title: Taxidermy

text: For the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, he mounted a series of stuffed birds as an exhibit. They generated much interest among the public and scientists alike who considered them as superior to earlier models and were regarded as the first lifelike and artistic specimens on display. A judge remarked that Hancock's exhibit "... will go far towards raising the art of taxidermy to a level with other arts which have hitherto held higher pretensions".


title: Taxidermy

text: Hancock's display sparked great national interest in taxidermy, and amateur and professional collections for public view proliferated rapidly. Displays of birds were particularly common in middle-class Victorian homes – even Queen Victoria amassed an impressive bird collection. Taxidermy was also increasingly used by the bereaved owners of dead pets to 'resurrect' them.


title: Taxidermy

text: In the late 19th century, a style known as anthropomorphic taxidermy became popular. A 'Victorian whimsy', mounted animals were dressed as people or displayed as if engaged in human activities. An early example of this genre was displayed by Herman Ploucquet, from Stuttgart, Germany, at the Great Exhibition in London.


title: Taxidermy

text: The best-known practitioner in this genre was the English taxidermist Walter Potter, whose most famous work was "The Death and Burial of Cock Robin". Among his other scenes were "a rat's den being raided by the local police rats ... [a] village school ... featuring 48 little rabbits busy writing on tiny slates, while the Kittens' Tea Party displayed feline etiquette and a game of croquet." Apart from the simulations of human situations, he had also added examples of bizarrely deformed animals such as two-headed lambs and four-legged chickens. Potter's museum was so popular that an extension was built to the platform at Bramber railway station.


title: Taxidermy

text: Other Victorian taxidermists known for their iconic anthropomorphic taxidermy work are William Hart and his son Edward Hart. They gained recognition with their famous series of dioramas featuring boxing squirrels. Both William and Edward created multiple sets of these dioramas. One 4-piece set of boxing squirrel dioramas (circa 1850) sold at auction in 2013 for record prices. The four dioramas were created as a set (with each diorama portraying the squirrels at a different stage during their boxing match); however, the set was broken up and each was sold separately at the same auction. The set was one of a number they created over the years featuring boxing squirrels.


title: Taxidermy

text: Famous examples of modern anthropomorphic taxidermy include the work of artist Adele Morse, who gained international attention with her "Stoned Fox" sculpture series, and the work of artist Sarina Brewer, known for her Siamese twin squirrels and flying monkeys partaking in human activities.


title: Taxidermy

text: In the early 20th century, taxidermy was taken forward under the leadership of artists such as Carl Akeley, James L. Clark, William T. Hornaday, Coleman Jonas, Fredrick, and William Kaempfer, and Leon Pray. These and other taxidermists developed anatomically accurate figures which incorporated every detail in artistically interesting poses, with mounts in realistic settings and poses that were considered more appropriate for the species. This was quite a change from the caricatures popularly offered as hunting trophies.


title: Taxidermy

text: Additional modern uses of Taxidermy have been the use of "Faux Taxidermy" or fake animal heads that draw on the inspiration of traditional taxidermy. Decorating with sculpted fake animal heads that are painted in different colors has become a popular trend in interior design.


title: Taxidermy

text: Rogue taxidermy (sometimes referred to as "taxidermy art") is a form of mixed media sculpture. Rogue taxidermy art references traditional trophy or natural history museum taxidermy, but is not always constructed out of taxidermied animals; it can be constructed entirely from synthetic materials. Additionally, rogue taxidermy is not necessarily figurative, as it can be abstract and does not need to resemble an animal. It can be a small decorative object or a large-scale room-sized installation. There is a very broad spectrum of styles within the genre, some of which falls into the category of mainstream art. "Rogue taxidermy" describes a wide variety of work, including work that is classified and exhibited as fine art. Neither the term, nor the genre, emerged from the world of traditional taxidermy. The genre was born from forms of fine art that utilize some of the components found in the construction of a traditional taxidermy mount. The term "rogue taxidermy" was coined in 2004 by an artist collective called The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists.


title: Taxidermy

text: The Minneapolis-based group was founded by artists Sarina Brewer, Scott Bibus, and Robert Marbury as a means to unite their respective mediums and differing styles of sculpture.


title: Taxidermy

text: The definition of rogue taxidermy set forth by the individuals who formed the genre (Brewer, Bibus, and Marbury) is: "A genre of pop-surrealist art characterized by mixed media sculptures containing conventional taxidermy-related materials that are used in an unconventional manner". Interest in the collective's work gave rise to an artistic movement referred to as the Rogue Taxidermy art movement, or alternately, the Taxidermy Art movement. Apart from describing a genre of fine art, the term "rogue taxidermy" has expanded in recent years and has also become an adjective applied to unorthodox forms of traditional taxidermy such as anthropomorphic mounts and composite mounts where two or more animals are spliced together. (e.g.; sideshow gaffs of conjoined "freak" animals and mounts of jackalopes or other fictional creatures) In addition to being the impetus for the art movement, the inception of the genre also marked a resurgence of interest in conventional (traditional) forms of taxidermy.


title: Taxidermy

text: The methods taxidermists practice have been improved over the last century, heightening taxidermic quality and lowering toxicity. The animal is first skinned in a process similar to removing the skin from a chicken prior to cooking. This can be accomplished without opening the body cavity, so the taxidermist usually does not see internal organs or blood. Depending on the type of skin, preserving chemicals are applied or the skin is tanned. It is then either mounted on a mannequin made from wood, wool and wire, or a polyurethane form. Clay is used to install glass eyes and can also be used for facial features like cheekbones and a prominent brow bone. Modeling clay can be used to reform features as well, if the appendage was torn or damaged clay can hold it together and add muscle detail. Forms and eyes are commercially available from a number of suppliers. If not, taxidermists carve or cast their own forms.


title: Taxidermy

text: Taxidermists seek to continually maintain their skills to ensure attractive, lifelike results. Mounting an animal has long been considered an art form, often involving months of work; not all modern taxidermists trap or hunt for prized specimens.


title: Taxidermy

text: Animal specimens can be frozen, then thawed at a later date to be skinned and tanned. Numerous measurements are taken of the body. A traditional method that remains popular today involves retaining the original skull and leg bones of a specimen and using these as the basis to create a mannequin made primarily from wood wool (previously tow or hemp wool was used) and galvanised wire. Another method is to mould the carcass in plaster, and then make a copy of the animal using one of several methods. A final mould is then made of polyester resin and glass cloth, from which a polyurethane form is made for final production. The carcass is then removed and the mould is used to produce a cast of the animal called a 'form'. Forms can also be made by sculpting the animal first in clay. Many companies produce stock forms in various sizes. Glass eyes are then usually added to the display, and in some cases, artificial teeth, jaws, tongue, or for some birds, artificial beaks and legs can be used.


title: Taxidermy

text: An increasingly popular trend is to freeze dry the animal. For all intents and purposes, a freeze-dried mount is a mummified animal. The internal organs are removed during preparation; however, all other tissue remains in the body. (The skeleton and all accompanying musculature is still beneath the surface of the skin) The animal is positioned into the desired pose, then placed into the chamber of a special freeze drying machine designed specifically for this application. The machine freezes the animal and also creates a vacuum in the chamber. Pressure in the chamber helps vaporize moisture in the animal's body, allowing it to dry out. The rate of drying depends on vapor pressure. (The higher the pressure, the faster the specimen dries.) Vapor pressure is determined by temperature of the chamber; the higher the temperature, the higher the vapor pressure is at a given vacuum. The length of the dry-time is important because rapid freezing creates less tissue distortion (i.e.; shrinkage, warping, and wrinkling) The process can be done with reptiles, birds, and small mammals such as cats, rodents, and some dogs. Large specimens may require up to six months in the freeze dryer before they are completely dry. Freeze drying is the most popular type of pet preservation. This is because it is the least invasive in terms of what is done to the animal's body after death, which is a concern of owners (Most owners do not opt for a traditional skin mount).


title: Taxidermy

text: In the case of large pets, such as dogs and cats, freeze drying is also the best way to capture the animal's expression as it looked in life (another important concern of owners). Freeze drying equipment is costly and requires much upkeep. The process is also time-consuming; therefore, freeze drying is generally an expensive method to preserve an animal. The drawback to this method is that freeze-dried mounts are extremely susceptible to insect damage. This is because they contain large areas of dried tissue (meat and fat) for insects to feed upon. Traditional mounts are far less susceptible because they contain virtually no residual tissues (or none at all). Regardless of how well a taxidermy mount is prepared, all taxidermy is susceptible to insect damage. Taxidermy mounts are targeted by the same beetles and fabric moths that destroy wool sweaters and fur coats and that infest grains and flour in pantries.


title: Taxidermy

text: Some methods of creating a trophy mount do not involve preserving the actual body of the animal. Instead, detailed photos and measurements are taken of the animal so a taxidermist can create an exact replica in resin or fiberglass that can be displayed in place of the real animal. No animals are killed in the creation of this type of trophy mount. One situation where this is practiced is in the world of sport fishing where catch and release is becoming increasingly prevalent. Reproduction mounts are commonly created for (among others) trout, bass, and large saltwater species such as the swordfish and blue marlin. Another situation where reproduction trophies are created is when endangered species are involved. Endangered and protected species, such as the rhinoceros, are hunted with rifles loaded with tranquilizer darts rather than real bullets. While the animal is unconscious, the hunter poses for photos with the animal while it is measured for the purpose of creating a replica, or to establish what size of prefabricated fiberglass trophy head can be purchased to most closely approximate the actual animal. The darted animal is not harmed. The hunter then displays the fiberglass head on the wall in lieu of the real animal's head to commemorate the experience of the hunt.


