title: Foamcore content: in 1993, and the business is currently operated by 3A Composites. It is now widely used as backing in art and document mounting and picture framing, with archival-quality variants now available from several companies. It ranges in thickness from 1/16"–1/2". It is not recyclable or biodegradable in normal situations. The surface of the regular board, like many other types of paper, is slightly acidic. However, for modern archival picture framing and art mounting purposes it can be produced in a neutral, acid-free version with a buffered surface paper, in a wide range of sizes and thicknesses. Foam-cored materials are also


title: Ethylmercury content: Ethylmercury Ethylmercury (sometimes ethyl mercury) is a cation composed of an organic CHCH- species (an ethyl group) bound to a mercury(II) centre, making it a type of organometallic cation, and giving it a chemical formula is CHHg. It is one of the metabolites of thiomersal (thimerosal or sodium ethyl mercuric thiosalicylate), which is used as a preservative in some vaccines. The term "ethylmercury" is also sometimes used as a generic term to describe organomercury compounds which include the ethylmercury functional group, such as ethylmercury chloride and ethylmercury urea. Given the comparable electronegativities of mercury and carbon, the mercury-carbon bond is


title: "Josephine Cochrane" content: Josephine Cochrane Josephine Garis Cochran (later Cochrane) (March 8, 1839 in Ashtabula County, Ohio – August 14, 1913 (age 74) in Chicago, Illinois) was the inventor of the first commercially successful automatic dishwasher, which she constructed together with mechanic George Butters. Cochran was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006 for her invention of the dishwasher. Cochrane was the daughter of John Garis, a civil engineer, and Irene Fitch Garis. She had one sister, Irene Garis Ransom. Her maternal grandfather John Fitch was an inventor who was awarded a steamboat patent. She was raised in Valparaiso,


title: "Greatest Hits (Mariah Carey album)" content: Greatest Hits (Mariah Carey album) Greatest Hits is the first greatest hits album by American singer and songwriter Mariah Carey, released in the United States on December 4, 2001 by Columbia Records. It is a greatest hits double album: CD 1 is primarily a collection of Carey's hits from 1990 to 1995, while CD 2 is primarily a collection of hits from 1996 to 2000. In 2011, the album was re-issued outside the US with the same track listing, under the title of "The Essential Mariah Carey". Carey had previously released the compilation album "#1's" (1998), but the release of


title: Hilkiah content: Hilkiah Hilkiah ( "Ḥilqîyāhū", "my portion is Yah") was a Hebrew priest ("Kohen") at the time of King Josiah. His name is mentioned in II Kings. He was the High Priest and is known for finding a lost copy of the Book of the law at the Temple in Jerusalem at the time that King Josiah commanded that the Temple be refurbished (). His preaching may have helped spur Josiah to return Judah to the worship of Yahweh, God of Israel. Hilkiah may have been the same Hilkiah who was the father of Jeremiah of Libnah. As such he would


title: "Korean embroidery" content: first, and in 834 (the 9th year of King Heungdeok) the costume ban was issued and stipulated the kind of use of fabric according to the status. This ban was enforced, and it can be seen that the demand for fine fabrics and embroidery was considerable due to the luxury that was prevalent in the noble society at the time. On the other hand, there were many workshops dedicated to weaving, dyeing, and sewing in this period, contributing to the development of textile arts. In the Goryeo era, the embroidery has evolved more and more. The country established a bureaucratic


title: "Phi features" content: present form of the verb ("I walk"). Syntactic decomposition for categorization of parts of speech includes an explanation for why some verbs and nouns have a predictable relationship to their nominal counterparts and why some don't. It says that the predictable forms are denominal and that the unpredictable forms are strictly root-derived. The examples provided are of the English verbs "hammer" and "tape". A verb such as hammer is a root-derived form, meaning that it can appear within an NP or within a VP. A denominalized verb, such as tape must first be converted from an NP because its' meaning


title: "Shadow of the Colossus" content: recognition for "Best Character Design", "Best Game Design", "Best Visual Arts" and "Game of the Year", as well as one of three "Innovation Awards" at the 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards. At the 2006 DICE Summit, the game won the award for "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction" at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, while it received one of two "Special Rookie Awards" at the Famitsu Awards 2005. It was nominated for "Best Original Music", "Best Artistic Graphics" and "Best PS2 Game", yet also "Most Aggravating Frame Rate" in GameSpot's awards for 2005, while it won "Best Adventure Game"


title: "Edward Wormley" content: Wormley rose to the task, incorporating European and Scandinavian innovations. His eye for quality and the exacting craftsmanship at Dunbar made for furniture that was elegant, understated and exceptionally well-made. Wormley was never really at the forefront of Modern design. Instead, he took the best elements from classical, historical design and translated them into Modern vernacular. The result was furniture that was sophisticated, yet mainstream and very successful. Wormley's inclusion in the Good Design Exhibitions staged by the Museum of Modern Art and the Merchandise Mart between 1950 and 1955 elevated him to a respected place alongside more cutting edge


title: "Jim Miller (quarterback)" content: as a sophomore. As a senior, he led the 1993 Spartans to a 6–5 regular season record, and a berth in the Liberty Bowl, which they lost to Louisville, 18–7. He finished with a final record of 14–24, and passed for a total of 5037 yards. Miller then played in the 1994 Senior Bowl, passing for 75 yards (7-for-10) and one interception. Miller was drafted in the 6th round of the 1994 NFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers, 178th overall. He broke a thumb in training camp, and missed most of the 1994 season. In the spring of 1995, while


title: "Bradford South (UK Parliament constituency)" content: place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place from 1939 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected; Bradford South (UK Parliament constituency) Bradford South is a constituency of the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Judith Cummins of the Labour Party. 1918-1950: The County Borough of Bradford wards of Great Horton, Lister Hills, Little Horton, North Bierley East, and North Bierley West. 1950-1955: The County Borough of Bradford wards of Clayton,


title: "Shannon Lee" content: did not begin until the late 1990s. To train for parts in action movies, she studied Jeet Kune Do with Ted Wong. She studied Taekwondo under Dung Doa Liang and Wushu under Eric Chen. She also studied under the tutelage of the director of "Enter the Eagles", Yuen De, Jackie Chan's Chinese opera brother. Because the film "Enter the Eagles" required her to fight Benny Urquidez, he taught her kickboxing. Lee made her acting debut playing a cameo in her father's 1993 biopic film "" as the party singer of the song "California Dreamin.'" She went on to appear in


title: Menyanthes content: Menyanthes Menyanthes is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Menyanthaceae containing the single species Menyanthes trifoliata. The name "Menyanthes" comes from the Greek words "menyein", meaning "disclosing", and "anthos", meaning "flower", in reference to the sequential opening of flowers on the inflorescence. The North American form is often referred to as "M. trifoliata" var. "minor" Michx. It is known in English by the common names bogbean and buckbean. "Menyanthes trifoliata" has a horizontal rhizome with alternate, trifoliate leaves. The inflorescence is an erect raceme of white flowers. "Menyanthes trifoliata" occurs in fens and bogs in Asia, Europe,


title: Menyanthes content: and North America. In eastern North America, it is considered to be a diagnostic fen species. It sometimes creates big quagmires with its thick roots. It has a characteristic strong and bitter taste, which can be used in schnapps. Menyanthes Menyanthes is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Menyanthaceae containing the single species Menyanthes trifoliata. The name "Menyanthes" comes from the Greek words "menyein", meaning "disclosing", and "anthos", meaning "flower", in reference to the sequential opening of flowers on the inflorescence. The North American form is often referred to as "M. trifoliata" var. "minor" Michx. It is


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: Cyperus esculentus Cyperus esculentus (also called chufa sedge, nut grass, yellow nutsedge, tiger nut sedge, edible galingale, water grass or earth almond) is a crop of the sedge family widespread across much of the world. It is found in most of the Eastern Hemisphere, including Southern Europe, Africa and Madagascar, as well as the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. "Cyperus esculentus" can be found wild, as a weed, or as a crop. Evidence exists for its cultivation in Egypt since the sixth millennium BC, and for several centuries in Southern Europe. In Spain, "C. esculentus" is cultivated for its


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: edible tubers, called earth almonds or tiger nuts, for the preparation of "horchata de chufa", a sweet, milk-like beverage. However, in most other countries, "C. esculentus" is considered a weed. It is often found in wet soils such as rice paddies and peanut farms as well as well irrigated lawns and golf courses during warm weather; hence the name water grass. Prehistoric tools with traces of "C. esculentus" tuber starch granules have been recovered from the early Archaic period in North America, from about 9,000 years ago, at the Sandy Hill excavation site at the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in Mashantucket,


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: Connecticut. The tubers are believed to have been a source of food for those Paleo-Indians. Zohary and Hopf estimate that "C. esculentus" "ranks among the oldest cultivated plants in Ancient Egypt". Although noting that "chufa was no doubt an important food element in ancient Egypt during dynastic times, its cultivation in ancient times seems to have remained (totally or almost totally) an Egyptian specialty". Its dry tubers have been found in tombs from predynastic times about 6000 years ago. In those times, "C. esculentus" tubers were consumed either boiled in beer, roasted, or as sweets made of ground tubers with


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: honey. The tubers were also used medicinally, taken orally, as an ointment, or as an enema, and used in fumigants to sweeten the smell of homes or clothing. There are almost no contemporary records of this plant in other parts of the old World. Besides Egypt, at present "C. esculentus" is cultivated mainly in Spain, where it is extended for common commercial purposes in mild climate areas. The plant was introduced by the Arabs, first in the Valencia region. They are found extensively too in California and were grown by the Paiute in Owens Valley. "C. esculentus" is also cultivated


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: in countries such as Guatemala, Mexico, Chile, Brasil, the United States, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Yemen, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Sudan, South Sudan, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Northern Cameroon, and Mali, where they are used primarily as animal feed or uncooked as a side dish, but in Hispanic countries they are used mainly to make "horchata", a sweet, milk-like beverage. In Northern Nigeria, it is called "aya" and it is usually eaten fresh. It is sometimes dried and later rehydrated and eaten. Also a snack is made by toasting


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: the nuts and sugar coating it is popular among the Hausa children of Northern Nigeria. Also, a drink known as "kunun aya" is made by processing the nuts with dates and later sieved and served chilled. It has been suggested that the extinct hominin "Paranthropus boisei", the "Nutcracker Man", subsisted on tiger nuts. "Cyperus esculentus" is an annual or perennial plant, growing to tall, with solitary stems growing from a tuber. The plant is reproduced by seeds, creeping rhizomes, and tubers. Due to its clonal nature, "C. esculentus" can take advantage of soil disturbances caused by anthropogenic or natural forces.


