dislodged and to cling tightly to irregular surfaces. In some species the valves are reduced


title: Chiton content: or covered by the girdle tissue. the valves are variously colored, patterned, smooth, or sculptured. The most anterior plate is crescent-shaped, and is known as the cephalic plate (sometimes called a "head plate", despite the absence of a complete head). The most posterior plate is known as the anal plate (sometimes called the "tail plate", although chitons do not have tails.) The inner layer of each of the six intermediate plates is produced anteriorly as an articulating flange, called the articulamentum. This inner layer may also be produced laterally in the form of notched insertion plates. These function as an


title: Chiton content: attachment of the valve plates to the soft body. A similar series of insertion plates may be attached to the convex anterior border of the cephalic plate or the convex posterior border of the anal plate. The sculpture of the valves is one of the taxonomic characteristics, along with the granulation or spinulation of the girdle. After a chiton dies, the individual valves which make up the eight-part shell come apart because the girdle is no longer holding them together, and then the plates sometimes wash up in beach drift. The individual shell plates from a chiton are sometimes known


title: Chiton content: as "butterfly shells" due to their shape. The girdle may be ornamented with scales or spicules which, like the shell plates, are mineralized with aragonite – although a different mineralization process operates in the spicules to that in the teeth or shells (implying an independent evolutionary innovation). This process seems quite simple in comparison to other shell tissue; in some taxa, the crystal structure of the deposited minerals closely resembles the disordered nature of crystals that form inorganically, although more order is visible in other taxa. The protein component of the scales and sclerites is minuscule in comparison with other


title: Chiton content: biomineralized structures, whereas the total proportion of matrix is 'higher' than in mollusc shells. This implies that polysaccharides make up the bulk of the matrix. The girdle spines often bear length-parallel striations. The wide form of girdle ornament suggests it serves a secondary role; chitons can survive perfectly well without them. Camouflage or defence are two likely functions. Spicules are secreted by cells that do not express "engrailed", but these cells are surrounded by engrailed-expressing cells. These neighbouring cells secrete an organic pellicle on the outside of the developing spicule, whose aragonite is deposited by the central cell; subsequent division


title: Chiton content: of this central cell allows larger spines to be secreted in certain taxa. The organic pellicule is found in most polyplacophora (but not 'basal' chitons, such as "Hanleya") but is unusual in aplacophora. Developmentally, sclerite-secreting cells arise from pretrochal and postrochal cells: the 1a, 1d, 2a, 2c, 3c and 3d cells. The shell plates arise primarily from the 2d micromere, although 2a, 2b, 2c and sometimes 3c cells also participate in its secretion. The girdle is often ornamented with spicules, bristles, hairy tufts, spikes, or snake-like scales. The majority of the body is a snail-like foot, but no head or


title: Chiton content: other soft parts beyond the girdle are visible from the dorsal side. The mantle cavity consists of a narrow channel on each side, lying between the body and the girdle. Water enters the cavity through openings either side of the mouth, then flows along the channel to a second, exhalant, opening close to the anus. Multiple gills hang down into the mantle cavity along part or all of the lateral pallial groove, each consisting of a central axis with a number of flattened filaments through which oxygen can be absorbed. The three-chambered heart is located towards the animal's hind end.


title: Chiton content: Each of the two auricles collects blood from the gills on one side, while the muscular ventricle pumps blood through the aorta and round the body. The excretory system consists of two nephridia, which connect to the pericardial cavity around the heart, and remove excreta through a pore that opens near the rear of the mantle cavity. The single gonad is located in front of the heart, and releases gametes through a pair of pores just in front of those used for excretion. The mouth is located on the underside of the animal, and contains a tongue-like structure called a


title: Chiton content: radula, which has numerous rows of 17 teeth each. The teeth are coated with magnetite, a hard ferric/ferrous oxide mineral. The radula is used to scrape microscopic algae off the substratum. The mouth cavity itself is lined with chitin and is associated with a pair of salivary glands. Two sacs open from the back of the mouth, one containing the radula, and the other containing a protrusible sensory subradular organ that is pressed against the substratum to taste for food. Cilia pull the food through the mouth in a stream of mucus and through the oesophagus, where it is partially