title: Taxidermy

text: Re-creation mounts are accurate life-size representations of either extant or extinct species that are created using materials not found on the animal being rendered. They utilize the fur, feathers, and skin of other species of animals. According to the National Taxidermy Association:" "Re-creations, for the purpose of this [competition] category, are defined as renderings which include no natural parts of the animal portrayed. A re-creation may include original carvings and sculptures. A re-creation may use natural parts, provided the parts are not from the species being portrayed. For instance, a re-creation eagle could be constructed using turkey feathers, or a cow hide could be used to simulate African game"." A famous example of a re-creation mount is a giant panda created by taxidermist Ken Walker that he constructed out of dyed and bleached black bear fur.


title: Taxidermy

text: A study skin is a taxidermic zoological specimen prepared in a minimalistic fashion that is concerned only with preserving the animal's skin, not the shape of the animal's body. As the name implies, study skins are used for scientific study (research), and are housed mainly by museums. A study skin's sole purpose is to preserve data, not to replicate an animal in a lifelike state. Museums keep large collections of study skins in order to conduct comparisons of physical characteristics to other study skins of the same species. Study skins are also kept because DNA can be extracted from them when needed at any point in time.


title: Taxidermy

text: A study skin's preparation is extremely basic. After the animal is skinned, fat is methodically scraped off the underside of the hide. The underside of the hide is then rubbed with borax or cedar dust to help it dry faster. The animal is then stuffed with cotton and sewn up. Mammals are laid flat on their belly. Birds are prepared lying on their back. Study skins are dried in these positions to keep the end product as slender and streamlined as possible so large numbers of specimens can be stored side-by-side in flat file drawers, while occupying a minimum amount of space. Since study skins are not prepared with aesthetics in mind they do not have imitation eyes like other taxidermy, and their cotton filling is visible in their eye openings.


title: Osita Iheme

text: Osita Iheme, MFR (born 20 February 1982) is a Nigerian actor,Producer and author. He is widely known for playing the role of Pawpaw in the film "Aki na Ukwa" alongside Chinedu Ikedieze. Osita Iheme is the founder of Inspired Movement Africa which he founded to inspire, motivate and stimulate the minds of young Nigerians and Africans. In 2007, Iheme received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the African Movie Academy Awards. He is considered to be one of Nigeria's most famous actors. In 2011, Osita Iheme was honored as a Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) by President Goodluck Jonathan.He has an estimated net worth of 560 million naira.


title: Osita Iheme

text: Osita Iheme was born into a family of five with his siblings and parents all being taller than him, his father being Mr Herbert Iheme and mother being Mrs Augustina Iheme. He was born on February 29th 1982, and is currently 40 years old as of 2022. Iheme hails from Mbaitoli, Imo State, Nigeria. He grew up in Abia State and has an MBA degree from Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu (IMT). After completing his studies at IMT, he initially wanted to become a lawyer, but pursued his career in film acting in 1998 and initially featured in small roles.


title: Osita Iheme

text: In his career, Osita Iheme was often typecast in the role of a child, a pattern that followed him well into adulthood. In 2002, he rose to fame when he starred together with Chinedu Ikedieze in the comedy film "Aki na Ukwa" in which he played the role of Pawpaw. In this role, Osita Iheme played a mischievous child.


title: Osita Iheme

text: He is the New Generation Ambassador for Rotary International District 9110 and the author of the book "INSPIRED 101". Osita Iheme has starred in over a hundred movies. Like his on-screen partner Chinedu Ikedieze, Iheme has a small physique, making him different from other actors in the Nigerian movie industry.


title: Osita Iheme

text: He revealed in 2018, however, that he had desires and hopes to become a politician in the near future.


title: Osita Iheme

text: To reward his contribution towards comedy genre movies Nigerian Film Industry, in 2011 he was awarded the Nigerian National Honor of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) by President Goodluck Jonathan. In 2007 he was given the lifetime Achievement award by AMAA (African movie Academy Awards).


title: Osita Iheme

text: Osita Iheme's performance alongside fellow little person actor Chinedu Ikedieze in the 2002 film "Aki na Ukwa" is still widely spoken about and the duo, especially Osita's character, on-screen trending through memes since 2019 on Twitter and other social media platforms. This eventually earned him a global fanbase.


title: Platinum jubilee

text: A platinum jubilee is a celebration held to mark an anniversary. Among monarchies, it usually refers to a 70th anniversary.


title: Platinum jubilee

text: The most recent monarch to celebrate a platinum jubilee is Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms in June 2022. The celebrations were delayed from the actual February anniversary and the ceremony occurred on a four-day Bank Holiday on June 2, 2022, as was announced earlier. Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022, shortly after the official celebrations in the Commonwealth took place.


title: Platinum jubilee

text: A 75th anniversary can be referred to as a diamond jubilee occasionally, but that term is commonly used to refer to a 60th anniversary. An anniversary of 100 years is simply called a centenary.


title: Smegma

text: Smegma (Ancient Greek σμῆγμα : "smēgma") is a combination of shed skin cells, skin oils, and moisture. It occurs in both male and female mammalian genitalia. In females, it collects around the clitoris and in the folds of the labia minora; in males, smegma collects under the foreskin.


title: Smegma

text: The accumulation of sebum combined with dead skin cells forms smegma. "Smegma clitoridis" is defined as the secretion of the apocrine glands of the clitoris, in combination with desquamating epithelial cells. Glands that are located around the clitoris, the labia minora, and the labia majora secrete sebum.


title: Smegma

text: If smegma is not removed frequently it can lead to clitoral adhesion which can make clitoral stimulation (such as masturbation) painful (clitorodynia).


title: Smegma

text: In males, smegma helps keep the glans moist and facilitates sexual intercourse by acting as a lubricant. Smegma, itself, is completely benign, but uncircumcised "men with phimosis have an increased risk of penile cancer."


title: Smegma

text: Smegma was originally thought to be produced by sebaceous glands near the frenulum called Tyson's glands; however, subsequent studies have failed to find these glands. Joyce Wright states that smegma is produced from minute microscopic protrusions of the mucosal surface of the foreskin and that living cells constantly grow towards the surface, undergo fatty degeneration, separate off, and form smegma. Parkash "et al." found that smegma contains 26.6% fats and 13.3% proteins, which they judged to be consistent with necrotic epithelial debris.


title: Smegma

text: Newly produced smegma has a smooth, moist texture. It is thought to be rich in squalene and contain prostatic and seminal secretions, desquamated epithelial cells, and the mucin content of the urethral glands of Littré. Smegma contains cathepsin B, lysozymes, chymotrypsin, neutrophil elastase and cytokines, which aid the immune system.


title: Smegma

text: According to Wright, little smegma is produced during childhood, although the foreskin may contain sebaceous glands. She also says that production of smegma increases from adolescence until sexual maturity when the function of smegma for lubrication assumes its full value, and from middle-age production starts to decline and in old age virtually no smegma is produced. Jakob Øster reported that the incidence of smegma increased from 1% among 6- to 7-year-olds and 8- to 9-year-olds to 8% among 14- to 15-year-olds and 16- to 17-year-olds (an overall incidence of 5%).


title: Smegma

text: There is no evidence that smegma, itself, causes penile cancer, but it may harbor cancerous pathogens, like HPV, and its presence over a long period of time may irritate and inflame the penis, which may increase the risk of cancer. It may also make it harder to see very early cancers.


title: Smegma

text: In healthy animals, smegma helps clean and lubricate the genitals. In veterinary medicine, analysis of this smegma is sometimes used for detection of urogenital tract pathogens, such as "Tritrichomonas foetus". Accumulation of smegma in the equine preputial folds and the urethral fossa and urethral diverticulum can form large "beans" and promote the carriage of "Taylorella equigenitalis", the causative agent of contagious equine metritis. Some equine veterinarians have recommended periodic cleaning of male genitals to improve the health of the animal.


title: Blow Out

text: Blow Out is a 1981 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written and directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, serendipitously captures audio evidence of an assassination involving a presidential hopeful. Nancy Allen stars as Sally Bedina, a young woman involved in the crime. The supporting cast includes John Lithgow and Dennis Franz. The film's tagline in advertisements was, "Murder has a sound all of its own".


title: Blow Out

text: Directly based on Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film "Blowup", the film replaces the medium of photography with the medium of audio recording. The concept of "Blow Out" came to De Palma while he was working on the thriller "Dressed to Kill" (1980). The film was shot in the late autumn and winter of 1980 in various Philadelphia locations on a relatively substantial budget of $18 million.


title: Blow Out

text: "Blow Out" opened to minuscule audience interest at the time of release despite receiving a mostly positive critical reception. The lead performances by Travolta and Allen, the direction by De Palma and the visual style were cited as the strongest points of the film. Critics also recognised the stylistic and narrative connection to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, whom De Palma admires, and giallo films. Over the years since its initial theatrical release, it has developed status as a cult film and received a home media release by the Criterion Collection, a company which specializes in "important classic and contemporary film", which re-ignited public interest in the film. Quentin Tarantino praises De Palma as the "greatest director of his generation" and cites "Blow Out" as one of his three favorite films that he would take to a desert island.


title: Blow Out

text: While in post-production on the low-budget slasher film "Co-ed Frenzy", Philadelphia sound technician Jack Terry (Travolta) is told by his producer Sam to obtain a more realistic-sounding scream and better wind effects. While recording potential sound effects at a local park, he sees a car careen off the road and plunge into a nearby creek. The male driver is killed, but Jack manages to rescue a young woman named Sally Bedina (Allen) and accompanies her to a hospital. There, a detective interviews Jack about the accident, and Jack asks Sally out for a drink. He learns that Governor George McRyan was driving the car and that Sally was his escort. Associates of McRyan attempt to conceal Sally's involvement, and persuade Jack to smuggle her out of the hospital.


