title: Renewable energy

text: Installations used to produce wind, solar and hydropower are an increasing threat to key conservation areas, with facilities built in areas set aside for nature conservation and other environmentally sensitive areas. They are often much larger than fossil fuel power plants, needing areas of land up to 10 times greater than coal or gas to produce equivalent energy amounts. More than 2000 renewable energy facilities are built, and more are under construction, in areas of environmental importance and threaten the habitats of plant and animal species across the globe. The authors' team emphasized that their work should not be interpreted as anti-renewables because renewable energy is crucial for reducing carbon emissions. The key is ensuring that renewable energy facilities are built in places where they do not damage biodiversity.


title: Renewable energy

text: The transition to renewable energy depends on non-renewable resources, such as mined metals. Manufacturing of photovoltaic panels, wind turbines and batteries requires significant amounts of rare-earth elements which has significant social and environmental impact if mined in forests and protected areas. Due to co-occurrence of rare-earth and radioactive elements (thorium, uranium and radium), rare-earth mining results in production of low-level radioactive waste.


title: Renewable energy

text: In 2020 scientists published a world map of areas that contain renewable energy materials as well as estimations of their overlaps with "Key Biodiversity Areas", "Remaining Wilderness" and "Protected Areas". The authors assessed that careful strategic planning is needed. Solar panels are recycled to reduce electronic waste and create a source for materials that would otherwise need to be mined, but such business is still small and work is ongoing to improve and scale-up the process.


title: Renewable energy

text: Prior to the development of coal in the mid 19th century, nearly all energy used was renewable. The oldest known use of renewable energy, in the form of traditional biomass to fuel fires, dates from more than a million years ago. The use of biomass for fire did not become commonplace until many hundreds of thousands of years later. Probably the second oldest usage of renewable energy is harnessing the wind in order to drive ships over water. This practice can be traced back some 7000 years, to ships in the Persian Gulf and on the Nile. From hot springs, geothermal energy has been used for bathing since Paleolithic times and for space heating since ancient Roman times. Moving into the time of recorded history, the primary sources of traditional renewable energy were human labor, animal power, water power, wind, in grain crushing windmills, and firewood, a traditional biomass.


title: Renewable energy

text: In 1885, Werner von Siemens, commenting on the discovery of the photovoltaic effect in the solid state, wrote:


title: Renewable energy

text: Max Weber mentioned the end of fossil fuel in the concluding paragraphs of his Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism), published in 1905. Development of solar engines continued until the outbreak of World War I. The importance of solar energy was recognized in a 1911 "Scientific American" article: "in the far distant future, natural fuels having been exhausted [solar power] will remain as the only means of existence of the human race".


title: Renewable energy

text: The theory of peak oil was published in 1956. In the 1970s environmentalists promoted the development of renewable energy both as a replacement for the eventual depletion of oil, as well as for an escape from dependence on oil, and the first electricity-generating wind turbines appeared. Solar had long been used for heating and cooling, but solar panels were too costly to build solar farms until 1980.


title: Flowering plant

text: Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants that produce their seeds enclosed within a fruit. They are by far the most diverse group of land plants with 64 orders, 416 families, approximately 13,000 known genera and 300,000 known species. Angiosperms were formerly called Magnoliophyta ().


title: Flowering plant

text: Like gymnosperms, angiosperms are seed-producing plants. They are distinguished from gymnosperms by characteristics including flowers, endosperm within their seeds, and the production of fruits that contain the seeds.


title: Flowering plant

text: The ancestors of flowering plants diverged from the common ancestor of all living gymnosperms before the end of the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. The closest fossil relatives of flowering plants are uncertain and contentious.


title: Flowering plant

text: The earliest angiosperm fossils are in the form of pollen around 134 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous. Over the course of the Cretaceous, angiosperms explosively diversified, becoming the dominant group of plants across the planet by the end of the period, corresponding with the decline and extinction of previously widespread gymnosperm groups. The origin and diversification of the angiosperms is often known as "Darwin's abominable mystery".


title: Flowering plant

text: Angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table below. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, and the most commercially important group to humans.


title: Flowering plant

text: Angiosperm stems are made up of seven layers as shown on the right. The amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms.


title: Flowering plant

text: In the dicotyledons, the vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings. The bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium. By the formation of a layer of cambium between the bundles (interfascicular cambium), a complete ring is formed, and a regular periodical increase in thickness results from the development of xylem on the inside and phloem on the outside. The soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Owing to differences in the character of the elements produced at the beginning and end of the season, the wood is marked out in transverse section into concentric rings, one for each season of growth, called annual rings.


title: Flowering plant

text: Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the young stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases.


title: Flowering plant

text: The characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species. The function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf (where the petiole attaches to the stem). Occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. More typically, the flower-bearing portion of the plant is sharply distinguished from the foliage-bearing or vegetative portion, and forms a more or less elaborate branch-system called an inflorescence.


title: Flowering plant

text: There are two kinds of reproductive cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which will divide to become pollen grains, are the "male" cells and are borne in the stamens (or microsporophylls). The "female" cells called megaspores, which will divide to become the egg cell (megagametogenesis), are contained in the ovule and enclosed in the carpel (or megasporophyll).


title: Flowering plant

text: The flower may consist only of these parts, as in willow, where each flower comprises only a few stamens or two carpels. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls and to form an envelope attractive to pollinators. The individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals (or tepals in flowers such as "Magnolia" where sepals and petals are not distinguishable from each other). The outer series (calyx of sepals) is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, especially the bud. The inner series (corolla of petals) is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators. Attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower. The characteristics that attract pollinators account for the popularity of flowers and flowering plants among humans.


title: Flowering plant

text: While the majority of flowers are perfect or hermaphrodite (having both pollen and ovule producing parts in the same flower structure), flowering plants have developed numerous morphological and physiological mechanisms to reduce or prevent self-fertilization. Heteromorphic flowers have short carpels and long stamens, or vice versa, so animal pollinators cannot easily transfer pollen to the pistil (receptive part of the carpel). Homomorphic flowers may employ a biochemical (physiological) mechanism called self-incompatibility to discriminate between self and non-self pollen grains. Alternatively, in dioecious species, the male and female parts are morphologically separated, developing on different individual flowers.


title: Flowering plant

text: The botanical term "angiosperm", from Greek words ( 'bottle, vessel') and ( 'seed'), was coined in the form "Angiospermae" by Paul Hermann in 1690 but he used this term to refer to a group of plants which form only a subset of what today are known as angiosperms. Hermannn's Angiospermae including only flowering plants possessing seeds enclosed in capsules, distinguished from his Gymnospermae, which were flowering plants with achenial or schizo-carpic fruits, the whole fruit or each of its pieces being here regarded as a seed and naked. The terms Angiospermae and Gymnospermae were used by Carl Linnaeus with the same sense, but with restricted application, in the names of the orders of his class Didynamia.


title: Flowering plant

text: The terms angiosperms and gymnosperm fundamentally changed in meaning in 1827 when Robert Brown established the existence of truly naked ovules in the Cycadeae and Coniferae. The term gymnosperm was from then on applied to seed plants with naked ovules, and the term angiosperm to seed plants with enclosed ovules. However, for many years after Brown's discovery, the primary division of the seed plants was seen as between monocots and dicots, with gymnosperms as a small subset of the dicots.


title: Flowering plant

text: In 1851, Hofmeister discovered the changes occurring in the embryo-sac of flowering plants, and determined the correct relationships of these to the Cryptogamia. This fixed the position of Gymnosperms as a class distinct from Dicotyledons, and the term Angiosperm then gradually came to be accepted as the suitable designation for the whole of the flowering plants other than Gymnosperms, including the classes of Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons. This is the sense in which the term is used today.


title: Flowering plant

text: In most taxonomies, the flowering plants are treated as a coherent group. The most popular descriptive name has been Angiospermae, with Anthophyta (lit. 'flower-plants') a second choice (both unranked). The Wettstein system and Engler system treated them as a subdivision (Angiospermae). The Reveal system also treated them as a subdivision (Magnoliophytina), but later split it to Magnoliopsida, Liliopsida, and Rosopsida. The Takhtajan system and Cronquist system treat them as a division (Magnoliophyta). The Dahlgren system and Thorne system (1992) treat them as a class (Magnoliopsida). The APG system of 1998, and the later 2003 and 2009 revisions, treat the flowering plants as an unranked clade without a formal Latin name (angiosperms). A formal classification was published alongside the 2009 revision in which the flowering plants rank as a subclass (Magnoliidae).


title: Flowering plant

text: The internal classification of this group has undergone considerable revision. The Cronquist system, proposed by Arthur Cronquist in 1968 and published in its full form in 1981, is still widely used but is no longer believed to accurately reflect phylogeny. A consensus about how the flowering plants should be arranged has recently begun to emerge through the work of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG), which published an influential reclassification of the angiosperms in 1998. Updates incorporating more recent research were published as the APG II system in 2003, the APG III system in 2009, and the APG IV system in 2016.


title: Flowering plant

text: to which the Cronquist system ascribes the classes Magnoliopsida (from "Magnoliaceae") and Liliopsida (from "Liliaceae"). Other descriptive names allowed by Article 16 of the ICBN include Dicotyledones or Dicotyledoneae, and Monocotyledones or Monocotyledoneae, which have a long history of use. In plain English, their members may be called "dicotyledons" ("dicots") and "monocotyledons" ("monocots"). The Latin behind these names refers the observation that the dicots most often have two cotyledons, or embryonic leaves, within each seed. The monocots usually have only one, but the rule is not absolute either way. From a broad diagnostic point of view, the number of cotyledons is neither a particularly handy, nor a reliable character.