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: The stems are triangular in section and bear slender leaves 3–10 mm (1/8 to 1/2 inches) wide. The spikelets of the plant are distinctive, with a cluster of flat, oval seeds surrounded by four hanging, leaf-like bracts positioned 90 degrees from each other. They are 5 to 30 mm (about 3/8 to 1 1/8 inches) long and linear to narrowly elliptic with pointed tips and 8 to 35 florets. The color varies from straw-colored to gold-brown. They can produce up to 2420 seeds per plant. The plant foliage is very tough and fibrous and is often mistaken for a grass.


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: The roots are an extensive and complex system of fine, fibrous roots and scaly rhizomes with small, hard, spherical tubers and basal bulbs attached. The tubers are 0.3 – 1.9 cm (1/8 to 3/4 inches) in diameter and the colors vary between yellow, brown, and black. One plant can produce several hundred to several thousand tubers during a single growing season. With cool temperatures, the foliage, roots, rhizomes, and basal bulbs die, but the tubers survive and resprout the following spring when soil temperatures remain above . They can resprout up to several years later. When the tubers germinate, many


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: rhizomes are initiated and end in a basal bulb near the soil surface. These basal bulbs initiate the stems and leaves above ground, and fibrous roots underground. "C. esculentus" is wind pollinated and requires cross pollination as it is self–incompatible. "Cyperus esculentus" cultivation requires a mild climate. Low temperature, shadow, and light intensity can inhibit flowering. Tuber initiation is inhibited by high levels of nitrogen, long photoperiods, and high levels of gibberellic acid. Flower initiation occurs under photoperiods of 12 to 14 hours per day. Tubers can develop in soil depths around 30 cm (1-foot), but most occur in the


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: top or upper part. They tolerate many adverse soil conditions including periods of drought and flooding and survive soil temperatures around . They grow best on sandy, moist soils at a pH between 5.0 – 7.5. The densest populations of "C. esculentus" are often found in low-lying wetlands. They do not tolerate salinity. Planting is normally done on flat soils where ridges to favour the coming irrigations have previously been done. The separation between ridges is approximately and seeds are planted manually. Distances between seeds may vary from and seeding depth is around . A typical seeding rate for chufa


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: is about 120 kg of tubers/ha (107 lbs/acre). They are planted between April and May and must be irrigated every week until they are harvested in November and December. Tubers develop about 6 – 8 weeks after seedling emergence and grow quickly during July and August. The maturing is around 90 – 110 days. The average yield can approach between 10 and 19 t/ha. Harvest usually occurs in November or December and the leaves are scorched during the harvest. With a combine harvester, the tiger nut is pulled out of the ground. Immediately after harvesting, the tiger nuts are washed


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: with water in order to remove sand and small stones. The drying occurs usually in the sun and can take up to three months. The temperatures and humidity levels have to be monitored very carefully during this period. The tiger nuts have to be turned every day to ensure uniform drying. The drying process ensures a longer shelf life. This prevents rot or other bacterial infections, securing quality and high nutrition levels. Disadvantages in the drying process are shrinkage, skin wrinkles and hard nut texture. Tiger nut loses a considerable amount of water during drying and storage. The starch content


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: of the tiger nut tubers decreases and the reducing sugar (invert sugar) content increases during storage. Tiger nut can be stored dry and rehydrated by soaking without losing the crisp texture. Soaking is often done overnight. Dried tiger nuts have a hard texture and soaking is indispensable to render them edible with ease and to ensure acceptable sensory quality. According to the "Consejo Regulador de Chufa de Valencia" (Regulating Council for Valencia's Tiger Nuts), the nutritional composition/100 ml of the Spanish beverage horchata de chufas is as follows: energy content around 66 kcal, proteins around 0.5 g, carbohydrates over 10


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: g with starch at least 1.9 g, fats at least 2 g. Dried tiger nut has a smooth tender, sweet and nutty taste. It can be consumed raw, roasted, dried, baked or as tiger nut milk or oil. The tubers are edible, with a slightly sweet, nutty flavour, compared to the more bitter-tasting tuber of the related "Cyperus rotundus" (purple nutsedge). They are quite hard and are generally soaked in water before they can be eaten, thus making them much softer and giving them a better texture. They are a popular snack in West Africa. They have various uses; in


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: particular, they are used in Spain to make horchata, which is a nonalcoholic beverage of milky appearance derived from the tubers of the tiger nut plant mixed with sugar and water. It has a great economic impact in the Valencian region of Spain. Flour of roasted tiger nut is sometimes added to biscuits and other bakery products as well as in making oil, soap, and starch extracts. It is also used for the production of nougat, jam, beer, and as a flavoring agent in ice cream and in the preparation of kunnu (a local beverage in Nigeria). Kunnu is a


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: nonalcoholic beverage prepared mainly from cereals (such as millet or sorghum) by heating and mixing with spices (dandelion, alligator pepper, ginger, licorice) and sugar. To make up for the poor nutritional value of kunnu prepared from cereals, tiger nut was found to be a good substitute for cereal grains. Tiger nut oil can be used naturally with salads or for deep frying. It is considered to be a high quality oil. Tiger nut “milk” has been tried as an alternative source of milk in fermented products, such as yogurt production, and other fermented products common in some African countries and


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: can thus be useful replacing milk in the diet of people intolerant to lactose to a certain extent. <br>Tiger nuts should be eaten in only moderate amounts at any one time. Ingestion of 300 g of the fibrous dehydrated nuts, chewed without being rehydrated, has been known to cause fecal impaction. Despite its name, tiger nutsedge is a tuber. However, its chemical composition shares characteristics with tubers and with nuts. It has been reported to be a "health" food, since its consumption can help prevent heart disease and thrombosis and is said to activate blood circulation and reduce the risk


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: of colon cancer. This tuber is rich in energy content (starch, fat, sugar, and protein), minerals (mainly phosphorus and potassium), and vitamins E and C. Tiger nut tubers contain almost twice the quantity of starch as potato or sweet potato tubers. The oil of the tuber was found to contain 18% saturated (palmitic acid and stearic acid) and 82% unsaturated (oleic acid and linoleic acid) fatty acids. The moderately high content of phytosterols further enriches the quality and value of tiger nut oil as a food source. Since the tubers of "C. esculentus" contain 20-36% oil, it has been suggested


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: as potential oil crop for the production of biodiesel. One study found that chufa produced 1.5 metric tonnes of oil per hectare (174 gallons/acre) based on a tuber yield of 5.67 t/ha and an oil content of 26.4%. A similar 6-year study found tuber yields ranging from 4.02 to 6.75 t/ha, with an average oil content of 26.5% and an average oil yield of 1.47 t/ha. As a source of oils, the tubers were used in pharmacy under the Latin name "bulbuli thrasi" beginning no later than the end of 18th century. In ayurvedic medicine tiger nuts are used in


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: the treatment of flatulence, diarrhoea, dysentery, debility and indigestion. Tiger nut oil can be used in the cosmetic industry. As it is an antioxidant (because of its high content in vitamin E) it helps slow down the ageing of the body cells. It favours the elasticity of the skin and reduces skin wrinkles. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Pharmacy & Bioallied Sciences looked at the effects of Cyperus rotundus — which has many similar antioxidant capabilities that the tiger nut has — on diabetic mice, which showed positive signs tiger nuts as a possible treatment for diabetes.


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: The boiled nuts are used in the UK as a bait for carp. The nuts have to be prepared in a prescribed manner to prevent harm to the fish. The nuts are soaked in water for 24 hours and then boiled for 20 minutes or longer until fully expanded. Some anglers then leave the boiled nuts to ferment for 24–48 hours, which can enhance their effectiveness. If the nuts are not properly prepared, however, they can be extremely toxic to the carp. This was originally thought to have been the cause of death of Benson, a very large and very


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: famous carp. The fish was found floating dead in a fishing lake, with a bag of unprepared tiger nuts lying nearby, empty, on the bank. An examination of the fish by a taxidermist concluded tiger nut poisoning was not, in the end, the cause of death. "C.esculentus" is extremely difficult to remove completely once established. This is due to the plant having a stratified and layered root system, with tubers and roots being interconnected to a depth of 36 cm or more. The tubers are connected by fragile roots that are prone to snapping when pulled, making the root system