title: Blow Out

text: Jack listens to the audio tape he recorded of the accident, wherein he distinctly hears a gunshot just before the tire blow-out that caused the accident, suspecting that the accident was actually an assassination. He learns from a news report that, seemingly coincidentally, Manny Karp (Franz) was also in the park that night and filmed the accident with a motion picture camera. When Karp sells stills from his film to a local tabloid, Jack splices them together into a crude movie, syncs them with his recorded audio and finds a visible flash and smoke from the fired gun. Though initially reluctant, Sally eventually agrees to cooperate with Jack to privately investigate the incident. When they go out for a drink, Jack reveals how he left his prior career as part of a government commission to root out police corruption after a wiretap operation he was involved in led to the death of an undercover cop named Freddie Corso.


title: Blow Out

text: Unbeknownst to Jack, Sally and Karp were both frequent blackmail co-conspirators who were hired as part of a larger plot against presidential hopeful McRyan. A rival candidate had hired Burke (Lithgow) to hook McRyan with a prostitute, take unflattering pictures of the pair, and publish them so that McRyan would drop out of the race. However, Burke decided to alter the plan by blowing out the tire of McRyan's car with a gunshot, thereby causing the accident. When the authorities arrived to find McRyan with Sally, Karp would be there to film it all. After botching the cover-up of Sally by murdering a look-alike, Burke murders two more look-alike women with piano wire and attributes the deaths to a serial killer, "the Liberty Bell Strangler", so that he can cover up the cover-up when Sally is successfully murdered.


title: Blow Out

text: To help Jack investigate McRyan's murder, Sally steals Karp's film, which, when synced to Jack's audio, clearly reveals the gunshot that precipitated the blow-out. Nevertheless, nobody believes Jack's story and a seemingly widespread conspiracy immediately silences his every move. Local talk-show host Frank Donahue (Curt May) asks to interview Jack on air and release his tapes, to which Jack eventually agrees. Burke follows the development through a tap on Jack's phone, calls Sally as Donahue, and asks her to meet him at a train station with the tapes. When Sally tells Jack about Donahue's call, he becomes suspicious. He copies the audio tapes, but is unable to copy the film before Sally's meeting.


title: Blow Out

text: Shadowing a wired Sally from a distance, Jack is alarmed to see that his supposed contact is actually Burke. Immediately realizing that she is in danger, Jack attempts to warn her, but Sally and Burke slip out of range and into a parade. Jack manically dashes across the city, attempting to head them off and rescue Sally, but crashes his Jeep and is knocked out. By the time he awakens, Burke has gotten the film from Sally and thrown it into a river. He then takes Sally to a rooftop and attacks her. Still listening in on his earpiece, Jack spots them. He startles Burke and manages to stab him to death with his own weapon, but it is too late: he has already strangled Sally. A devastated Jack takes her lifeless body in his arms.


title: Blow Out

text: Burke's death, combined with the loss of the film, ties up the last loose end. Jack's audio tapes alone are insufficient to prove a gunshot and the cover-up is successful. Jack begins repeatedly listening to the recording of Sally's voice, becoming obsessed with it. In the last scene, he is back in the editing room and has used Sally's death scream in the slasher film. Ecstatic that Jack found the perfect scream, Sam plays it multiple times, forcing Jack to cover his ears.


title: Blow Out

text: After completing "Dressed to Kill", De Palma was considering several projects, including "Act of Vengeance" (later produced for HBO starring Charles Bronson and Ellen Burstyn), "Flashdance", and a script of his own titled "Personal Effects". The story outline for the latter was similar to what would become "Blow Out", but set in Canada.


title: Blow Out

text: De Palma scripted and filmed "Blow Out" in his home town of Philadelphia. The film's $9 million budget was high for De Palma, and Filmways spent an additional $9 million to market the film. De Palma considered Al Pacino for the role of Jack Terry, but ultimately chose John Travolta, who himself lobbied De Palma to cast Nancy Allen for the role of Sally Bedina (the three had previously worked together on "Carrie"); De Palma initially hesitated—he was married to Allen at the time, and did not want her to be known for only working in his pictures—but ultimately agreed. In addition to Travolta and Allen, De Palma filled the film's cast and crew with a number of his frequent collaborators: Dennis Franz ("Dressed to Kill", "The Fury", "Body Double"); John Lithgow ("Obsession", "Raising Cain" in later years); cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond ("Obsession"); editor Paul Hirsch ("Hi, Mom!", "Sisters", "Phantom of the Paradise", "Obsession", "Carrie", "The Fury"); and composer Pino Donaggio ("Carrie", "Home Movies", "Dressed to Kill").


title: Blow Out

text: Seventy percent of the film was shot at night. "Basically I just shot "Blow Out" straight", replied cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, "... By not diffusing and not flashing as much ... That doesn't mean I necessarily like that look but I think it was good for the picture. You see, I like a softer look, a more diffused look." During the editing process, two reels of footage from the Liberty Parade sequence were stolen and never recovered. The scenes were reshot with insurance money at a cost of $750,000. Because Zsigmond was no longer available, László Kovács lensed the reshot sequences.


title: Blow Out

text: Thematically, "Blow Out" almost "exclusively concern[s] the mechanics of movie making" with a "total, complete and utter preoccupation with film itself as a medium in which ... style really is content." In numerous scenes, the film depicts the interaction of sound and images, the manner in which the two are joined together, and methods in which they are re-edited, remixed, and rearranged to reveal new truths or the lack of any objective truth. The film uses several of De Palma's trademark techniques: split screen, the split diopter lens, and the elaborate tracking shot.


title: Blow Out

text: As with several other De Palma films, "Blow Out" explores the power of guilt; both Jack and Sally are motivated to help right their past wrongs, both with tragic consequences. De Palma also revisits the theme of voyeurism, a recurring theme in much of his previous work (ex:, "Hi, Mom!", "Sisters", and "Dressed to Kill"). Jack exhibits elements of a peeping tom, but one who works with sound instead of image.


title: Blow Out

text: "Blow Out" incorporates multiple allusions both to other films and to historical events. Its protagonist's obsessive reconstruction of a sound recording to uncover a possible murder recalls both Michelangelo Antonioni's film "Blowup" and Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation". The film alludes to elements of the Watergate scandal and the JFK assassination. The film also recalls elements of the Chappaquiddick incident, although De Palma intentionally tried to downplay the similarities. The film intentionally references the Zapruder film as comparable to the footage shot of the accident (despite the latter being consisted of stills).


title: Blow Out

text: De Palma also explicitly references two of his previous projects. At one point in the film, Dennis Franz watches De Palma's film "Murder a la Mod" on television. Originally, the character was to watch Coppola's "Dementia 13", but Roger Corman demanded too much for the rights. A flashback where Travolta recalls an incident where his work got a police informant killed was also taken from an abandoned project, "Prince of the City", which was ultimately directed by Sidney Lumet.


title: Blow Out

text: "Blow Out" opened on July 24, 1981 to positive reviews from critics, including several that were ecstatic. In "The New Yorker", Pauline Kael gave the film one of her few unconditional raves:


title: Blow Out

text: De Palma has sprung to the place that Robert Altman achieved with films such as "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and "Nashville" and that Francis Ford Coppola reached with "The Godfather" films—that is, to the place where genre is transcended and what we're moved by is an artist's vision...it's a great movie. Travolta and Allen are radiant performers.


title: Blow Out

text: Roger Ebert's four-star review in the "Chicago Sun-Times" noted that "Blow Out" "is inhabited by a real cinematic intelligence. The audience isn't condescended to...we share the excitement of figuring out how things develop and unfold, when so often the movies only need us as passive witnesses." Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 87% based on 60 reviews, with an average grade of 7.80/10. The critical consensus reads, "With a story inspired by Antonioni's "Blowup" and a style informed by the high-gloss suspense of Hitchcock, De Palma's "Blow Out" is raw, politically informed, and littered with film references".


title: Blow Out

text: Despite positive reviews, the film floundered at the box office, due to terrible word of mouth about its bleak ending. "Blow Out" made $13,747,234 (or $ in ) at the box office. It was considered a disappointment, as Filmways had publicly claimed the film would make $60–80 million.


title: Blow Out

text: However, the public reputation of "Blow Out" has grown considerably in the years following its release. As a "movie about making movies", it has earned a natural audience with subsequent generations of cineastes. In particular, Quentin Tarantino has consistently praised the movie, listing it alongside "Rio Bravo" and "Taxi Driver" as one of his three favorite films. In homage, Tarantino used the music cue "Sally and Jack" from the score by Pino Donaggio score within his own film "Death Proof", the second half of the double release "Grindhouse". Noel Murray and Scott Tobias of The AV Club put "Blow Out" at #1 of their list of De Palma's best films ("The Essentials"), describing it as


title: Blow Out

text: The quintessential De Palma film, this study of a movie craftsman investigating a political cover-up marries suspense, sick humor, sexuality, and leftist cynicism into an endlessly reflective study of art imitating life imitating art.


title: Blow Out

text: In April 2011, the film became a part of the Criterion Collection with a DVD and Blu-ray release. Extras include new interviews with Brian De Palma and Nancy Allen. The Criterion release also includes De Palma's first feature-length film "Murder a la Mod".