title: Chiton content: digested by enzymes from a pair of large pharyngeal glands. The oesophagus, in turn, opens into a stomach, where enzymes from a digestive gland complete the breakdown of the food. Nutrients are absorbed through the linings of the stomach and the first part of the intestine. The intestine is divided in two by a sphincter, with the latter part being highly coiled and functioning to compact the waste matter into faecal pellets. The anus opens just behind the foot. Chitons lack a clearly demarcated head; their nervous system resembles a dispersed ladder. No true ganglia are present, as in other


title: Chiton content: molluscs, although a ring of dense neural tissue occurs around the oesophagus. From this ring, nerves branch forwards to innervate the mouth and subradula, while two pairs of main nerve cords run back through the body. One pair, the pedal cords, innervate the foot, while the palliovisceral cords innervate the mantle and remaining internal organs. Some species bear an array of tentacles in front of the head. The primary sense organs of chitons are the subradular organ and a large number of unique organs called aesthetes. The aesthetes consist of light-sensitive cells just below the surface of the shell, although


title: Chiton content: they are not capable of true vision. In some cases, however, they are modified to form ocelli, with a cluster of individual photoreceptor cells lying beneath a small aragonite-based lens. Each lens can form clear images, and is composed of relatively large, highly crystallographically-aligned grains to minimize light scattering. An individual chiton may have thousands of such ocelli. These aragonite-based eyes make them capable of true vision; though research continues as to the extent of their visual acuity. It is known that they can differentiate between a predator's shadow and changes in light caused by clouds. A relatively good fossil


title: Chiton content: record of chiton shells exists, but ocelli are only present in those dating to or younger; this would make the ocelli, whose precise function is unclear, the most recent eyes to evolve. Although chitons lack osphradia, statocysts, and other sensory organs common to other molluscs, they do have numerous tactile nerve endings, especially on the girdle and within the mantle cavity. However, chitons lack a cerebral ganglion. Similar to many species of saltwater limpets, several species of chiton are known to exhibit homing behaviours, journeying to feed and then returning to the exact spot they previously inhabited. The method they


title: Chiton content: use to perform such behaviors has been investigated to some extent, but remains unknown. One theory has the chitons remembering the topographic profile of the region, thus being able to guide themselves back to their home scar by a physical knowledge of the rocks and visual input from their numerous primitive eyespots. The sea snail "Nerita textilis" (like all gastropods) deposits a mucus trail as it moves, which a chemoreceptive organ is able to detect and guide the snail back to its home site. It is unclear if chiton homing functions in the same way, but they may leave chemical


title: Chiton content: cues along the rock surface and at the home scar which their olfactory senses can detect and home in on. Furthermore, older trails may also be detected, providing further stimulus for the chiton to find its home. The radular teeth of chitons are made of magnetite, and the iron crystals within these may be involved in magnetoception, the ability to sense the polarity or the inclination of the Earth's magnetic field. Experimental work has suggested that chitons can detect and respond to magnetism. Chitons are eaten in several parts of the world. This includes islands in the Caribbean, such as


title: Chiton content: Trinidad, Tobago, The Bahamas, St. Maarten, Aruba, Bonaire, Anguilla and Barbados, as well as in Bermuda. They are also eaten in certain parts of the Philippines, where it is called kibet if raw and "chiton" if fried. An intangible heritage on the traditional processing of the "kibet" into "chiton" exist in the Philippines. Native Americans of the Pacific coasts of North America eat chitons. They are a common food on the Pacific coast of South America and in the Galápagos. The foot of the chiton is prepared in a manner similar to abalone. Some islanders living in South Korea also


title: Chiton content: eat chiton, slightly boiled and mixed with vegetables and hot sauce. A chiton creeps along slowly on a muscular foot. It has considerable power of adhesion and can cling to rocks very powerfully, like a limpet. Chitons are generally herbivorous grazers, though some are omnivorous and some carnivorous. They eat algae, bryozoans, diatoms, barnacles, and sometimes bacteria by scraping the rocky substrate with their well-developed radulae. A few species of chitons are predatory, such as the small western Pacific species "Placiphorella velata". These predatory chitons have enlarged anterior girdles. They catch other small invertebrates, such as shrimp and possibly even