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: difficult to remove intact. Intermediate rhizomes can potentially reach a length of 60 cm. The plant can quickly regenerate if a single tuber is left in place. By competing for light, water and nutrients it can reduce the vigour of neighbouring plants. It can develop into a dense colony. Patch boundaries can increase by more than one meter per year. Tubers and seed disperse with agricultural activities, soil movement or by water and wind. They are often known as a contaminant in crop seeds. When plants are small they are hard to distinguish from other weeds such as Dactylis glomerata


title: "Cyperus esculentus" content: and Elytrigia repens. Thus it is hard to discover in an early stage and therefore hard to counteract. Once it is detected, mechanical removal, hand removal, grazing, damping, and herbicides can be used to inhibit "C.esculentus". Cyperus esculentus Cyperus esculentus (also called chufa sedge, nut grass, yellow nutsedge, tiger nut sedge, edible galingale, water grass or earth almond) is a crop of the sedge family widespread across much of the world. It is found in most of the Eastern Hemisphere, including Southern Europe, Africa and Madagascar, as well as the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. "Cyperus esculentus" can be


title: "Caterina Sforza" content: because in the meantime his son Cesare, with the acquisition of Pesaro, Rimini and Faenza, was appointed Duke of Romagna. After a brief stay in the residence of Cardinal Riario, Caterina embarked from Livorno to Florence, where her children were waiting for her. In Florence, Caterina lived in the villas which had belonged to her third husband Giovanni de' Medici, often staying at the Villa Medici di Castello. Soon, she complained of being mistreated and living in a straitened financial situation. For many years she conducted a legal battle against her brother-in-law Lorenzo de' Medici for the custody of her


title: "Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876" content: coast of Hwanghae Province seeking trade but was refused. In June 1845 another British warship, , surveyed the coast of Cheju-do and Chŏlla province. The following month the Korean government filed a protest with British authorities in Guangzhou through the Chinese government. In June 1846, three French warships dropped anchor off the coast of Chungcheong Province and conveyed a letter protesting persecution of Catholics in the country. In April 1854, two armed Russian vessels sailed along the eastern coast of Hamgyong Province, causing some deaths and injuries among the Koreans they encountered. This Prompted the Korean government to issue a


title: "Feast of the Transfiguration" content: of Jesus, but a feast of the Holy Trinity, for all three Persons of the Trinity are interpreted as being present at that moment: God the Father spoke from heaven; God the Son was the one being transfigured, and God the Holy Spirit was present in the form of a cloud. In this sense, the transfiguration is also considered the "Small Epiphany" (the "Great Epiphany" being the Baptism of Jesus, when the Holy Trinity appeared in a similar pattern). The Transfiguration is ranked as one of the Twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox liturgical calendar, and is celebrated with an


title: "Morro Castle (Havana)" content: Morro Castle (Havana) Morro Castle (), named after the three biblical Magi, is a fortress guarding the entrance to Havana bay in Havana, Cuba. The design was drawn up by the Italian engineer Battista Antonelli; originally under the control of Spain, the fortress was captured by the British in 1762, and was returned to the Spanish under treaty terms a year later. The Morro fortress in Havana shares its name with structures in Santiago de Cuba and the Castillo de San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In this case, the Spanish "morro" means a rock which is


title: "Morro Castle (Havana)" content: very visible from the sea and therefore serves as a navigational landmark. Perched on the promontory on the opposite side of the harbor from Old Havana, it can be viewed from miles around as it dominates the port entrance. Built initially in 1589 in response to raids on Havana harbor, el Morro protected the mouth of the harbor with a chain being strung out across the water to the fort at La Punta. It first saw action in 1762, while under the command of Luis Vicente de Velasco e Isla. The British expedition against Cuba under Lord Albemarle landed in


title: "Morro Castle (Havana)" content: Cojimar to the east of Havana and attacked the fortress from its landward side. The fort fell when the British successfully mined one of its bastions. When the British handed the island back in 1763 to Spain, the fortress at La Cabaña was built to prevent this from happening again. Inside the gates is an exhibition on the lighthouses of Cuba – El Morro once housed a school for lighthouse keepers. There was actually a watchtower here until the British blew it up during their successful siege in 1762. The Faro Castillo del Morro lighthouse was added in 1846. The


title: "Morro Castle (Havana)" content: cannons around the fort are now badly rusted, but the walls are well preserved. The fort has central barracks up to four stories high. A small underwater archeology exhibition is also located here. Noteworthy are the old latrines and their chute into the sea, as are the two sets of doors and the drawbridge mechanism. The current harbor master's office is still housed in the fortress. A plaque dedicated by the ambassador of the United Kingdom commemorates the 1762 siege, and a small memorial is located between two strong powder rooms in the northeast bastion. A small turret at the


title: "Morro Castle (Havana)" content: end of the wall offers views of the sea crashing onto the rocks 20 meters below, and of the huge dry moat. The opposite side of the moat holds more modern guns and cannons, La Bateria de Velasco, and offers a sweeping view down to Cojimar. Morro Castle can be seen in the background of John Singleton Copley's oil painting "Watson and the Shark" (1778). Morro Castle appears in the movie "The Ghost Breakers" (1940), in the background as Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard enter the harbor by ship. The climactic scenes from "The Big Boodle" (1957) starring Errol Flynn


title: "Morro Castle (Havana)" content: were shot at Morro Castle in pre-Castro Cuba. During his life, the Castro regime imprisoned the Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990) at El Morro Castle for criticism of the government. The film version of Arenas's autobiography, "Before Night Falls" (2000), starring Javier Bardem, features scenes set in El Morro Castle prison. (A fortress in Mexico City doubled for the prison, since the filmmakers were not allowed to film in Cuba.) The Cuban writer José Antonio Echeverría (1815-1885) published his only novel, "Antonelli" (1839), in the periodical "La Cartera Cubana" in three parts. An historical novel in the tradition


title: "Morro Castle (Havana)" content: of Walter Scott, "Antonelli" describes the love triangle among Antonelli, a Spanish soldier, and the planter's daughter they both love. Morro Castle is the setting for many of the book's events, including its tragic finale. [[Category:Infrastructure completed in 1589]] [[Category:Fortifications of Havana]] [[Category:Tourist attractions in Havana]] [[Category:Spanish colonial fortifications in Cuba]] Morro Castle (Havana) Morro Castle (), named after the three biblical Magi, is a fortress guarding the entrance to Havana bay in Havana, Cuba. The design was drawn up by the Italian engineer Battista Antonelli; originally under the control of Spain, the fortress was captured by the British in


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: Short-beaked echidna The short-beaked echidna ("Tachyglossus aculeatus") is one of four living species of echidna and the only member of the genus Tachyglossus. It is covered in fur and spines and has a distinctive snout and a specialized tongue, which it uses to catch its insect prey at a great speed. Like the other extant monotremes, the short-beaked echidna lays eggs; the monotremes are the only group of mammals to do so. The short-beaked echidna has extremely strong front limbs and claws, which allow it to burrow quickly with great power. As it needs to be able to survive underground,


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: it has a significant tolerance to high levels of carbon dioxide and low levels of oxygen. It has no weapons or fighting ability but repels predators by curling into a ball and deterring them with its spines. It lacks the ability to sweat and cannot deal with heat well, so it tends to avoid daytime activity in hot weather. It can swim if needed. The snout has mechanoreceptors and electroreceptors that help the echidna to detect its surroundings. During the Australian winter, it goes into deep torpor and hibernation, reducing its metabolism to save energy. As the temperature increases, it


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: emerges to mate. Female echidnas lay one egg a year and the mating period is the only time the otherwise solitary animals meet one another; the male has no further contact with the female or his offspring after mating. A young echidna is the size of a grape but grows rapidly on its mother's milk, which is very rich in nutrients. Baby echidnas eventually grow too large and spiky to stay in the pouch and, around seven weeks after hatching, are expelled from the pouch into the mother's burrow. At around six months of age, they leave the burrow and


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: have no more contact with their mothers. The species is found throughout Australia, where it is the most widespread native mammal, and in coastal and highland regions of eastern New Guinea, where it is known as the "mungwe" in the Daribi and Chimbu languages. It is not threatened with extinction, but human activities, such as hunting, habitat destruction, and the introduction of foreign predatory species and parasites, have reduced its distribution in Australia. The short-beaked echidna was first described by George Shaw in 1792. He named the species "Myrmecophaga aculeata", thinking that it might be related to the giant anteater.


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: Since Shaw first described the species, its name has undergone four revisions: from "M. aculeata" to "Ornithorhynchus hystrix", "Echidna hystrix", "Echidna aculeata" and finally, "Tachyglossus aculeatus". The name "Tachyglossus" means "quick tongue", in reference to the speed with which the echidna uses its tongue to catch ants and termites, and "aculeatus" means "spiny" or "equipped with spines". The short-beaked echidna is the only member of its genus, sharing the family Tachyglossidae with the extant species of the genus "Zaglossus" that occur in New Guinea. "Zaglossus" species, which include the western long-beaked, Sir David's long-beaked and eastern long-beaked echidnas, are all


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: significantly larger than "T. aculeatus", and their diets consist mostly of worms and grubs rather than ants and termites. Species of the Tachyglossidae are egg-laying mammals; together with the related family Ornithorhynchidae, they are the only extant monotremes in the world. The five subspecies of the short-beaked echidna are each found in different geographical locations. The subspecies also differ from one another in their hairiness, spine length and width, and the size of the grooming claws on their hind feet. The earliest fossils of the short-beaked echidna date back around 15 million years ago to the Pleistocene era, and the


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: oldest specimens were found in caves in South Australia, often with fossils of the long-beaked echidna from the same period. The ancient short-beaked echidnas are considered to be identical to their contemporary descendants except the ancestors are around 10% smaller. This "post-Pleistocene dwarfing" affects many Australian mammals. Part of the last radiation of monotreme mammals, echidnas are believed to have evolutionally diverged from the platypus around 66 million years ago, between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. However, the echidna's pre-Pleistocene heritage has not been traced yet, and the lack of teeth on the fossils found thus far have made it


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: impossible to use dental evidence. The short-beaked echidna was commonly called the spiny anteater in older books, though this term has fallen out of fashion since the echidna bears no relation to the true anteaters. It has a variety of names in the indigenous languages of the regions where it is found. The Noongar people from southwestern Western Australia call it the "nyingarn". In Central Australia southwest of Alice Springs, the Pitjantjatjara term is "tjilkamata" or "tjirili", from the word "tjiri" for spike of porcupine grass "(Triodia irritans)". The word can also mean slowpoke. In central Cape York Peninsula, it