title: Blow Out

text: The film was given a widespread release internationally; first in the Netherlands on September 24, 1981 and then in Australia on January 14, 1982, Hong Kong on February 11, France on February 17, and Japan on March 20.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Sacred prostitution, temple prostitution, cult prostitution, and religious prostitution are rites consisting of paid intercourse performed in the context of religious worship, possibly as a form of fertility rite or divine marriage (). Scholars prefer the terms "sacred sex" or "sacred sexual rites" in cases where payment for services is not involved.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The historicity of literal sacred prostitution, particularly in some places and periods, is a controversial topic within the academic world. Mainstream historiography has traditionally considered it a probable reality, based on the abundance of ancient sources and chroniclers detailing its practices, although it has proved harder to differentiate between true prostitution and sacred sex without remuneration. Authors have also interpreted evidence as secular prostitution administered in the temple under the patronage of fertility deities, not as an act of religious worship by itself. In contrast, some modern gender researchers have challenged it entirely as the result of mistranslation and cultural slander.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Outside academic debate, sacred prostitution has been adopted as a sign of distinction by sex workers, modern pagans and practitioners of sex magic. Social authors have both decried it as a subproduct of patriarchy and embraced it as a symbol of women's empowerment.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Sacred prostitution has many different characteristics depending on the region, class and the religious ideals of the period and the place, and consequently can have many different definitions. One definition that was developed was due to the common types of sacred prostitution that are recorded in Classical sources: sale of a woman’s virginity or rinni in honor of a goddess or a once-in-a-lifetime prostitution, professional prostitutes or slaves owned by a temple or sanctuary, and temporary prostitution that occurs before a marriage or during certain rituals. Stephanie Budin offers her own definition while trying to argue that sacred prostitution never existed: “Sacred prostitution is the sale of a person's body for sexual purposes where some portion (if not all) of the money or goods received for this transaction belongs to a deity”.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Ancient Near Eastern societies along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers featured many shrines and temples or "houses of heaven" dedicated to various deities. The 5th-century BC historian Herodotus's account and some other testimony from the Hellenistic Period and Late Antiquity suggest that ancient societies encouraged the practice of sacred sexual rites not only in Babylonia and Cyprus, but throughout the Near East.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The work of gender researchers like Daniel Arnaud, Julia Assante and Stephanie Budin has cast the whole tradition of scholarship that defined the concept of sacred prostitution into doubt. Budin regards the concept of sacred prostitution as a myth, arguing taxatively that the practices described in the sources were misunderstandings of either non-remunerated ritual sex or non-sexual religious ceremonies, possibly even mere cultural slander. Although popular in modern times, this view has not gone without being criticized in its methodological approach, including accusations of an ideological agenda. A more nuanced view espoused by Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, who also called for caution on Budin's categorical denial, suggests that some form of temple prostitution might have existed in the Near East, though not in the Greek or Roman worlds in classical or Hellenistic times.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Through the twentieth century, scholars generally believed that a form of sacred marriage rite ("hieros gamos") was staged between the kings in the ancient Near Eastern region of Sumer and the high priestesses of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare, later called Ishtar. The king would couple with the priestess to represent the union of Dumuzid with Inanna. According to the noted Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer, the kings would further establish their legitimacy by taking part in a ritual sexual act in the temple of the fertility goddess Ishtar every year on the tenth day of the New Year festival Akitu.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: However, no certain evidence has survived to prove that sexual intercourse was included, despite many popular descriptions of the habit. It is possible that these unions never occurred but were embellishments to the image of the king; hymns which praise Ancient Near Eastern kings for coupling with the goddess Ishtar often speak of them as running , offering sacrifices, feasting with the sun-god Utu, and receiving a royal crown from An, all in a single day. Some modern historians argue in the same direction, though their posture has been disputed.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: According to Herodotus, the rites performed at these temples included sexual intercourse, or what scholars later called sacred sexual rites:


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The British anthropologist James Frazer accumulated citations to prove this in a chapter of his magnum opus "The Golden Bough" (1890–1915), and this has served as a starting point for several generations of scholars. Frazer and Henriques distinguished two major forms of sacred sexual rites: temporary rite of unwed girls (with variants such as dowry-sexual rite, or as public defloration of a bride), and lifelong sexual rite. However, Frazer took his sources mostly from authors of Late Antiquity (i.e. 150–500 AD), not from the Classical or Hellenistic periods. This raises questions as to whether the phenomenon of temple sexual rites can be generalized to the whole of the ancient world, as earlier scholars typically did.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In Hammurabi's code of laws, the rights and good name of female sacred sexual priestesses were protected. The same legislation that protected married women from slander applied to them and their children. They could inherit property from their fathers, collect income from land worked by their brothers, and dispose of property. These rights have been described as extraordinary, taking into account the role of women at the time.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: All translations are sourced from the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary. Akkadian terms were used in the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, and Babylonia. The terms themselves come from lexical profession lists on tablets dating back to the Early Dynastic period.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Notes on the cuneiform: by convention Akkadian is italicized, spoken Sumerian is lowercase and cuneiform sign transliteration is uppercase. In addition, a determinative sign is written as a superscript. Determinatives are only written and never spoken. In spoken sumerian homophones are distinguished by a numerical subscript.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The Hittites practiced sacred prostitution as part of a cult of deities, including the worship of a mated pair of deities, a bull god and a lion goddess, while in later days it was the mother-goddess who became prominent, representing fertility, and (in Phoenicia) the goddess who presided over human birth.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: It has been argued that sacred prostitution, worked by both males and females, was a custom of ancient Phoenicians. It would be dedicated to the deities Astarte and Adonis, and sometimes performed as a festival or social rite in the cities of Byblos, Afqa and Baalbek (later named Heliopolis) as well as the nearby Syrian city of Palmyra.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: At the Etruscan site of Pyrgi, a center of worship of the eastern goddess Astarte, archaeologists identified a temple consecrated to her and built with at least 17 small rooms that may have served as quarters for temple prostitutes. Similarly, a temple dedicated to her equated goddess Atargatis in Dura-Europos, was found with nearly a dozen small rooms with low benches, which might have used either for sacred meals or sacred services of women jailed in the temple for adultery. Pyrgi's sacred prostitutes were famous enough to be apparently mentioned in a lost fragment of Lucilius's works.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In northern Africa, the area of influence of the Phoencian colony of Carthage, this service was associated to the city of Sicca, a nearby city that received the name of "Sicca Veneria" for its temple of Astarte or Tanit (called Venus by Roman authors). Valerius Maximus describe how their women gained gifts by engaging in prostitution with visitors.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Phoenicio-Punic settlements in Hispania, like Cancho Roano, Gadir, Castulo and La Quéjola, have suggested this practice through their archaeology and iconography. In particular, Cancho Roano features a sanctuary built with multiple cells or rooms, which has been identified as a possible place of sacred prostitution in honor to Astarte. A similar institution might have been found in Gadir. Its posterior, renowned erotic dancers called "puellae gaditanae" in Roman sources (or "cinaedi" in the case of male dancers) might have been desecrated heirs of this practice, considering the role occupied by sex and dance on Phoenician culture.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Another center of cult to Astarte was Cyprus, whose main temples were located in Paphos, Amathus and Kition. The epigraphy of the Kition temple describes personal economic activity on the temple, as sacred prostitution would have been taxed as any other occupation, and names possible practitioners as "grm" (male) and "lmt" (female).


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The Hebrew Bible uses two different words for prostitute, "zonah" (זונה) and "kedeshah" (or "qedesha") (קדשה). The word "zonah" simply meant an ordinary prostitute or "loose woman". But the word "kedeshah" literally means "set apart" (in feminine form), from the Semitic root "Q-D-Sh" (קדש) meaning "holy", "consecrated" or "set apart". Nevertheless, "zonah" and "qedeshah" are not interchangeable terms: the former occurs 93 times in the Bible, whereas the latter is only used in three places, conveying different connotations.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: This double meaning has led to the belief that "kedeshah" were not ordinary prostitutes, but sacred harlots who worked out of fertility temples. However, the lack of solid evidence has indicated that the word might refer to prostitutes who offered their services in the vicinity of temples, where they could attract a larger number of clients. The term might have originated as consecrated maidens employed in Canaanite and Phoenician temples, which became synonymous with harlotry for Biblical writers.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In any case, the translation of sacred prostitute has continued, however, because it explains how the word can mean such disparate concepts as "sacred" and "prostitute". As put by DeGrado, "neither the interpretation of the קדשה as a "priestess-not-prostitute" (according to Westenholz) nor as a "prostitute-not-priestess" (according to Gruber) adequately represents the semantic range of Hebrew word in biblical and post-biblical Hebrew."


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Male prostitutes were called "kadesh" or "qadesh" (literally: male who is "set apart"). The Hebrew word "kelev" (dog) may also signify a male dancer or prostitute.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The Law of Moses (Deuteronomy) was not universally observed in Hebrew culture under the rule of King David's dynasty, as recorded in Kings. In fact Judah had lost "the Book of the Law". During the reign of King Josiah, the high priest Hilkiah discovers it in "the House of the Lord" and realizes that the people have disobeyed, particularly regarding prostitution. Examples of male prostitution ("sodomites" in KJV, GNV: see Bible translations into English) being banned under King Josiah are recorded to have been commonplace since the reign of King Rehoboam of Judah (King Solomon's son).