title: Chiton content: small fish, by holding the enlarged, hood-like front end of the girdle up off the surface, and then clamping down on unsuspecting, shelter-seeking prey. Chitons have separate sexes, and fertilization is external. The male releases sperm into the water, while the female releases eggs either individually, or in a long string. In most cases, fertilization takes place either in the surrounding water, or in the mantle cavity of the female. Some species brood the eggs within the mantle cavity, and the species "Callistochiton viviparus" even retains them within the ovary and gives birth to live young, an example of ovoviviparity.


title: Chiton content: The egg has a tough spiny coat, and usually hatches to release a free-swimming trochophore larva, typical of many other mollusc groups. In a few cases, the trochophore remains within the egg (and is then called lecithotrophic – deriving nutrition from yolk), which hatches to produce a miniature adult. Unlike most other molluscs, there is no intermediate stage, or veliger, between the trochophore and the adult. Instead, a segmented shell gland forms on one side of the larva, and a foot forms on the opposite side. When the larva is ready to become an adult, the body elongates, and the


title: Chiton content: shell gland secretes the plates of the shell. Unlike the fully grown adult, the larva has a pair of simple eyes, although these may remain for some time in the immature adult. Animals which prey on chitons include humans, seagulls, seastars, crabs, lobsters and fish. The largest chiton (up to 33 cm in length) is the brick-red gumboot chiton of the Pacific Northwest. In this species, the valves are completely internal. Chitons have a relatively good fossil record, stretching back to the Devonian. Before this, some organisms have been interpreted (tentatively) as stem-group polyplacophora, potentially stretching the record of polyplacophora


title: Chiton content: back to the Ordovician. "Kimberella" and "Wiwaxia " of the Precambrian and Cambrian may be related to ancestral polyplacophora. "Matthevia" is a Late Cambrian polyplacophoran preserved as individual pointed valves, and sometimes considered to be a chiton, although it can at best be a stem-group member of the group. Based on this and co-occurring fossils, one plausible hypothesis for the origin of polyplacophora has that they formed when an aberrant monoplacophoran was born with multiple centres of calcification, rather than the usual one. Selection quickly acted on the resultant conical shells to form them to overlap into protective armour; their


title: Chiton content: original cones are homologous to the tips of the plates of modern chitons. The chitons evolved from multiplacophora during the Palaeozoic, with their relatively conserved modern-day body plan being fixed by the Mesozoic. Chitons were first studied by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Since his description of the first four species, chitons have been variously classified. They were called Cyclobranchians ("round arm") in the early 19th century, and then grouped with the aplacophorans in the subphylum Amphineura in 1876. The class Polyplacophora was named by de Blainville 1816. The English name "chiton" originates from the Latin word "chitōn", which means "mollusc",


title: Chiton content: and in turn is derived from the Greek word "khitōn", meaning tunic (which also is the source of the word chitin). The Greek word "khitōn" can be traced to the Central Semitic word "*kittan", which is from the Akkadian words "kitû" or "kita’um", meaning flax or linen, and originally the Sumerian word "gada" or "gida". The Greek-derived name Polyplacophora comes from the words "poly-" (many), "plako-" (tablet), and "-phoros" (bearing), a reference to the chiton's eight shell plates. Most classification schemes in use today are based, at least in part, on Pilsbry's Manual of Conchology (1892–1894), extended and revised by


title: Chiton content: Kaas and Van Belle (1985–1990). Since chitons were first described by Linnaeus (1758), extensive taxonomic studies at the species level have been made. However, the taxonomic classification at higher levels in the group has remained somewhat unsettled. The most recent classification (Sirenko 2006) is based not only on shell morphology, as usual, but also other important features, including aesthetes, girdle, radula, gills, glands, egg hull projections, and spermatozoids. It includes all the living and extinct genera of chitons. Further resolution within the Chitonida has been recovered through molecular analysis. This system is now generally accepted. Chiton Chitons are marine molluscs


