title: Manu Chao

text: Since 1991, Chao has been working with La Colifata, which is an NGO made up of a group of patients and ex patients of Hospital Borda, a psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Chao uses both a website and a Facebook account to show the work he does with these patients and ex patients. On their Facebook page he explains that the mission of this group is to diminish the stigma that people place on mental illness and to promote the use of services that are meant to help those with mental illnesses.


title: Manu Chao

text: In an interview with the School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California in 2010, Chao expressed his opinions about topics such as the effects of economic globalization on social inequality. He explained how he believes that the global market is causing social inequality, and how issues in education and immigration are connected to this. In this interview he expressed a worry that mafias are the greatest threat to democracy and that this is already evident in certain places, like Russia and Mexico. He stated that this is one reason that he is for the legalization of drugs such as marijuana - he explained that mafias are making capital off of the distribution of illegal drugs which gives them more economic power, thus making it easier for them to potentially overthrow governments.


title: Manu Chao

text: In this interview he also expressed his belief that currently, the global market is the largest force shaping the lives of people throughout the world. For this reason, he believes that the most effective way to solve social problems in individual countries is to address them at a global level by changing the policies dictating the global market. He explained that since most people are not given the power to directly change these policies, the most effective way to bring about change would be to make a statement to those running the economy by becoming self-sufficient through boycotting corporations, growing one's own vegetables, and making one's own clothes.


title: Manu Chao

text: He then added that he does not own a car or cell phone because he does not need either of these. He also talked about having weak leaders as a threat to democracy and explained that there are small movements in Spain that are fighting for blank votes to be recorded as legitimate votes. He explained this could be a solution because blank votes currently make up a majority of the votes in elections, which means that election results are inaccurate.


title: Manu Chao

text: Another topic he discussed during this interview was education. He expressed his belief that education is important and should be free for everyone. He mentioned that Cuba is able to provide free education for all those living in Cuba despite being a small country and that he does not understand how the United States being such a powerful nation was not able to do the same. He then expressed frustration at the fact that one can enroll in the armed forces in the United States and "learn to kill" for free, but had to pay to learn to do anything else. He suggested that this is a sign that the United States is afraid of its future.


title: Manu Chao

text: When asked about immigration during this interview, Chao mentioned that the West, particularly the United States, has a population with a lot of elderly people and that in order to excel in the future, the West needs the youth from "Third World" countries. He explains that providing legal status to immigrant young people would require the United States to honor the rights of these immigrants, and therefore it is cheaper and easier for the United States to deny so many young immigrants a legal status. He then said that the "Occident...needs to open the borders."