title: Flowering plant

text: Recent studies, as by the APG, show that the monocots form a monophyletic group (a clade) but that the dicots are paraphyletic. Nevertheless, the majority of dicot species fall into a clade, the eudicots or tricolpates, and most of the remaining fall into another major clade, the magnoliids, containing about 9,000 species. The rest include a paraphyletic grouping of early branching taxa known collectively as the basal angiosperms, plus the families Ceratophyllaceae and Chloranthaceae.


title: Flowering plant

text: The exact relationships among these eight groups is not yet clear, although there is agreement that the first three groups to diverge from the ancestral angiosperm were Amborellales, Nymphaeales, and Austrobaileyales (basal angiosperms) Of the remaining five groups (core angiosperms), the relationships among the three broadest groups remains unclear (magnoliids, monocots, and eudicots). Zeng and colleagues (Fig. 1) describe four competing schemes.The eudicots and monocots are the largest and most diversified, with ~ 75% and 20% of angiosperm species, respectively. Some analyses make the magnoliids the first to diverge, others the monocots. "Ceratophyllum" seems to group with the eudicots rather than with the monocots. The APG IV retained the overall higher order relationship described in APG III.


title: Flowering plant

text: Fossilised spores suggest that land plants (embryophytes) have existed for at least 475 million years. Early land plants reproduced sexually with flagellated, swimming sperm, like the green algae from which they evolved. An adaptation to terrestrialization was the development of upright sporangia for dispersal by spores to new habitats. This feature is lacking in the descendants of their nearest algal relatives, the Charophycean green algae. A later terrestrial adaptation took place with retention of the delicate, avascular sexual stage, the gametophyte, within the tissues of the vascular sporophyte. This occurred by spore germination within sporangia rather than spore release, as in non-seed plants. A current example of how this might have happened can be seen in the precocious spore germination in "Selaginella", the spike-moss. The result for the ancestors of angiosperms and gymnosperms was enclosing the female gamete in a case, the seed.


title: Flowering plant

text: The first seed bearing plants were gymnosperms, like the ginkgo, and conifers (such as pines and firs). These did not produce flowers. The pollen grains (male gametophytes) of "Ginkgo" and cycads produce a pair of flagellated, mobile sperm cells that "swim" down the developing pollen tube to the female and her eggs.


title: Flowering plant

text: Angiosperms appear suddenly and in great diversity in the fossil record in the Early Cretaceous. This poses such a problem for the theory of gradual evolution that Charles Darwin called it an "abominable mystery". Several groups of extinct gymnosperms, in particular seed ferns, have been proposed as the ancestors of flowering plants, but there is no continuous fossil evidence showing how flowers evolved, and botanists still regard it as a mystery.


title: Flowering plant

text: Several claims of pre-Cretaceous angiosperm fossils have been made, such as the upper Triassic "Sanmiguelia lewisi", but none of these are widely accepted by paleobotanists. Oleanane, a secondary metabolite produced by many flowering plants, has been found in Permian deposits of that age together with fossils of gigantopterids. Gigantopterids are a group of extinct seed plants that share many morphological traits with flowering plants, although they are not known to have been flowering plants themselves. Molecular evidence suggests that the ancestors of angiosperms diverged from the gymnosperms during the late Devonian, about 365 million years ago, despite only appearing in the fossil record during the Early Cretaceous, almost two hundred million years later.


title: Flowering plant

text: Based on fossil evidence, some have proposed that the ancestors of the angiosperms diverged from an unknown group of gymnosperms in the Triassic period (245–202 million years ago). Fossil angiosperm-like pollen from the Middle Triassic (247.2–242.0 Ma) suggests an older date for their origin, which is further supported by genetic evidence of the ancestors of angiosperms diverging during the Devonian. A close relationship between angiosperms and gnetophytes, proposed on the basis of morphological evidence, has more recently been disputed on the basis of molecular evidence that suggest gnetophytes are instead more closely related to conifers and other gymnosperms.


title: Flowering plant

text: The fossil plant species "Nanjinganthus dendrostyla" from Early Jurassic China seems to share many exclusively angiosperm features, such as a thickened receptacle with ovules, and thus might represent a crown-group or a stem-group angiosperm. However, these have been disputed by other researchers, who contend that the structures are misinterpreted decomposed conifer cones.


title: Flowering plant

text: The evolution of seed plants and later angiosperms appears to be the result of two distinct rounds of whole genome duplication events. These occurred at and . Another possible whole genome duplication event at perhaps created the ancestral line that led to all modern flowering plants. That event was studied by sequencing the genome of an ancient flowering plant, "Amborella trichopoda."


title: Flowering plant

text: One study has suggested that the early-middle Jurassic plant "Schmeissneria", traditionally considered a type of ginkgo, may be the earliest known angiosperm, or at least a close relative. This, along with all other pre-Cretaceous angiosperm fossil claims, is strongly disputed by many paleobotanists.


title: Flowering plant

text: Many paleobotanists consider the Caytoniales, a group of "seed ferns" that first appeared during the Triassic and went extinct in the Cretaceous, to be amongst the best candidates for a close relative of angiosperms.


title: Flowering plant

text: Whereas the earth had previously been dominated by ferns and conifers, angiosperms quickly spread during the Cretaceous. They now comprise about 90% of all plant species including most food crops. It has been proposed that the swift rise of angiosperms to dominance was facilitated by a reduction in their genome size. During the early Cretaceous period, only angiosperms underwent rapid genome downsizing, while genome sizes of ferns and gymnosperms remained unchanged. Smaller genomes—and smaller nuclei—allow for faster rates of cell division and smaller cells. Thus, species with smaller genomes can pack more, smaller cells—in particular veins and stomata—into a given leaf volume. Genome downsizing therefore facilitated higher rates of leaf gas exchange (transpiration and photosynthesis) and faster rates of growth. This would have countered some of the negative physiological effects of genome duplications, facilitated increased uptake of carbon dioxide despite concurrent declines in atmospheric CO concentrations, and allowed the flowering plants to outcompete other land plants.


title: Flowering plant

text: The oldest known fossils definitively attributable to angiosperms are reticulated monosulcate pollen from the late Valanginian (Early or Lower Cretaceous - 140 to 133 million years ago) of Italy and Israel, likely representative of the basal angiosperm grade.


title: Flowering plant

text: The earliest known macrofossil confidently identified as an angiosperm, "Archaefructus liaoningensis", is dated to about 125 million years BP (the Cretaceous period), whereas pollen considered to be of angiosperm origin takes the fossil record back to about 130 million years BP, with "Montsechia" representing the earliest flower at that time.


title: Flowering plant

text: In 2013 flowers encased in amber were found and dated 100 million years before present. The amber had frozen the act of sexual reproduction in the process of taking place. Microscopic images showed tubes growing out of pollen and penetrating the flower's stigma. The pollen was sticky, suggesting it was carried by insects. In August 2017, scientists presented a detailed description and 3D model image of what the first flower possibly looked like, and presented the hypothesis that it may have lived about 140 million years ago. A Bayesian analysis of 52 angiosperm taxa suggested that the crown group of angiosperms evolved between and .


title: Flowering plant

text: Recent DNA analysis based on molecular systematics showed that "Amborella trichopoda", found on the Pacific island of New Caledonia, belongs to a sister group of the other flowering plants, and morphological studies suggest that it has features that may have been characteristic of the earliest flowering plants. The orders Amborellales, Nymphaeales, and Austrobaileyales diverged as separate lineages from the remaining angiosperm clade at a very early stage in flowering plant evolution.


title: Flowering plant

text: The great angiosperm radiation, when a great diversity of angiosperms appears in the fossil record, occurred in the mid-Cretaceous (approximately 100 million years ago). However, a study in 2007 estimated that the division of the five most recent of the eight main groups occurred around 140 million years ago. (the genus "Ceratophyllum", the family Chloranthaceae, the eudicots, the magnoliids, and the monocots) .


title: Flowering plant

text: It is generally assumed that the function of flowers, from the start, was to involve mobile animals in their reproduction processes. That is, pollen can be scattered even if the flower is not brightly colored or oddly shaped in a way that attracts animals; however, by expending the energy required to create such traits, angiosperms can enlist the aid of animals and, thus, reproduce more efficiently.


title: Flowering plant

text: Island genetics provides one proposed explanation for the sudden, fully developed appearance of flowering plants. Island genetics is believed to be a common source of speciation in general, especially when it comes to radical adaptations that seem to have required inferior transitional forms. Flowering plants may have evolved in an isolated setting like an island or island chain, where the plants bearing them were able to develop a highly specialised relationship with some specific animal (a wasp, for example). Such a relationship, with a hypothetical wasp carrying pollen from one plant to another much the way fig wasps do today, could result in the development of a high degree of specialisation in both the plant(s) and their partners. Note that the wasp example is not incidental; bees, which, it is postulated, evolved specifically due to mutualistic plant relationships, are descended from wasps.


title: Flowering plant

text: Animals are also involved in the distribution of seeds. Fruit, which is formed by the enlargement of flower parts, is frequently a seed-dispersal tool that attracts animals to eat or otherwise disturb it, incidentally scattering the seeds it contains (see frugivory). Although many such mutualistic relationships remain too fragile to survive competition and to spread widely, flowering proved to be an unusually effective means of reproduction, spreading (whatever its origin) to become the dominant form of land plant life.


title: Flowering plant

text: Flower ontogeny uses a combination of genes normally responsible for forming new shoots. The most primitive flowers probably had a variable number of flower parts, often separate from (but in contact with) each other. The flowers tended to grow in a spiral pattern, to be bisexual (in plants, this means both male and female parts on the same flower), and to be dominated by the ovary (female part). As flowers evolved, some variations developed parts fused together, with a much more specific number and design, and with either specific sexes per flower or plant or at least "ovary-inferior". Flower evolution continues to the present day; modern flowers have been so profoundly influenced by humans that some of them cannot be pollinated in nature. Many modern domesticated flower species were formerly simple weeds, which sprouted only when the ground was disturbed. Some of them tended to grow with human crops, perhaps already having symbiotic companion plant relationships with them, and the prettiest did not get plucked because of their beauty, developing a dependence upon and special adaptation to human affection.


