title: "Brown bear" content: history in Eurasia, brown bears diverged from the two species of cave bear, the giant ("U. spelaeus") and small cave bears ("U. rossicus"), two species that it existed alongside in what is now Europe, for the larger form, and Central Asia and Siberia for the smaller cave bear. The cave bears were similar in size to the larger forms of brown bear and polar bear alive today in terms of length, but were bulkier, with much higher-density skeletal remains, and presumably rather heavier than the modern brown bear, with the giant cave bear about the same length as a modern


title: "Brown bear" content: Kodiak bear but projected to be some 30% heavier. Pleistocene-era brown bears appear to have been somewhat larger and more carnivorous than most modern forms based on skull dimensions. The cave bears are usually deemed to have been highly herbivorous, to a greater extent than the brown bear, based on examinations of stable isotopes and dental morphology. Recent studies, however, have shown that cave bears could have opportunistically adapted to a fairly omnivorous diet and consumed many herbivore carcasses. Despite this, the dietary differences and differing habitat preferences (caves of course being much more habitually used in the cave species


title: "Brown bear" content: than the brown bear) allowed the three "Ursus" to persist at the same time in different parts of Eurasia. A more dangerous competitor was encountered by brown bears upon crossing the Bering Land Bridge about 100,000 years ago in the form of the short-faced bear, a long-legged bear that was estimated to have weighed about twice as much on average than a modern Kodiak bear. Although at one time deemed a hyper-carnivorous predator that used its long legs to run down large prey, more recent studies have indicated that, like the modern brown bear, it was an omnivorous opportunist that


title: "Brown bear" content: probably scavenged many meals and presumably used its size and great height to intimidate large predators from kills. Until it declined along with its food sources, dwindling into extinction, the short-faced bear presumably prevented the brown bear from spreading south, mainly through competition but also, to some extent, predation. A single fossil ulna some 70,000-years-old found in Great Britain, deemed to come from an extremely large sub-adult Pleistocene polar bear ("Ursus maritimus tyrannus"), was projected to be the largest known form of the genus "Ursus". However, this cannot be ruled out as an extinct population of brown bear, based on


title: "Brown bear" content: the inconclusiveness of the only known fossil. Other carnivorans during the Pleistocene that, based on their large size, were possibly occasional predators of early brown bears (at least females and cubs) were primarily big cats, including the cave lion ("Panthera spelaea") and the saber-toothed "Machairodus" in Eurasia and, perhaps rarely in southern Beringia, the American lion ("Panthera leo atrox") and the saber-toothed "Smilodon" and, in North America, "Homotherium". Interactions with these large cats were probably not highly disparate from those that continue today between brown bears and the Siberian tiger. Unlike most of these species, the brown bear was able


title: "Brown bear" content: to survive the Quaternary extinction event that concluded the ice age. Presumably, this was due to its greater dietary and habitat plasticity and its adoption of a more extensively herbivorous diet, as most temperate-zone herbivores that may have provided meals for more specialized large land carnivores went extinct as the warming climate killed off their food source. It is likely that humans have caused the extinction and fragmentation of bear populations and their habitats since prehistorical times. It has been shown, for instance, that bear populations from the Greater Caucasus and the Lesser Caucasus Mountains, separated by the densely populated


title: "Brown bear" content: Transcaucasian Depression, have been matrilineally isolated since the early Holocene era, i.e., after permanent human settlements appeared throughout the area. While hunting by early humans was a (previously underestimated) factor in many of the Quaternary extinction events, a perhaps stronger factor in the survival of this species compared to many other northern Pleistocene bears is the brown bear's stronger genetic diversity. In comparison, the giant cave bear appeared to enter a genetic bottleneck that started a population decline some 25,000 years before the species' extinction. Brown bears usually avoid areas where extensive development or urbanization has occurred, unlike the smaller,


title: "Brown bear" content: more inoffensive American black bear which can adapt to peri-urban regions. Under many circumstances, extensive human development may cause brown bears to alter their home ranges. High road densities (both paved and gravel roads) are often associated with higher mortality, habitat avoidance and lower bear density. However, bears can easily lose their natural cautiousness upon being attracted to human-created food sources, such as garbage dumps, litter bins, and dumpsters. Brown bears may even venture into human dwellings or barns in search of food as humans encroach into bear habitats. In different parts of their distribution, brown bears sometimes kill and


title: "Brown bear" content: eat domesticated animals. The saying "a fed bear is a dead bear" has come into use to popularize the idea that allowing bears to scavenge human garbage, such as trash cans and campers' backpacks, pet food, or other food sources that draw the bear into contact with humans, can result in a bear's death. Results of a 2016 study performed in a southeastern British Columbian valley indicate that areas where attractive bear food and concentrated human settlements overlap, human-bear conflict can create an ecological trap resulting in a lower apparent survival rate for brown bears, as well as attracting additional


title: "Brown bear" content: bears and thereby causing overall population declines. When bears come to associate human activity with a "food reward", they are likely to continue to become emboldened; the likelihood of human-bear encounters increases, as they may return to the same location despite relocation. Relocation of the bear has been used to separate the bear from the human environment, but it does not address the problem of the bear's newly learned association of humans with food or the environmental situations which created the human-habituated bear. "Placing a bear in habitat used by other bears may lead to competition and social conflict, and


title: "Brown bear" content: result in the injury or death of the less dominant bear." Yellowstone National Park, a reserve located in the western United States, contains prime habitat for the grizzly bear ("Ursus arctos horribilis"), and due to the enormous number of visitors, human-bear encounters are common. The scenic beauty of the area has led to an influx of people moving into the area. In addition, because there are so many bear relocations to the same remote areas of Yellowstone, and because male bears tend to dominate the center of the relocation zone, female bears tend to be pushed to the boundaries of


title: "Brown bear" content: the region and beyond. As a result, a large proportion of repeat offenders, bears that are killed for public safety, are females. This creates a further depressive effect on an already endangered species. The grizzly bear is officially described as "threatened" in the U.S. Although the problem is most significant with regard to grizzlies, these issues affect the other types of brown bears as well. In Europe, part of the problem lies with shepherds; over the past two centuries, many sheep and goat herders have gradually abandoned the more traditional practice of using dogs to guard flocks, which have concurrently


title: "Brown bear" content: grown larger. Typically, they allow the herds to graze freely over sizeable tracts of land. As bears reclaim parts of their range, they may eat livestock as sheep and goat are relatively easy for a bear to kill. In some cases, the shepherds shoot the bear, thinking their livelihood is under threat. Many are now better informed about the ample compensation available, and will make a claim when they lose livestock to a bear. Another issue in several parts of their range in Europe is supplemental feeding stations where various kind of animal carrion is offered, which are set up


title: "Brown bear" content: mainly in Scandinavia and eastern Europe both to support the locally threatened species and so humans can enjoy watching bears that may otherwise prove evasive. Despite that most stations were cautiously set in remote areas far from human habitations, some brown bears in such areas have become conditioned to associate humans with food and become excessively bold "problem bears". Also supplemental feeding appears to cause no decrease in livestock predation. Native American tribes sympatric with brown bears often view them with a mixture of awe and fear. North American brown bears have at times been so feared by the natives,


title: "Brown bear" content: that they were rarely hunted, especially alone. At traditional grizzly hunts in some western tribes such as the Gwich’in the expedition was conducted with the same preparation and ceremoniality as intertribal warfare, and was never done except with a company of 4–10 warriors. The tribe members who dealt the killing blow were highly esteemed among their compatriots. Californian natives actively avoided prime bear habitat, and would not allow their young men to hunt alone, for fear of bear attacks. During the Spanish colonial period, some tribes, instead of hunting grizzlies themselves, would seek aid from European colonists to deal with


title: "Brown bear" content: problem bears. Many authors in the American west wrote of natives or voyageurs with lacerated faces and missing noses or eyes due to attacks from grizzlies. Many Native American tribes both respect and fear the brown bear. In Kwakiutl mythology, black and brown bears became enemies when Grizzly Bear Woman killed Black Bear Woman for being lazy. Black Bear Woman's children, in turn, killed Grizzly Bear Woman's own cubs. Sleeping Bear Dunes is named after a Native American legend, where a female bear and her cub swam across Lake Michigan. Exhausted from their journey, the bears rested on the shoreline


title: "Brown bear" content: and fell sound asleep. Over the years, the sand covered them up, creating a huge sand dune. There are an average of two fatal attacks by bears per year in North America. In Scandinavia, there are only four known cases since 1902 of bear encounters which have resulted in death. The two most common causes for bear attack are surprise and curiosity. Some types of bears, such as polar bears, are more likely to attack humans when searching for food, while American black bears are much less likely to attack. Despite their boldness and potential for predation if the bear


title: "Brown bear" content: is hungry, polar bears rarely attack humans because they are infrequently encountered in the Arctic sea. The Alaska Science Center ranks the following as the most likely reasons for bear attacks: Aggressive behavior in brown bears is favored by numerous selection variables. Increased aggressiveness also assists female brown bears in better ensuring the survival of their young to reproductive age. Mothers defending cubs are the most prone to attacking, being responsible for 70% of brown bear-caused human fatalities in North America. Brown bears seldom attack humans on sight, and usually avoid people. In Russia, it is estimated that one in


title: "Brown bear" content: a thousand on-foot encounters with brown bears results in attack. They are, however, unpredictable in temperament, and may attack if they are surprised or feel threatened. Despite the low rate of attack, they appear to be the most dangerous northern carnivoran to humans, attacking more people on average annually than American black bears or northern populations of Asian black bear and Siberian tigers, cougars or gray wolves. Several large carnivorans from tropical regions of Africa and Asia may be more dangerous to humans than brown bears, including other ursids such as the sloth bear and Indian populations of the Asian