title: Manu Chao

text: In an article published in 2010, Cornelia Gräbner mentioned Chao's lyrics in a discussion about how the work of four different authors who contribute to the alter-globalization movement. Gräbner discusses how Manu Chao, Eduardo Galeano, Subcomandante Marcos, and José Saramago present alternative practice of politics from different perspectives. Gräbner states that Chao's work emphasizes the connection of contemporary ‘contentious Europe’ with past struggles, particularly through his lyrics and combinations of musical styles. Gräbner believes that Chao's family history plays a crucial role in his political views and how that has shaped the way he creates his music. She explains that "Chao translates his family’s anti-fascist political tradition into a politicized embrace of cultural difference and into a clear anti-racist and anticapitalist stance." She also states that in the 1990s Mano Negra took an anticapitalist and anti-racist stance, and that Chao continues to use these messages in his music even after the dissolution of Mano Negra.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Daniel Gilbert (born January 17, 1962) is an American billionaire businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and majority owner of Rocket Mortgage, founder of Rock Ventures, and owner of the National Basketball Association's Cleveland Cavaliers. Gilbert owns several sports franchises, including the American Hockey League's Cleveland Monsters, and the NBA G League's Cleveland Charge. He operates the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio, home to the Cavaliers and Monsters. As of March, 19th, 2022 "Forbes" estimated his net worth at US$51.9 billion, making him the 23rd richest person in the world.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert was born to a Jewish family in Detroit, Michigan. He grew up in Southfield, Michigan, where he attended Southfield-Lathrup High School. He earned his bachelor's degree from Michigan State University and a Juris Doctor from Wayne State University Law School, and is a member of the State Bar of Michigan. While in college he earned a real estate agent's license and while in law school, he worked part-time at his parents' Century 21 Real Estate agency.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert founded Rock Financial in 1985 with Ron Berman, Lindsay Gross and his younger brother Gary Gilbert. In the late 1990s, the company launched its internet strategy, becoming an early online direct mortgage lender. In the fourth quarter of 2017, the company became the largest retail mortgage lender by volume in the United States.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In 2000, software maker Intuit Inc. purchased Rock Financial and renamed the national web operation Quicken Loans. In 2002, Gilbert and a group of private investors purchased Quicken Loans and its affiliated national title company, Title Source, Inc., from Intuit. As of 2021, Gilbert served as the chairman of Quicken Loans, Inc.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In 2007, Gilbert and the city of Detroit announced an agreement to move the company's headquarters to downtown Detroit. All 3,600 Michigan-based employees moved into Detroit's urban core by the end of 2010.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In August 2020, Quicken Loans went public under the name Rocket Companies and made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RKT.” As of 2020, Gilbert remained the majority owner, controlling 79% of the company's shares.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert became majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers in March 2005 and undertook a complete overhaul of the front office, coaching staff, player personnel and game presentation. During Gilbert's tenure, the Cavaliers won six Central Division championships (2009, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), five Eastern Conference championships (2007, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), and one NBA championship (2016), which ended the 52-year Cleveland sports curse.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In 2007, Gilbert bought the dormant Utah Grizzlies American Hockey League franchise, moved it to Cleveland and renamed it the Cleveland Monsters (previously Lake Erie Monsters). In 2016, the Monsters won the AHL's top prize – the Calder Cup – giving Gilbert two championships within eight days.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In 2011, Gilbert purchased the New Mexico Thunderbirds from what was then the NBA Developmental League (now called the G League), and moved them to Canton, Ohio renaming them the Canton Charge, and making them the Cavaliers' affiliate. In 2022 the team moved to Cleveland, and they are now known as the Cleveland Charge.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In July 2010, Ohio native LeBron James announced that he was leaving the Cavaliers for the Miami Heat on an ESPN television special dubbed "The Decision". Following the special, Gilbert published an open letter to Cleveland Cavaliers fans in which he criticized how James made his announcement. Gilbert was later fined by NBA Commissioner David Stern for his remarks. Gilbert later claimed that he regretted the letter, and has since apologized to James.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: James later stated, "I've met with Dan, face-to-face, man-to-man. We've talked it out. Everybody makes mistakes. I've made mistakes as well. Who am I to hold a grudge?"