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: is called "(minha) kekoywa" in Pakanh, where "minha" is a qualifier meaning 'meat' or 'animal', "(inh-)ekorak" in Uw Oykangand and "(inh-)egorag" in Uw Olkola, where "inh-" is a qualifier meaning 'meat' or 'animal'. In the highland regions of southwestern New Guinea, it is known as the "mungwe" in the Daribi and Chimbu languages. Short-beaked echidnas are typically in length, with of snout, and weigh between . However, the Tasmanian subspecies, "T. a. setosus", is smaller than its Australian mainland counterparts. Because the neck is not externally visible, the head and body appear to merge. The earholes are on either side


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: of the head, with no external pinnae. The eyes are small, about in diameter and at the base of the wedge-shaped snout. The nostrils and the mouth are at the distal end of the snout; the mouth cannot open wider than . The body of the short-beaked echidna is, with the exception of the underside, face and legs, covered with cream-coloured spines. The spines, which may be up to long, are modified hairs, mostly made of keratin. Insulation is provided by fur between the spines, which ranges in colour from honey to a dark reddish-brown and even black; the underside


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: and short tail are also covered in fur. Colouration of the fur and spines varies with geographic location. For example, the spines of the Kangaroo Island subspecies ("T. a. multiaculeatus") are more numerous, longer, thinner, and paler in colour than those of the other subspecies. The echidna's fur may be infested with what is said to be the world's largest flea, "Bradiopsylla echidnae", which is about long. The limbs of the short-beaked echidna are adapted for rapid digging; they are short and have strong claws. Their strong and stout limbs allow it to tear apart large logs and move paving


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: stones, and one has been recorded moving a 13.5-kg (30-lb) stone; a scientist also reported that a captive echidna moved a refrigerator around the room in his home. The power of the limbs is based on strong musculature, particularly around the shoulder and torso areas. The mechanical advantage of its arm is greater than that of humans, as its biceps connects the shoulder to the forearm at a point further down than for humans, and the chunky humerus allows more muscle to form. The claws on the hind feet are elongated and curved backward to enable cleaning and grooming between


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: the spines. Like the platypus, the echidna has a low body temperature—between 30 and 32 °C (86 and 90 °F)—but, unlike the platypus, which shows no evidence of torpor or hibernation, the body temperature of the echidna may fall as low as 5 °C (41 °F). The echidna does not pant or sweat and normally seeks shelter in hot conditions. Despite their inability to sweat, echidnas still lose water as they exhale. The snout is believed to be crucial in restricting this loss to sustainable levels, through a bony labyrinth that has a refrigerator effect and helps to condense water


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: vapour in the breath. The echidna does not have highly concentrated urine, and around half of the estimated daily water loss of occurs in this manner, while most of the rest is through the skin and respiratory system. Most of this is replenished by its substantial eating of termites—one laboratory study reported ingestion of around a day, most of which was water. This can be supplemented by drinking water, if available, or licking morning dew from flora. In the Australian autumn and winter, the echidna enters periods of torpor or deep hibernation. Because of its low body temperature, it becomes


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: sluggish in very hot and very cold weather. Like all monotremes, it has one orifice, the cloaca, for the passage of faeces, urine and reproductive products. The male has internal testes, no external scrotum and a highly unusual penis with four knobs on the tip, which is nearly a quarter of his body length when erect. The gestating female develops a pouch on her underside, where she raises her young. The musculature of the short-beaked echidna has a number of unusual aspects. The panniculus carnosus, an enormous muscle just beneath the skin, covers the entire body. By contraction of various


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: parts of the panniculus carnosus, the short-beaked echidna can change shape, the most characteristic shape change being achieved by rolling itself into a ball when threatened, so protecting its belly and presenting a defensive array of sharp spines. It has one of the shortest spinal cords of any mammal, extending only as far as the thorax. Whereas the human spinal cord ends at the first or second lumbar vertebra, for the echidna it occurs at the seventh thoracic vertebra. The shorter spinal cord is thought to allow flexibility to enable wrapping into a ball. The musculature of the face, jaw


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: and tongue is specialised for feeding. The tongue is the animal's sole means of catching prey, and can protrude up to outside the snout. The snout's shape, resembling a double wedge, gives it a significant mechanical advantage in generating a large moment, so makes it efficient for digging to reach prey or to build a shelter. The tongue is sticky because of the presence of glycoprotein-rich mucus, which both lubricates movement in and out of the snout and helps to catch ants and termites, which adhere to it. The tongue is protruded by contracting circular muscles that change the shape


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: of the tongue and force it forwards and contracting two genioglossal muscles attached to the caudal end of the tongue and to the mandible. The protruded tongue is stiffened by a rapid flow of blood, which allows it to penetrate wood and soil. Retraction requires the contraction of two internal longitudinal muscles, known as the sternoglossi. When the tongue is retracted, the prey is caught on backward-facing keratinous "teeth", located along the roof of the buccal cavity, allowing the animal both to capture and grind food. The tongue moves with great speed, and has been measured to move in and


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: out of the snout 100 times a minute. This is partly achieved through the elasticity of the tongue and the conversion of elastic potential energy into kinetic energy. The tongue is very flexible, particularly at the end, allowing it to bend in U-turns and catch insects attempting to flee in their labyrinthine nests or mounds. The tongue also has an ability to avoid picking up splinters while foraging in logs; the factors behind this ability are unknown. It can eat quickly; a specimen of around can ingest of termites in 10 minutes. The echidna's stomach is quite different from other


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: mammals. It is devoid of secretory glands and has a cornified stratified epithelium, which resembles horny skin. Unlike other mammals, which typically have highly acidic stomachs, the echidna has low levels of acidity, almost neutral, with pH in the 6.2–7.4 range. The stomach is elastic, and gastric peristalsis grinds soil particulates and shredded insects together. Digestion occurs in the small intestine, which is around in length. The insect exoskeletons and soil are not digested, being ejected in the waste. Numerous physiological adaptations aid the lifestyle of the short-beaked echidna. Because the animal burrows, it must tolerate very high levels of


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: carbon dioxide in inspired air, and will voluntarily remain in situations where carbon dioxide concentrations are high. It can dig up to a metre into the ground to retrieve ants or evade predators, and can survive with low oxygen when the area is engulfed by bushfires. The echidna can also dive underwater, which can help it to survive sudden floods. During these situations, the heart rate drops to around 12 beats per minute, around one-fifth of the rate at rest. This process is believed to save oxygen for the heart and brain, which are the most sensitive organs to such


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: a shortage; laboratory testing has revealed the echidna's cardiovascular system is similar to that of the seal. Following the devastation of a bushfire, echidnas can compensate for the lack of food by reducing their daytime body temperature and activity through use of torpor, for a period of up to three weeks. The echidna's optical system is an uncommon hybrid of both mammalian and reptilian characteristics. The cartilaginous layer beneath the sclera of the eyeball is similar to that of reptiles and avians. The small corneal surface is keratinised and hardened, possibly to protect it from chemicals secreted by prey insects


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: or self-impalement when it rolls itself up, which has been observed. The echidna has the flattest lens of any animal, giving it the longest focal length. This similarity to primates and humans allows it to see distant objects clearly. Unlike placental mammals, including humans, the echidna does not have a ciliary muscle to distort the geometry of the lens and thereby change the focal length and allow objects at different distances to be viewed clearly; the whole eye is believed to distort, so the distance between the lens and retina instead changes to allow focusing. The visual ability of an


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: echidna is not great, and it is not known whether it can perceive colour; however, it can distinguish between black and white, and horizontal and vertical stripes. Eyesight is not a crucial factor in the animal's ability to survive, as blind echidnas are able to live healthily. Its ears are sensitive to low-frequency sound, which may be ideal for detecting sounds emitted by termites and ants underground. The pinnae are obscured and covered by hair, so predators cannot grab them in an attack, and prey or foreign material cannot enter, although ticks are known to reside there. The macula of


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: the ear is very large compared to other animals, and is used as a gravity sensor to orient the echidna. The large size may be important for burrowing downwards. The leathery snout is keratinised and covered in mechano- and thermoreceptors, which provide information about the surrounding environment. These nerves protrude through microscopic holes at the end of the snout, which also has mucus glands on the end that act as electroreceptors. Echidnas can detect electric fields of 1.8 mV/cm—1000 times more sensitive than humans—and dig up buried batteries. A series of push rods protrude from the snout. These are columns


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: of flattened, spinous cells, with roughly an average diameter of 50 micrometres and a length of 300 micrometres. The number of push rods per square millimetre of skin is estimated to be 30 to 40. Longitudinal waves are believed to be picked up and transmitted through the rods, acting as mechanical sensors, to allow prey detection. A well-developed olfactory system may be used to detect mates and prey. A highly sensitive optic nerve has been shown to have visual discrimination and spatial memory comparable to those of a rat. The brain and central nervous system have been extensively studied for


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: evolutionary comparison with placental mammals, particularly with its fellow monotreme, the platypus. The average brain volume is 25 ml, similar to a cat of approximately the same size; while the platypus has a largely smooth brain, the echidna has a heavily folded and fissured, gyrencephalic brain similar to humans, which is seen as a sign of a highly neurologically advanced animal. The cerebral cortex is thinner, and the brain cells are larger and more densely packed and organised in the echidna than the platypus, suggesting evolutionary divergence must have occurred long ago. Almost half of the sensory area in the


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: brain is devoted to the snout and tongue, and the part devoted to smell is relatively large compared to other animals. The short-beaked echidna has the largest prefrontal cortex relative to body size of any mammal, taking up 50% of the volume in comparison to 29% for humans. This part of the brain in humans is thought to be used for planning and analytical behaviour, leading to debate as to whether the echidna has reasoning and strategising ability. Experiments in a simple maze and with a test on opening a trap door to access food, and the echidna's ability to