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Most Bible translations do not reflect the latest scholarship and modern translations refer to King Josiah's bans on "male temple prostitutes" [NRSV] or similarly "male shrine prostitutes" [NIV], whereas older translations refer to the ban of "Sodomites" and "the Houses of the Sodomites" [KJV, GNV]. Under the uncentralised religious practices that were commonplace, homosexual prostitution experienced a degree of cultural acceptance along with heterosexual prostitution among the Hebrew tribes, but under the religious reforms, prostitution was not allowed in conjunction with the worship of Yahweh, where these had been expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy, their sacred Book of Law under King Josiah.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In the Book of Ezekiel, Oholah and Oholibah appear as the allegorical brides of God who represent Samaria and Jerusalem. They became prostitutes in Egypt, engaging in prostitution from their youth. The prophet Ezekiel condemns both as guilty of religious and political alliance with heathen nations.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In ancient Greece, sacred prostitution was known in the city of Corinth where the Temple of Aphrodite employed a significant number of female servants, "hetairai", during classical antiquity.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The Greek term "hierodoulos" or "hierodule" has sometimes been taken to mean "sacred holy woman", but it is more likely to refer to a former slave freed from slavery in order to be "dedicated" to a god.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: There were different levels of prostitutes within Ancient Greece society, but two categories are specifically related to sacred or temple prostitution. The first category are "hetaires", also known as courtesans, typically more educated women that served within temples. The second category are known as "hierodoules", slave women or female priests who worked within temples and served the sexual requests of visitors to the temple.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: While there may not be a direct connection between temples and prostitution, many prostitutes and courtesans worshipped Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Prostitutes would use their earnings to pay for dedications and ritualistic celebrations in honor of Aphrodite. Some prostitutes also viewed the action of sexual service and sexual pleasure as an act of devotion to the goddess of love, worshipping Aphrodite through an act rather than a physical dedication.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In the temple of Apollo at Bulla Regia, a woman was found buried with an inscription reading: "Adulteress. Prostitute. Seize (me), because I fled from Bulla Regia." It has been speculated she might be a woman forced into sacred prostitution as a punishment for adultery.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The act of sacred prostitution within the Temples of Aphrodite in the city of Corinth was well-known and well-spread. Greek writer-philosopher Strabo comments, “the Temple of Aphrodite was so rich that it owned a thousand temple-slaves, courtesans, whom both men and women had dedicated to the goddess”. Within the same work, Strabo compares Corinth to the city of Comana, confirming the belief that temple prositution was a notable characteristic of Corinth.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Prostitutes performed sacred functions within the temple of Aphrodite. They would often burn incense in honor of Aphrodite. Chameleon of Heracleia recorded in his book, “On Pindar”, that whenever the city of Corinth prayed to Aphrodite in manners of great importance, many prostitutes were invited to participate in the prayers and petitions.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The girls involved in temple prostitution were typically slaves owned by the temple. However, some of the girls were gifted to the temple from other members of society in return for success in particular endeavors. One example that shows the gifting of girls to the temple is the poem of Athenaeus, which explores an athlete Xenophon’s actions of gifting a group of courtesans to Aphrodite as a thanks-offering for his victory in a competition.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Specifically in 464 BC, Xenophon was victorious in the Olympic Games and donated 100 slaves to Aphrodite’s temple. Pindar, a famous Greek poet, was commissioned to write a poem that was to be performed at Xenophon’s victory celebration in Corinth. The poet acknowledged that the slaves would serve Aphrodite as sacred prostitutes within her temple at Corinth.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Another temple of Aphrodite was named Aphrodite Melainis, located near the city gates in an area known as “Craneion”. It is the resting place of Lais, who was a famous prostitute in Greek history. This suggests that there was a connection with ritual prostitution within temples of Aphrodite.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: There is a report that was found of an epigram of Simonides commemorating the prayer of the prostitutes of Corinth on behalf of the salvation of the Greeks from the invading Persians in early fifth century BCE. Both temple prostitutes and priestesses prayed to Aphrodite for help, and were honored for their potent prayers, which Greek citizens believed contributed to the repelling of the Persians.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Athenaeus also alludes to the idea that many of Aphrodite’s temples and sanctuaries were occupied by temple prostitutes. These prostitutes were known to practice sexual rituals in different cities which included Corinth, Magnesia, and Samos.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Some evidence of sacred prostitution was evident in Minoan Crete. The building in question is known as the “East Building”, but was also referred to as “the House of the Ladies” by the excavator of the building. Some believe that the architecture of this building seemed to reflect the grooming needs of women, but could also have been a brothel for high status individuals.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The structure of the interior of the building seemed to suggest that the building was used for prostitution. Large clay vats typically used for bathing were found within the building, along with successive doors within the corridors. The successive doors suggested privacy, and within the time period, was associated with two functions: storage of valuable goods and protection of the private moments of its residents. Because the ground floors were found practically empty, the possibility that the building was used for prostitution increases.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: There were also religious embellishments found within the “East Building”, such as vases and other vessels that seemed to be connected to religious rituals. The vessels were covered in motifs related to sacrilegious rituals, such as the sacral knot and the image of birds flying freely. The functions of the vessels would have been offering food or liquid in relation to the rituals. Combining these two factors together, it is a possibility that sacred prostitution existed within this building.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In the Greek-influenced and colonized world, "sacred prostitution" was known in Cyprus (Greek-settled since 1100 BC), Sicily (Hellenized since 750 BC), in the Kingdom of Pontus (8th century BC) and in Cappadocia (c. 330 BC hellenized). describes sacred prostitution in the Hebrew temple under the reign of the Hellenistic ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: A passage in Herodotus explains a Babylonian custom where before marriage, girls had to offer themselves for sex, presumably within a temple, as required by rites of a goddess equivalent to Aphrodite in their culture. Herodotus records that a similar practice or custom took place within Cyprus, with girls offering themselves up for sex as required by the rites of Aphrodite. Ennius and Ovid corroborate each other on the idea that Aphrodite established the act of prostitution within the city of Cyprus.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: A temple of Kition also shows evidence of sacred prostitution. On a marble plaque, it lists out sacred prostitutes among other professions (bakers, scribes, barbers) that were part of ritual personnel at some Cypriot temples.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The temple of Aphaca may be another source of evidence for temple prostitution. The process is similar to regular prostitution, where male customers paid two or three obol in the form of or in addition to dedications to Aphrodite in exchange for sex with a temple prostitute. In the temple of Aphaca specifically, the men would dedicate their payment to "Cyprian Aphrodite" before engaging in sex with a temple prostitute.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The Roman emperor Constantine closed down a number of temples to Venus or similar deities in the 4th century AD, as the Christian church historian Eusebius proudly noted. Eusebius also claimed that the Phoenician cities of Aphaca and Heliopolis (Baalbek) continued to practise temple prostitution until the emperor Constantine put an end to the rite in the 4th century AD.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Some parts of Indian state have the practice of hierodulic prostitution, with similar customary forms such as basavi, and involves dedicating pre-pubescent and young adolescent girls from villages in a ritual marriage to a Hindu deity or a Hindu temple, who then work in the temple and function as spiritual guides, dancers, and prostitutes servicing male devotees in the temple. The devadasis were originally seen as intercessors who allowed upper-caste men to have contact with the gods. Though they did develop sexual relations with other men, they were not looked upon with lust. Before Muslim rule in the 14th century, they could live an existence apart from the men, with inheritance rights, wealth and influence, as well as living outside of the dangers of marriage.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The system was criticised by British colonial government while defended by Brahmins, leading to a decline in support for the system and the devadasis soon turned to prostitution. Many scholars have stated that the Hindu scriptures do not mention the system. Human Rights Watch also reports claim that devadasis are forced into this service and, at least in some cases, to practice prostitution for upper-caste members. Various state governments in India enacted laws to ban this practice both prior to India's independence and more recently. They include Bombay Devdasi Act, 1934, Devdasi (Prevention of dedication) Madras Act, 1947, Karnataka Devdasi (Prohibition of dedication) Act, 1982, and Andhra Pradesh Devdasi (Prohibition of dedication) Act, 1988. However, the tradition continues in certain regions of India, particularly the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: During the Kamakura period, many shrines and temples, which provided for , fell into bankruptcy. Some miko started travelling in search of livelihood and came to be known as (歩き巫女 lit. walking shrine-maiden). While aruki miko primarily provided religious services, they were also widely associated with prostitution. However, no religious reasons for miko prostitution are known, and hence the act might be unrelated to sacred prostitution.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The Maya maintained several phallic religious cults, possibly involving homosexual temple prostitution.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Much evidence for the religious practices of the Aztec culture was destroyed during the Spanish conquest, and almost the only evidence for the practices of their religion is from Spanish accounts. The Franciscan Spanish Friar Bernardino de Sahagún learned their language and spent more than 50 years studying the culture. He wrote that they participated in religious festivals and rituals, as well as performing sexual acts as part of religious practice. This may be evidence for the existence of sacred prostitution in Mesoamerica, or it may be either confusion, or accusational polemic. He also speaks of kind of prostitutes named "ahuianime" ("pleasure girls"), whom he described as "an evil woman who finds pleasure in her body... [A] dissolute woman of debauched life."


title: Sacred prostitution

text: It is agreed that the Aztec god Xochipili (taken from both Toltec and Maya cultures) was both the patron of homosexuals and homosexual prostitutes. Xochiquetzal was worshiped as goddess of sexual power, patroness of prostitutes and artisans involved in the manufacture of luxury items.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: The Inca sometimes dedicated young boys as temple prostitutes. The boys were dressed in girl's clothing, and chiefs and head men would have ritual sexual intercourse with them during religious ceremonies and on holy days.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In the 1970s and early 1980s, some religious cults practised sacred prostitution as an instrument to recruit new converts. Among them was the cult Children of God, also known as The Family, who called this practice "Flirty Fishing". They later abolished the practice due to the growing AIDS epidemic.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In Ventura County, California, Wilbur and Mary Ellen Tracy established their own temple, the "Church Of The Most High Goddess", in the wake of what they described as a divine revelation. Sexual acts played a fundamental role in the church's sacred rites, which were performed by Mary Ellen Tracy herself in her assumed role of High Priestess. Local newspaper articles about the Neopagan church quickly got the attention of local law enforcement officials, and in April 1989, the Tracys' house was searched and the couple arrested on charges of pimping, pandering and prostitution. They were subsequently convicted in a trial in state court and sentenced to jail terms: Wilbur Tracy for 180 days plus a $1,000.00 fine; Mary Ellen Tracy for 90 days plus mandatory screening for STDs.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Some modern sacred prostitutes act as sexual surrogates as a form of therapy. In places where prostitution is illegal, sacred prostitutes may be paid as therapists, escorts, or performers.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: According to Avaren Ipsen, from University of California, Berkeley's Commission on the Status of Women, the myth of sacred prostitution works as "an enormous source of self-esteem and as a model of sex positivity" to many sex workers. She compared this situation to the figure of Mary Magdalene, whose status as a prostitute, though short-lived according to Christian texts and disputed among academics, has been celebrated by sex working collectives (among them Sex Workers Outreach Project USA) in an effort to de-stigmatize their job. Ipsen speculated that academic currents trying to deny sacred prostitution are ideologically motivated, attributing them to the "desires of feminists, including myself, to be 'decent.'"


title: Sacred prostitution

text: In her book "The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine", psychoanalyst Nancy Qualls-Corbett praised sacred prostitution as an expression of female sexuality and a bridge between the latter and the divine, as well as a rupture from mundane sexual degradation. "[The sacred prostitute] did not make love in order to obtain admiration or devotion from the man who came to her... She did not require a man to give her a sense of her own identity; rather this was rooted in her own womanliness." Qualls also equated censuring sacred prostitution to demonize female sexuality and vitality. "In her temple, men and women came to find life and all that it had to offer in sensual pleasure and delight. But with the change in cultural values and the institutionalization of monotheism and patriarchy, the individual came to the House of God to prepare for death."


title: Sacred prostitution

text: This opinion is shared by several schools of modern Paganism. among them Wicca, for whom sacred prostitution, independently from its historical backing, embodies the sacralization of sex and a celebration of the communion between female and male sexuality. This practice is associated to spiritual healing and sex magic. Within secular thinking, philosopher Antonio Escohotado is a popular adept of this current, favoring particularly the role of ancient sacred prostitutes and priestesses of Ishtar. In his seminal work "Rameras y esposas", he extols them and their cult as symbols of female empowerment and sexual freedom.


title: Sacred prostitution

text: Actress Susie Lamb approached sacred prostitution in her 2014 performance "Horae: Fragments of a Sacred History of Prostitution", in which she points out its value to challenge gender roles. "The idea of sacred prostitution is almost entirely incomprehensible to the modern imagination. It involved women having sex as an act of worship... The relationship between men and women in this ancient tradition is based on respect for the woman. She was seen as a powerful person."