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert is a founding partner in the private equity group Rockbridge Growth Equity LLC (RBE). The partnership invests in growing businesses in the financial services, Internet technology, consumer-direct marketing, and the sports and entertainment industries.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: RBE has significant investments in Gas Station TV, Robb Report, and RapidAdvance, among other ventures.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert is also an investor in Courtside Ventures, a venture capital fund investing across early-stage technology and media companies with a focus on sports and is a founding partner of Detroit Venture Partners (DVP), a venture capital firm that funds start-up and early-stage technology companies based primarily in Detroit. Some of the companies DVP has invested in includes LevelEleven, iRule and Marxent Labs.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert cofounded StockX, a stock market of things for high-demand, limited edition products such as sneakers. Gilbert is also invested and involved in the operation of several consumer-based technology-centered businesses, including Fathead, Veritix, Xenith, StyleCaster and Quizzle.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert launched nonprofit Bizdom in 2007, which promotes both tech and brick-and-mortar entrepreneurship in Detroit and Cleveland by supporting on-the-ground service providers.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In November 2009, Gilbert and a group of partners successfully backed a statewide referendum to bring casino gaming to Ohio's four largest cities. Through a joint venture with Caesars Entertainment Corporation, the groups operate urban-based casinos in both Cleveland and Cincinnati. The first of the casinos, Jack Cleveland Casino, opened in May 2012.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In 2013, Rock Ventures, the umbrella entity for Gilbert's investments and real estate holdings, announced it had formed Athens Acquisition LLC, an affiliate of Rock Gaming, and acquired the majority interest in Greektown Superholdings Inc., owner of the Greektown Casino-Hotel located in downtown Detroit. In late 2018, Gilbert bought the online dictionaries, Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In November 2017, former professional Call of Duty player and 100 Thieves CEO Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag announced that Gilbert had made a multimillion-dollar investment into the esports organization.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Quicken Loans moved its headquarters and 1,700 of its employees to downtown Detroit in August 2010, where Gilbert and the company are helping lead a revitalization of Detroit's urban core.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert's Bedrock Detroit has purchased several buildings in downtown Detroit, including the historic Madison Theatre Building, Chase Tower, Two Detroit Center, Dime Building, the First National Building the David Stott Building and the former Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch Building. Bedrock Detroit has also purchased several buildings on the city's Woodward Avenue, including One Woodward Avenue and the 1001 Woodward office tower.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In September 2013, Gilbert was named co-chair of the "Blight Removal Task Force". The group published a detailed plan in May 2014 to remove all blighted structures and lots in the City of Detroit.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: A 2017 Politico Magazine article named Gilbert one of "America's 11 Most Interesting Mayors", listing him as though he were Mayor of Detroit due to his role in the city's development.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In September 2017, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan appointed Gilbert to lead a committee to make a bid for online retail giant Amazon to bring its second North American headquarters to Detroit. In 2018, Amazon narrowed its list of potential headquarters locations, removing Detroit from its list of contenders.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In September 2012, Gilbert and his wife Jennifer joined The Giving Pledge, committing to give half of their wealth to philanthropy throughout their lifetimes.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert's eldest son was born with neurofibromatosis. Gilbert established two Neurofibromatosis research clinics at the Children's National Medical Center (CNMC) in Washington, D.C., and at the Dana Children's Hospital at the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel. Gilbert also serves on the boards of the Children's Tumor Foundation, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Children's Hospital Foundation (an affiliate of CNMC); and is the vice-chairman of the not-for-profit M-1 RAIL initiative which is dedicated to promoting light-rail transportation in downtown Detroit.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In September 2016, Gilbert donated $5 million to Wayne State University Law School. In October of that year, Gilbert also donated $15 million toward the planned $50-million Breslin Center renovation project at Michigan State University.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: In 2020, Gilbert made a $1.2 million donation to help COVID-19 relief efforts in the city of Detroit.


title: Dan Gilbert

text: Gilbert resides in Michigan with his wife Jennifer Gilbert and their five children. His wife serves on the Gilbert Family Neurofibromatosis Institute at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and also serves on the boards of ORT America and the Israeli and Overseas Committee of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. On May 26, 2019, Gilbert was taken to the hospital and treated for a stroke at the age of 57.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion is a fictional character in the "Mortal Kombat" fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. An undead ninja, he is principally defined by his quest to avenge the deaths of himself, his family, and his clan. His primary weapon is a "kunai" spear, which he uses to harpoon opponents, while his trademark fatality is the "Fire Breath" in which he removes his mask to reveal a skull right before immolating his opponent.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Debuting in the original 1992 game, Scorpion has appeared in every main installment except "Mortal Kombat 3" (1995). The character's backstory establishes him as Hanzo Hasashi (), a warrior from the fictional Shirai Ryu clan who was killed by the elder Sub-Zero (Bi-Han) of the rival Lin Kuei clan. Subsequent games reveal that his family and clan were murdered by the sorcerer Quan Chi, who becomes Scorpion's primary target for vengeance. Depicted as a neutral party in most games, Scorpion generally forgoes the franchise's main conflicts to pursue his personal missions, which sometimes results in him taking the side that will help his objective. Scorpion is also both a rival and ally of the younger Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang).