title: "Royal Flying Corps" content: of 1919 the RAF had 4,000 combat aircraft and 114,000 personnel. Many pilots were initially seconded to the RFC from their original regiments by becoming an observer. Some RFC ground crew (often NCO's or below) also volunteered for these flying duties as they then received supplementary flying pay. There was no formal training for observers until 1917 and many were sent on their first sortie with only a brief introduction to the aircraft from the pilot. Once certified as fully qualified the observer was awarded the coveted half-wing brevet. Once awarded this could not be forfeited so it essentially amounted


title: "Royal Flying Corps" content: feet, was successful but although parachutes were issued to the crews of observation balloons, the higher authorities in the RFC and the Air Board were opposed to the issuing of parachutes to pilots of heavier-than-air craft. It was felt at the time that a parachute might tempt a pilot to abandon his aircraft in an emergency rather than continuing the fight. The parachutes of the time were also heavy and cumbersome, and the added weight was frowned upon by some experienced pilots as it adversely affected aircraft with already marginal performance. It was not until 16 September 1918 that an


title: "George of Poděbrady" content: of Lipany, which marked the downfall of the more radical Taborites. Early in life, as one of the leaders of the Hussite party, he defeated the Austrian troops of the King Albert II, who had succeeded King Sigismund as King of Bohemia, Germany and Hungary. Jiří soon became a prominent member of the Hussite party, and after the death of Hynek Ptáček of Pirkstein, its leader. King Albert was succeeded by his posthumously born son Ladislaus, during whose reign Bohemia was divided into two parties: the party faithful to Rome, led by Oldřich of Rosenberg (1403–1462), and the Hussite party,


title: "Don Getty" content: Ghitter, began making plans to force party renewal, with or without Getty. They felt that the party was perceived as being tired, directionless, arrogant, and deaf to urban concerns, and that it was in political trouble in the crucial battleground of Calgary. At the 1989 party convention, recently retired cabinet minister Marvin Moore, who had organized Ghitter's 1985 leadership campaign, advocated for a leadership review; after a speech by Getty, the convention voted to refer the recommendation to a committee for months of study. Cabinet ministers, including Treasurer Dick Johnston and Education Minister Jim Dinning, began to consider leadership bids


title: "Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard" content: appointed Chief of the Air Staff on the newly formed Air Council. Trenchard began work on 18 January and during his first month at the Air Ministry, he clashed with Rothermere over several issues. First, Rothermere's tendency to disregard his professional advisors in favour of outside experts irritated Trenchard. Secondly, Rothermere insisted that Trenchard claim as many men for the RAF as possible even if they might be better employed in the other services. Thirdly, Rothermere and Trenchard disagreed on nominees for senior appointments in the RAF. Finally and most significantly, they disagreed over proper future use of air power


title: Melungeon content: voting, serving in the militia, or undertaking other common citizens' obligations available to white men. After the American Civil War and following the Reconstruction Era, southern whites struggled to regain political power and re-assert white supremacy over freedmen and traditionally free families such as the Melungeons. The white Democrat-dominated state legislatures passed Jim Crow laws. But issues of race were often brought to court as a result of arguments about money. For example, in 1872, a woman's Melungeon ancestry was evaluated in a trial in Hamilton County, Tennessee. The case was brought by relatives of her husband, who challenged her


title: "Black-footed ferret" content: Black-footed ferret The black-footed ferret ("Mustela nigripes"), also known as the American polecat or prairie dog hunter, is a species of mustelid native to central North America. It is listed as endangered by the IUCN, because of its very small and restricted populations. First discovered by Audubon and Bachman in 1851, the species declined throughout the 20th century, primarily as a result of decreases in prairie dog populations and sylvatic plague. It was declared extinct in 1979 until Lucille Hogg's dog brought a dead black-footed ferret to her door in Meeteetse, Wyoming in 1981. That remnant population of a few