title: Flowering plant

text: A few paleontologists have also proposed that flowering plants, or angiosperms, might have evolved due to interactions with dinosaurs. One of the idea's strongest proponents is Robert T. Bakker. He proposes that herbivorous dinosaurs, with their eating habits, provided a selective pressure on plants, for which adaptations either succeeded in deterring or coping with predation by herbivores.


title: Flowering plant

text: By the late Cretaceous, angiosperms appear to have dominated environments formerly occupied by ferns and cycadophytes, but large canopy-forming trees replaced conifers as the dominant trees only close to the end of the Cretaceous 66 million years ago or even later, at the beginning of the Paleogene. The radiation of herbaceous angiosperms occurred much later. Yet, many fossil plants recognisable as belonging to modern families (including beech, oak, maple, and magnolia) had already appeared by the late Cretaceous. Flowering plants appeared in Australia about 126 million years ago. This also pushed the age of ancient Australian vertebrates, in what was then a south polar continent, to 126-110 million years old.


title: Flowering plant

text: The number of species of flowering plants is estimated to be in the range of 250,000 to 400,000. This compares to around 12,000 species of moss and 11,000 species of pteridophytes, showing that flowering plants are much more diverse. The number of families in APG (1998) was 462. In APG II (2003) it is not settled; at maximum it is 457, but within this number there are 55 optional segregates, so that the minimum number of families in this system is 402. In APG III (2009) there are 415 families. Compared to the APG III system, the APG IV system recognizes five new orders (Boraginales, Dilleniales, Icacinales, Metteniusales and Vahliales), along with some new families, making a total of 64 angiosperm orders and 416 families.


title: Flowering plant

text: The diversity of flowering plants is not evenly distributed. Nearly all species belong to the eudicot (75%), monocot (23%), and magnoliid (2%) clades. The remaining five clades contain a little over 250 species in total; i.e. less than 0.1% of flowering plant diversity, divided among nine families. The 43 most diverse of 443 families of flowering plants by species, in their APG circumscriptions, are


title: Flowering plant

text: Of these, the Orchidaceae, Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Araceae, Bromeliaceae, Arecaceae, and Iridaceae are monocot families; Piperaceae, Lauraceae, and Annonaceae are magnoliid dicots; the rest of the families are eudicots.


title: Flowering plant

text: Double fertilization refers to a process in which two sperm cells fertilise cells in the ovule. This process begins when a pollen grain adheres to the stigma of the pistil (female reproductive structure), germinates, and grows a long pollen tube. While this pollen tube is growing, a haploid generative cell travels down the tube behind the tube nucleus. The generative cell divides by mitosis to produce two haploid ("n") sperm cells. As the pollen tube grows, it makes its way from the stigma, down the style and into the ovary. Here the pollen tube reaches the micropyle of the ovule and digests its way into one of the synergids, releasing its contents (which include the sperm cells). The synergid that the cells were released into degenerates and one sperm makes its way to fertilise the egg cell, producing a diploid (2"n") zygote. The second sperm cell fuses with both central cell nuclei, producing a triploid (3"n") cell. As the zygote develops into an embryo, the triploid cell develops into the endosperm, which serves as the embryo's food supply. The ovary will now develop into a fruit and the ovule will develop into a seed.


title: Flowering plant

text: As the development of the embryo and endosperm proceeds within the embryo sac, the sac wall enlarges and combines with the nucellus (which is likewise enlarging) and the integument to form the "seed coat". The ovary wall develops to form the fruit or pericarp, whose form is closely associated with type of seed dispersal system.


title: Flowering plant

text: Frequently, the influence of fertilisation is felt beyond the ovary, and other parts of the flower take part in the formation of the fruit, e.g., the floral receptacle in the apple, strawberry, and others.


title: Flowering plant

text: The character of the seed coat bears a definite relation to that of the fruit. They protect the embryo and aid in dissemination; they may also directly promote germination. Among plants with indehiscent fruits, in general, the fruit provides protection for the embryo and secures dissemination. In this case, the seed coat is only slightly developed. If the fruit is dehiscent and the seed is exposed, in general, the seed-coat is well developed and must discharge the functions otherwise executed by the fruit.


title: Flowering plant

text: In some cases, like in the Asteraceae family, species have evolved to exhibit heterocarpy, or the production of different fruit morphs. These fruit morphs, produced from one plant, are different in size and shape, which influence dispersal range and germination rate. These fruit morphs are adapted to different environments, increasing chances for survival.


title: Flowering plant

text: Like all diploid multicellular organisms that use sexual reproduction, flowering plants generate gametes using a specialised type of cell division called meiosis. Meiosis takes place in the ovule—a structure within the ovary that is located within the pistil at the centre of the flower (see diagram labeled "Angiosperm lifecycle"). A diploid cell (megaspore mother cell) in the ovule undergoes meiosis (involving two successive cell divisions) to produce four cells (megaspores) with haploid nuclei. It is thought that the basal chromosome number in angiosperms is n = 7. One of these four cells (megaspore) then undergoes three successive mitotic divisions to produce an immature embryo sac (megagametophyte) with eight haploid nuclei. Next, these nuclei are segregated into separate cells by cytokinesis to produce three antipodal cells, two synergid cells and an egg cell. Two polar nuclei are left in the central cell of the embryo sac.


title: Flowering plant

text: Pollen is also produced by meiosis in the male anther (microsporangium). During meiosis, a diploid microspore mother cell undergoes two successive meiotic divisions to produce four haploid cells (microspores or male gametes). Each of these microspores, after further mitoses, becomes a pollen grain (microgametophyte) containing two haploid generative (sperm) cells and a tube nucleus. When a pollen grain makes contact with the female stigma, the pollen grain forms a pollen tube that grows down the style into the ovary. In the act of fertilisation, a male sperm nucleus fuses with the female egg nucleus to form a diploid zygote that can then develop into an embryo within the newly forming seed. Upon germination of the seed, a new plant can grow and mature.


title: Flowering plant

text: The adaptive function of meiosis is currently a matter of debate. A key event during meiosis in a diploid cell is the pairing of homologous chromosomes and homologous recombination (the exchange of genetic information) between homologous chromosomes. This process promotes the production of increased genetic diversity among progeny and the recombinational repair of damages in the DNA to be passed on to progeny. To explain the adaptive function of meiosis in flowering plants, some authors emphasise diversity and others emphasise DNA repair.


title: Flowering plant

text: Apomixis (reproduction via asexually formed seeds) is found naturally in about 2.2% of angiosperm genera. One type of apomixis, gametophytic apomixis found in a dandelion species involves formation of an unreduced embryo sac due to incomplete meiosis (apomeiosis) and development of an embryo from the unreduced egg inside the embryo sac, without fertilisation (parthenogenesis).


title: Flowering plant

text: Some angiosperms, including many citrus varieties, are able to produce fruits through a type of apomixis called nucellar embryony.


title: Flowering plant

text: Agriculture is almost entirely dependent on angiosperms, which provide virtually all plant-based food, and also provide a significant amount of livestock feed. Of all the families of plants, the Poaceae, or grass family (providing grains), is by far the most important, providing the bulk of all feedstocks (rice, maize, wheat, barley, rye, oats, pearl millet, sugar cane, sorghum). The Fabaceae, or legume family, comes in second place. Also of high importance are the Solanaceae, or nightshade family (potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers, among others); the Cucurbitaceae, or gourd family (including pumpkins and melons); the Brassicaceae, or mustard plant family (including rapeseed and the innumerable varieties of the cabbage species "Brassica oleracea"); and the Apiaceae, or parsley family. Many of our fruits come from the Rutaceae, or rue family (including oranges, lemons, grapefruits, etc.), and the Rosaceae, or rose family (including apples, pears, cherries, apricots, plums, etc.).


title: Flowering plant

text: In some parts of the world, certain single species assume paramount importance because of their variety of uses, for example the coconut ("Cocos nucifera") on Pacific atolls, and the olive ("Olea europaea") in the Mediterranean region.


title: Flowering plant

text: Flowering plants also provide economic resources in the form of wood, paper, fiber (cotton, flax, and hemp, among others), medicines (digitalis, camphor), decorative and landscaping plants, and many other uses. Coffee and cocoa are the common beverages obtained from the flowering plants. The main area in which they are surpassed by other plants—namely, coniferous trees (Pinales), which are non-flowering (gymnosperms)—is timber and paper production.


title: Wim Hof

text: Wim Hof (; born 20 April 1959), also known as The Iceman, is a Dutch motivational speaker and extreme athlete noted for his ability to withstand low temperatures. He previously held a Guinness World Record for swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice, and holds a record for a barefoot half marathon on ice and snow. He attributes these feats to his Wim Hof Method (WHM), a combination of frequent cold exposure, breathing techniques and meditation. Hof has been the subject of several medical assessments and The New York Times bestselling book "What Doesn't Kill Us" written by investigative journalist Scott Carney.


title: Wim Hof

text: Wim Hof was born in Sittard, Limburg, Netherlands, one of nine children. Hof met his first wife Marivelle-Maria, also called “Olaya Rosino Fernandez” (born in 1960, from Basque Country, Spain) in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam in the garden of roses. She died by suicide in 1995 by jumping from an eight-story building. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Wim Hof’s first relevant experiences with the cold go back to when he was 17: he felt a sudden urge to jump into the freezing cold water of the Beatrixpark canal. The first relevant scientific investigation began in 2011 at Radboud University. On 19 April 2011, the results of this study were broadcast on Dutch national television.


title: Wim Hof

text: Hof markets a regimen called the Wim Hof Method (WHM), which involves willpower, exposure to cold water, and breathing techniques.


title: Wim Hof

text: Hof states that his method can reduce symptoms of several diseases including: rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. However, while hyperventilation might temporarily reduce inflammatory response to an injection of endotoxins, Hof's claims have not been scientifically proven.