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: remember what it has learnt for over a month, has led scientists to conclude its learning ability is similar to that of a cat or a rat. The echidna shows rapid eye movement during sleep, usually around its thermoneutral temperature of 25 °C, and this effect is suppressed at other temperatures. Its brain has been shown to contain a claustrum similar to that of placental mammals, linking this structure to their common ancestor. No systematic study of the ecology of the short-beaked echidna has been published, but studies of several aspects of their ecological behaviour have been conducted. They live


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: alone, and, apart from the burrow created for rearing young, they have no fixed shelter or nest site. They do not have a home territory they defend against other echidnas, but range over a wide area. The range area has been observed to be between 21 and 93 ha, although one study in Kangaroo Island found the animals there covered an area between 9 and 192 ha. Overall, the mean range areas across the various regions of Australia were 40–60 ha. There was no correlation between gender and range area, but a weak one with size. Echidnas can share home


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: ranges without incident, and sometimes share shelter sites if not enough are available for each animal to have one individually. Short-beaked echidnas are typically active in the daytime, though they are ill-equipped to deal with heat because they have no sweat glands and do not pant. Therefore, in warm weather, they change their patterns of activity, becoming crepuscular or nocturnal. Body temperatures above 34 °C (93 °F) are believed to be fatal, and in addition to avoiding heat, the animal adjusts its circulation to maintain a sustainable temperature by moving blood to and from the skin to increase or lower


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: heat loss. In areas where water is present, they can also swim to keep their body temperatures low. The "thermoneutral zone" for the environment is around 25 °C (77 °F), at which point the metabolism needed to maintain body temperature is minimized. The echidna is endothermic, and can maintain body temperatures of around 32 °C. It can also reduce its metabolism and heart rate and body temperature. In addition to brief and light bouts of torpor throughout the year, the echidna enters periods during the Australian winter when it hibernates, both in cold regions and in regions with more temperate


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: climates. During hibernation, the body temperature drops to as low as 4 °C (39 °F). The heart rate falls to four to seven beats per minute—down from 50–68 at rest—and the echidna can breathe as infrequently as once every three minutes, 80 to 90% slower than when it is active. Metabolism can drop to one-eighth of the normal rate. Echidnas begin to prepare for hibernation between February and April, when they reduce their consumption and enter brief periods of torpor. Males begin hibernating first, while females that have reproduced start later. During periods of hibernation, the animals average 13 separate


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: bouts of torpor, which are broken up by periods of arousal lasting 1.2 days on average. These interruptions tend to coincide with warmer periods. Males end their hibernation period in mid-June, while reproductive females return to full activity in July and August; nonreproductive females and immature echidnas may not end hibernation until two months later. During euthermia, the body temperature can vary by 4 °C per day. The metabolic rate is around 30% of that of placental mammals, making it the lowest energy-consuming mammal. This figure is similar to that of other animals that eat ants and termites; burrowing animals


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: also tend to have low metabolism generally. Echidnas hibernate even though it is seemingly unnecessary for survival; they begin their hibernation period while the weather is still warm, and food is generally always plentiful. One explanation is that echidnas maximize their foraging productivity by exercising caution with their energy reserves. Another hypothesis is that they are descended from ectothermic ancestors, but have taken to periodic endothermy for reproductive reasons, so that the young can develop more quickly. Supporters of this theory argue that males hibernate earlier than females because they finish their contribution to reproduction first, and they awake earlier


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: to undergo spermatogenesis in preparation for mating, while females and young lag in their annual cycle. During the hibernation period, the animals stay in entirely covered shelter. Short-beaked echidnas can live anywhere with a good supply of food, and regularly feast on ants and termites. They are believed to locate food by smell, using sensors in the tips of their snouts, by shuffling around seemingly arbitrarily, and using their snout in a probing manner. A study of echidnas in New England (New South Wales) has shown that they tend to dig up scarab beetle larvae in spring when the prey


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: are active, but eschew this prey when it is inactive, leading to the conjecture that echidnas detect prey using hearing. Vision is not believed to be significant in hunting, as blind animals have been observed to survive in the wild. Echidnas use their strong claws to pull apart nests and rotting logs to gain access to their prey. They avoid ants and termites that secrete repulsive liquids, and have a preference for the eggs, pupae and winged phases of the insects. Echidnas hunt most vigorously towards the end of the southern winter and early in spring, when their fat reserves


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: have been depleted after hibernation and nursing. At this time, ants have high body fat, and the echidna targets their mounds. The animal also hunts beetles and earthworms, providing they are small enough to fit in a 5-mm gap. The proportion of ants and termites in their diets depends on the availability of prey, and termites make up a larger part in drier areas where they are more plentiful. However, termites are preferred, if available, as their bodies contain a smaller proportion of indigestible exoskeleton. Termites from the Rhinotermitidae family are avoided due to their chemical defences. Scarab beetle larvae


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: are also a large part of the diet when and where available. In the New England study, 37% of the food intake consisted of beetle larvae, although the echidna had to squash the prey in its snout as it ingested it, due to size. Echidnas are powerful diggers, using their clawed front paws to dig out prey and create burrows for shelter. They may rapidly dig themselves into the ground if they cannot find cover when in danger. They bend their belly together to shield the soft, unprotected part, and can also urinate, giving off a pungent liquid, in an


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: attempt to deter attackers. Males also have single small spurs on each rear leg, believed to be a defensive weapon that has since been lost through evolution. Echidnas typically try to avoid confrontation with predators. Instead, they use the colour of their spines, which is similar to the vegetation of the dry Australian environment, to avoid detection. They have good hearing and tend to become stationary if sound is detected. It is likely that Echidnas are keystone species in the ecosystem health in Australia, due to their contribution through bioturbation, the reworking of soils through their digging activity. This is


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: based on the estimation that a single echidna will move up to move up to 204 m of soil a year, that it is the most widespread of any terrestrial Australian species, is relatively common, and that other bioturbators have been heavily impacted by human settlement. In Australia, they are most common in forested areas with abundant, termite-filled, fallen logs. In agricultural areas, they are most likely to be found in uncleared scrub; they may be found in grassland, arid areas, and in the outer suburbs of the capital cities. Little is known about their distribution in New Guinea. They


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: have been found in southern New Guinea between Merauke in the west and the Kelp Welsh River, east of Port Moresby, in the east, where they may be found in open woodland. Echidnas have the ability to swim, and have been seen cooling off near dams during high temperatures. They have also been seen crossing streams and swimming for brief periods in seas off Kangaroo Island. They swim with only the snout above water, using it as a snorkel. The solitary short-beaked echidna looks for a mate between May and September; the precise timing of the mating season varies with


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: geographic location. In the months before the mating season, the size of the male's testes increases by a factor of three or more before spermatogenesis occurs. Both males and females give off a strong, musky odour during the mating season, by turning their cloacas inside out and wiping them on the ground, secreting a glossly liquid believed to be an aphrodisiac. During courtship—observed for the first time in 1989—males locate and pursue females. Trains of up to 10 males, often with the youngest and smallest male at the end of the queue, may follow a single female in a courtship


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: ritual that may last for up to four weeks; the duration of the courtship period varies with location. During this time, they forage for food together, and the train often changes composition, as some males leave and other join the pursuit. In cooler parts of their range, such as Tasmania, females may mate within a few hours of arousal from hibernation. Before mating, the male smells the female, paying particular attention to the cloaca. This process can take a few hours, and the female can reject the suitor by rolling herself into a ball. After prodding and sniffing her back,


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: the male is often observed to roll the female onto her side and then assume a similar position himself so the two animals are abdomen to abdomen, having dug a small crater in which to lie. They can lie with heads facing one another, or head to rear. If more than one male is in the vicinity, fighting over the female may occur. Each side of the bilaterally symmetrical, rosette-like, four-headed penis (similar to that of reptiles and in length) is used alternately, with the other half being shut down between ejaculations. Sperm bundles of around 100 each appear to


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: confer increased sperm motility, which may provide the potential for sperm competition between males. This process takes between a half and three hours. Each mating results in the production of a single egg, and females are known to mate only once during the breeding season; each mating is successful. Fertilisation occurs in the oviduct. Gestation takes between 21 and 28 days after copulation, during which time the female constructs a nursery burrow. Following the gestation period, a single, rubbery-skinned egg between in diameter and in weight is laid from her cloaca directly into a small, backward-facing pouch that has developed


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: on her abdomen. The egg is ovoid, leathery, soft, and cream-coloured. Between laying and hatching, some females continue to forage for food, while others dig burrows and rest there until hatching. Ten days after it is laid, the egg hatches within the pouch. The embryo develops an "egg tooth" during incubation, which it uses to tear open the egg; the tooth disappears soon after hatching. Hatchlings are about long and weigh between . After hatching, young echidnas are known as "puggles". Although newborns are still semitranslucent and still surrounded by the remains of the egg yolk, and the eyes are


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: still barely developed, they already have well-defined front limbs and digits that allow them to climb on their mothers' bodies. Hatchlings attach themselves to their mothers' milk areolae, specialised patches on the skin that secrete milk—monotremes lack nipples—through about 100–150 pores. The puggles were thought to have imbibed the milk by licking the mother's skin, but they are now thought to feed by sucking the areolae. They have been observed ingesting large amounts during each feeding period, and mothers may leave them unattended in the burrow for between five and ten days to find food. Studies of captives have shown


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: they can ingest milk once every two or three days and then increase their mass by 20% in one milk-drinking session lasting between one and two hours. Around 40% of the milk weight is converted into body mass, and as such, a high proportion of milk is converted into growth; a correlation with the growth of the puggle and its mother's size has been observed. By the time the puggle is around , it is left in the burrow while the mother forages for food, and it reaches around after around two months. Juveniles are eventually ejected from the pouch


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: at around two to three months of age, because of the continuing growth in the length of their spines. During this period, the young are left in covered burrows while the mothers forage, and the young are often preyed upon. Suckling gradually decreases until juveniles are weaned at about six months of age. The duration of lactation is about 200 days, and the young leave the burrow after 180 to 205 days, usually in January or February, at which time they weigh around . There is no contact between the mother and young after this point. The composition of the