title: "Brown bear" content: black bear. Each of the latter species of bear may kill up to a dozen people annually in certain Indian districts, about as many in a relatively small area as all of the world's brown bears combined. The high levels of human-directed aggression in these ursine bears is reportedly their evolution with once large numbers of predatory Bengal tigers (arguably itself the world's most dangerous carnivoran to humans even with its extreme decline in modern times, being statistically much more likely to attack than their northern Siberian cousins) and a very large human population, increasing the risk of surprising and


title: "Brown bear" content: angering a defensive black or sloth bear, the latter species often charging aggressively rather than fleeing if a surprise encounter occurs as do most other bear species. Sows with cubs account for many attacks on humans by brown bears in North America. Habituated or food-conditioned bears can also be dangerous, as their long-term exposure to humans causes them to lose their natural shyness, and, in some cases, to associate humans with food. Small parties of one or two people are more often attacked by brown bears than large groups, with only one known case of an attack on a group


title: "Brown bear" content: of six or more. In that instance, it is thought that due to surprise, the grizzly bear may not have recognized the size of the group. In the majority of attacks resulting in injury, brown bears precede the attack with a growl or huffing sound. In contrast to injuries caused by American black bears, which are usually minor, brown bear attacks more often tend to result in serious injury and, in some cases, death. Brown bears seem to confront humans as they would when fighting other bears: they rise up on their hind legs, and attempt to "disarm" their victims


title: "Brown bear" content: by biting and holding on to the lower jaw to avoid being bitten in turn. Due to the bears' enormous physical strength, even a single bite or swipe can be deadly, as in tigers, with some human victims having had their heads completely crushed by a bear bite. Most attacks occur in the months of July, August, and September, the time when the number of outdoor recreationalists, such as hikers or hunters, is higher. People who assert their presence through noises tend to be less vulnerable, as they alert bears to their presence. In direct confrontations, people who run are


title: "Brown bear" content: statistically more likely to be attacked than those who stand their ground. Violent encounters with brown bears usually last only a few minutes, though they can be prolonged if the victims fight back. In Alberta, two common behaviors by human hunters, imitating the calls of deer to attract them and carrying ungulate carcasses, seem to court aggressive behavior and lead to a higher rate of attack from grizzly bears. Attacks on humans are considered extremely rare in the former Soviet Union, though exceptions exist in districts where they are not as often pursued by hunters. Siberian bears, for example, tend


title: "Brown bear" content: to be much bolder toward humans than their shyer, more persecuted European counterparts. The delineation in Eurasia between areas where aggressiveness of bears tends to increase is the Ural Mountains, although the bears of eastern Europe are somewhat more aggressive than those of western Europe. In 2008, a platinum mining compound in the Olyotorsky district of northern Kamchatka was besieged by a group of 30 bears, who killed two guards and prevented workers from leaving their homes. Ten people a year on average are killed by brown bears in Russia, more than all the other parts of brown bear's international


title: "Brown bear" content: range combined, although Russia also holds more brown bears than all other parts of the world combined. In Scandinavia, only three fatal attacks were recorded in the 20th century. In Japan, a large brown bear nicknamed ""Kesagake"" (袈裟懸け, "kesa-style slasher") made history for causing the worst bear attack in Japanese history at Tomamae, Hokkaidō during numerous encounters during December 1915. It killed seven people and wounded three others (with possibly another three previous fatalities to its credit) before being gunned down after a large-scale beast-hunt. Today, there is still a shrine at Rokusensawa (六線沢), where the event took place, in


title: "Brown bear" content: memory of the victims of the incident. Within Yellowstone National Park, injuries caused by grizzly attacks in developed areas averaged approximately one per year during the 1930s through to the 1950s, though it increased to four per year during the 1960s. They then decreased to one injury every two years during the 1970s. Between 1980 and 2002, there have been only two human injuries caused by grizzly bears in a developed area. Although grizzly attacks were rare in the backcountry before 1970, the number of attacks increased to an average of approximately one per year during the 1970s, 1980s, and


title: "Brown bear" content: 1990s. In Alberta, from 1960 to 1998, the number of attacks by grizzly bears ending in injury were nearly three times more common than attacks ending in injury by American black bears despite the black bear being an estimated 38 times more numerous in the province than grizzlies. A study by US and Canadian researchers has found pepper spray to be more effective at stopping aggressive bear behavior than guns, working in 92% of studied incidents versus 67% for guns. Carrying pepper spray is highly recommended by many authorities when traveling in bear country; however, carrying two means of deterrent,


title: "Brown bear" content: one of which is a large caliber gun, is also advised. Solid shotgun slugs, or three buckshot rounds, or a pistol of .44 caliber or more is suggested if a heavy hunting rifle is not available. Guns remain a viable, last resort option to be used in defense of life from aggressive bears. Too often, people do not carry a proper caliber weapon to neutralize the bear. According to the Alaska Science Center, a 12 gauge shotgun with slugs has been the most effective weapon. There have been fewer injuries as a result of only carrying lethal loads in the


title: "Brown bear" content: shotgun, as opposed to deterrent rounds. State of Alaska Defense of Life or Property (DLP) laws require one to report the kill to authorities, and salvage the hide, skull, and claws. A page at the State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources website offers information about how to "select a gun that will stop a bear (12-gauge shotgun or .300 mag rifle)." Campers are often told to wear bright colored red ribbons and bells, and carry whistles to ward off bears. They are told to look for grizzly scat in camping areas, and be careful to carry the bells and


title: "Brown bear" content: whistles in those areas. Grizzly scat is difficult to differentiate from black bear scat, as diet is in a constant state of flux depending on the availability of seasonal food items. If a bear is killed near camp, the bear's carcass must be adequately disposed of, including entrails and blood, if possible. Failure to move the carcass has often resulted in it attracting other bears and further exacerbating a bad situation. Moving camps immediately is another recommended method. Brown bears often figure into the literature of Europe and North America, in particular that which is written for children. "The Brown


title: "Brown bear" content: Bear of Norway" is a Scottish fairy tale telling the adventures of a girl who married a prince magically turned into a bear, and who managed to get him back into a human form by the force of her love and after many trials and difficulties. With "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", a story from England, the three bears are usually depicted as brown bears. In German speaking countries, children are often told the fairytale of Snow White and Rose Red; the handsome prince in this tale has been transfigured into a brown bear. In the United States, parents often


title: "Brown bear" content: read their preschool age children the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? to teach them their colors and how they are associated with different animals. The Russian bear is a common national personification for Russia (as well as the former Soviet Union) despite the country having no appointed national animal. The brown bear is Finland's national animal. The grizzly bear is the state animal of Montana. The California golden bear is the state animal of California. Both animals are sub-species of the brown bear, and the species was extirpated from the latter state. The coat of arms


title: "Brown bear" content: of Madrid depicts a bear reaching up into a "madroño" or strawberry tree ("Arbutus unedo") to eat some of its fruit, whereas the Swiss city of Bern's coat of arms also depicts a bear and the city's name is popularly thought to derive from the German word for bear. The brown bear is depicted on the reverse of the Croatian 5 kuna coin, minted since 1993. The Bundesliga club Bayern Munich has a brown bear mascot named Berni. The National Football League (NFL) franchise in Chicago, Illinois, is named the Bears. In this context, no differentiation between black and brown


title: "Brown bear" content: bears is needed. The school mascot for George Fox University, Brown University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Riverside, and the University of Alberta is the brown bear. In the town of Prats de Molló, in Vallespir, southern France, a "bear festival" ("festa de l'ós") is celebrated annually at the beginning of spring, in which the locals dress up as bears, cover themselves with soot or coal and oil, and "attack" the onlookers, attempting to get everyone dirty. The festival ends with the "ball de l'os" (bear dance). Brown bear The


title: Biathlon content: for each missed target, which varies according to the competition rules, as follows: In order to keep track of the contestants' progress and relative standing throughout a race, split times (intermediate times) are taken at several points along the skiing track and upon finishing each shooting round. The large display screens commonly set up at biathlon arenas, as well as the information graphics shown as part of the TV picture, will typically list the split time of the fastest contestant at each intermediate point and the times and time differences to the closest runners-up. In the Olympics, all cross-country skiing


title: Blitzkrieg content: enemy by an attack through areas considered natural obstacles, as occurred during the Battle of France when the German blitzkrieg-style attack went through the Ardennes. Since the French thought the Ardennes unsuitable for massive troop movement, particularly for tanks, they were left with only light defences which were quickly overrun by the "Wehrmacht". The Germans quickly advanced through the forest, knocking down the trees the French thought would impede this tactic. The influence of air forces over forces on the ground changed significantly over the course of the Second World War. Early German successes were conducted when Allied aircraft could


title: "The Beano" content: include "Dennis the Menace", "Minnie the Minx", "The Bash Street Kids", "The Numskulls", "Roger the Dodger", "Billy Whizz" and "Tricky Dicky." Earlier characters who have been phased out include "Ball Boy," "Ivy the Terrible", "The Three Bears" and "Pansy Potter". Some old characters, like "Biffo the Bear", "Lord Snooty", "Baby Face Finlayson" and "Little Plum", have more recently made a return as "funsize" quarter-page strips. The style of "Beano" humour has shifted noticeably over the years, though the longstanding tradition of anarchic humour has remained. For decades strips have appeared to glorify immoral behaviour, e.g. pranking/bullying ("Dennis the Menace"), dishonesty


title: "Bézier curve" content: Bézier curve A Bézier curve (pronounced in French) is a parametric curve used in computer graphics and related fields. The curve, which is related to the Bernstein polynomial, is named after Pierre Bézier, who used it in the 1960s for designing curves for the bodywork of Renault cars. Other uses include the design of computer fonts and animation. Bézier curves can be combined to form a Bézier spline, or generalized to higher dimensions to form Bézier surfaces. The Bézier triangle is a special case of the latter. In vector graphics, Bézier curves are used to model smooth curves that can