title: Wim Hof

text: Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, one of the scientists who studied Hof, said: "[Hof's] scientific vocabulary is galimatias. With conviction, he mixes in a non-sensical way scientific terms as irrefutable evidence." However, Van Marken Lichtenbelt goes on to say: "When practicing the Wim Hof Method with a good dose of common sense (for instance, not hyperventilating before submerging in water) and without excessive expectations: it doesn't hurt to try."


title: Wim Hof

text: In 2012, a case study led by a group of researchers in The Netherlands and published by the journal "Psychosomatic Medicine" titled "The Influence of Concentration/meditation on Autonomic Nervous System Activity and the Innate Immune Response", found that his "concentration/meditation during ice immersion" greatly reduced his "ex vivo proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokine response":"The concentration/meditation technique used by this particular individual seems to evoke a controlled stress response. This response is characterized by sympathetic nervous system activation and subsequent catecholamine/cortisol release, which seems to attenuate the innate immune response."


title: Wim Hof

text: In 2014 an assessment compared Wim Hof and his identical twin brother Andre. The scientists had them practice Wim's breathing exercises, then exposed them to the lowest temperature that would not induce shivering. They concluded that, "No significant differences were found between the two subjects, indicating that a lifestyle with frequent exposures to extreme cold does not seem to affect BAT activity and CIT (cold-induced thermogenesis)." The researchers stated that the "results must be interpreted with caution given the low subject number and the fact that both participants practised the g-Tummo-like breathing technique."


title: Wim Hof

text: In 2018, a study published in the journal "NeuroImage" titled "Brain over body–A study on the willful regulation of autonomic function during cold exposure", used a combination of fMRI and PET/CT imaging, and found, "forceful respiration results in increased sympathetic innervation and glucose consumption in intercostal muscle, generating heat that dissipates to lung tissue and warms circulating blood in the pulmonary capillaries. Our results provide compelling evidence for the primacy of the brain (CNS) rather than the body (peripheral mechanisms) in mediating the Iceman's [Wim Hof's] responses to cold exposure."


title: Wim Hof

text: In 2014, a paper published in PNAS titled "Voluntary Activation of The Sympathetic Nervous System and Attenuation of the Innate Immune Response In Humans", extended the 2012 case study of Wim Hof with a randomized group of twenty-four healthy volunteers, twelve of whom were trained with the Wim Hof Method:"In conclusion, we demonstrate that voluntary activation of the sympathetic nervous system results in epinephrine release and subsequent suppression of the innate immune response in humans in vivo. These results could have important implications for the treatment of conditions associated with excessive or persistent inflammation, such as autoimmune diseases."In 2014, a report written by Geert A. Buijze, MD, PhD and Maria T. Hopman, MD, PhD titled "Controlled Hyperventilation After Training May Accelerate Altitude Acclimatization", dealt with the effects of the Wim Hof Method on acute mountain sickness (AMS). During an expedition to Mt. Kilimanjaro, a group of 26 trekkers who were trained in the Wim Hof Method used the breathing techniques to largely prevent and, if needed, reverse symptoms of AMS:"In comparison with previous studies,4,5 this report may suggest that acclimatization, as well as AMS symptom relief, can be safely accelerated. Based on previous data, it was expected that the majority of our group would experience severe AMS. All 26 trekkers had symptoms of AMS to some extent, but even without prophylaxis, none had severe AMS. Even though we discourage (very) rapid ascent because of potentially lethal risks, we consider these outcomes of potentially great relevance for the prevention and treatment of AMS, as well as for rescue teams needing to ascend fast with little time for acclimatization. Further research is warranted to expand or revise our understanding of the physiology and treatment of these conditions."In 2015, a proof-of-principle study titled "The Role of Outcome Expectancies for a Training Program Consisting of Meditation, Breathing Exercises, and Cold Exposure on the Response to Endotoxin Administration", demonstrated that the WHM can attenuate the inflammatory response, "through practicing techniques that are relatively easy to learn within a short time frame", but "It remains to be determined whether the results of this study using an acute model of inflammation in healthy volunteers can be extrapolated to patients with chronic autoimmune diseases."


title: Wim Hof

text: In 2018, the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, conducted a survey asking people around the world what impact the Wim Hof method had on their lives. More than 3,200 people responded. In 2019, a proof of concept trial titled "Battling Arthritis-An add-on training program involving breathing exercises, cold exposure, and meditation attenuates inflammation and disease activity in axial spondyloarthritis", concluded that: "There was a significant decrease in ESR levels and ASDAS-CRP upon the add-on training program in the intervention group. These findings warrant full-scale randomised controlled trials of this novel therapeutic approach in patients with inflammatory conditions."


title: Wim Hof

text: In 2020, an article titled "Involvement of lactate and pyruvate in the anti-inflammatory effects exerted by voluntary activation of the sympathetic nervous system", concluded that: "Practicing the breathing exercises acquired during the training program results in enhanced activity of the Cori cycle, and next to the previously established relationship between epinephrine and IL-10 induction, the current data indicate a role of lactate and pyruvate in the enhanced production of this key anti-inflammatory mediator and in the overall anti-inflammatory phenotype observed in trained subjects."


title: Wim Hof

text: A 2021 pilot study on fifteen sprinters concluded that the WHM caused side effects and "did not enhance any performance parameter (peak power, average power, and FI) in later sprint sets." The researchers concluded that "Based on the results found in this study, we do not recommend applying this method with the view of improving performance, at least not for repeated sprinting."


title: Wim Hof

text: In 2022, a pilot study titled "The Effects of Cold Exposure Training and a Breathing Exercise on the Inflammatory Response in Humans" showed that:"The combination of cold exposure training and a breathing exercise most potently attenuates the in vivo inflammatory response in healthy young males. Our study demonstrates that the immunomodulatory effects of the intervention can be reproduced in a standardized manner, thereby paving the way for clinical trials."


title: Wim Hof

text: A 2022 study found that a "4 week intervention exercise based on the pillar of the Wim Hof breathing method was not effective in improving the breathing economy of adolescent elite endurance runners." The authors recommended proven interventions such as Yoga breath training instead.


title: Wim Hof

text: People have died while attempting the Wim Hof Method. Four practitioners drowned in 2015 and 2016, and relatives suspected the breathing exercises were to blame. In 2021, a Singaporean man drowned in a condominium pool when attempting the method.


title: Wim Hof

text: In the American Magazine "Rolling Stone" Hof claims to have acquired a total of 26 world records, though no systematic evaluation of these records is listed anywhere.


title: Wim Hof

text: The fastest half marathon run while barefoot on ice or snow is 2 hr 16 min 34 sec by Hof near Oulu, Finland, on 26 January 2007. Done for the Discovery Channel program "Real Super-humans and the Quest for the Future Fantastic", this is the only current Guinness record in Hof's name.


title: Wim Hof

text: On 16 March 2000, Hof set the Guinness World Record for farthest swim under ice on his second attempt, with a distance of . Hof's first attempt the day before failed when he began his swim without goggles and his corneas froze solid and blinded him. A rescue diver pulled him to the surface after he passed out. The record has been broken several times since and is as of 2022.


title: Wim Hof

text: Hof has set the world record for longest time in direct, full-body contact with ice, 1 hour, 44 minutes in January 2010. Hof's record has been broken several times and as of 2021 it stands at 3 hours, 28 seconds.


title: Wim Hof

text: In 2007, Hof climbed to an altitude of on Mount Everest wearing nothing but shorts and shoes, but aborted the attempt due to a recurring foot injury. He managed to climb from base camp to about wearing just shorts and sandals, but after that he had to wear boots.


title: Wim Hof

text: In 2016, Hof reached Gilmans Point on Mount Kilimanjaro with journalist Scott Carney in 28 hours, an event later documented in the book "What Doesn't Kill Us".


title: Nyx

text: Nyx (; , , "Night") is the Greek goddess and personification of night. A shadowy figure, Nyx stood at or near the beginning of creation and mothered other personified deities, such as Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death), with Erebus (Darkness). She is the first child of Chaos. She is typically portrayed as either a winged goddess with a dark cloud halo or dressed in black surrounded by dark mist. Her Roman equivalent is Nox.


title: Nyx

text: In Hesiod's "Theogony", Nyx is born of Chaos. With Erebus (Darkness), Nyx gives birth to Aether (Brightness) and Hemera (Day). Later, on her own, Nyx gives birth to Moros (Doom, Destiny), the Keres (Destruction, Death), Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), the Oneiroi (Dreams), Momus (Blame), Oizys (Pain, Distress), the Hesperides, the Moirai (Fates), Nemesis (Indignation, Retribution), Apate (Deceit), Philotes (Friendship), Geras (Old Age), and Eris (Strife).


title: Nyx

text: In his description of Tartarus, Hesiod locates there the home of Nyx, and the homes of her children Hypnos and Thanatos. Hesiod says further that Nyx's daughter Hemera (Day) left Tartarus just as Nyx (Night) entered it; continuing cyclicly, when Hemera returned, Nyx left.


title: Nyx

text: At "Iliad" 14.249–61, Hypnos, the minor deity of sleep, reminds Hera of an old favor after she asks him to put Zeus to sleep. He had once before put Zeus to sleep at the bidding of Hera, allowing her to cause Heracles (who was returning by sea from Laomedon's Troy) great misfortune. Zeus was furious and would have smote Hypnos into the sea if he had not fled to Nyx, his mother, in fear. Homer goes on to say that Zeus, fearing Nyx's anger, held his fury at bay and in this way Hypnos escaped the wrath of Zeus by appealing to his powerful mother. He disturbed Zeus only a few times after that, always fearing Zeus and running back to his mother, Nyx, who would have confronted Zeus with maternal fury. This tale is often cited as evidence that Zeus is fearful of Nyx.