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: milk secreted by the mother changes over time. At the moment of birth, the solution is dilute and contains 1.25% fat, 7.85% protein, and 2.85% carbohydrates and minerals. Mature milk has much more concentrated nutrients, with 31.0, 12.4 and 2.8% of the aforementioned nutrients, respectively. Near weaning, the protein level continues to increase; this may be due to the need for keratin synthesis for hair and spines, to provide defences against the cold weather and predators. The principal carbohydrate components of the milk are fucosyllactose and saialyllactose; it has a high iron content, which gives it a pink colour. The


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: high iron content and low levels of free lactose differ from eutherian mammals. Lactose production is believed to proceed along the same lines as in the platypus. The age of sexual maturity is uncertain, but may be four to five years. A 12-year field study found the short-beaked echidna reaches sexual maturity between five and 12 years of age, and the frequency of reproduction varies from once every two years to once every six years. In the wild, the short-beaked echidna has an average lifespan of 10 years, though they can live as long as 40. The longest-lived specimen reached


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: 49 years of age in a zoo in Philadelphia. In contrast to other mammals, echidna rates of reproduction and metabolism are lower, and they live longer, as though in slow motion, something caused, at least in part, by their low body temperature, which rarely exceeds 33 °C, even when they are not hibernating. Like its fellow monotreme the platypus, the short-beaked echidna has a system of multiple sex chromosomes, in which males have four Y chromosomes and five X chromosomes. Males appear to be XYXYXYXYX (figure), while females are XXXXXXXXXX. Weak identity between chromosomes results in meiotic pairing that yields


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: only two possible genotypes of sperm, XXXXX or YYYY, thus preserving this complex system. The short-beaked echidna is common throughout most of temperate Australia and lowland New Guinea, and is not listed as endangered. In Australia, it remains widespread across a wide range of conditions, including urban outskirts, coastal forests and dry inland areas, and is especially widespread in Tasmania and on Kangaroo Island. The most common threats to the animal in Australia are motor vehicles and habitat destruction, which have led to localized extinctions. In Australia, the number of short-beaked echidnas has been less affected by land clearance than


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: have some other species, since they do not require a specialized habitat beyond a good supply of ants and termites. As a result, they can survive in cleared land if the cut-down wood is left in the area, as the logs can be used as shelters and sources of insects. However, areas where the land has been completely cleared for single crops that can be mechanically harvested, such as wheat fields, have seen extinctions. Over a decade-long period, around one-third of echidna deaths reported to wildlife authorities in Victoria were due to motor vehicles, and the majority of wounded animals


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: handed in were traffic accident victims. Studies have shown they often choose to traverse drainage culverts under roads, so this is seen as a viable means of reducing deaths on busy roads in rural areas or national parks where the animals are more common. Despite their spines, they are preyed on by birds of prey, the Tasmanian devil, dingoes, snakes, lizards, goannas, cats, and foxes, although almost all victims are young. Goannas are known for their digging abilities and strong sense of smell, and are believed to have been the main predators of the echidna before the introduction of eutherian


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: mammals. Dingoes are known to kill echidnas by rolling them over onto their backs and attacking their underbellies. A tracking study of a small number of echidnas on Kangaroo Island concluded that goannas and cats were the main predators, although foxes—absent in Kangaroo Island—would be expected to be a major threat. They were eaten by indigenous Australians and the early European settlers of Australia. Hunting and eating of the echidna in New Guinea has increased over time and caused a decline in the population and distribution areas; it is now believed to have disappeared from highland areas. The killing of


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: echidnas was a taboo in traditional culture, but since the tribespeople have become increasingly Westernised, hunting has increased, and the animals have been more easily tracked down due to the use of dogs. Infection with the introduced parasitic tapeworm "Spirometra erinaceieuropaei" is considered fatal for the echidna. This waterborne infection is contracted through sharing drinking areas with infected dogs, foxes, cats, and dingos, which do not die from the parasite. The infection is seen as being more dangerous in drier areas, where more animals are sharing fewer bodies of water, increasing the chance of transmission. The Wildlife Preservation Society of


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: Queensland runs an Australia-wide survey, called Echidna Watch, to monitor the species. Echidnas are also known to be affected by other tapeworms, protozoans and herpes-like viral infections, but little is known of how the infections affect the health of the animals or the populations. Although it is considered easy to keep echidnas healthy in captivity, breeding is difficult, partly due to the relatively infrequent cycle. In 2009, Perth Zoo managed to breed some captive short-beaked echidnas, and in 2015 the first zoo-born echidnas were successfully bred there. Until 2006, only five zoos have managed to breed short-beaked echidnas, but no


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: captive-bred young have survived to maturity. Of these five institutions, only one in Australia—Sydney's Taronga Zoo—managed to breed echidnas, in 1977. The other four cases occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, two in the United States and the others in western Europe. In these cases, breeding occurred six months out of phase compared to Australia, after the animals had adapted to Northern Hemisphere seasons. The failure of captive breeding programs has conservation implications for the endangered species of echidna from the genus "Zaglossus", and to a lesser extent for the short-beaked echidna. Short-beaked echidnas feature in the animistic culture of indigenous


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: Australians, including their visual arts and stories. The species was a totem for some groups, including the Noongar people from Western Australia. Many groups have myths about the animal; one myth explains it was created when a group of hungry young men went hunting at night and stumbled across a wombat. They threw spears at the wombat, but lost sight of it in the darkness. The wombat adapted the spears for its own defence and turned into an echidna. The short-beaked echidna is an iconic animal in contemporary Australia, notably appearing on the Australian five-cent coin (the smallest denomination), and


title: "Short-beaked echidna" content: on a A$200 commemorative coin released in 1992. The anthropomorphic echidna "Millie" was a mascot for the 2000 Summer Olympics. Short-beaked echidna The short-beaked echidna ("Tachyglossus aculeatus") is one of four living species of echidna and the only member of the genus Tachyglossus. It is covered in fur and spines and has a distinctive snout and a specialized tongue, which it uses to catch its insect prey at a great speed. Like the other extant monotremes, the short-beaked echidna lays eggs; the monotremes are the only group of mammals to do so. The short-beaked echidna has extremely strong front limbs


title: "Daniel M'Naghten" content: to assassinate the prime minister" and who subsequently feigned insanity. The verdict in M'Naghten's trial provoked an outcry in the press and Parliament. Queen Victoria, who had been the target of assassination attempts, wrote to the prime minister expressing her concern at the verdict, and the House of Lords revived an ancient right to put questions to judges. Five questions relating to crimes committed by individuals with delusions were put to the 12 judges of the Court of Common Pleas. Chief Justice Tindal delivered the answers of 11 judges (Mr Justice Maule dissented in part) to the House of Lords


title: "Lawrence Colburn" content: the massacre (March 16, 2001), Colburn was reunited with Do Ba, the young child Andreotta had rescued from the ditch. ""I'm very glad to see the man who rescued me,"" Ba said, as the two men lit incense at the graves of Ba's mother, sister and brother, who were 31, four and two when they were killed. ""He's a good man...But I still feel hatred for the soldiers who killed my mother, my brother and my sister."" Colburn also appeared in a PBS "American Experience" special on the incident, which aired April 26, 2010. On July 4, 1999, Colburn and


title: "Haymarket Square (Boston)" content: Boston Harbor called Mill Cove. The mouth of the cove was dammed in the 1640s, turning it into Mill Pond. In 1807, the town of Boston gave the Boston Mill Corporation permission to begin filling in Mill Pond. A street plan for the filled land was proposed in 1808 by Charles Bulfinch. Filling of the pond to create the area known as the Bulfinch Triangle was completed in the early 1820s. The future location of Haymarket Square, where Merrimack, Canal, and Charleston Streets converged at the southern tip of the Bulfinch Triangle, appears on an 1826 map. A drawing published


title: Trikaripur content: He made a menagerie for elephants with arrangements for feeding and breeding. This place is known as "The sacred Village of elephant "(Thiru-Karipuram) and later on "Thrikkaripuram" (similar to Thrikkanamathilakam which was originally Thiru-Kana Mathilakam) which with the passage of time came to be known as the present day "Thrikaripur". It was described by some senior citizen, called previously Sree Haripuram and later it became Trikarupur. It was not mentioned anywhere in history. Trikaripur lies along the coast of Arabian Sea, at This Panchayat serves as the separating border for Kasaragod District and Kannur District. Trikaripur is notable for its


title: Rodgau content: S1 from Wiesbaden to Ober-Roden. Until that time, Rodgau had been served by the "Rodgaubahn" (railway). There is regular bus service to the railway stations at Nieder-Roden and Jügesheim on the S1 through district buslines to Babenhausen, Seligenstadt, Dietzenbach and Langen and town buslines to Hainhausen, Weiskirchen and Rollwald. The town of Rodgau is slowly finding at its disposal a network of cycle paths which are being laid out in collaboration with the "Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club" (“General German Bicycle Club”, ADFC), and which link all five constituent communities together. Since 2005, the signposted "Rodgau-Rundweg" has run through fields and woods


title: "Fiat G.50" content: loss. Postwar records showed one Bristol Blenheim and a single G.50 being lost on that day. On 28 February 1941, RAF units intercepted a formation of Italian bombers and their escorts, claiming 27 aircraft shot down and several others damaged in the ensuing battle. The Italians claimed to have downed six Gladiators and a single Supermarine Spitfire. The recorded losses were one Gladiator and eight Italian aircraft; many more were damaged. After this battle, the "Regia Aeronautica" was no longer an effective force within the theatre. On 4 March 1941, a single G.50 bis was responsible for the shooting down