title: Bean content: Bean A bean is a seed of one of several genera of the flowering plant family Fabaceae, which are used for human or animal food. The word "bean" and its Germanic cognates (e.g., German "Bohne") have existed in common use in West Germanic languages since before the 12th century, referring to broad beans and other pod-borne seeds. This was long before the New World genus "Phaseolus" was known in Europe. After Columbian-era contact between Europe and the Americas, use of the word was extended to pod-borne seeds of "Phaseolus", such as the common bean and the runner bean, and the


title: Bean content: related genus "Vigna". The term has long been applied generally to many other seeds of similar form, such as Old World soybeans, peas, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), other vetches, and lupins, and even to those with slighter resemblances, such as coffee beans, vanilla beans, castor beans, and cocoa beans. Thus the term "bean" in general usage can mean a host of different species. Seeds called "beans" are often included among the crops called "pulses" (legumes), although a narrower prescribed sense of "pulses" reserves the word for leguminous crops harvested for their dry grain. The term "bean" usually excludes legumes with tiny


title: Bean content: seeds and which are used exclusively for forage, hay, and silage purposes (such as clover and alfalfa). According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization the term "BEANS, DRY" (item code 176) should include only species of "Phaseolus"; however, enforcing that prescription has proven difficult for several reasons. One is that in the past, several species, including "Vigna angularis" (adzuki bean), "mungo" (black gram), "radiata" (green gram), and "aconitifolia" (moth bean), were classified as "Phaseolus" and later reclassified. Another is that it is not surprising that the prescription on limiting the use of the word, because it tries to


title: Bean content: replace the word's older senses with a newer one, has never been consistently followed in general usage. Unlike the closely related pea, beans are a summer crop that need warm temperatures to grow. Maturity is typically 55–60 days from planting to harvest. As the bean pods mature, they turn yellow and dry up, and the beans inside change from green to their mature colour. As a vine, bean plants need external support, which may be provided in the form of special "bean cages" or poles. Native Americans customarily grew them along with corn and squash (the so-called Three Sisters), with


title: Bean content: the tall cornstalks acting as support for the beans. In more recent times, the so-called "bush bean" has been developed which does not require support and has all its pods develop simultaneously (as opposed to pole beans which develop gradually). This makes the bush bean more practical for commercial production. Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants. Broad beans, also called fava beans, in their wild state the size of a small fingernail, were gathered in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills. In a form improved from naturally occurring types, they were grown in Thailand since the early seventh millennium BCE,


title: Bean content: predating ceramics. They were deposited with the dead in ancient Egypt. Not until the second millennium BCE did cultivated, large-seeded broad beans appear in the Aegean, Iberia and transalpine Europe. In the "Iliad" (8th century BCE) is a passing mention of beans and chickpeas cast on the threshing floor. Beans were an important source of protein throughout Old and New World history, and still are today. The oldest-known domesticated beans in the Americas were found in Guitarrero Cave, an archaeological site in Peru, and dated to around the second millennium BCE. However, genetic analyses of the common bean "Phaseolus" shows


title: Bean content: that it originated in Mesoamerica, and subsequently spread southward, along with maize and squash, traditional companion crops. Most of the kinds commonly eaten fresh or dried, those of the genus "Phaseolus", come originally from the Americas, being first seen by a European when Christopher Columbus, during his exploration of what may have been the Bahamas, found them growing in fields. Five kinds of "Phaseolus" beans were domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples: common beans ("Phaseolus vulgaris") grown from Chile to the northern part of what is now the United States, and lima and sieva beans ("Phaseolus lunatus"), as well as the less


title: Bean content: widely distributed teparies ("Phaseolus acutifolius"), scarlet runner beans ("Phaseolus coccineus") and polyanthus beans ("Phaseolus polyanthus") One especially famous use of beans by pre-Columbian people as far north as the Atlantic seaboard is the "Three Sisters" method of companion plant cultivation: Dry beans come from both Old World varieties of broad beans (fava beans) and New World varieties (kidney, black, cranberry, pinto, navy/haricot). Beans are a heliotropic plant, meaning that the leaves tilt throughout the day to face the sun. At night, they go into a folded "sleep" position. Currently, the world genebanks hold about 40,000 bean varieties, although only a


title: Bean content: fraction are mass-produced for regular consumption. Some bean types include: Some kinds of raw beans contain a harmful tasteless toxin, lectin phytohaemagglutinin, that must be removed by cooking. Red kidney beans are particularly toxic, but other types also pose risks of food poisoning. A recommended method is to boil the beans for at least ten minutes; undercooked beans may be more toxic than raw beans. Cooking beans, without bringing them to the boil, in a slow cooker at a temperature well below boiling may not destroy toxins. A case of poisoning by butter beans used to make falafel was reported;


title: Bean content: the beans were used instead of traditional broad beans or chickpeas, soaked and ground without boiling, made into patties, and shallow fried. Bean poisoning is not well known in the medical community, and many cases may be misdiagnosed or never reported; figures appear not to be available. In the case of the UK National Poisons Information Service, available only to health professionals, the dangers of beans other than red beans were not flagged . Fermentation is used in some parts of Africa to improve the nutritional value of beans by removing toxins. Inexpensive fermentation improves the nutritional impact of flour


title: Bean content: from dry beans and improves digestibility, according to research co-authored by Emire Shimelis, from the Food Engineering Program at Addis Ababa University. Beans are a major source of dietary protein in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. It is common to make beansprouts by letting some types of bean, often mung beans, germinate in moist and warm conditions; beansprouts may be used as ingredients in cooked dishes, or eaten raw or lightly cooked. There have been many outbreaks of disease from bacterial contamination, often by "salmonella", "listeria", and "Escherichia coli", of beansprouts not thoroughly cooked, some causing significant mortality. Many


title: Bean content: types of bean contain significant amounts of antinutrients that inhibit some enzyme processes in the body. Phytic acid and phytates, present in grains, nuts, seeds and beans, interfere with bone growth and interrupt vitamin D metabolism. Pioneering work on the effect of phytic acid was done by Edward Mellanby from 1939. Beans are high in protein, complex carbohydrates, folate, and iron. Beans also have significant amounts of fiber and soluble fiber, with one cup of cooked beans providing between nine and 13 grams of fiber. Soluble fiber can help lower blood cholesterol. Consuming beans adds significant amounts of fiber and


title: Bean content: soluble fiber to a diet, with one cup of cooked beans providing between nine and thirteen grams of fiber. Soluble fiber can help lower blood cholesterol. Adults are recommended to have up to two (female), and three (male) servings. 3/4 cup of cooked beans provide one serving. Many edible beans, including broad beans and soybeans, contain oligosaccharides (particularly raffinose and stachyose), a type of sugar molecule also found in cabbage. An anti-oligosaccharide enzyme is necessary to properly digest these sugar molecules. As a normal human digestive tract does not contain any anti-oligosaccharide enzymes, consumed oligosaccharides are typically digested by bacteria


title: Bean content: in the large intestine. This digestion process produces flatulence-causing gases as a byproduct. Since sugar dissolves in water, another method of reducing flatulence associated with eating beans is to drain the water in which the beans have been cooked. Some species of mold produce alpha-galactosidase, an anti-oligosaccharide enzyme, which humans can take to facilitate digestion of oligosaccharides in the small intestine. This enzyme, currently sold in the United States under the brand-names Beano and Gas-X Prevention, can be added to food or consumed separately. In many cuisines beans are cooked along with natural carminatives such as anise seeds, coriander seeds


title: Bean content: and cumin. One effective strategy is to soak beans in alkaline (baking soda) water overnight before rinsing thoroughly. Sometimes vinegar is added, but only after the beans are cooked as vinegar interferes with the beans' softening. Fermented beans will usually not produce most of the intestinal problems that unfermented beans will, since yeast can consume the offending sugars. The production data of legume are published by FAO in three category. 1 Pulses dry: all mature and dry seeds of leguminous plants except soybeans and groundnuts. 2 Oil crops: soybeans and groundnuts. 3 Fresh vegetable: immature green fresh fruits of leguminous


title: Bean content: plants. Following are summary of FAO data. "Pulses,Total [1726] (dry)" is total of all dry legume mainly consumed as food. The production results of 2016 was 81.80 million tons. The production result of Pulses dry in 2016 was increased to 2.0 times from 1961 result, meanwhile population increase was 2.4 times. Main crops of "Pulses,Total [1726] (dry)" are "Beans, dry [176]" 26.83 million tons, "Peas, dry [187]" 14.36 million tons, "Chick peas [191]" 12.09 million tons, "Cow peas [195]" 6.99 million tons, "Lentils [201]" 6.32 million tons, "Pigeon peas [197]" 4.49 million tons, "Broad beans, horse beans [181]" 4.46 million


title: Bean content: tons. In general, the consumption of pulses per capita is decreasing since 1961. Exception are Lentil and Cowpea. The world leader in production of Dry Beans (Phaseolus spp). is Myanmar (Burma), followed by India and Brazil. In Africa, the most important producer is Tanzania. Bean A bean is a seed of one of several genera of the flowering plant family Fabaceae, which are used for human or animal food. The word "bean" and its Germanic cognates (e.g., German "Bohne") have existed in common use in West Germanic languages since before the 12th century, referring to broad beans and other pod-borne


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: Bongo (antelope) The bongo ("Tragelaphus eurycerus") is a herbivorous, mostly nocturnal forest ungulate. It is among the largest of the African forest antelope species. Bongos are characterised by a striking reddish-brown coat, black and white markings, white-yellow stripes and long slightly spiralled horns. Indeed, bongos are the only tragelaphid in which both sexes have horns. They have a complex social interaction and are found in African dense forest mosaics. The western or lowland bongo, "T. e. eurycerus", faces an ongoing population decline, and the IUCN Antelope Specialist Group considers it to be Near Threatened on the conservation status scale. The