title: Nyx

text: In several fragmentary poems attributed to Orpheus Nyx, rather than Chaos, is the first principle from which all creation emerges. Nyx occupies a cave or adyton, in which she gives oracles. Cronus – who is chained within, asleep and drunk on honey – dreams and prophesies. Outside the cave, Adrasteia clashes cymbals and beats upon her tympanon, moving the entire universe in an ecstatic dance to the rhythm of Nyx's chanting. Phanes – the strange, monstrous, hermaphrodite Orphic demiurge – was the child or father of Nyx. Nyx is also the first principle in the opening chorus of Aristophanes' "The Birds", which may be Orphic in inspiration. Here she is also the mother of Eros.


title: Nyx

text: The theme of Nyx's cave or mansion, beyond the ocean (as in Hesiod) or somewhere at the edge of the cosmos (as in later Orphism) may be echoed in the philosophical poem of Parmenides. The classical scholar Walter Burkert has speculated that the house of the goddess to which the philosopher is transported is the palace of Nyx.


title: Nyx

text: Some authors made Nyx the mother of Eos, the dawn goddess, who was often conflated with Nyx's daughter Hemera. When Eos' son Memnon was killed during the Trojan War, Eos made Helios (the sun god) downcast, and asked Nyx to come out earlier so that she would collect her son's dead body undetected by the Greek and the Trojan armies.


title: Nyx

text: There was no known temple dedicated to Nyx, but statues are known to have been made of her and a few cult practices of her are mentioned. According to Pausanias, she had an oracle on the acropolis at Megara. Pausanias wrote:


title: Nyx

text: More often, Nyx was worshipped in the background of other cults. Thus there was a statue called "Night" in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The Spartans had a cult of Sleep and Death, conceived of as twins. Cult titles composed of compounds of "nyx-" are attested for several deities, most notably Dionysus "Nyktelios" "nocturnal" and Aphrodite "Philopannyx" "who loves the whole night".


title: Nyx

text: Roman authors mentioned cult practices and wrote hymns in the honor of their equivalent goddess Nox (Night). Ovid wrote: "May 9 Lemuria Nefastus. You ancient rite will be performed, Nox Lemuria; here will be offerings to the mute dead", and she is also mentioned by Statius:


title: Nyx

text: Nyx was worshiped by the early Orphic people. Their hymns portray her as the parent of all life. Her offerings consist of black animals that were burned and buried.


title: Nyx

text: Nyx is also worshiped today by practicing Pagans and Wiccans. Their offerings to the goddess include items like night-blooming flowers, moonstone, agate, and other things relating to the moon and night itself. Work with Nyx is done at night and typically includes shadow work and divination.


title: Nyx

text: In 1997, the International Astronomical Union approved the name Nyx for a mons (mountain/peak) feature on the planet Venus. Nyx Mons is located at latitude 30° North and longitude 48.5° East on the Venusian surface. Its diameter is 875 km.


title: Nyx

text: On June 21, 2006, the International Astronomical Union renamed one of Pluto's recently discovered moons (S/2005 P 2) Nix, in honor of Nyx. The name was spelled with an "i" instead of a "y", to avoid conflict with the asteroid 3908 Nyx.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Lance Strulovitch (born 29 October 1998), better known as Lance Stroll, is a Canadian–Belgian racing driver competing under the Canadian flag in Formula One. He has driven for Aston Martin since , having previously driven for Williams and Racing Point. He was Italian F4 champion in 2014, Toyota Racing Series champion in 2015, and 2016 FIA European Formula 3 champion. He was part of the Ferrari Driver Academy from 2010 to 2015. He achieved his first podium finish, a 3rd place, at the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, becoming the second-youngest driver to finish an F1 race on the podium and the youngest (and latest as of the end of 2021) to do so during his rookie season. At the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix, Stroll took his first pole position in Formula One. Stroll also competed in endurance racing, taking part in the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2016 and 2018.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll is the son of Canadian businessman Lawrence Stroll (part-owner of the Aston Martin Formula One team) and Belgian fashion designer Claire-Anne Callens, and has an older sister named Chloe. He is of Russian Jewish descent from his father's side. Stroll races under the Canadian flag and holds both Canadian and Belgian citizenship.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Like many race drivers, the Geneva-based Canadian began his motorsport career in karting at the age of 10. He recorded numerous race and championship wins in his native Canada and North America and in 2008, his first year of karting, he won the Federation de Sport Automobile du Quebec rookie of the year award and driver of the year in 2009. In 2010, Stroll became a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll's car racing debut came in the 2014 Florida Winter Series, a non-championship series organized by the Ferrari Driver Academy. He raced against future Formula One competitors Nicholas Latifi and Max Verstappen, and took two podium finishes as well as pole position at Homestead–Miami Speedway.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll made his competitive car racing debut in the 2014 Italian F4 Championship, driving for Prema Powerteam. Despite missing the final round due to injury, Stroll emerged as series champion, taking seven race wins, thirteen podium finishes, and five pole positions.


title: Lance Stroll

text: At the beginning of 2015, Stroll won the New Zealand-based Toyota Racing series, recording 10 podiums – including four wins – from 16 race starts. In the same year, he also contested the FIA Formula 3 European Championship with Prema Powerteam, in which his father by this time had taken a stake. He competed against future Formula One competitors Antonio Giovinazzi, Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Alexander Albon, winning one race at the Hockenheimring and achieving six total podium finishes in the 33-race series. He ended the season 5th in the championship. 2015 also marked Stroll's first and only appearance at the non-championship Formula Three Macau Grand Prix, in which he finished in 8th place.


title: Lance Stroll

text: On 11 November 2015, it was announced that Stroll would leave the Ferrari Driver Academy to serve as a test driver for Williams.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll began 2016 by finishing 5th at the 2016 24 Hours of Daytona, driving for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing in a Ford EcoBoost Prototype. He remained with Prema Powerteam for a third consecutive year to compete in his second season of the Formula 3 European Championship. He won the first race at Circuit Paul Ricard before taking thirteen more race victories over the season, including five consecutive victories in the final five races. He claimed the title with four races to go and ended the season 187 points clear of nearest competitor Maximilian Günther.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Throughout the season, Stroll and his team were accused of manufacturing his title via team orders to his teammates, which was highlighted by George Russell, who stated at Le Castellet, where Stroll had inherited the lead from a slowing Nick Cassidy, who ended up finishing second, that "it's not a fair fight".


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll drove for the Williams team for the 2017 Formula One season, partnering Felipe Massa. He became the first Canadian Formula One driver since the World Drivers' Champion Jacques Villeneuve. Reportedly, Stroll's father Lawrence paid $80 million to Williams prior to his Formula One debut.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll crashed in practice for his debut race, the , and received a grid penalty as this necessitated an unscheduled gearbox change. He retired from the race with a brake failure. Two more retirements followed after collisions with Sergio Pérez at the and Carlos Sainz Jr. at the . Stroll's first race finish came at the , where he finished in eleventh despite spinning on the first lap. He retired with a brake failure at the , but was still classified fifteenth. Stroll scored his first Formula One points at his home Grand Prix in Montreal, finishing in ninth place.


title: Lance Stroll

text: At the , Stroll had run in second place in the closing laps, but was passed by Valtteri Bottas just metres from the finish line. He finished third to become the youngest rookie and the second-youngest driver after Max Verstappen to finish on the podium in Formula One, at the age of 18 years and 239 days.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll registered the fourth fastest time during a wet qualifying session for the . Due to Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen (respectively third and second) taking grid penalties, Stroll was promoted to second place on the starting grid, making him the youngest Formula One driver to start on the front row at the age of 18 years and 310 days. Stroll finished seventh in the race. He recorded two eighth-place finishes at the Singapore (where he started eighteenth) and Malaysian Grands Prix. At the latter, Stroll and Sebastian Vettel collided on the cool-down lap after the end of the race. Both drivers blamed the other for the incident, however no action was taken by the stewards.


title: Lance Stroll

text: At the , Stroll worked his way up to sixth place in the race from eleventh on the grid. This result placed him ahead of teammate Felipe Massa in the Drivers' Championship for the first time that season. Stroll ended the season twelfth in the Drivers' Championship, scoring 40 of the team's 83 points. Furthermore, Stroll gained more positions on the opening lap than any other driver that year.


title: Lance Stroll

text: For the 2018 season, Stroll remained with Williams, partnered by Sergey Sirotkin after Massa retired from Formula One. The Williams FW41 was the slowest car of the field and the team would go on to finish last in the constructors' championship that season. Stroll scored the team's first points of the year at the by finishing eighth. Stroll's home race, the , ended on the first lap after a heavy collision with Brendon Hartley. He then retired from the following with a tire puncture. His second and final retirement of the year came at the with a brake failure. Stroll made his only appearance in the third qualifying session (Q3) at the , qualifying tenth. He went on to finish ninth in the race with teammate Sirotkin in tenth, marking Williams' only double points-finish that season.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll finished eighteenth in the Drivers' Championship, scoring six of the team's seven points. Sirotkin out-qualified Stroll at twelve of the twenty-one races.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll switched to driving for the newly renamed Racing Point team for the season after the team was bought by a consortium of investors led by his father Lawrence. He replaced Esteban Ocon at the team and raced alongside Sergio Pérez. Stroll scored his first points for his new team at the season-opening , finishing ninth. At the , Stroll criticized team strategy after finishing outside of the point-scoring positions for the second consecutive race. At the he was involved in a collision with Lando Norris that ended both drivers' races. He finished ninth at the having started seventeenth.


title: Lance Stroll

text: In qualifying at the , Stroll progressed past the first qualifying session (Q1), ending a streak of fourteen Grands Prix in which he had been eliminated in Q1. He switched to slick tires late in the race as the track was drying, elevating him to second place. He missed out on a podium after being overtaken by Daniil Kvyat and Sebastian Vettel. Stroll's next points finish came at the , where he started sixteenth and finished tenth. He scored his final points of the season after finishing ninth at the . Stroll retired from the final two races of the season, suffering a suspension failure at the and brake issues at the .