title: "Where the Buffalo Roam" content: Linson asked illustrator Ralph Steadman to create a poster for the film in the style of the illustrations he had done for Thompson's articles. He used a drawing titled "Spirit of Gonzo" as the basis. Thompson met with the film's screenwriter John Kaye and felt that Kaye understood more than what was in the script, which he described as "bad, dumb, low-level, low rent". Thompson admitted that he signed away having any kind of control so that he could not be blamed for the end result. In the original script, Lazlo's surname was Mendoza but this was changed after Nosotros,


title: "The Legend of Suriyothai" content: an invented story rather than claiming to be actual history. It presents a young woman, Suriyothai, of minor royal standing who has strong opinions and self-determination. The movie reveals the princess' boldness through scenes where she breaks tradition by walking among the commoners to meet her lover Prince Pirenthorathep, who in turn pledges that he will come to her aid whenever she wants. Her father insists that she must marry Prince Thienraja, the son of the second king of the realm. In an attempt to escape a marriage she does not want, she runs away and is captured by the


title: "Wang Jingwei regime" content: Jingwei especially in a sympathetic light, with Taiwanese scholars falling somewhere in the middle. Wang Jingwei regime The Wang Jingwei regime is the common name of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China (), a puppet state of the Empire of Japan, located in eastern China. This should not be confused with the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek, which was a separate, non-Japanese government. It was ruled by a one-party totalitarian dictatorship under Wang Jingwei, an ex-Kuomintang (KMT) official. The region that it would administer was initially seized by Japan throughout the late 1930s with the beginning


title: "Otto engine" content: low. Note that no fuel is used on the mis-fire strokes. Otto engines use a flowing water jacket around the cylinder wall, similar to modern engine cooling systems. The stationary Otto engines on display at the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion all share a single large heat radiator outside the building. This centralized distant heat dissipation system also helps to keep the engine building cool. Otto and his manager Gottlieb Daimler had a major disagreement on the future direction of the Otto engine. While Otto wanted to produce large engines for stationary applications Daimler wanted to produce engines small enough


title: "Amir Abdullah Khan Rokhri" content: of the independence movement. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Pakistani Punjab despite the opposition of figures such as Mian Mumtaz Daultana, Chief Minister of Punjab. Amir Abdullah Khan Rokhri along with Balakh Sher Mazari, Anwar Noon, Sardar Sikandar Hayat, and Sardar Ahmad Ali resigned from the National Assembly when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto jailed their close friend, Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi. Amir Abdullah Khan Rokhri was a close friend of the Pir of Pagaro, Makhdoom Hassan Mehmood, Maulana Abdus Sattar Niazi, Balakh Sher Mazari, Colonel Abid Hussain and others. The affection the people of Mianwali had for Amir Abdullah


title: "Frenchie Davis" content: for LGBTQ Studies (formerly known as Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies) at The Graduate Center, CUNY. The award is given to an LGBTQ Activist who promotes Queer Studies outside of academia. Frenchie is a featured artist in the Tony Moran single "You Are" that was released December 1, 2009, and peaked at number 5 on the "Billboard" hot clubplay chart. "You Are" was the debut single from Moran's album "Mix Magic Music". On September 4, 2012, Davis released her debut solo single, "Love's Got A Hold On Me". The song peaked at #12 on the "Billboard" Dance Chart. The


title: "Natascha Engel" content: as programme director. Working there for a year, her responsibilities included researching on skills and the needs of working women and Regional Economic Policy. In October 2002, through the Smith Institute, she co-wrote the book "Age of Regions: Meeting the Productivity Challenge". She was an assistant to John Healey in February 2003, and collaborated with him on a pamphlet, published by the TUC, and an article, published by the "New Statesman", arguing that unions should offer learning opportunities in order to recruit more members. Following the decision to stand down of sitting MP Harry Barnes, she was selected as the


title: Ascophyllum content: is found, the fronds are usually small and badly scratched. This seaweed grows quite slowly, 0.5% per day, carrying capacity is about 40 kg wet weight per square meter, and it may live for 10–15 years. It may typically overlap in distribution with "Fucus vesiculosus" and "Fucus serratus". Its distribution is also limited by salinity, wave exposure, temperature, desiccation, and general stress. It may take approximately five years before becoming fertile. Phlorotannins in "A. nodosum" act as chemical defenses against the marine herbivorous snail, "Littorina littorea". "Polysiphonia lanosa" (L.) T.A. Christensen is a small red alga, commonly found growing in


title: "Indian mathematics" content: work of Hellenistic astrology. Such use seems to make the case that by the mid-3rd century CE, the decimal place value system was familiar, at least to readers of astronomical and astrological texts in India. It has been hypothesized that the Indian decimal place value system was based on the symbols used on Chinese counting boards from as early as the middle of the first millennium BCE. According to , These counting boards, like the Indian counting pits, ..., had a decimal place value structure ... Indians may well have learned of these decimal place value "rod numerals" from Chinese


title: "WCPT (AM)" content: WCPT (AM) WCPT (820 AM) is a Progressive Talk radio station licensed to Willow Springs, Illinois, and serving the Chicago area. WCPT is owned by Newsweb Corporation. Newsweb's owner, Fred Eychaner, is a significant donor to Democratic Party causes. The station's studios and daytime transmitter are located in the Jefferson Park neighborhood on Chicago's Northwest Side. WCPT airs local and syndicated talk programs including those hosted by Thom Hartmann, Stephanie Miller, and Norman Goldman. The station began broadcasting on June 23, 1923, holding the call sign WCBD, and broadcast at 870 kHz. The station was located in Zion, Illinois and


title: "Cancelled (South Park)" content: Kyle seven times by continually farting, and finally Kyle gets fed up and plugs him. The scientist, Jeff Goldblum, discovers that he can reverse the polarity of the message that the alien ship is transmitting. A group of Visitors then show up, and the children and Chef flee. However, the children are ultimately abducted. The kids wake up on the ship, and meet Najix, an alien who looks like Stan's dad, and explains that he chose an appearance that would be most pleasing to them. They hate this as it is too reminiscent of the movie "Contact", which they hated.


title: "R33 (New York City Subway car)" content: equipment. Existing General Electric cars received New York Air Brake Newtran brake packages; the former Westinghouse cars received an updated brake package from the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. After rebuilding, R33 cars served on the , , and trains, and occasionally on the train. In 1996, New York City Transit announced that it would begin phasing out all Redbird cars – the R26, R28, R29, R33, and R36, with the arrival of the R142 and R142A cars, which entered service in 2000. The last train of R33s made its last trip on the route on April 14, 2003. Most of


title: "Cold Sassy Tree" content: go because she is in mourning, but Will and Hoyt convince her that the trip will do her good. Right after she changes her mind, Rucker decides to use the tickets himself to go to New York with Miss Love. Mary Willis is crushed, and her hatred of Miss Love increases. To take his and Mary Willis’ mind off the disappointment, Hoyt buys a brand-new Cadillac and becomes Cold Sassy's first car owner. Meanwhile, Rucker and Miss Love return from New York. They're now flirtatious and affectionate with each other, and Will wonders if their marriage is becoming more of


title: "Spice Up Your Life" content: song was a copy of Miami Sound Machine's "Conga", and added that it had a "zingy mariachi-flavored rhythm and infectious chorus chant", while Ann Powers of "The New York Times" said that it "skates over Latin hip hop from Lisa Lisa to the Lambada." "The Dallas Morning News" noted influences of ABBA, Bananarama and Bow Wow Wow in the song, and added that it "doesn't quite reach the pop heights of 'Wannabe'". Some of the reviewers criticized the lyrics. Dele Fadele of the "NME" called it "the poppermost pop single ever invented", adding that it contained "a brilliant line in


title: "Saturday Night! – The Album" content: song samples the nursery rhyme "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" taken from a children's record. "Dedication to All B-Boys" was inspired by the group The Commodores. The track features a Weaver's disc jockey, DJ Codemoney, performing a long break at the end. Weaver explained this part of the song by stating that in "rock and funk groups, everybody who was part of the band got to do their thing. And Code was part of the band." AllMusic writer David Jeffries noted songs such as "Saturday Night", stating it as "the kind of sleazy tale of misogyny that put


title: "Brennivín" content: Export of Brennivín from Iceland to the United States began in early 2014. The American definition and image of schnapps is historically very different to that of Europe and rest of the world. The U.S. label for Brennivin does not contain the word "schnapps" as schnapps is specifically defined by U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau Formulation as a "liqueur," a flavoured spirit product containing sugar in an amount not less than 2.5% by weight. As Brennivin does not contain any added sugar, it is instead labeled in the U.S. as "Aquavit," an approved TTB class and type


title: Sangay content: Sangay Sangay (also known as Macas, Sanagay, or Sangai) is an active stratovolcano in central Ecuador. It is the most active volcano in Ecuador, despite erupting only three times in recorded history, because the eruption that started in 1934 is still ongoing. It exhibits mostly strombolian activity. Geologically, Sangay marks the southern boundary of the Northern Volcanic Zone, and its position straddling two major pieces of crust accounts for its high level of activity. Sangay's approximately 500,000-year-old history is one of instability; two previous versions of the mountain were destroyed in massive flank collapses, evidence of which still litters its


title: "FIFA World Cup video games" content: iOS: "2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil World-class Soccer". The game is released in Japan and mainland China only. On 30 April 2018, EA announced a free expansion for "FIFA 18" based on the 2018 FIFA World Cup, featuring all 32 participating teams (and the ones already featured in FIFA 18) and all 12 stadiums used at the 2018 FIFA World Cup. This update was released on 29 May on PlayStation 4,Xbox One, Windows and Nintendo Switch, with an update to mobile devices later, on 6 June. Coins transfer over from the actual Ultimate Team game and there is no transfer


title: "Pump organ" content: Pump organ The pump organ, reed organ, harmonium, or melodeon is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. More portable than pipe organs, free-reed organs were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes in the 19th century, but their volume and tonal range were limited. They generally had one or sometimes two manuals, with pedal-boards being rare. The finer pump organs had a wider range of tones, and the cabinets of those intended for churches and