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: eastern or mountain bongo, "T. e. isaaci", of Kenya, has a coat even more vibrant than that of "T. e. eurycerus". The mountain bongo is only found in the wild in one remote region of central Kenya. This bongo is classified by the IUCN Antelope Specialist Group as Critically Endangered, with more specimens in captivity than in the wild. In 2000, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in the USA (AZA) upgraded the bongo to a Species Survival Plan participant and in 2006 added the Bongo Restoration to Mount Kenya Project to its list of the Top Ten Wildlife Conservation


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: Success Stories of the year. However, in 2013, it seems, these successes have been negated with reports of possibly only 100 mountain bongos left in the wild due to logging and poaching. The scientific name of the bongo is "Tragelaphus eurycerus", and it belongs to the genus "Tragelaphus" and family Bovidae. It was first described by Irish naturalist William Ogilby in 1837. The generic name "Tragelaphus" is composed of two Greek words: "tragos", meaning a male goat; and "elaphos", meaning deer. The specific name "eurycerus" originated from the fusion of "eurus" (broad, widespread) and "keras" (an animal's horn). The common


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: name "bongo" originated probably from the Kele language of Gabon. The first known use of the name "bongo" dates back to 1861. Bongos are further classified into two subspecies: "T. e. eurycerus", the lowland or western bongo, and the far rarer "T. e. isaaci", the mountain or eastern bongo, restricted to the mountains of Kenya only. The eastern bongo is larger and heavier than the western bongo. Two other subspecies are described from West and Central Africa, but taxonomic clarification is required. They have been observed to live up to 19 years. Bongos are found in tropical jungles with dense


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: undergrowth up to an altitude of in Central Africa, with isolated populations in Kenya, and these West African countries: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan. Historically, bongos are found in three disjunct parts of Africa: East, Central and West. Today, all three populations’ ranges have shrunk in size due to habitat loss for agriculture and uncontrolled timber cutting, as well as hunting for meat. Bongos favour disturbed forest mosaics that provide fresh, low-level green vegetation. Such habitats may


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: be promoted by heavy browsing by elephants, fires, flooding, tree-felling (natural or by logging), and fallowing. Mass bamboo die-off provides ideal habitat in East Africa. They can live in bamboo forests. Bongos are one of the largest of the forest antelopes. In addition to the deep chestnut colour of their coats, they have bright white stripes on their sides to help with camouflage. Adults of both sexes are similar in size. Adult height is about at the shoulder and length is , including a tail of . Females weigh around , while males weigh about . Its large size puts


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: it as the third-largest in the Bovidae tribe of Strepsicerotini, behind both the common and greater elands by about , and above the greater kudu by about . Both sexes have heavy spiral horns; those of the male are longer and more massive. All bongos in captivity are from the isolated Aberdare Mountains of central Kenya. The bongo sports a bright auburn or chestnut coat, with the neck, chest, and legs generally darker than the rest of the body. Coats of male bongos become darker as they age until they reach a dark mahogany-brown colour. Coats of female bongos are


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: usually more brightly coloured than those of males. The eastern bongo is darker in color than the western and this is especially pronounced in older males which tend to be chestnut brown, especially on the forepart of their bodies. The pigmentation in the coat rubs off quite easily; anecdotal reports suggest rain running off a bongo may be tinted red with pigment. The smooth coat is marked with 10–15 vertical white-yellow stripes, spread along the back from the base of the neck to the rump. The number of stripes on each side is rarely the same. It also has a


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: short, bristly, brown ridge of dorsal hair from the shoulder to the rump; the white stripes run into this ridge. A white chevron appears between the eyes, and two large white spots grace each cheek. Another white chevron occurs where the neck meets the chest. The large ears are to sharpen hearing, and the distinctive coloration may help bongos identify one another in their dark forest habitats. Bongos have no special secretion glands, so rely less on scent to find one another than do other similar antelopes. The lips of a bongo are white, topped with a black muzzle. Bongos


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: have two heavy and slightly spiralled horns that slope over their backs, and like many other antelope species, both male and female bongos have horns. Bongos are the only tragelaphids in which both sexes have horns. The horns of bongos are in the form of a lyre and bear a resemblance to those of the related antelope species of nyalas, sitatungas, bushbucks, kudus and elands. Unlike deer, which have branched antlers shed annually, bongos and other antelopes have pointed horns they keep throughout their lives. Males have massive backswept horns, while females have smaller, thinner, and more parallel horns. The


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: size of the horns range between . The horns twist once. Like all other horns of antelopes, the core of a bongo's horn is hollow and the outer layer of the horn is made of keratin, the same material that makes up human fingernails, toenails. and hair. The bongo runs gracefully and at full speed through even the thickest tangles of lianas, laying its heavy spiralled horns on its back so the brush cannot impede its flight. Bongos are hunted for their horns by humans. Like other forest ungulates, bongos are seldom seen in large groups. Males, called bulls, tend


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: to be solitary, while females with young live in groups of six to eight. Bongos have seldom been seen in herds of more than 20. Gestation is about 285 days (9.5 months), with one young per birth, and weaning occurs at six months. Sexual maturity is reached at 24–27 months. The preferred habitat of this species is so dense and difficult to operate in, that few Europeans or Americans observed this species until the 1960s. As young males mature and leave their maternal groups, they most often remain solitary, although rarely they join an older male. Adult males of similar


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: size/age tend to avoid one another. Occasionally, they meet and spar with their horns in a ritualised manner and it is rare for serious fights to take place. However, such fights are usually discouraged by visual displays, in which the males bulge their necks, roll their eyes, and hold their horns in a vertical position while slowly pacing back and forth in front of the other male. They seek out females only during mating time. When they are with a herd of females, males do not coerce them or try to restrict their movements as do some other antelopes. Although


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: mostly nocturnal, they are occasionally active during the day. However, like deer, bongos may exhibit crepuscular behaviour. Bongos are both timid and easily frightened; after a scare, a bongo moves away at considerable speed, even through dense undergrowth. Once they find cover, they stay alert and face away from the disturbance, but peek every now and then to check the situation. The bongo's hindquarters are less conspicuous than the forequarters, and from this position the animal can quickly flee. When in distress, the bongo emits a bleat. It uses a limited number of vocalisations, mostly grunts and snorts; females have


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: a weak mooing contact-call for their young. Females prefer to use traditional calving grounds restricted to certain areas, while newborn calves lie in hiding for a week or more, receiving short visits by the mother to suckle. The calves grow rapidly and can soon accompany their mothers in the nursery herds. Their horns grow rapidly and begin to show in 3.5 months. They are weaned after six months and reach sexual maturity at about 20 months. Like many forest ungulates, bongos are herbivorous browsers and feed on leaves, bushes, vines, bark and pith of rotting trees, grasses/herbs, roots, cereals, and


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: fruits. Bongos require salt in their diets, and are known to regularly visit natural salt licks. Examination of bongo feces revealed that charcoal from trees burnt by lightning is consumed. This behavior is believed to be a means of getting salts and minerals into their diets. This behavior has also been reported in the okapi. Another similarity to the okapi, though the bongo is unrelated, is that the bongo has a long prehensile tongue which it uses to grasp grasses and leaves. Suitable habitats for bongos must have permanent water available. As a large animal, the bongo requires an ample


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: amount of food, and is restricted to areas with abundant year-round growth of herbs and low shrubs. Few estimates of population density are available. Assuming average population densities of 0.25 animals per km in regions where it is known to be common or abundant, and 0.02 per km elsewhere, and with a total area of occupancy of 327,000 km, a total population estimate of around 28,000 is suggested. Only about 60% are in protected areas, suggesting the actual numbers of the lowland subspecies may only be in the low tens of thousands. In Kenya, their numbers have declined significantly and


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: on Mt. Kenya, they were within the last decade due to illegal hunting with dogs. Although information on their status in the wild is lacking, lowland bongos are not presently considered endangered. Bongos are susceptible to diseases such as rinderpest, which almost exterminated the species during the 1890s. "Tragelaphus eurycerus" may suffer from goitre. Over the course of the disease, the thyroid glands greatly enlarge (up to 10 x 20 cm) and may become polycystic. Pathogenesis of goiter in the bongo may reflect a mixture of genetic predisposition coupled with environmental factors, including a period of exposure to a goitrogen.


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: Leopards and spotted hyenas are the primary natural predators (lions are seldom encountered due to differing habitat preferences); pythons sometimes eat bongo calves. Humans prey on them for their pelts, horns, and meat, with the species being a common local source for "bush meat". Bongo populations have been greatly reduced by hunting, poaching, and animal trapping, although some bongo refuges exist. Although bongos are quite easy for humans to catch using snares, many people native to the bongos' habitat believed that if they ate or touched bongo, they would have spasms similar to epileptic seizures. Because of this superstition, bongos


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: were less harmed in their native ranges than expected. However, these taboos are said no longer to exist, which may account for increased hunting by humans in recent times. An international studbook is maintained to help manage animals held in captivity. Because of its bright colour, it is very popular in zoos and private collections. In North America, over 400 individuals are thought to be held, a population that probably exceeds that of the mountain bongo in the wild. In 2000, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) upgraded the bongo to a Species Survival Plan participant, which works to


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: improve the genetic diversity of managed animal populations. The target population for participating zoos and private collections in North America is 250 animals. Through the efforts of zoos in North America, a reintroduction to the population in Kenya is being developed. At least one collaborative effort for reintroduction between North American wildlife facilities has already been carried out. In 2004, 18 eastern bongos born in North American zoos gathered at White Oak Conservation in Yulee, Florida for release in Kenya. White Oak staff members traveled with the bongos to a Mt. Kenya holding facility, where they stayed until being reintroduced.