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: On Golden Pond is a 1981 American family drama film directed by Mark Rydell from a screenplay written by Ernest Thompson adapted from his 1979 play of the same name. It stars Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda (in his final theatrical film), Jane Fonda, Doug McKeon, Dabney Coleman and William Lanteau. In the film, Norman (Henry Fonda) is a curmudgeon with an estranged relationship with his daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda). At Golden Pond, he and his wife nevertheless agree to care for Billy, the son of Chelsea's new boyfriend, and a most unexpected relationship blooms.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: "On Golden Pond" was theatrically released on December 4, 1981 to critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised Rydell's direction, Thompson's screenplay and the performances of the cast, while the film grossed $119.3 million domestically, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 1981 in North America. It received ten nominations at the 54th Academy Awards, including for the Best Picture and won three: Best Actor (for Henry Fonda), Best Actress (for Hepburn), and Best Adapted Screenplay.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: An aging couple, Ethel and Norman Thayer, continue a tradition of spending each summer at their cottage on a lake called Golden Pond, in the far reaches of northern New England. When they first arrive, Ethel notices the loons calling on the lake "welcoming them home"; Norman, however, claims he does not hear anything.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: As they resettle into their summer home, Norman, who is about to turn 80, has memory problems arise when he is unable to recognize several family photographs, which he copes with by frequently talking about death and growing old. Ethel does her best to liven up the atmosphere – they play Parcheesi, admire the natural scenery, and talk to the mailman, Charlie, who delivers mail and visits via boat.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: They are visited by their only child, daughter Chelsea, who is somewhat estranged from her curmudgeon of a father. She introduces her parents to her fiancé Bill and his 13-year-old son Billy. Norman tries to play mind games with Bill, an apparent pastime of his. Bill lets him know that he knows what Norman is doing and he doesn't really mind, but that he will only take so much of it.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: In another conversation, Chelsea discusses with Ethel her frustration over her relationship with her father, feeling that even though she lives thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, she still feels like she is answering to him.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: Before they depart for a European vacation, Chelsea and Bill ask the Thayers to allow Billy to stay with them for a month while they have some time to themselves. Norman, seeming more senile and cynical than usual due to his 80th birthday and heart palpitations, agrees to Billy's staying.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: Billy is at first annoyed by being left with elderly strangers with no friends nearby and nothing to do. He resents Norman's brusque manner, but eventually comes to enjoy their Golden Pond fishing adventures together. Billy also begins to enjoy reading books in the cottage, first reading "Treasure Island" and later "A Tale of Two Cities".


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: Billy and Norman soon grow obsessed with catching Norman's fish rival "Walter", which leads to the accidental destruction of the Thayers' motorboat in a rocky area called Purgatory Cove. Norman gets thrown overboard and suffers a head wound and Billy dives in the water to save the old man. They are later rescued by Ethel and Charlie.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: Once healed, Norman goes fishing with Billy and they finally catch "Walter" but they eventually release the fish. Chelsea returns to find out her father has made friends with her fiancé's—now husband's—son. When she sees the change in her father's demeanor, Chelsea attempts something Billy accomplished that she never could: a backflip. She successfully executes the dive in front of a cheering Norman, Billy, and Ethel. Chelsea and Norman finally fully embrace before she departs with Billy.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: The final day on Golden Pond comes and the Thayers are loading the last of the boxes. Norman tries to move a heavy box, but starts having heart pain and collapses onto the floor of the porch. Ethel tries unsuccessfully to get the operator to phone the hospital, and goes to comfort her husband.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: After being given nitroglycerin by Ethel, Norman says the pain is gone and attempts to stand to say a final farewell to the lake. Ethel helps Norman to the edge, where they see the loons and Norman says they are calling on the lake "saying goodbye". He notes how they are just like him and Ethel, that their offspring is grown and gone off on her own, and now it is just the two of them.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: Jane Fonda purchased the rights to the play specifically for her father, Henry Fonda, to play the role of the cantankerous Norman Thayer. The father-daughter rift depicted on screen closely paralleled the real-life relationship between the two Fondas. The producers originally offered the role of Norman Thayer to James Stewart but he declined.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: Screenwriter Thompson spent his summers along the shores of Great Pond, located in Belgrade, Maine, but the film was made on Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire. The house used in the film was leased from a New York physician and was modified significantly for the shoot: an entire second floor was added as a balcony over the main living area at the request of the production designer. After the shoot, the production company was contractually obligated to return the house to its original state but the owner liked the renovations so much that he elected to keep the house that way and asked the crew not to dismantle the second story. A gazebo and a small boathouse were also relocated during the shoot.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: The Thayer IV was the name of the boat used in the film. There were three Thayer IV's used in the movie, including one replica used for the crash scene. One was a 1950 Chris-Craft Sportsman (U22-1460), bought by a family in 1982 from marine coordinator Pat Curtin. The other boat, also a Chris-Craft Sportsman (U22-1802), was sold in 1983 by Curtin, and was the boat which Fonda and Hepburn used for their excursions on Golden Pond. At the same time, the buyer of U22-1802 also purchased the replica used in the crash scene. Although the Chris-Craft Sportsman was the main boat used in the movie, the script called for the Thayer IV, a mail boat, a canoe, and a replica of the Thayer IV. These were provided by Patrick Curtin of Eastern Classics, a boatyard in Laconia, New Hampshire, specializing in the restoration of mahogany speedboats. Following World War II, the Sportsman model reappeared as a direct descendant of its 1937 predecessors. The popular model stayed in the Chris Craft line up until 1960. The use of a 1950 Sportsman model as the Thayer IV in "On Golden Pond" did much to generate interest in antique and classic boats.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: Despite their many common acquaintances and long careers in show business, Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn had not only never worked together, but never met until working on the film. On the first day of shooting, Hepburn presented Fonda with her longtime companion Spencer Tracy's "lucky" hat, which Fonda wore in the film. Hepburn, who was 74 at the time of filming, performed all her own stunts, including a dive into the pond. The scene in which Norman and step-grandson Billy run their boat into the rocks was filmed repeatedly. The vintage 1951 mahogany Chris-Craft boat, used strictly for the crash scene, was so sturdy that it kept bouncing off the rocks without any damage. The crew had to modify the boat so it would break away in the wreck. The water level in Squam Lake was so low during the summer of production that Fonda and Doug McKeon could have stood during the scene in which they were supposedly clinging to the rocks for fear of drowning. The September water was barely knee-deep, but it was cold enough that the pair had to wear wetsuits under their clothes. Hepburn, on the other hand, dove into the water without the aid of the wetsuit because she wanted the scene to keep its authenticity. Some of the scenes in which Billy takes the boat out on his own were filmed on nearby Lake Winnipesaukee. While filming the scene where Fonda and Hepburn were watching the loons on the lake, the speedboat that zoomed by and disturbed them was so forceful it overturned their canoe in one take. Fonda was immediately taken out of the water and wrapped up in blankets as his health was fragile by then.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: The town of Holderness offers boat tours of Squam Lake and the filming locations from the movie. There is also a restaurant called "Walter's Basin", which is named after the trout called "Walter" that Billy catches with Norman. For filming, "Walter" was brought in from a trout pond at the nearby Castle in the Clouds estate. He was released after his capture back into Squam Lake. Leftover footage of Fonda and Hepburn driving through the New Hampshire countryside, as seen in the opening credits, was later used for the opening of the CBS television sitcom "Newhart".


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: The studio behind the film was ITC Entertainment, the British company presided over (until late 1981) by Lord Grade, the television and film mogul. It was Grade who largely raised the financing for the film.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: With a box office take of $119,285,432, "On Golden Pond" was the second-highest-grossing film of the year, following "Raiders of the Lost Ark", which earned $209,562,121.


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: "On Golden Pond" received critical acclaim with critics highlighting the screenplay and performances of the cast (particularly of Hepburn and Henry Fonda). The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 93% based on 43 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn are a wondrous duo in "On Golden Pond", a wistful drama that movingly explores the twilight years of a loving marriage."


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: "TV Guide" rates it out of four stars, calling it "a beautifully photographed movie filled with poignancy, humor, and (of course) superb acting... there could have been no finer final curtain for [Henry Fonda] than this." Channel 4 sums up its review by stating:


title: On Golden Pond (1981 film)

text: Not all reviewers were impressed. David Kehr of the "Chicago Reader": "Time Out London" says, "Two of Hollywood's best-loved veterans deserved a far better swan song than this sticky confection." "Mad" magazine satirized the film as "On Olden Pond".