title: "Black-footed ferret" content: dozen ferrets lasted there until the animals were considered extinct in the wild in 1987. However, a captive breeding program launched by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service resulted in its reintroduction into eight western states, Canada and Mexico from 1991 to 2009. There are now over 1,000 mature, wild-born individuals in the wild across 18 populations, with five self-sustaining populations in South Dakota (two), Arizona, Wyoming and Saskatchewan. It was first listed as 'Endangered' in 1982, then listed as 'Extinct in the Wild' in 1996 before being downgraded back to 'Endangered' in 2008. The black-footed ferret is roughly


title: "Black-footed ferret" content: the size of a mink, and differs from the European polecat by the greater contrast between its dark limbs and pale body and the shorter length of its black tail-tip. In contrast, differences between the black-footed ferret and the steppe polecat of Asia are slight, to the point where the two species were once thought to be conspecific. The only noticeable differences between the black-footed ferret and the steppe polecat are the former's much shorter and coarser fur, larger ears, and longer postmolar extension of the palate. It is largely nocturnal and solitary, except when breeding or raising litters. Up


title: "Black-footed ferret" content: to 91% of its diet is composed of prairie dogs. Like its close cousin, the Asian steppe polecat (with which it was once thought to be conspecific), the black-footed ferret represents a more progressive form than the European polecat in the direction of carnivory. The black-footed ferret's most likely ancestor was "Mustela stromeri" (from which the European and steppe polecat are also derived), which originated in Europe during the Middle Pleistocene. Molecular evidence indicates that the steppe polecat and black-footed ferret diverged from "Mustela stromeri" sometime between 500,000 and 2,000,000 years ago, perhaps in Beringia. The species appeared in the


title: "Black-footed ferret" content: Great Basin and the Rockies by 750,000 years ago. The oldest recorded fossil find originates from Cathedral Cave, White Pine County, Nevada, and dates back to 750,000–950,000 years ago. Prairie dog fossils have been found in six sites where ferrets are yielded, thus indicating that the association between the two species is an old one. Anecdotal observations and 42% of examined fossil records indicated that any substantial colony of medium- to large-sized colonial ground squirrels, such as Richardson's ground squirrels, may provide a sufficient prey base and a source of burrows for black-footed ferrets. This suggests that the black-footed ferret


title: "Black-footed ferret" content: and prairie dogs did not historically have an obligate predator-prey relationship. The species has likely always been rare, and the modern black-footed ferret represents a relic population. A reported occurrence of the species is from a late Illinoian deposit in Clay County, Nebraska, and is further recorded from Sangamonian deposits in Nebraska and Medicine Hat. Fossils have also been found in Alaska dating from the Pleistocene. The black-footed ferret has a long slender body with black outlines such as the feet, ears, parts of the face and its tail. The forehead is arched and broad, and the muzzle is short.


title: "Black-footed ferret" content: It has few whiskers, and its ears are triangular, short, erect and broad at the base. The neck is long and the legs short and stout. The toes are armed with sharp, very slightly arched claws. The feet on both surfaces are covered in hair, even to the soles, thus concealing the claws. It combines several physical features common in both members of the subgenus "Gale" (least, short-tailed and long-tailed weasels) and "Putorius" (European and steppe polecats). Its skull resembles that of polecats in its size, massiveness and the development of its ridges and depressions, though it is distinguished by


title: "Black-footed ferret" content: the extreme degree of constriction behind the orbits where the width of the cranium is much less than that of the muzzle. Although similar in size to polecats, its attenuate body, long neck, very short legs, slim tail, large orbicular ears and close-set pelage is much closer in conformation to weasels and stoats. The dentition of the black-footed ferret closely resembles that of the European and steppe polecat, though the back lower molar is vestigial, with a hemispherical crown which is too small and weak to develop the little cusps which are more apparent in polecats. Males measure in body


title: "Black-footed ferret" content: length and in tail length, thus constituting 22–25% of its body length. Females are typically 10% smaller than males. It weighs . Captive-bred ferrets used for the reintroduction projects were found to be smaller than their wild counterparts, though these animals rapidly attained historical body sizes once released. The base color is pale yellowish or buffy above and below. The top of the head and sometimes the neck is clouded by dark-tipped hairs. The face is crossed by a broad band of sooty black, which includes the eyes. The feet, lower parts of the legs, the tip of the tail