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: In the last few decades, a rapid decline in the numbers of wild mountain bongo has occurred due to poaching and human pressure on their habitat, with local extinctions reported in Cherangani and Chepalungu hills, Kenya. The Bongo Surveillance Programme, working alongside the Kenya Wildlife Service, have recorded photos of bongos at remote salt licks in the Aberdare Forests using camera traps, and, by analyzing DNA extracted from dung, have confirmed the presence of bongo in Mount Kenya, Eburru and Mau forests. The programme estimate as few as 140 animals left in the wild – spread across four isolated populations.


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: Whilst captive breeding programmes can be viewed as having been successful in ensuring survival of this species in Europe and North America, the situation in the wild has been less promising. Evidence exists of bongo surviving in Kenya. However, these populations are believed to be small, fragmented, and vulnerable to extinction. Animal populations with impoverished genetic diversity are inherently less able to adapt to changes in their environments (such as climate change, disease outbreaks, habitat change, etc.). The isolation of the four remaining small bongo populations, which themselves would appear to be in decline, means a substantial amount of genetic


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: material is lost each generation. Whilst the population remains small, the impact of transfers will be greater, so the establishment of a "metapopulation management plan" occurs concurrently with conservation initiatives to enhance "in situ" population growth, and this initiative is both urgent and fundamental to the future survival of mountain bongo in the wild. The western/lowland bongo faces an ongoing population decline as habitat destruction and hunting pressures increase with the relentless expansion of human settlement. Its long-term survival will only be assured in areas which receive active protection and management. At present, such areas comprise about 30,000 km, and


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: several are in countries where political stability is fragile. So, a realistic possibility exists whereby its status could decline to Threatened in the near future. As the largest and most spectacular forest antelope, the western/lowland bongo is both an important flagship species for protected areas such as national parks, and a major trophy species which has been taken in increasing numbers in Central Africa by sport hunters during the 1990s. Both of these factors are strong incentives to provide effective protection and management of populations. Trophy hunting has the potential to provide economic justification for the preservation of larger areas


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: of bongo habitat than national parks, especially in remote regions of Central Africa, where possibilities for commercially successful tourism are very limited. The eastern/mountain bongo’s survival in the wild is dependent on more effective protection of the surviving remnant populations in Kenya. If this does not occur, it will eventually become extinct in the wild. The existence of a healthy captive population of this subspecies offers the potential for its reintroduction. In 2004, Dr. Jake Veasey, the head of the Department of Animal Management and Conservation at Woburn Safari Park and a member of the European Association of Zoos and


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: Aquariums Population Management Advisory Group, with the assistance of Lindsay Banks, took over responsibility for the management and coordination of the European Endangered Species Programme for the eastern bongo. This includes some 250 animals across Europe and the Middle East. Along with the Rothschild giraffe, the eastern bongo is arguably one of the most threatened large mammals in Africa, with recent estimates numbering less than 140 animals, below a minimum sustainable viable population. The situation is exacerbated because these animals are spread across four isolated populations. Whilst the bongo endangered species program can be viewed as having been successful in


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: ensuring survival of this species in Europe, it has not yet become actively involved in the conservation of this species in the wild in a coordinated fashion. The plan is to engage in conservation activities in Kenya to assist in reversing the decline of the eastern bongo populations and genetic diversity in Africa, and in particular, applying population management expertise to help ensure the persistence of genetic diversity in the free ranging wild populations. To illustrate significance of genetic diversity loss, assume the average metapopulation size is 35 animals based on 140 animals spread across four populations (140/4=35). Assuming stable


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: populations, these populations will lose 8% of their genetic diversity every decade. By managing all four populations as one, through strategic transfers, gene loss is reduced from 8% to 2% per decade, without any increase in bongo numbers in Kenya. By managing the European and African populations as one – by strategic exports from Europe combined with "in situ" transfers, gene loss is reduced to 0.72% every 100 years, with both populations remaining stable. If populations in Kenya are allowed to grow through the implementation of effective conservation, including strategic transfers, gene loss can be effectively halted in this species


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: and its future secured in the wild. The initial aims of the project are: If effective protection were implemented immediately and bongo populations allowed to expand without transfers, then this would create a bigger population of genetically impoverished bongos. These animals would be less able to adapt to a dynamic environment. Whilst the population remains small, the impact of transfers will be greater. For this reason, the 'metapopulation management plan' must occur concurrently with conservation strategies to enhance "in situ" population growth. This initiative is both urgent and fundamental to the future survival of the mountain bongo in the wild.


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: In 2013, SafariCom telecommunications donated money to the Bongo Surveillance Programme to try to keep tabs on what are thought to be the last 100 eastern bongos left in the wild in the Mau Eburu Forest in central Kenya, whose numbers are still declining due to logging of their habitat and illegal poaching. Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy runs a bongo rehabilitation program in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service. The Conservancy aims to prevent extinction of the bongo through breeding and release back into the wild. In 2002 the IUCN listed the western/lowland species as Near Threatened. These bongos may


title: "Bongo (antelope)" content: be endangered due to human environmental interaction, as well as hunting and illegal actions towards wildlife. CITES lists bongos as an Appendix III species, only regulating their exportation from a single country, Ghana. It is not protected by the US Endangered Species Act and is not listed by the USFWS. The IUCN Antelope Specialist Group considers the western or lowland bongo, "T. e. eurycerus", to be Lower Risk (Near Threatened), and the eastern or mountain bongo, "T. e. isaaci", of Kenya, to be Critically Endangered. Other subspecific names have been used, but their validity has not been tested. Bongo (antelope)


title: "Genetically modified maize" content: resistance to MSV isn't done in the public, the private sector, international research centers, and national programmes have done all of the breeding. As of 2014, there have been a few MSV-tolerant cultivars released in Africa. A private company Seedco has released 5 MSV cultivars. US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations require farmers who plant Bt corn to plant non-Bt corn nearby (called a refuge) to provide a location to harbor vulnerable pests. Typically, 20% of corn in a grower's fields must be refuge; refuge must be at least 0.5 miles from Bt corn for lepidopteran pests, and refuge for


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: Ballpoint pen A ballpoint pen, also known as a biro or ball pen, is a pen that dispenses ink (usually in paste form) over a metal ball at its point, i.e. over a "ball point". The metal commonly used is steel, brass, or tungsten carbide. It was conceived and developed as a cleaner and more reliable alternative to dip pens and fountain pens, and it is now the world's most-used writing instrument: millions are manufactured and sold daily. As a result, it has influenced art and graphic design and spawned an artwork genre. Pen manufacturers produce designer ballpoint pens for


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: the high-end and collectors' markets. The Bic Cristal is a popular disposable type of ballpoint pen whose design is recognised by its place in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The concept of using a "ball point" within a writing instrument as a method of applying ink to paper has existed since the late 19th century. In these inventions, the ink was placed in a thin tube whose end was blocked by a tiny ball, held so that it could not slip into the tube or fall out of the pen. The first patent for


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: a ballpoint pen was issued on 30 October 1888 to John J. Loud, who was attempting to make a writing instrument that would be able to write "on rough surfaces-such as wood, coarse wrapping-paper, and other articles" which then-common fountain pens could not. Loud's pen had a small rotating steel ball, held in place by a socket. Although it could be used to mark rough surfaces such as leather, as Loud intended, it proved to be too coarse for letter-writing. With no commercial viability, its potential went unexploited and the patent eventually lapsed. The manufacture of economical, reliable ballpoint pens


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: as we know them arose from experimentation, modern chemistry, and precision manufacturing capabilities of the early 20th century. Patents filed worldwide during early development are testaments to failed attempts at making the pens commercially viable and widely available. Early ballpoints did not deliver the ink evenly; overflow and clogging were among the obstacles inventors faced toward developing reliable ballpoint pens. If the ball socket was too tight, or the ink too thick, it would not reach the paper. If the socket was too loose, or the ink too thin, the pen would leak or the ink would smear. Ink reservoirs


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: pressurized by piston, spring, capillary action, and gravity would all serve as solutions to ink-delivery and flow problems. László Bíró, a Hungarian newspaper editor frustrated by the amount of time that he wasted filling up fountain pens and cleaning up smudged pages, noticed that inks used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge free. He decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. Bíró enlisted the help of his brother György, a chemist, to develop viscous ink formulae for new ballpoint designs. Bíró's innovation successfully coupled ink-viscosity with a ball-socket mechanism which acted


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: compatibly to prevent ink from drying inside the reservoir while allowing controlled flow. Bíró filed a British patent on 15 June 1938. In 1941, the Bíró brothers and a friend, Juan Jorge Meyne, fled Germany and moved to Argentina, where they formed "Bíró Pens of Argentina" and filed a new patent in 1943. Their pen was sold in Argentina as the "Birome" (portmanteau of the names Bíró and Meyne), which is how ballpoint pens are still known in that country. This new design was licensed by the British, who produced ballpoint pens for RAF aircrew as the "Biro". Ballpoint pens


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: were found to be more versatile than fountain pens, especially at high altitudes, where fountain pens were prone to ink-leakage. Bíró's patent, and other early patents on ballpoint pens often used the term "ball-point fountain pen". Following World War II, many companies vied to commercially produce their own ballpoint pen design. In post-war Argentina, success of the Birome ballpoint was limited, but in mid-1945, the "Eversharp" Co., a maker of mechanical pencils, teamed up with Eberhard Faber Co. to license the rights from Birome for sales in the United States. During the same period, American entrepreneur Milton Reynolds came across