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll ended his first season at Racing Point fifteenth in the Drivers' Championship with 21 points, below teammate Pérez's tally of 52 points. He was out-qualified by Pérez at eighteen of the season's twenty-one races.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll and Pérez were retained by Racing Point for ."" As a result of Canada's national sporting authority resigning its mandate from the FIA, Stroll raced under an American licence but was still recognised as Canadian on race weekends. During the , he qualified in ninth place but later retired from the race following engine problems. His first points finish of the season came at the . He finished seventh having overtaken Daniel Ricciardo in a move Ricciardo described as "desperate" and deserving of a penalty. Stroll qualified third and finished fourth at the and followed this with four more points finishes including fourth place at the . Stroll claimed his second Formula One podium at the . He was in second place when the race restarted after a red flag period before being passed by multiple cars including Pierre Gasly. Stroll later suggested that his poor restart cost him the chance to win the race after Gasly claimed victory. After eight races, Stroll was in fourth place in the Drivers' Championship.


title: Lance Stroll

text: A string of retirements followed beginning with the , where a mechanical failure caused him to crash heavily, having been running in fourth place. He was eliminated from the on the first lap after contact with Charles Leclerc caused him to hit a wall. He then withdrew from the prior to qualifying due to illness, having sat out the third practice session. His team confirmed he did not have COVID-19, saying he had passed all necessary FIA tests in this regard. He was replaced at the event by Nico Hülkenberg. Shortly after the race, Stroll tested positive for COVID-19. He completed a 10-day isolation period and returned to racing at the , in which he collided with Lando Norris. This caused Stroll's eventual retirement from the race, his fourth consecutive non-finish.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll took his first pole position at the after a wet qualifying session. In doing so, he became the first Canadian F1 driver to take pole position since Jacques Villeneuve at the 1997 European Grand Prix. Stroll led the race for 32 of the 58 laps, but reported severe tire graining and eventually fell to ninth place by the end of the race. After the race, Racing Point found damage on Stroll's front wing which they named as the cause of his tire issues. Shortly after the was restarted following Romain Grosjean's accident, Stroll's car was flipped over after making contact with Daniil Kvyat at turn eight. Stroll was uninjured and was able to extract himself from the car. At the , he benefited from tire issues for the leading Mercedes cars to finish third, earning his third podium in Formula One.


title: Lance Stroll

text: At the end of the season, Stroll stood eleventh in the Drivers' Championship, scoring 75 of the team's 210 points.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll continued to drive for the Racing Point team in as the team rebranded to Aston Martin. He was partnered by Sebastian Vettel in place of Pérez. Stroll qualified and finished tenth in the season-opening . A video of him driving over a curb at the became a popular internet meme, used as a bait-and-switch similar to rickrolling, after the official broadcast interrupted a battle between Vettel, Pierre Gasly and Lewis Hamilton to show a replay of Stroll driving over the curbs. A high-speed tire failure at the ended Stroll's race. A similar incident then happened to Max Verstappen later in the race, prompting tire manufacturer Pirelli to conduct an investigation into the failures. Stroll scored a point with tenth place at the , having started nineteenth after being unable to set a representative lap time in qualifying.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll caused a collision on the first lap of the that eliminated himself and Charles Leclerc from the race and caused Daniel Ricciardo significant damage. As a result, Stroll was issued a five-place grid penalty for the next race, the . He finished seventh at the , his best finish of the season thus far, but collided with both Vettel and Pierre Gasly at the , for which he received a ten-second penalty. He crashed in qualifying at the and finished fourteenth. His best result of the season came at the with a sixth-place finish. Stroll ended the season thirteenth in the Drivers' Championship, scoring 34 points to Vettel's 43.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Aston Martin retained Stroll and Vettel for the season. Stroll was in eleventh place in the closing laps of the , but lost places after a collision with Alex Albon. He failed to set a qualifying time at the due to a crash with Nicholas Latifi for which Stroll was penalised. He made three pit stops during the race and later received a penalty for weaving on the straight when defending against Valtteri Bottas, finishing twelfth. Stroll took his first points of the year with tenth at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, and followed it up with another tenth place finish in Miami, despite a collision with Kevin Magnussen. He crashed in qualifying at the and retired from the race with mechanical issues.


title: Lance Stroll

text: More tenth-place finishes came at the Canadian, French and Dutch Grands Prix. He came close to points at the , where he started twentieth and finished eleventh, and at the , where he was running eighth before being spun around by Daniel Ricciardo. Stroll's best result of the season came with sixth place at the , and he achieved his best grid position since his 2020 Turkish Grand Prix pole position at the , starting fifth. He ran as high as third in the opening laps but was eliminated in a high-speed collision with Fernando Alonso. A penalty for dangerous defending against teammate Vettel in the sprint dropped Stroll to fifteenth on the grid for the race, in which he recovered to score a point in tenth place. He scored more points at the , starting fourteenth and finishing eighth. Stroll ended the season fifteenth in the Drivers' Championship with 18 points to Vettel's 37.


title: Lance Stroll

text: Stroll is due to remain with Aston Martin for and will be partnered with Fernando Alonso, who replaces the retiring Sebastian Vettel.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The sixth generation of the BMW 3 Series consists of the BMW F30 (sedan version), BMW F31 (wagon version, marketed as 'Touring') and BMW F34 (fastback version, marketed as 'Gran Turismo') compact executive cars. The F30/F31/F34 generation was produced from October 2011 to 2019 and is often collectively referred to as the F30.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: For the sixth generation, the coupé and convertible models were spun off to create the new BMW 4 Series nameplate. BMW also introduced a separate hatchback model under the 3 Series nameplate called the 3 Series Gran Turismo (F34).


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The F30 is the first generation of 3 Series to be powered by a range of turbocharged engines exclusively and electric power steering (replacing the hydraulic power steering systems used previously). The F30 also marked the 3 Series' first use of a three-cylinder engine in its 2015 facelift. A new plug-in hybrid F30 model was also introduced in 2016. A long-wheelbase sedan version (model code F35) was sold in China.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The M3 model (designated F80) was introduced in 2014 and is powered by the S55 twin-turbocharged straight-six engine.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: In March 2019, the BMW 3 Series (G20) was released as the successor to the F30. But the F34 fastback model continued to be available until early 2020. Later, it was replaced by BMW 4 Series Gran Coupé (G26) in June 2021.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The exterior designer for the F30 sedan was Christopher Weil and exterior designer for the F31 Touring was Michael de Bono.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The F30 was unveiled in Munich on 14 October 2011, with market launch and first customer deliveries on 11 February 2012.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The F30 sedan debuted at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show in March 2012 and was the first of the sixth generation 3 Series models to go on sale. Early models included the 328i and 335i and (post LCI) later models included the 330i and 340i. The 320i, 318d, and 316d models were added to the F30 range in March 2012. The 320i EfficientDynamics Edition and 316i were added in autumn of 2012.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: In the United States, the arrival of the four-cylinder models marked the first time a 3 Series was sold with a four-cylinder petrol engine, since the E36 318i of the late 1990s. The 328i xDrive and 335i xDrive went on sale in the summer of 2012.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The wagon/estate body style (marketed as "Touring") was unveiled at the 21st Auto Mobil International held at Leipzig in 2012. This body style has a designation of F31, and the launch models consisted of the 328i, 320d and the 330d. The 320i, 316d and 318d models were added in autumn of 2012.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The 5-door fastback body style has a designation of F34 and is marketed as the 3 Series Gran Turismo, with styling similar to the 5 Series Gran Turismo. Although it features a rear hatchback, the 3 Series GT is not considered a successor to the 1993–2004 3 Series Compact 3-door hatchbacks. The Gran Turismo body style was discontinued for the following generation, the G20 3 Series as it proved to be unsuccessful in terms of sales.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: At , the F34 is longer than the sedan and Touring models. This extra length is partly facilitated by the longer wheelbase shared with the F35 long wheelbase sedan models. The F34 is also taller than the F30/F31. These increased dimensions result in the rear wheels being located further back and lower with respect to the rear seat, and allows for three full-size rear seats.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The F34 version was unveiled at the 83rd Geneva International Motor Show in 2013. At launch, the engine range consisted of turbocharged petrol and diesel engines in straight-4 and straight-6 configurations. All-wheel drive was available in the "i xDrive" and "d xDrive" models. The F34 received a facelift ("Life Cycle Impulse") in mid-2016, a year after the facelift was introduced for the other body styles of the F30 generation.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: A long-wheelbase sedan model having a designation of F35, was produced for the Chinese market. The wheelbase is increased by to ; this increases rear knee room by and results in an overall length of . The vehicle was produced in BMW's Shenyang production plant, and has chrome trim on the doors to distinguish it from the regular F30 sedans.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The F35 was unveiled at 2012 Auto China in Beijing. Initial models included the 320Li, 328Li and 335Li. Post-facelift (LCI) models consisted of the 316Li, 320Li, 328Li, 328Li xDrive and 335Li.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The F30/F31 has grown in all dimensions compared to its predecessor. The styling is similar to previous generations with a sweeping bonnet, short front overhang, and long wheelbase. Headlamps now connect to a wide kidney grill. Tail lamps also sport a wide "L" shape design seen in many BMW models.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: In some markets, in addition to the base and M Sport models, three 'trim lines' were available for this generation: Modern Line, Sport Line and Luxury Line. These lines form the base packages upon which extra options could be specified. The Modern Line was discontinued after the 2014 model year, due to low sales.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: In the sedan models, the rear headroom, leg room and shoulder room increased compared with their E90 predecessors.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: Options include heated front seats, split-fold rear seats, satellite navigation and a widescreen display in the centre console. The Bluetooth that's built-in into the car now supports audio streaming. The traditional mechanical shift lever was replaced by a shift by wire shifter (first used by BMW in the 2007 E70 X5).