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is a white powder that is insoluble in water. ZnO is used as an additive in numerous materials and products including cosmetics, food supplements, rubbers, plastics, ceramics, glass, cement, lubricants, paints, ointments, adhesives, sealants, pigments, foods, batteries, ferrites, fire retardants, and first-aid tapes. Although it occurs naturally as the mineral zincite, most zinc oxide is produced synthetically.


title: Zinc oxide

text: ZnO is a wide-band gap semiconductor of the II-VI semiconductor group. The native doping of the semiconductor due to oxygen vacancies or zinc interstitials is n-type. Other favorable properties include good transparency, high electron mobility, wide band gap, and strong room-temperature luminescence. Those properties make ZnO valuable for a variety of emerging applications: transparent electrodes in liquid crystal displays, energy-saving or heat-protecting windows, and electronics as thin-film transistors and light-emitting diodes.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Pure ZnO is a white powder, but in nature it occurs as the rare mineral zincite, which usually contains manganese and other impurities that confer a yellow to red color.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Crystalline zinc oxide is thermochromic, changing from white to yellow when heated in air and reverting to white on cooling. This color change is caused by a small loss of oxygen to the environment at high temperatures to form the non-stoichiometric ZnO, where at 800 °C, x = 0.00007.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide is an amphoteric oxide. It is nearly insoluble in water, but it will dissolve in most acids, such as hydrochloric acid:


title: Zinc oxide

text: ZnO reacts slowly with fatty acids in oils to produce the corresponding carboxylates, such as oleate or stearate. When mixed with a strong aqueous solution of zinc chloride, ZnO forms cement-like products best described as zinc hydroxy chlorides. This cement was used in dentistry.


title: Zinc oxide

text: ZnO also forms cement-like material when treated with phosphoric acid; related materials are used in dentistry. A major component of zinc phosphate cement produced by this reaction is hopeite, Zn(PO)·4HO.


title: Zinc oxide

text: ZnO decomposes into zinc vapor and oxygen at around 1975 °C with a standard oxygen pressure. In a carbothermic reaction, heating with carbon converts the oxide into zinc vapor at a much lower temperature (around 950 °C).


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide crystallizes in two main forms, hexagonal wurtzite and cubic zincblende. The wurtzite structure is most stable at ambient conditions and thus most common. The zincblende form can be stabilized by growing ZnO on substrates with cubic lattice structure. In both cases, the zinc and oxide centers are tetrahedral, the most characteristic geometry for Zn(II). ZnO converts to the rocksalt motif at relatively high pressures about 10 GPa. The many remarkable medical properties of creams containing ZnO can be explained by its elastic softness, which is characteristic of tetrahedral coordinated binary compounds close to the transition to octahedral structures.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Hexagonal and zincblende polymorphs have no inversion symmetry (reflection of a crystal relative to any given point does not transform it into itself). This and other lattice symmetry properties result in piezoelectricity of the hexagonal and zincblende ZnO, and pyroelectricity of hexagonal ZnO.


title: Zinc oxide

text: The hexagonal structure has a point group 6 mm (Hermann–Mauguin notation) or C (Schoenflies notation), and the space group is P6mc or C. The lattice constants are "a" = 3.25 Å and "c" = 5.2 Å; their ratio "c/a" ~ 1.60 is close to the ideal value for hexagonal cell "c/a" = 1.633. As in most group II-VI materials, the bonding in ZnO is largely ionic (ZnO) with the corresponding radii of 0.074 nm for Zn and 0.140 nm for O. This property accounts for the preferential formation of wurtzite rather than zinc blende structure, as well as the strong piezoelectricity of ZnO. Because of the polar Zn−O bonds, zinc and oxygen planes are electrically charged. To maintain electrical neutrality, those planes reconstruct at atomic level in most relative materials, but not in ZnO – its surfaces are atomically flat, stable and exhibit no reconstruction. However, studies using wurtzoid structures explained the origin of surface flatness and the absence of reconstruction at ZnO wurtzite surfaces in addition to the origin of charges on ZnO planes.


title: Zinc oxide

text: ZnO is a relatively soft material with approximate hardness of 4.5 on the Mohs scale. Its elastic constants are smaller than those of relevant III-V semiconductors, such as GaN. The high heat capacity and heat conductivity, low thermal expansion and high melting temperature of ZnO are beneficial for ceramics. The E2 optical phonon in ZnO exhibits an unusually long lifetime of 133 ps at 10 K.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Among the tetrahedrally bonded semiconductors, it has been stated that ZnO has the highest piezoelectric tensor, or at least one comparable to that of GaN and AlN. This property makes it a technologically important material for many piezoelectrical applications, which require a large electromechanical coupling. Therefore, ZnO in the form of thin film has been one of the most studied resonator materials for thin-film bulk acoustic resonators.


title: Zinc oxide

text: ZnO has a relatively large direct band gap of ~3.3 eV at room temperature. Advantages associated with a large band gap include higher breakdown voltages, ability to sustain large electric fields, lower electronic noise, and high-temperature and high-power operation. The band gap of ZnO can further be tuned to ~3–4 eV by its alloying with magnesium oxide or cadmium oxide.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Most ZnO has "n"-type character, even in the absence of intentional doping. Nonstoichiometry is typically the origin of n-type character, but the subject remains controversial. An alternative explanation has been proposed, based on theoretical calculations, that unintentional substitutional hydrogen impurities are responsible. Controllable n-type doping is easily achieved by substituting Zn with group-III elements such as Al, Ga, In or by substituting oxygen with group-VII elements chlorine or iodine.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Reliable p-type doping of ZnO remains difficult. This problem originates from low solubility of p-type dopants and their compensation by abundant n-type impurities. This problem is observed with GaN and ZnSe. Measurement of p-type in "intrinsically" n-type material is complicated by the inhomogeneity of samples.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Current limitations to p-doping limit electronic and optoelectronic applications of ZnO, which usually require junctions of n-type and p-type material. Known p-type dopants include group-I elements Li, Na, K; group-V elements N, P and As; as well as copper and silver. However, many of these form deep acceptors and do not produce significant p-type conduction at room temperature.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Electron mobility of ZnO strongly varies with temperature and has a maximum of ~2000 cm/(V·s) at 80 K. Data on hole mobility are scarce with values in the range 5–30 cm/(V·s).


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide is noted for its strongly nonlinear optical properties, especially in bulk. The nonlinearity of ZnO nanoparticles can be fine-tuned according to their size.


title: Zinc oxide

text: In the indirect or French process, metallic zinc is melted in a graphite crucible and vaporized at temperatures above 907 °C (typically around 1000 °C). Zinc vapor reacts with the oxygen in the air to give ZnO, accompanied by a drop in its temperature and bright luminescence. Zinc oxide particles are transported into a cooling duct and collected in a bag house. This indirect method was popularized by LeClaire (France) in 1844 and therefore is commonly known as the French process. Its product normally consists of agglomerated zinc oxide particles with an average size of 0.1 to a few micrometers. By weight, most of the world's zinc oxide is manufactured via French process.


title: Zinc oxide

text: The direct or American process starts with diverse contaminated zinc composites, such as zinc ores or smelter by-products. The zinc precursors are reduced (carbothermal reduction) by heating with a source of carbon such as anthracite to produce zinc vapor, which is then oxidized as in the indirect process. Because of the lower purity of the source material, the final product is also of lower quality in the direct process as compared to the indirect one.


title: Zinc oxide

text: A small amount of industrial production involves wet chemical processes, which start with aqueous solutions of zinc salts, from which zinc carbonate or zinc hydroxide is precipitated. The solid precipitate is then calcined at temperatures around 800 °C.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Numerous specialised methods exist for producing ZnO for scientific studies and niche applications. These methods can be classified by the resulting ZnO form (bulk, thin film, nanowire), temperature ("low", that is close to room temperature or "high", that is T ~ 1000 °C), process type (vapor deposition or growth from solution) and other parameters.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Large single crystals (many cubic centimeters) can be grown by the gas transport (vapor-phase deposition), hydrothermal synthesis, or melt growth. However, because of the high vapor pressure of ZnO, growth from the melt is problematic. Growth by gas transport is difficult to control, leaving the hydrothermal method as a preference. Thin films can be produced by chemical vapor deposition, metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy, electrodeposition, pulsed laser deposition, sputtering, sol–gel synthesis, atomic layer deposition, spray pyrolysis, etc.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Ordinary white powdered zinc oxide can be produced in the laboratory by electrolyzing a solution of sodium bicarbonate with a zinc anode. Zinc hydroxide and hydrogen gas are produced. The zinc hydroxide upon heating decomposes to zinc oxide:


title: Zinc oxide

text: Nanostructures of ZnO can be synthesized into a variety of morphologies including nanowires, nanorods, tetrapods, nanobelts, nanoflowers, nanoparticles etc. Nanostructures can be obtained with most above-mentioned techniques, at certain conditions, and also with the vapor–liquid–solid method. The synthesis is typically carried out at temperatures of about 90 °C, in an equimolar aqueous solution of zinc nitrate and hexamine, the latter providing the basic environment. Certain additives, such as polyethylene glycol or polyethylenimine, can improve the aspect ratio of the ZnO nanowires. Doping of the ZnO nanowires has been achieved by adding other metal nitrates to the growth solution. The morphology of the resulting nanostructures can be tuned by changing the parameters relating to the precursor composition (such as the zinc concentration and pH) or to the thermal treatment (such as the temperature and heating rate).