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: a Birome ballpoint pen during a business trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Recognizing commercial potential, he purchased several ballpoint samples, returned to the United States, and founded "Reynolds International Pen Company". Reynolds bypassed the Birome patent with sufficient design alterations to obtain an American patent, beating Eversharp and other competitors to introduce the pen to the U.S. market. Debuting at Gimbels department store in New York City on 29 October 1945, for US$12.50 each (1945 US dollar value, about $ in dollars), "Reynolds Rocket" became the first commercially successful ballpoint pen. Reynolds went to great extremes to market the pen,


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: with great success; Gimbel's sold many thousands of pens within one week. In Britain, the Miles Martin pen company was producing the first commercially successful ballpoint pens there by the end of 1945. Neither Reynolds' nor Eversharp's ballpoint lived up to consumer expectations in America. Ballpoint pen sales peaked in 1946, and consumer interest subsequently plunged due to market-saturation. By the early 1950s the ballpoint boom had subsided and Reynolds' company folded. Paper Mate pens, among the emerging ballpoint brands of the 1950s, bought the rights to distribute their own ballpoint pens in Canada. Facing concerns about ink-reliability, Paper Mate


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: pioneered new ink formulas and advertised them as "banker-approved". In 1954, Parker Pens released "The Jotter"—the company's first ballpoint—boasting additional features and technological advances which also included the use of tungsten-carbide textured ball-bearings in their pens. In less than a year, Parker sold several million pens at prices between three and nine dollars. In the 1960s, the failing Eversharp Co. sold its pen division to Parker and ultimately folded. Marcel Bich also introduced a ballpoint pen to the American marketplace in the 1950s, licensed from Bíró and based on the Argentine designs. Bich shortened his name to Bic in 1953,


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: becoming the ballpoint brand now recognised globally. Bic pens struggled until the company launched its "Writes The First Time, Every Time!" advertising campaign in the 1960s. Competition during this era forced unit prices to drop considerably. Ballpoint pen ink is normally a paste containing around 25 to 40 percent dye. The dyes are suspended in a solvent of "oil". The most common of the oils are benzyl alcohol or phenoxyethanol, which mix with the dyes to create a smooth paste that dries quickly. The dyes used in blue and black ballpoint pens are basic dyes based on triarylmethane and acid


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: dyes derived from diazo compounds or phthalocyanine. Common dyes in blue (and black) ink are Prussian blue, Victoria blue, methyl violet, crystal violet and phthalocyanine blue. The dye eosin is commonly used for red ink. The inks are resistant to water after drying but can be defaced by certain solvents. Ballpoint pens are produced in both disposable and refillable models. Refills allow for the entire internal ink reservoir, including a ballpoint and socket, to be replaced. Such characteristics are usually associated with designer-type pens or those constructed of finer materials. The simplest types of ballpoint pens are disposable and have


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: a cap to cover the tip when the pen is not in use, or a mechanism for retracting the tip, which varies between manufacturers but is usually a spring- or screw-mechanism. Rollerball pens employ the same ballpoint mechanics, but with the use of water-based inks instead of oil-based inks. Compared to oil-based ballpoints, rollerball pens are said to provide more fluid ink-flow, but the water-based inks will blot if held stationary against the writing surface. Water-based inks also remain wet longer when freshly applied and are thus prone to "smearing"—posing problems to left-handed people (or right handed people writing right-to-left


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: script)—and "running", should the writing surface become wet. Some ballpoint pens use a hybrid ink formulation whose viscosity is lower than that of standard ballpoint ink, but greater than rollerball ink. The ink dries faster than a standard ballpoint to prevent smearing when writing. These pens are better suited for left handed persons. Examples are the Uni Jetstream and Pilot Acroball ranges. These pens are also labelled "extra smooth", as they offer a smoother writing experience compared to normal ballpoint pens. Because of a ballpoint pen's reliance on gravity to coat the ball with ink, most cannot be used to


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: write upside-down. However, technology developed by Fisher pens in the United States resulted in the production of what came to be known as the "Fisher Space Pen". Space Pens combine a more viscous ink with a pressurised ink reservoir that forces the ink toward the point. Unlike standard ballpoints, the rear end of a Space Pen's pressurized reservoir is sealed, eliminating evaporation and leakage, thus allowing the pen to write upside-down, in zero-gravity environments, and reportedly underwater. Astronauts have made use of these pens in outer space. Ballpoint pens with erasable ink were pioneered by the Paper Mate pen company.


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: The ink formulas of erasable ballpoints have properties similar to rubber cement, allowing the ink to be literally rubbed clean from the writing surface before drying and eventually becoming permanent. Erasable ink is much thicker than standard ballpoint inks, requiring pressurised cartridges to facilitate inkflow—meaning they can also write upside-down. Though these pens are equipped with erasers, any eraser will suffice. The inexpensive, disposable Bic Cristal (also simply "Bic pen" or "Biro") is reportedly the most widely sold pen in the world. It was the Bic company's first product and is still synonymous with the company name. The Bic Cristal


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: is part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, acknowledged for its industrial design. Its hexagonal barrel mimics that of a wooden pencil and is transparent, showing the ink level in the reservoir. Originally a sealed streamlined cap, the modern pen cap has a small hole at the top to meet safety standards, helping to prevent suffocation if children suck it into the throat. Multipens are pens that feature multiple varying colored ballpoint refills. Sometimes ballpoint refills are combined with another non-ballpoint refill. Sometimes ballpoint pens combine a ballpoint tip on one end


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: and touchscreen stylus on the other. Ballpoint pens are sometimes provided free by businesses, such as hotels, as a form of advertising—printed with a company's name; a ballpoint pen is a relatively low cost advertisement that is highly effective (customers will use, and therefore see, a pen daily). Businesses and charities include ballpoint pens in direct mail campaigns to increase a customer's interest in the mailing. Ballpoints have also been produced to commemorate events, such as a pen commemorating the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Ballpoint pens have proven to be a versatile art medium for professional artists


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: as well as amateur doodlers. Low cost, availability, and portability are cited by practitioners as qualities which make this common writing tool a convenient, alternative art supply. Some artists use them within mixed-media works, while others use them solely as their medium-of-choice. Effects not generally associated with ballpoint pens can be achieved. Traditional pen-and-ink techniques such as stippling and cross-hatching can be used to create half-tones or the illusion of form and volume. For artists whose interests necessitate precision line-work, ballpoints are an obvious attraction; ballpoint pens allow for sharp lines not as effectively executed using a brush. Finely applied,


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: the resulting imagery has been mistaken for airbrushed artwork and photography, causing reactions of disbelief which ballpoint artist Lennie Mace refers to as the "Wow Factor". Famous 20th-century artists such as Andy Warhol, among others, have utilised ballpoint pens to some extent during their careers. Ballpoint pen artwork continues to attract interest in the 21st century, with contemporary artists gaining recognition for their specific use of ballpoint pens; for their technical proficiency, imagination, and innovation. Korean-American artist Il Lee has been creating large-scale, ballpoint-only abstract artwork since the late 1970s. Since the 1980s, Lennie Mace creates imaginative, ballpoint-only artwork of


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: varying content and complexity, applied to unconventional surfaces including wood and denim. The artist coined terms such as "PENtings" and "Media Graffiti" to describe his varied output. More recently, British artist James Mylne has been creating photo-realistic artwork using mostly black ballpoints, sometimes with minimal mixed-media color. In the mid-2000s (decade), Juan Francisco Casas generated Internet attention for a series of large-scale, photo-realistic ballpoint duplications of his own snapshots of friends, utilising only blue pens. Using ballpoint pens to create artwork is not without limitations. Color availability and sensitivity of ink to light are among concerns of ballpoint pen artists.


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: Mistakes pose greater risks to ballpoint artists; once a line is drawn, it generally cannot be erased. Additionally, "blobbing" of ink on the drawing surface and "skipping" of ink-flow require consideration when using ballpoint pens for artistic purposes. Although the mechanics of ballpoint pens remain relatively unchanged, ink composition has evolved to solve certain problems over the years, resulting in unpredictable sensitivity to light and some extent of fading. Although designs and construction vary between brands, basic components of all ballpoint pens are universal. Standard components of a ballpoint tip include the freely rotating "ball" itself (distributing the ink on


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: the writing surface), a "socket" holding the ball in place, small "ink channels" that provide ink to the ball through the socket, and a self-contained "ink reservoir" supplying ink to the ball. In modern disposable pens, narrow plastic tubes contain the ink, which is compelled downward to the ball by gravity. Brass, steel, or tungsten carbide are used to manufacture the ball bearing-like points, then housed in a brass socket. The function of these components can be compared with the ball-applicator of roll-on antiperspirant; the same technology at a larger scale. The ballpoint tip delivers the ink to the writing


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: surface while acting as a "buffer" between the ink in the reservoir and the air outside, preventing the quick-drying ink from drying inside the reservoir. Modern ballpoints are said to have a two-year shelf life, on average. A ballpoint tip that can write comfortably for a long period of time is not easy to produce as it requires high-precision machinery and thin high grade steel alloy plates. China, which currently (2017) produces about 80 percent of the world's ballpoint pens, relied up to 2017 on imported ballpoint tips and metal alloys. The common ballpoint pen is a product of mass


title: "Ballpoint pen" content: production, with components produced separately on assembly lines. Basic steps in the manufacturing process include the production of ink formulas, moulding of metal and plastic components, and assembly. Marcel Bich was involved in developing the production of inexpensive ballpoint pens. The International Organization for Standardization has published standards for ball point and roller ball pens: Ballpoint pen A ballpoint pen, also known as a biro or ball pen, is a pen that dispenses ink (usually in paste form) over a metal ball at its point, i.e. over a "ball point". The metal commonly used is steel, brass, or tungsten carbide.