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: M Performance Parts can be fitted to all models with the M Sport trim. These include sport brakes for 18 inch and higher wheels, side skirt ground effects, black kidney grilles and carbon fibre mirrors.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The petrol models initially used the turbocharged 4-cylinder N13, 4-cylinder N20 and 6-cylinder N55 engines. This meant that the 328i models (traditionally powered by naturally-aspirated 6-cylinder engines) now used the turbocharged 4-cylinder N20 engine. For the 2016 facelift (LCI), the engines were updated to the 3-cylinder B38, the 4-cylinder B48 and the 6-cylinder B58.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The diesel models initially used the 4-cylinder N47 and 6-cylinder N57 turbocharged engines. For the 2016 facelift, the 4-cylinder models were updated to the B47 engine, while the 6-cylinder models retained the N57 engine.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The M3 and M4 version [designated F80 for M3 (sedan) and F82 for M4 (coupe) the first time an M3 has used a separate model code, and the first time an M coupe was designated M4] was introduced in 2014. It is powered by the S55 twin-scroll-turbocharged straight-six engine. Production of the M3 ended in 2020. For the next generation M3/M4 (G80/G82) models released.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: Based on the 335i Sedan, the ActiveHybrid 3 includes a synchronous electric motor, a lithium-ion battery positioned underneath the luggage area and a 2-zone climate control system with stationary air conditioning. The electric motor generates of torque. The maximum all-electric driving range is , with a top speed of .


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The US EPA rated the 2013 ActiveHybrid 3 with a combined fuel economy of , with in the city, and on the highway.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The BMW 330e iPerformance is a plug-in hybrid unveiled at the IAA in Frankfurt in September 2015. The first units were registered in Europe by late 2015 and North American sales began in 2016.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The 330e features a four-cylinder petrol engine and an electric motor. The powertrain is rated at a total of and of torque. The United States EPA rated the 2016 BMW 330e energy consumption in all-electric mode at 47 kWh per 100 miles, which translates into a combined city/highway fuel economy of 72 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (MPG-e) (3.3 L/100 km petrol equivalent), but only 14 miles all-electric range (Real world electric range under normal driving conditions mix of highway and city in eco mode is approximately 24km). When powered only by the petrol engine, EPA's official combined city/highway fuel economy is .


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The facelift ("Life Cycle Impulse") versions were released in 2015 for the 2016 model year. Changes include:


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The BMW 320d Efficient Dynamics was the most widely used vehicle in the London 2012 Olympics due to BMW's official partnership.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: Production of F30 generation began with the sedan body style on 28 October 2011. Production ended in 2019 with the end of F31 Touring production in June.


title: BMW 3 Series (F30)

text: The sedan and wagon models were produced in Germany (Munich and Regensburg), South Africa (Rosslyn, up until 2018), India (Chennai), China (Shenyang) and Brazil (Araquari). The Gran Turismo models were produced at the BMW Dingolfing plant in Germany. Local assembly of complete knock-down (CKD) kits was used for cars sold in Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia and Thailand.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: The forty-seventh season of the NBC comedy series "Saturday Night Live" premiered on October 2, 2021, during the 2021–22 television season with host Owen Wilson and musical guest Kacey Musgraves, and concluded on May 21, 2022 with host Natasha Lyonne and musical guest Japanese Breakfast. For the first time, the season's first five episodes and the remainder from episode ten onward were live-streamed on the streaming service Peacock in addition to its coast-to-coast live television broadcast.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: Prior to the start of the season, Beck Bennett and Lauren Holt had both left the show, though the rest of the cast from the previous season was retained. Three new featured players were added: comedic actor and filmmaker Aristotle Athari, impressionist and actor James Austin Johnson, and surrealist comedian Sarah Sherman. Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang, who were hired as featured players in Season 45, were promoted to repertory status this season while Andrew Dismukes and Punkie Johnson remain as featured players.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: Kate McKinnon did not appear in the first seven episodes of the season, as she was filming "Joe vs. Carole". Cecily Strong was absent from the first three episodes of 2022 due to her appearance in the Off-Broadway revival of the one-woman play "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe". Pete Davidson was absent from the thirteenth until the twentieth episode due to filming the movie "The Home".


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: Don Roy King, who had directed the show since Season 32, retired after the ninth episode, hosted by Paul Rudd. He was succeeded by Liz Patrick, a longtime director of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show". In addition, longtime producer and head of talent relations Lindsay Shookus left the show after 20 years.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: This season saw the deaths of four former cast members; on September 14, 2021, a month before the season began, former cast member and "Weekend Update" anchor Norm Macdonald died at the age of 61 after a nine-year battle with leukemia. Two months later, on November 6, former featured player Peter Aykroyd died at the age of 65 from sepsis caused by an untreated abdominal hernia. Later in the season, on April 12, 2022, at the age of 67, season 6 cast member Gilbert Gottfried died after a long illness from a rare ventricular tachycardia disorder complicated by type II myotonic dystrophy. On May 6, season 11 cast member Dan Vitale died from heart disease at the age of 66.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: This was the final season for McKinnon and Aidy Bryant, who both had been cast members since 2012, Kyle Mooney who had been a cast member since 2013, and Davidson, who had been since 2014.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: On September 1, 2022, it was announced that Melissa Villaseñor and Alex Moffat, both cast members since season 42, would be departing the show alongside first-year featured player Aristotle Athari.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: On September 19, 2022, it was also announced that Chris Redd, who had been a cast member since 2017, would be departing the show.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: Prior to the start of the season, the show hired ten new writers: Mike DiCenzo, Billy Domineau, Alex English, Martin Herlihy, John Higgins, Vanessa Jackson, Tesha Kondrat, Ben Marshall, Jake Nordwind, and Ben Silva. Herlihy, Higgins, and Marshall performed sketches throughout this season as the comedy troupe Please Don't Destroy. Anna Drezen, Michael Che, Colin Jost, and Kent Sublette continued as the show's head writers, though after the Paul Rudd episode, Drezen left to focus on her new show for Freeform. It was also the last season for writers Jasmine Pierce and Steven Castillo (who also left after the Paul Rudd episode).


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: Alison Gates, who has written for the show since 2018, was promoted to writing supervisor. Gates and Streeter Seidell joined Che, Jost, and Sublette as head writers beginning with the Ariana DeBose episode.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: Beginning with the John Mulaney episode, three new writers were hired: Rosebud Baker, Clare O'Kane and Nicole Sun.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: In January 2022, Matthew Gilbert of "The Boston Globe" wrote that he was "surprised with the mediocrity" of the season, suggesting that individual cast members did not have opportunities to stand out; he cited the high number of players compared to past seasons, the periodic absence of some cast members due to other commitments, and regular use of guest stars and cameo appearances in sketches as possible reasons.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: Conversely, Michael Boyle of "Slate" praised the season's filmed sketches featuring the Please Don't Destroy troupe, writing, "The basic character dynamics should be familiar to anyone who’s watched SNL before, but they’re done with an efficiency that puts the rest of the show to shame."


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: New cast member James Austin Johnson and his impression of former U.S. President Donald Trump, which debuted on the show this season, received a positive reception from critics. Dennis Perkins of "The A.V. Club" wrote, "Johnson's Trump is as exact as advertised, and his Trump's discursively narcissistic screed is more comically illuminating than four full years of Alec Baldwin making funny Trump faces." Dan Spinelli of "Mother Jones" lauded the accuracy of Johnson's impression, writing, "Close your eyes and you'll think new cast member James Austin Johnson is the real thing. He nails the preening self-regard, the incessant need for attention, and the way Trump wields 'excuse me' almost as a verbal saber." Gilbert, however, criticized Johnson's impression of President Joe Biden and opined it was not as good as his version of Trump. Andy Hoglund at "Entertainment Weekly" concurs, citing Johnson's "commendable if slightly less transcendent work as" the president.


title: Saturday Night Live (season 47)

text: Another new cast member, Sarah Sherman, received positive reviews from the entertainment press for adapting her unusual and surreal comedy style to the show. Luka Katic of "Collider" wrote, "Sherman certainly isn't the first unconventional comedian to be featured on "SNL" (i.e. Tim Robinson, Kyle Mooney, etc.). However, what makes her remarkable is her success in spite of that fact. Where actors like Robinson often felt they had to tone down their material for SNL, Sherman finds inventive alternative ways to channel her deranged sensibilities into the show." Jesse Hassenger of "Vulture" listed Sherman's "Meatballs" sketch from the Oscar Isaac/Charli XCX episode as one of the best of the season, writing "In a crowded season, it was especially refreshing to come upon a sketch that feels like such a clear expression of its star’s sensibilities."