title: Zinc oxide

text: Aligned ZnO nanowires on pre-seeded silicon, glass, and gallium nitride substrates have been grown using aqueous zinc salts such as zinc nitrate and zinc acetate in basic environments. Pre-seeding substrates with ZnO creates sites for homogeneous nucleation of ZnO crystal during the synthesis. Common pre-seeding methods include in-situ thermal decomposition of zinc acetate crystallites, spincoating of ZnO nanoparticles and the use of physical vapor deposition methods to deposit ZnO thin films. Pre-seeding can be performed in conjunction with top down patterning methods such as electron beam lithography and nanosphere lithography to designate nucleation sites prior to growth. Aligned ZnO nanowires can be used in dye-sensitized solar cells and field emission devices.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc compounds were probably used by early humans, in processed and unprocessed forms, as a paint or medicinal ointment, but their composition is uncertain. The use of "pushpanjan", probably zinc oxide, as a salve for eyes and open wounds, is mentioned in the Indian medical text the Charaka Samhita, thought to date from 500 BC or before. Zinc oxide ointment is also mentioned by the Greek physician Dioscorides (1st century AD). Galen suggested treating ulcerating cancers with zinc oxide, as did Avicenna in his "The Canon of Medicine". It is used as an ingredient in products such as baby powder and creams against diaper rashes, calamine cream, anti-dandruff shampoos, and antiseptic ointments.


title: Zinc oxide

text: The Romans produced considerable quantities of brass (an alloy of zinc and copper) as early as 200 BC by a cementation process where copper was reacted with zinc oxide. The zinc oxide is thought to have been produced by heating zinc ore in a shaft furnace. This liberated metallic zinc as a vapor, which then ascended the flue and condensed as the oxide. This process was described by Dioscorides in the 1st century AD. Zinc oxide has also been recovered from zinc mines at Zawar in India, dating from the second half of the first millennium BC.


title: Zinc oxide

text: From the 12th to the 16th century zinc and zinc oxide were recognized and produced in India using a primitive form of the direct synthesis process. From India, zinc manufacture moved to China in the 17th century. In 1743, the first European zinc smelter was established in Bristol, United Kingdom. Around 1782 Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau proposed replacing lead white with zinc oxide.


title: Zinc oxide

text: The main usage of zinc oxide (zinc white) was in paints and as an additive to ointments. Zinc white was accepted as a pigment in oil paintings by 1834 but it did not mix well with oil. This problem was solved by optimizing the synthesis of ZnO. In 1845, LeClaire in Paris was producing the oil paint on a large scale, and by 1850, zinc white was being manufactured throughout Europe. The success of zinc white paint was due to its advantages over the traditional white lead: zinc white is essentially permanent in sunlight, it is not blackened by sulfur-bearing air, it is non-toxic and more economical. Because zinc white is so "clean" it is valuable for making tints with other colors, but it makes a rather brittle dry film when unmixed with other colors. For example, during the late 1890s and early 1900s, some artists used zinc white as a ground for their oil paintings. All those paintings developed cracks over the years.


title: Zinc oxide

text: In recent times, most zinc oxide was used in the rubber industry to resist corrosion. In the 1970s, the second largest application of ZnO was photocopying. High-quality ZnO produced by the "French process" was added to photocopying paper as a filler. This application was soon displaced by titanium.


title: Zinc oxide

text: The applications of zinc oxide powder are numerous, and the principal ones are summarized below. Most applications exploit the reactivity of the oxide as a precursor to other zinc compounds. For material science applications, zinc oxide has high refractive index, high thermal conductivity, binding, antibacterial and UV-protection properties. Consequently, it is added into materials and products including plastics, ceramics, glass, cement, rubber, lubricants, paints, ointments, adhesive, sealants, concrete manufacturing, pigments, foods, batteries, ferrites, fire retardants, etc.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Between 50% and 60% of ZnO use is in the rubber industry. Zinc oxide along with stearic acid is used in the vulcanization of rubber ZnO additives also protect rubber from fungi (see medical applications) and UV light.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Ceramic industry consumes a significant amount of zinc oxide, in particular in ceramic glaze and frit compositions. The relatively high heat capacity, thermal conductivity and high temperature stability of ZnO coupled with a comparatively low coefficient of expansion are desirable properties in the production of ceramics. ZnO affects the melting point and optical properties of the glazes, enamels, and ceramic formulations. Zinc oxide as a low expansion, secondary flux improves the elasticity of glazes by reducing the change in viscosity as a function of temperature and helps prevent crazing and shivering. By substituting ZnO for BaO and PbO, the heat capacity is decreased and the thermal conductivity is increased. Zinc in small amounts improves the development of glossy and brilliant surfaces. However, in moderate to high amounts, it produces matte and crystalline surfaces. With regard to color, zinc has a complicated influence.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide as a mixture with about 0.5% iron(III) oxide (FeO) is called calamine and is used in calamine lotion. Two minerals, zincite and hemimorphite, have been historically called calamine. When mixed with eugenol, a ligand, zinc oxide eugenol is formed, which has applications as a restorative and prosthodontic in dentistry.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Reflecting the basic properties of ZnO, fine particles of the oxide have deodorizing and antibacterial properties and for that reason are added into materials including cotton fabric, rubber, oral care products, and food packaging. Enhanced antibacterial action of fine particles compared to bulk material is not exclusive to ZnO and is observed for other materials, such as silver. This property results from the increased surface area of the fine particles.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide is used in mouthwash products and toothpastes as an anti-bacterial agent proposed to prevent plaque and tartar formation, and to control bad breath by reducing the volatile gases and volatile sulfur compounds (VSC) in the mouth. Along with zinc oxide or zinc salts, these products also commonly contain other active ingredients, such as cetylpyridinium chloride, xylitol, hinokitiol, essential oils and plant extracts.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide is widely used to treat a variety of skin conditions, including atopic dermatitis, contact dermatitis, itching due to eczema, diaper rash and acne. Zinc oxide is also often added into sunscreens.


title: Zinc oxide

text: It is used in products such as baby powder and barrier creams to treat diaper rashes, calamine cream, anti-dandruff shampoos, and antiseptic ointments. It is also a component in tape (called "zinc oxide tape") used by athletes as a bandage to prevent soft tissue damage during workouts.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide can be used in ointments, creams, and lotions to protect against sunburn and other damage to the skin caused by ultraviolet light (see sunscreen). It is the broadest spectrum UVA and UVB absorber that is approved for use as a sunscreen by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is completely photostable. When used as an ingredient in sunscreen, zinc oxide blocks both UVA (320–400 nm) and UVB (280–320 nm) rays of ultraviolet light. Zinc oxide and the other most common physical sunscreen, titanium dioxide, are considered to be nonirritating, nonallergenic, and non-comedogenic. Zinc from zinc oxide is, however, slightly absorbed into the skin.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Many sunscreens use nanoparticles of zinc oxide (along with nanoparticles of titanium dioxide) because such small particles do not scatter light and therefore do not appear white. The nanoparticles are not absorbed into the skin more than regular-sized zinc oxide particles are, and are only absorbed into the outermost layer of the skin but not into the body.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide nanoparticles can enhance the antibacterial activity of ciprofloxacin. It has been shown that nano ZnO that has an average size between 20 nm and 45 nm can enhance the antibacterial activity of ciprofloxacin against "Staphylococcus aureus" and "Escherichia coli" in vitro. The enhancing effect of this nanomaterial is concentration dependent against all test strains. This effect may be due to two reasons. First, zinc oxide nanoparticles can interfere with NorA protein, which is developed for conferring resistance in bacteria and has pumping activity that mediates the effluxing of hydrophilic fluoroquinolones from a cell. Second, zinc oxide nanoparticles can interfere with Omf protein, which is responsible for the permeation of quinolone antibiotics into the cell.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide is a component of cigarette filters. A filter consisting of charcoal impregnated with zinc oxide and iron oxide removes significant amounts of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and hydrogen sulfide (HS) from tobacco smoke without affecting its flavor.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide is added to many food products, including breakfast cereals, as a source of zinc, a necessary nutrient. (Zinc sulfate is also used for the same purpose.) Some prepackaged foods also include trace amounts of ZnO even if it is not intended as a nutrient.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide was linked to dioxin contamination in pork exports in the 2008 Chilean pork crisis. The contamination was found to be due to dioxin contaminated zinc oxide used in pig feed.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide (zinc white) is used as a pigment in paints and is more opaque than lithopone, but less opaque than titanium dioxide. It is also used in coatings for paper. Chinese white is a special grade of zinc white used in artists' pigments. The use of zinc white as a pigment in oil painting started in the middle of 18th century. It has partly replaced the poisonous lead white and was used by painters such as Böcklin, Van Gogh, Manet, Munch and others. It is also a main ingredient of mineral makeup (CI 77947).


title: Zinc oxide

text: Micronized and nano-scale zinc oxide provides strong protection against UVA and UVB ultraviolet radiation, and are consequently used in sunscreens, and also in UV-blocking sunglasses for use in space and for protection when welding, following research by scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).


title: Zinc oxide

text: Paints containing zinc oxide powder have long been utilized as anticorrosive coatings for metals. They are especially effective for galvanized iron. Iron is difficult to protect because its reactivity with organic coatings leads to brittleness and lack of adhesion. Zinc oxide paints retain their flexibility and adherence on such surfaces for many years.


title: Zinc oxide

text: ZnO highly n-type doped with aluminium, gallium, or indium is transparent and conductive (transparency ~90%, lowest resistivity ~10 Ω·cm). ZnO:Al coatings are used for energy-saving or heat-protecting windows. The coating lets the visible part of the spectrum in but either reflects the infrared (IR) radiation back into the room (energy saving) or does not let the IR radiation into the room (heat protection), depending on which side of the window has the coating.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Plastics, such as polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), can be protected by applying zinc oxide coating. The coating reduces the diffusion of oxygen through PEN. Zinc oxide layers can also be used on polycarbonate in outdoor applications. The coating protects polycarbonate from solar radiation, and decreases its oxidation rate and photo-yellowing.


title: Zinc oxide

text: Zinc oxide depleted in Zn (the zinc isotope with atomic mass 64) is used in corrosion prevention in nuclear pressurized water reactors. The depletion is necessary, because Zn is transformed into radioactive Zn under irradiation by the reactor neutrons.