title: "Bill Haley" content: from Kentucky and played the banjo and mandolin, and his mother, Maude Green, who was originally from Ulverston in Lancashire, England, was a technically accomplished keyboardist with classical training. Haley told the story that when he made a simulated guitar out of cardboard, his parents bought him a real one. One of his first appearances was in 1938 for a Bethel Junior baseball team entertainment event, performing guitar and songs when he was 13 years old. The anonymous sleeve notes accompanying the 1956 Decca album "Rock Around The Clock" describe Haley's early life and career: "When Bill Haley was fifteen


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: Northern bobwhite The northern bobwhite, Virginia quail or (in its home range) bobwhite quail ("Colinus virginianus") is a ground-dwelling bird native to Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean. It is a member of the group of species known as New World quails (Odontophoridae). They were initially placed with the Old World quails in the pheasant family (Phasianidae), but are not particularly closely related. The name "bobwhite" derives from its characteristic whistling call. Despite its secretive nature, the northern bobwhite is one of the most familiar quails in eastern North America because it is frequently the only quail in


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: its range. Habitat degradation has likely contributed to the northern bobwhite population in eastern North America declining by roughly 85% from 1966-2014. This population decline is apparently range-wide and continuing. There are 21 subspecies of northern bobwhite, many of which are hunted extensively as game birds. One subspecies, the masked bobwhite ("Colinus virginianus ridgwayi"), is listed as endangered with wild populations located in the northern Mexican state of Sonora and a reintroduced population in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona. This is a moderately-sized quail and is the only small galliform native to eastern North America. The bobwhite


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: can range from in length with a wingspan. As indicated by body mass, weights increase in birds found further north, as corresponds to Bergmann's rule. In Mexico, northern bobwhites weigh from whereas in the north they average and large males can attain as much as . Among standard measurements, the wing chord is , the tail is the culmen is and the tarsus is . It has the typical chunky, rounded shape of a quail. The bill is short, curved and brown-black in color. This species is sexually dimorphic. Males have a white throat and brow stripe bordered by black.


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: The overall rufous plumage has gray mottling on the wings, white scalloped stripes on the flanks, and black scallops on the whitish underparts. The tail is gray. Females are similar but are duller overall and have a buff throat and brow without the black border. Both sexes have pale legs and feet. There are twenty-one recognized subspecies in 3 groups. 1 subspecies is extinct. The northern bobwhite's diet consists of plant material and small invertebrates, such as ticks, snails, grasshoppers, beetles, spiders, crickets, and leafhoppers. Plant sources include seeds, wild berries, partridge peas, and cultivated grains. It forages on the


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: ground in open areas with some spots of taller vegetation. Optimal nutrient requirements for bobwhite vary depending on the age of bird and time of year. For example, optimal protein and energy requirements for egg laying hens (23% protein) is much higher than males (16%). The northern bobwhite can be found year-round in agricultural fields, grassland, open woodland areas, roadsides and wood edges. Its range covers the southeastern quadrant of the United States from the Great Lakes and southern Minnesota east to Pennsylvania and southern Massachusetts, and extending west to southern Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado front-range foothills to 7000 feet,


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: and all but westernmost Texas. It is absent from the southern tip of Florida and the highest elevations of the Appalachian Mountains, but occurs in eastern Mexico and in Cuba. Isolated populations have been introduced in Oregon and Washington. The northern bobwhite has also been introduced to New Zealand. The clear whistle "bob-WHITE" or "bob-bob-WHITE" call is very recognizable. The syllables are slow and widely spaced, rising in pitch a full octave from beginning to end. Other calls include lisps, peeps, and more rapidly whistled warning calls. Another phrase to used mimic the call of the bobwhite is "Bobwhite, your


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: (bob) peas (bob) ripe (white)?". Like most game birds, the northern bobwhite is shy and elusive. When threatened, it will crouch and freeze, relying on camouflage to stay undetected, but will flush into low flight if closely disturbed. It is generally solitary or paired early in the year, but family groups are common in the late summer and winter roosts may have two dozen or more birds in a single covey. The species was once considered monogamous, but with the advent of radio telemetry, the sexual behavior of bobwhites has better been described as ambisexual polygamy. Either parent may incubate


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: a clutch for 23 days, and the precocial young leave the nest shortly after hatching. The main source of nest failure is predation, with nest success averaging 28% across their range. However, the nest success of stable populations is typically much higher than this average, and the aforementioned estimate includes values for declining populations. Brooding behavior varies in that amalgamation (kidnapping, adopting, creching, gang brooding) may occur. An incubating parent may alternatively stay with their young. A hen may renest up to 4 times until she has a successful nest. However, it is extremely rare for bobwhites to hatch more


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: than 2 successful nests within one nesting season. Northern bobwhite were introduced into Italy in 1927, and are reported in the plains and hills in the northwest of the country. Other reports from the EU are in France, Spain, and Yugoslavia. As bobwhites are highly productive and popular aviary subjects, it is reasonable to expect other introductions have been made in other parts of the EU, especially in the UK and Ireland, where game-bird breeding, liberation, and naturalisation are relatively common practices. From 1898 to 1902, some 1300 birds were imported from America and released in many parts of the


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: North and South Islands, from Northland to Southland. The bird was briefly on the Nelson game shooting licence, but: "It would seem that the committee was a little too eager in placing these Quail on the licence, or the shooters of the day were over-zealous and greedy in their bag limits, for the Virginian Quail, like the Mountain Quail were soon thing of the past." The Taranaki (Acclimatisation) Society released a few in 1900 and was confidant that in a year or two they might offer good sport; two years later, broods were reported and the species was said to


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: be "steadily increasing"; but after another two years they seemed "to have disappeared" and that was the end of them. The Otago (Acclimatisation) Society imported more in 1948, but these releases "did no good". After 1923, no more genuinely wild birds were sighted until 1952, when a small population was found North-West of Wairoa in the Ruapapa Road area. Since then bobwhite have been found at several localities around Waikaremoana, in farmland, open bush and along roadsides. More birds have been imported into New Zealand by private individuals since the 1990s and a healthy captive population is now held by


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: backyard aviculturists and have been found to be easily cared for, bred, and are popular for their song and good looks. A larger proportion of the national captive population belong to a few game preserves and game bird breeders. Though the birds would be self-sustaining in the wild if they were protected; it is tricky to guess what the effect of an annual population subsidy and hunting has on any of the original populations from the Acclimatisation Society releases. It would be fair to suggest most birds in the wild are no more than one generation from captive stock. An


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: albino hen was present in a covey in Bayview, Hawkes Bay for a couple of seasons sometime around 2000. Bobwhites are popular throughout the world, with healthy captive populations everywhere where bird-keeping is enjoyed. Certain countries/states require permits and record keeping, as the possibility that an introduced population may compete with or spread diseases with native quail is a real threat. Bobwhites are generally compatible with most parrots, softbills and dove. This species should, however, be the only ground-dwelling species in the aviary. Most individuals will do little damage to finches, but one should watch that nests are not being


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: crushed when the species perches at night. Single pairs are preferred, unless the birds have been raised together as a group since they were chicks. Some fighting will occur between cocks at breeding time. One cock may be capable of servicing several hens at once, but the fertility seems to be highest in the eggs from the "preferred" hen. Aviary style is a compromise between what is tolerated by the bird and what is best for the bird. Open parrot-style type aviaries may be used, but some birds will remain flighty and shy in this situation. In a planted aviary,


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: this species will generally settle down to become quite tame and confiding. Parents with chicks will roost on the ground, forming a circular arrangement, with heads facing outwards. In the early morning and late afternoon, the cock will utter its call, which, although not loud, carries well and may offend noise-sensitive neighbors. Most breeding facilities keep birds in breeding groups, on wire up off the ground. This keeps the birds clean and generally avoids diseases and parasites which can devastate a covey. Cages with mesh floors for pairs and trios are also employed, but usually where there is a photo-period


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: manipulation to keep birds breeding through winter. In the wild the bobwhite feeds on a variety of seeds of weeds, grasses, as well as insects. These are generally collected on the ground or from low foliage. Birds in the aviary are easily catered for with a commercial small seed mix (finch, budgerigar, or small parrot mix) when supplemented with greenfeed. Live food is not usually necessary for breeding, but will be ravenously accepted. High protein foods such as chicken grower crumble are more convenient to supply and will be useful for the stimulation of breeding birds. Extra calcium is required,


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: especially by laying hens; it can be supplied in the form of shell grit, or cuttlefish bone. In an open aviary hens will lay all over the show if a nesting site and privacy are not provided. Hens that do this may lay upwards of 80 eggs in a season which can be taken for artificial incubation - and chicks hand raised. Otherwise hens with nesting cover, that do make a nest (on the ground) will build up 8–25 eggs in a clutch, with eggs being laid daily Some captive bobwhite hybrids recorded are between blue quail (scaled quail), Gambel's


title: "Northern bobwhite" content: quail, California quail, mountain quail and it has long been suggested that there are Japanese quail hybrids being bred commercially; there is a distinct lack of photographic proof to substantiate this. Inter-subspecific hybrids have been common. Several mutations have long been established, including Californian Jumbo, Wisconsin Jumbo, Northern Giant, Albino, Snowflake, Blonde, Fawn, Barred, Silver, and Red. The Central American spot-bellied bobwhite looks very similar, but lacks black facial coloration. The Asian rain quail is smaller in size and has a black breast. Northern bobwhite The northern bobwhite, Virginia quail or (in its home range) bobwhite quail ("Colinus virginianus") is


title: Bikini content: Bikini A bikini is typically a women's two-piece swimsuit featuring two triangles of fabric on top, similar to a bra and covering the woman's breasts, and two triangles of fabric on the bottom, the front covering the pelvis but exposing the navel, and the back covering the buttocks. The size of the top and bottom can vary from full coverage of the breasts, pelvis, and buttocks, to very skimpy designs like a thong or G-string that cover only the areola and mons pubis, but expose the buttocks. In May, 1946, fashion designer Jacques Heim from Paris released a two-piece swimsuit