title: "Pump organ" content: affluent homes were often excellent pieces of furniture. Several million free-reed organs and melodeons were made in the USA and Canada between the 1850s and the 1920s. During this time Estey Organ and Mason & Hamlin were popular manufacturers. Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein (1723–1795), professor of physiology at Copenhagen, was credited with the first free-reed instrument made in the Western world, after winning the annual prize in 1780 from the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. The harmonium's design incorporates free reeds and derives from the earlier regal. A harmonium-like instrument was exhibited by (1756–1837) in 1810. He called it an "orgue


title: "Pump organ" content: expressif" (expressive organ), because his instrument was capable of greater expression, as well as of producing a crescendo and diminuendo. Alexandre Debain improved Grenié's instrument and gave it the name harmonium when he patented his version in 1840. There was concurrent development of similar instruments. A mechanic who had worked in the factory of Alexandre in Paris emigrated to the United States and conceived the idea of a suction bellows, instead of the ordinary bellows that forced the air outward through the reeds. Beginning in 1885, the firm of Mason & Hamlin, of Boston made their instruments with the suction


title: "Pump organ" content: bellows, and this method of construction soon superseded all others in America. Harmoniums reached the height of their popularity in the West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were especially popular in small churches and chapels where a pipe organ would be too large or too expensive; in the funeral-"in-absentia" scene from Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", the protagonist narrates that the church procured a "melodeum" (a conflation, likely intended by Twain for satirical effect, of the names "melodeon" and "harmonium") for the occasion. Harmoniums generally weigh less than similar sized pianos and are not


title: "Pump organ" content: as easily damaged in transport, thus they were also popular throughout the colonies of the European powers in this period not only because it was easier to ship the instrument out to where it was needed, but it was also easier to transport overland in areas where good-quality roads and railways may have been non-existent. An added attraction of the harmonium in tropical regions was that the instrument held its tune regardless of heat and humidity, unlike the piano. This "export" market was sufficiently lucrative for manufacturers to produce harmoniums with cases impregnated with chemicals to prevent woodworm and other


title: "Pump organ" content: damaging organisms found in the tropics. At the peak of the instruments' Western popularity around 1900, a wide variety of styles of harmoniums were being produced. These ranged from simple models with plain cases and only four or five stops (if any at all), up to large instruments with ornate cases, up to a dozen stops and other mechanisms such as couplers. Expensive harmoniums were often built to resemble pipe organs, with ranks of fake pipes attached to the top of the instrument. Small numbers of harmoniums were built with two manuals (keyboards). Some were even built with pedal keyboards,


title: "Pump organ" content: which required the use of an assistant to run the bellows or, for some of the later models, an electrical pump. These larger instruments were mainly intended for home use, such as allowing organists to practise on an instrument on the scale of a pipe organ, but without the physical size or volume of such an instrument. For missionaries, chaplains in the armed forces, travelling evangelists, and the like, reed organs that folded up into a container the size of a very large suitcase or small trunk were made; these had a short keyboard and few stops, but they were


title: "Pump organ" content: more than adequate for keeping hymn singers more or less on pitch. The invention of the electronic organ in the mid-1930s spelled the end of the harmonium's success in the West (although its popularity as a household instrument declined in the 1920s as musical tastes changed). The Hammond organ could imitate the tonal quality and range of a pipe organ whilst retaining the compact dimensions and cost-effectiveness of the harmonium as well as reducing maintenance needs and allowing a greater number of stops and other features. By this time, harmoniums had reached high levels of mechanical complexity, not only through


title: "Pump organ" content: the need to provide instruments with a greater tonal range, but also due to patent laws (especially in North America). It was common for manufacturers to patent the action mechanism used on their instruments, thus requiring any new manufacturer to develop their own version; as the number of manufacturers grew, this led to some instruments having hugely complex arrays of levers, cranks, rods and shafts, which made replacement with an electronic instrument even more attractive. The last mass-producer of harmoniums in North America was the Estey company, which ceased manufacture in the mid-1950s; a couple of Italian companies continued into


title: "Pump organ" content: the 1970s. As the existing stock of instruments aged and spare parts became hard to find, more and more were either scrapped or sold. It was not uncommon for harmoniums to be "modernised" by having electric blowers fitted, often very unsympathetically. The majority of Western harmoniums today are in the hands of enthusiasts, though the instrument remains popular in South Asia. Modern electronic keyboards can emulate the sound of the pump organ. The acoustical effects described below are a result of the free-reed mechanism. Therefore, they are essentially identical for the Western and Indian harmoniums and the reed organ. In


title: "Pump organ" content: 1875, Hermann von Helmholtz published his seminal book, "On the Sensations of Tone", in which he used the harmonium extensively to test different tuning systems: "Among musical instruments, the harmonium, on account of its uniformly sustained tone, the piercing character of its quality of tone, and its tolerably distinct combinational tones, is particularly sensitive to inaccuracies of intonation. And as its vibrators also admit of a delicate and durable tuning, it appeared to me peculiarly suitable for experiments on a more perfect system of tones." Using two manuals and two differently tuned stop sets, he was able to simultaneously compare


title: "Pump organ" content: Pythagorean to just and to equal-tempered tunings and observe the degrees of inharmonicity inherent to the different temperaments. He subdivided the octave to 28 tones, to be able to perform modulations of 12 minor and 17 major keys in just intonation without going into harsh dissonance that is present with the standard octave division in this tuning. This arrangement was difficult to play on. Additional modified or novel instruments were used for experimental and educational purposes; notably, Bosanquet's "Generalized keyboard" was constructed in 1873 for use with a 53-tone scale. In practice, that harmonium was constructed with 84 keys, for


title: "Pump organ" content: convenience of fingering. Another famous reed organ that was evaluated was built by Poole. Lord Rayleigh also used the harmonium to devise a method for indirectly measuring frequency accurately, using approximated known equal temperament intervals and their overtone beats. The harmonium had the advantage of providing clear overtones that enabled the reliable counting of beats by two listeners, one per note. However, Rayleigh acknowledged that maintaining constant pressure in the bellows is difficult and fluctuation of the pitch occurs rather frequently as a result. In the generation of its tones, a reed organ is similar to an accordion or concertina,


title: "Pump organ" content: but not in its installation, as an accordion is held in both hands whereas a reed organ is usually positioned on the floor in a wooden casing (which might make it mistakable for a piano at the very first glimpse). Reed organs are operated either with pressure or with suction bellows. Pressure bellows permit a wider range to modify the volume, depending on whether the pedaling of the bellows is faster or slower. In North America and the United Kingdom, a reed organ with pressure bellows is referred to as a harmonium, whereas in continental Europe, any reed organ is


title: "Pump organ" content: called a harmonium regardless of whether it has pressure or suction bellows. As reed organs with pressure bellows were more difficult to produce and therefore more expensive, North American and British reed organs and melodeons generally use suction bellows and operate on vacuum. Reed organ frequencies depend on the blowing pressure; the fundamental frequency "decreases" with medium pressure compared to low pressure, but it "increases" again at high pressures by several hertz for the bass notes measured. American reed organ measurements showed a sinusoidal oscillation with sharp pressure transitions when the reed bends above and below its frame. The fundamental


title: "Pump organ" content: itself is nearly the mechanical resonance frequency of the reed. The overtones of the instrument are harmonics of the fundamental, rather than inharmonic, although a weak inharmonic overtone (6.27"f") was reported too. The fundamental frequency comes from a transverse mode, whereas weaker higher transverse and torsional modes were measured too. Any torsional modes are excited because of a slight asymmetry in the reed's construction. During attack, it was shown that the reed produces most strongly the fundamental, along with a second transverse or torsional mode, which are transient. Radiation patterns and coupling effects between the sound box and the reeds


title: "Pump organ" content: on the timbre appear not to have been studied to date. The unusual reed-vibration physics have a direct effect on harmonium playing, as the control of its dynamics in playing is restricted and subtle. The free reed of the harmonium is riveted from a metal frame and is subjected to airflow, which is pumped from the bellows through the reservoir, pushing the reed and bringing it to self-exciting oscillation and to sound production in the direction of airflow. This particular aerodynamics is nonlinear in that the maximum displacement amplitude in which the reed can vibrate is limited by fluctuations in


title: "Pump organ" content: damping forces, so that the resultant sound pressure is rather constant. Additionally, there is a threshold pumping pressure, below which the reed vibration is minimal. Within those two thresholds, there is an exponential growth and decay in time of reed amplitudes . The harmonium was somewhat embraced by European and American composers of classical music. It was also used often in the folk music of the Appalachians and South of the United States. Harmoniums played a significant part in the new rise of Nordic folk music, especially in Finland. In the late 1970s, a harmonium could be found in most


title: "Pump organ" content: schools where the bands met, and it became natural for the bands to include a harmonium in their setup. A typical folk band then—particularly in Western Finland—consisted of violin(s), double-bass and harmonium. There was a practical limitation that prevented playing harmonium and accordion in the same band: harmoniums were tuned to 438 Hz, while accordions were tuned to 442 Hz. Some key harmonium players in the new rise of Nordic folk have been Timo Alakotila and Milla Viljamaa. In the Netherlands, the introduction of the harmonium triggered a boom in religious house music. Its organ-like sound quality allowed Reformed families


title: "Pump organ" content: to sing psalms and hymns at home. A lot of new hymns were composed expressly for voice and harmonium, notably those by Johannes de Heer. The harmonium repertoire includes many pieces written originally for the church organ, which may be played on a harmonium as well, because they have a small enough range and use fewer stops. For example, Bach's Fantasia in C major for organ BWV 570 is suitable for a four-octave harmonium. Harmoniums have been used in western popular music since at least the 1960s. John Lennon played a Mannborg harmonium on the Beatles' hit single "We Can