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: Dazed and Confused is a 1993 American coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by Richard Linklater. The film features a large ensemble cast of actors who would later become stars, including Jason London, Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Cole Hauser, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, Matthew McConaughey, Nicky Katt, Joey Lauren Adams, and Rory Cochrane. The plot follows different groups of Texas teenagers during the last day of school in 1976.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: The film was a commercial disappointment at the box office, grossing less than $8 million in the United States. Despite this, the film has enjoyed critical and commercial success over the years, and has since become a cult classic. It ranked third on "Entertainment Weekly" magazine's list of the 50 Best High School Movies. The magazine also ranked it 10th on its "Funniest Movies of the Past 25 Years" list.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: It is May 28, 1976, the last day of school at Lee High School in Austin, Texas. The next year's group of seniors are preparing for the annual hazing of incoming freshmen. Randall "Pink" Floyd, the school's star football player, is asked to sign a pledge promising not to take drugs during the summer or do anything that would "jeopardize the goal of a championship season". When classes end, the incoming freshman boys are hunted down by the seniors and paddled. The incoming freshman girls are also hazed; they are rounded up in the school parking lot by senior girls, covered in mustard, ketchup, flour and raw eggs and forced to propose to senior boys.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: As day fades to night, freshman Mitch Kramer escapes the initial hazing with his best friend Carl Burnett, but is later cornered after a baseball game and violently paddled. Fred O'Bannion, a senior participating in the hazing tradition for a second year after failing to graduate, delights in punishing Mitch. Pink gives the injured Mitch a ride home and offers to take him cruising with friends that night. Plans for the evening are ruined when Kevin Pickford's parents discover his intention to host a keg party. Elsewhere, the intellectual trio of Cynthia Dunn, Tony Olson, and Mike Newhouse decide to participate in the evening's festivities. Pink and his friend David Wooderson, a man in his early 20s who still socializes with high school students, pick up Mitch and head for the Emporium, a pool hall frequented by teenagers.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: As the night progresses, students loiter around the Emporium, listen to rock music, cruise the neighborhood and frequent a local drive-through restaurant. Mitch is introduced to sophomore Julie Simms, with whom he shares a mutual attraction. While cruising again with Pink, Pickford and Don Dawson, Mitch drinks beer and smokes marijuana for the first time. After a game of mailbox baseball, a neighborhood resident brandishing a gun threatens to call the police. They barely escape after the resident fires at their car. After returning to the Emporium, Mitch runs into his middle school friends. They hatch a plan to exact revenge on O'Bannion. It culminates with them dumping paint on O'Bannion, who leaves in a fit of rage.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: After the Emporium closes, an impromptu keg party is planned in a field under a moonlight tower. Cynthia, Tony, and Mike arrive at their first keg party, where Mike is threatened by tough guy Clint Bruno. Tony runs into freshman Sabrina Davis, whom he met earlier during the hazing and they begin hanging out together. Cynthia likes Wooderson and exchanges phone numbers with him. Mike, suffering from the humiliation of his confrontation with Clint, decides to make a stand by punching him; in return, he gets tackled by Clint and receives a beating from him. The fight is broken up by Pink and Wooderson. Football player Benny O'Donnell confronts Pink about his refusal to sign the pledge. Pink, the only player not to have signed, believes it violates his individuality and beliefs. Mitch leaves the keg party with Julie. They drive to a nearby hill overlooking town to make out. Tony gives Sabrina a ride home and they kiss goodnight.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: As night turns to dawn, Pink, Wooderson, Don, Ron Slater and several other friends decide to smoke marijuana on the 50-yard line of the football field. The police arrive so they ditch the drugs. Recognizing Pink and Dawson, the police call Coach Conrad, his football coach. Conrad lectures Pink about hanging out with "losers" and insists that he sign the pledge. Pink says that he might play football, but he is not going to sign it. Pink leaves with his friends to Houston to obtain tickets to an Aerosmith concert. Mitch arrives home after sunrise to find his mother has waited up for him. She decides against punishment, but warns him about coming home late again. Mitch goes to his bedroom, puts on headphones, and listens to "Slow Ride" by Foghat, as Pink, Wooderson, Slater, and Simone Kerr travel down a highway to purchase their tickets.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: When asked in an interview what he wanted to do after "Slacker", director Richard Linklater said "I want to make this teenage rock'n'roll spree. I knew I wanted the story to take place on one day in the spring of 1976, but at one point it was much more experimental. The whole movie took place in a car with the characters driving around listening to ZZ Top." Lee Daniel, the director of photography, described the concept: "It would have been two shots—one of a guy putting in an eight-track of ZZ Top's "Fandango!" and one of two guys driving around talking. The film would be the length of the actual album, and you'd hear each track in the background as a source." Eventually, Linklater decided to write a script "to represent different points of view", the first draft of which took a month to complete. Universal Studios fast tracked production of Linklater's script, jumping ahead of 30 other films which were in development at that time.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: Casting searches were done in Austin, New York, and Los Angeles. Vince Vaughn was almost cast as the bully O'Bannion before Ben Affleck was chosen. As Linklater put it, "Ben was smart and full of life. You don't cast the unappealing person, you cast the appealing person." Other young actors considered for roles include Elizabeth Berkley, Mira Sorvino, Ron Livingston and Claire Danes. Casting director Don Phillips said, "We wanted Claire Danes for the girl, but she was too young. She couldn't leave school." Renee Zellweger has a nonspeaking role in the film, but was originally considered for the part of Darla, which went to Parker Posey instead. Linklater said, "Parker was just crazier." Wiley Wiggins was the "big find" in Austin, according to Linklater, who described him as "a 15-year-old with all the bad habits of a grad student: smoking cigarettes, hanging out at coffee shops, my kind of guy."


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: Some roles which were intended to be larger were reduced. The Kevin Pickford character, played by Shawn Andrews, was meant to be a larger role, but due to his behavior with other cast members, Pickford's screen time was cut in favor of Matthew McConaughey's character, Wooderson. Linklater recalled "There was another actor, [Shawn Andrews], who was kind of the opposite [of McConaughey]. He wasn't really getting along with everybody. I could tell the actors weren't responding to him." Linklater had to break up a fight between Andrews and London at one point. On screen, the two characters barely speak to each other during the film. Milla Jovovich, who played Michelle, Pickford's girlfriend, had her role reduced because, in Linklater's words, "it didn't really gel."


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: McConaughey was not originally cast in the film, as the role of Wooderson was originally small and meant to be cast locally for budget purposes. He was a film student at the University of Texas in Austin and went out drinking with his girlfriend one night. They ended up at the Hyatt hotel bar since his friend was a bartender there and could get them a discount. He approached casting director Phillips in the bar. Phillips recalls, "The bartender says to him, 'See that guy down there? That's Don Phillips. He cast Sean Penn in "Fast Times".' And Matthew goes, 'I'm gonna go down and talk to this guy.'" Phillips also recalls that Linklater didn't like McConaughey at first because he was "too handsome." Much of the Wooderson role was improvised or written on the spot, giving McConaughey more screen time.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: "Dazed and Confused" was released on September 24, 1993, in 183 theaters, grossing $918,127 on its opening weekend. It went on to make $7.9 million in North America.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: The film received positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 92% approval rating based on 62 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 7.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Featuring an excellent ensemble cast, a precise feel for the 1970s, and a killer soundtrack, "Dazed and Confused" is a funny, affectionate, and clear-eyed look at high school life." Metacritic provides a score of 78 out of 100 from 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: Film critic Roger Ebert awarded the film three stars out of four, praising the film as "art crossed with anthropology" with a "painful underside". Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote, ""Dazed and Confused" has an enjoyably playful spirit, one that amply compensates for its lack of structure". Desson Howe of "The Washington Post", wrote, ""Dazed" succeeds on its own terms and reflects American culture so well, it becomes part of it". In her review for "The Austin Chronicle", Marjorie Baumgarten gave particular praise to Matthew McConaughey's performance: "He is a character we're all too familiar with in the movies but McConaughey nails this guy without a hint of condescension or whimsy, claiming this character for all time as his own".


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: "Rolling Stone"'s Peter Travers gave the film four stars out of four, and praised Linklater as a "sly and formidable talent, bringing an anthropologist's eye to this spectacularly funny celebration of the rites of stupidity. His shitfaced "American Graffiti" is the ultimate party movie – loud, crude, socially irresponsible and totally irresistible". In his review for "Time", Richard Corliss wrote, "Linklater is surely no ham-fisted moralist, and his film has lots of attitude to shake a finger at. But it also has enough buoyant '70s music to shake anybody's tail feather, and a kind of easy jubilance of narrative and character". Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an "A" rating, and wrote, "Yet if Linklater captures the comic goofiness of the time, he also evokes its liberating spirit. The film finds its meaning in the subtle clash between the older, sadistic macho-jock ethos and the follow-your-impulse hedonism that was the lingering legacy of the '60s".


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: Quentin Tarantino included it on his list of the 10 greatest films of all time in the 2002 "Sight and Sound" poll. In 2003, "Entertainment Weekly" ranked the film #17 on its list of "The Top 50 Cult Films", third on its list of the 50 Best High School Movies, 10th on its "Funniest Movies of the Past 25 Years" list, and ranked it #6 on its "The Cult 25: The Essential Left-Field Movie Hits Since '83" list.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: In October 2004, three of Linklater's former classmates from Huntsville High School, whose surnames are Wooderson, Slater, and Floyd, filed a defamation lawsuit against Linklater, claiming to be the basis for the similarly named characters on the film. The lawsuit was filed in New Mexico rather than Texas because New Mexico has a longer statute of limitations. The suit was subsequently dismissed.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: In 2012, McConaughey reprised his role as Wooderson in the Butch Walker and The Black Widows music video "Synthesizers". To celebrate the film's 20th anniversary in 2013, the film received the Star of Texas award from the Texas Film Hall of Fame. Linklater accepted the award after being introduced by Tarantino, who reiterated his appreciation of the film as his favorite of the 1990s. The event featured a reunion of several cast members including Joey Lauren Adams, Wiley Wiggins, Christin Hinojosa, Nicky Katt, Mona Lee, Catherine Avril Morris, Anthony Rapp, Marissa Ribisi, Michelle Burke Thomas, and Mark Vandermeulen. At the event, Linklater described his intent to create an inverse John Hughes film: "The drama is so low-key in "[Dazed & Confused]". I don't remember teenage being that dramatic. I remember just trying to go with the flow, socialize, fit in and be cool. The stakes were really low. To get Aerosmith tickets or not? That's a big thing. It was really rare when the star-crossed lovers from the opposite side of the tracks and the girl gets pregnant and there's a car crash and somebody dies. That didn't really happen much. But riding around and trying to look for something to do with the music cranked up, now that happened a lot!"


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: After "Boyhood" was released Linklater announced that his next film, "Everybody Wants Some!!," would be a "spiritual sequel" to "Dazed and Confused". The newer film takes place at a Texas college in 1980.


title: Dazed and Confused (film)

text: MCA/Universal released "Dazed and Confused" on laserdisc in January 1994, followed by a VHS release two months later.