title: Bikini content: design that he named the Atome. Like swimsuits of the era, it covered the wearer's navel, and it failed to attract much attention. Clothing designer Louis Réard introduced his new, smaller design in July. He named the swimsuit after the Bikini Atoll, where the first public test of a nuclear bomb had taken place only four days before. His skimpy design was risque, exposing the wearer's navel and much of her buttocks. No runway model would wear it, so he hired a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris to model it at a review of swimsuit fashions. Due to


title: Bikini content: its controversial and revealing design, the bikini was accepted very slowly by the public. It gained increased exposure and acceptance as film stars like Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch, and Ursula Andress wore them and were photographed on public beaches and seen in film. In many countries the design was banned from beaches and other public places. The minimalist bikini design became common in most Western countries by the mid-1960s as both swimwear and underwear. By the late 20th century it was widely used as sportswear in beach volleyball and bodybuilding. There are a number of modern stylistic variations of the


title: Bikini content: design used for marketing purposes and as industry classifications, including monokini, microkini, tankini, trikini, pubikini, and skirtini. A man's single-piece brief swimsuit may also be called a bikini. Similarly, a variety of men's and women's underwear types are described as bikini underwear. The bikini has gradually gained wide acceptance in Western society. By the early 2000s, bikinis had become a US$811 million business annually, and boosted spin-off services such as bikini waxing and sun tanning. While the two-piece swimsuit as a design existed in classical antiquity, the modern design first attracted public notice in Paris on July 5, 1946. French


title: Bikini content: automotive engineer Louis Réard introduced a design he named the "bikini", adopting the name from the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, which was the colonial name the Germans gave to the atoll, transliterated from the Marshallese name for the island, . Four days earlier, the United States had initiated its first peace-time nuclear weapons test at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Crossroads. Réard hoped his swimsuit's revealing style would create an "explosive commercial and cultural reaction" similar to the explosion at Bikini Atoll. By making an analogy with words like "bilingual" and "bilateral" containing the Latin prefix "bi-"


title: Bikini content: (meaning "two" in Latin), the word "bikini" was first back-derived as consisting of two parts, ["bi" + "kini"] by Rudi Gernreich, who introduced the monokini in 1964. Later swimsuit designs like the tankini and trikini further cemented this derivation. Over time the ""–kini" family" (as dubbed by author William Safire), including the ""–ini" sisters" (as dubbed by designer Anne Cole), expanded into a variety of swimwear including the monokini (also known as a numokini or unikini), seekini, tankini, camikini, hikini (also hipkini), minikini, face-kini, burkini, and microkini. The "Language Report", compiled by lexicographer Susie Dent and published by the Oxford


title: Bikini content: University Press (OUP) in 2003, considers lexicographic inventions like bandeaukini and camkini, two variants of the tankini, important to observe. Although "bikini" was originally a registered trademark of Réard, it has since become genericized. Variations of the term are used to describe stylistic variations for promotional purposes and industry classifications, including monokini, microkini, tankini, trikini, pubikini, bandeaukini and skirtini. A man's brief swimsuit may also be referred to as a bikini. Similarly, a variety of men's and women's underwear types are described as bikini underwear. Archaeologist James Mellaart described the earliest bikini-like costume in Çatalhöyük, Anatolia in the Chalcolithic era


title: Bikini content: (around 5600 BC), where a mother goddess is depicted astride two leopards wearing a costume somewhat like a bikini. The two-piece swimsuit can be traced back to the Greco-Roman world, where bikini-like garments worn by women athletes are depicted on urns and paintings dating back to 1400 BC. In "Coronation of the Winner," a mosaic in the floor of a Roman villa in Sicily that dates from the Diocletian period (286–305 AD), young women participate in weightlifting, discus throwing, and running ball games dressed in bikini-like garments (technically bandeaukinis in modern lexicon). The mosaic, found in the Sicilian Villa Romana


title: Bikini content: del Casale, features ten maidens who have been anachronistically dubbed the "Bikini Girls". Other Roman archaeological finds depict the goddess Venus in a similar garment. In Pompeii, depictions of Venus wearing a bikini were discovered in the Casa della Venere, in the "tablinum" of the House of Julia Felix, and in an atrium garden of Via Dell'Abbondanza. Swimming or bathing outdoors was discouraged in the Christian West, so there was little demand or need for swimming or bathing costumes until the 18th century. The bathing gown of the 18th century was a loose ankle-length full-sleeve chemise-type gown made of wool


title: Bikini content: or flannel that retained coverage and modesty. In 1907, Australian swimmer and performer Annette Kellerman was arrested on a Boston beach for wearing form-fitting sleeveless one-piece knitted swimming tights that covered her from neck to toe, a costume she adopted from England, although it became accepted swimsuit attire for women in parts of Europe by 1910. In 1913, designer Carl Jantzen made the first functional two-piece swimwear. Inspired by the introduction of females into Olympic swimming he designed a close-fitting costume with shorts for the bottom and short sleeves for the top. During the 1920s and 1930s, people began to


title: Bikini content: shift from "taking in the water" to "taking in the sun", at bathhouses and spas, and swimsuit designs shifted from functional considerations to incorporate more decorative features. Rayon was used in the 1920s in the manufacture of tight-fitting swimsuits, but its durability, especially when wet, proved problematic. Jersey and silk were also sometimes used. By the 1930s, manufacturers had lowered necklines in the back, removed sleeves, and tightened the sides. With the development of new clothing materials, particularly latex and nylon, swimsuits gradually began hugging the body through the 1930s, with shoulder straps that could be lowered for tanning. Women's


title: Bikini content: swimwear of the 1930s and 1940s incorporated increasing degrees of midriff exposure. The 1932 Hollywood film "Three on a Match" featured a midriff baring two piece bathing suit. Teen magazines of late 1940s and 1950s featured similar designs of midriff-baring suits and tops. However, midriff fashion was stated as only for beaches and informal events and considered indecent to be worn in public. Hollywood endorsed the new glamor in films like 1949's "Neptune's Daughter" in which Esther Williams wore provocatively named costumes such as "Double Entendre" and "Honey Child". Wartime production during World War II required vast amounts of cotton,


title: Bikini content: silk, nylon, wool, leather, and rubber. In 1942, the United States War Production Board issued Regulation L-85, cutting the use of natural fibers in clothing and mandating a 10% reduction in the amount of fabric in women's beachwear. To comply with the regulations, swimsuit manufacturers removed skirt panels and other attachments, while increasing production of the two-piece swimsuit with bare midriffs. At the same time, demand for all swimwear declined as there was not much interest in going to the beach, especially in Europe. In post-World War II Europe, Western Europeans enjoyed their first war-free summer in many years. French


title: Bikini content: designers sought to deliver fashions that matched the liberated mood of the people. Fabric was still in short supply, and in an endeavor to resurrect swimwear sales, two French designers – Jacques Heim and Louis Réard – almost simultaneously launched new two-piece swimsuit designs in 1946. Heim launched a two-piece swimsuit design in Paris that he called the "atome", after the smallest known particle of matter. He announced that it was the "world's smallest bathing suit." Although briefer than the two-piece swimsuits of the 1930s, the bottom of Heim's new two-piece beach costume still covered the wearer's navel. Soon after,


title: Bikini content: Louis Réard created a competing two-piece swimsuit design, which he called the "bikini". He noticed that women at the beach rolled up the edges of their swimsuit bottoms and tops to improve their tan. He introduced his design at a swimsuit review held at the popular public pool, Piscine Molitor, four days after the first test of a nuclear weapon at the Bikini Atoll. The newspapers were full of news about it and Reard hoped for the same with his design. Réard's "bikini" undercut Heim's "atome" in its brevity. His design consisted of a two triangles of fabric forming a


title: Bikini content: bra, and two triangular pieces of fabric covering the mons pubis and the buttocks connected by string. When he was unable to find a fashion model willing to showcase his revealing design, Réard hired Micheline Bernardini, a 19-year old nude dancer from the Casino de Paris. He announced that his swimsuit, with a total area of of cloth, was "smaller than the world’s smallest bathing suit.". Réard said that "like the [atom] bomb, the bikini is small and devastating". Fashion writer Diana Vreeland described the bikini as the "atom bomb of fashion". Bernardini received 50,000 fan letters, many of them


title: Bikini content: from men. Photographs of Bernardini and articles about the event were widely carried by the press. The "International Herald Tribune" alone ran nine stories on the event. French newspaper "Le Figaro" wrote, "People were craving the simple pleasures of the sea and the sun. For women, wearing a bikini signaled a kind of second liberation. There was really nothing sexual about this. It was instead a celebration of freedom and a return to the joys in life." Heim's "atome" was more in keeping with the sense of propriety of the 1940s, but Réard's design won the public's attention. Although Heim's


title: Bikini content: design was the first worn on the beach and initially sold more swimsuits, it was Réard's description of the two-piece swimsuit as a "bikini" that stuck. As competing designs emerged, he declared in advertisements that a swimsuit could not be a genuine bikini "unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring." Modern bikinis were first made of cotton and jersey. Despite the garment's initial success in France, women worldwide continued to wear traditional one-piece swimsuits. When his sales stalled, Réard went back to designing and selling orthodox knickers. In 1950, American swimsuit mogul Fred Cole, owner of mass market


title: Bikini content: swimwear firm Cole of California, told "Time" that he had "little but scorn for France's famed Bikinis." Réard himself would later describe it as a "two-piece bathing suit which reveals everything about a girl except for her mother's maiden name." Fashion magazine "Modern Girl Magazine" in 1957 stated that "it is hardly necessary to waste words over the so-called bikini since it is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing". In 1951, Eric Morley organized the "Festival Bikini Contest", a beauty contest and swimwear advertising opportunity at that year's Festival of Britain. The