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion has received critical acclaim since his debut and frequently appears in media outside of the games. He is regarded as "Mortal Kombat" most iconic fighter; series co-creator Ed Boon cites Scorpion as his favorite character.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In "Mortal Kombat" (1992), it is established that a series of Mortal Kombat tournaments are being held to determine if the forces of Outworld will be permitted by the Elder Gods to invade and conquer the dimension of Earthrealm. The game takes place during the tenth and final tournament, hosted by the shape-shifter sorcerer Shang Tsung, who is a servant of the Outworld emperor Shao Kahn. In the original game, it is implied Scorpion has enmity towards Sub-Zero due to rivalry between their opposing warrior clans (Scorpion's Japanese clan is unnamed, while the game names Sub-Zero's Chinese clan "Lin Kuei"). Scorpion's ending reveals he is actually an undead specter, a warrior who was killed by Sub-Zero, survived by a wife and child, and allowed to return to the physical realms in order to have his revenge. The same ending implies that the curse of Scorpion's supernatural existence means he can have revenge but cannot reunite with his still-living family. Canonically, after the tenth tournament is won by the human champion Liu Kang, Scorpion kills Sub-Zero.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: After the release of the first "Mortal Kombat" game, players were able to order a special tie-in comic book written and illustrated by "MK" co-creator John Tobias, published by Midway. The comic explained more of the backstory of the tournament and its characters, though it does not fully fit into the canon of later games in the franchise. In a one-page scene, two years after his death, Scorpion attacks Sub-Zero, who recognizes him and is shocked. Scorpion declares "demons" have allowed him to return and avenge his own demise. Wishing to gain his vengeance through an honorable fight rather than a surprise attack, Scorpion leaves, promising Sub-Zero they will meet again in the tournament. Later games make it unclear how much time passes between Scorpion's death and the tenth Mortal Kombat tournament. The game "" (1997) shows Sub-Zero joining Mortal Kombat days or weeks after he kills Scorpion, but does not clarify whether he is joining the tenth tournament or one of the tournaments that occurred years earlier, surviving and later deciding to return for the tenth.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In "Mortal Kombat II" (1993), some time after the tenth tournament, a rematch Mortal Kombat tournament held in the dimension of Outworld, now hosted by Emperor Shao Kahn. Another Lin Kuei warrior with ice abilities called Sub-Zero joins this tournament, with the game's introduction leaving it deliberately vague whether this is a new fighter or the original warrior back from the dead. Scorpion enters the new tournament to investigate this warrior. When Scorpion sees the new Sub-Zero spare the life of an opponent, he realizes this is not the cruel, cold-hearted man who killed him but the man's younger brother. Scorpion decides to be the younger Sub-Zero's guardian in atonement for killing his older brother. The elder Sub-Zero and younger Sub-Zero are later given the birth names of Bi-Han and Kuai Liang, respectively, in the "Mortal Kombat reboot game". Mortal Kombat II also introduces the character Noob Saibot, an undead warrior who will later be revealed to be the resurrected Bi-Han.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion and the game's similar palette-swapped ninja characters were not playable characters in "Mortal Kombat 3." Scorpion returned as a playable character in the 1995 upgrade "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3". In the story of "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3", Emperor Shao Kahn enlists Scorpion's aid. Scorpion's allegiance to the emperor dissolves when he discovers this puts him against Sub-Zero, who has allied with Earth's defenders.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: The game "" (1997) featured Scorpion as an unplayable boss character who appears twice. The game's story is a prologue to the original game, expanding on the elder Sub-Zero's backstory, Scorpion's backstory, and introducing the sorcerer Quan Chi. The game established Scorpion's real name and the name of his clan, cemented the Lin Kuei is a Chinese clan and its warriors do not consider themselves ninja, and explained the reason for Lin Kuei warriors and Shirai Ryu warriors wearing such similar costumes. According to the game's story, the Shirai Ryu was originally founded by the ninja Takeda, who served with the Lin Kuei before developing his own form of fighting and deciding to leave the clan. He kept the same basic uniform design for the Shirai Ryu but altered details and coloring.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the main story of "Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero", years before the original game's events, the still living Shirai Ryu ninja Hanzo Hasashi A.K.A. Scorpion is enlisted by the necromancer Quan Chi to find a map hidden in a Shaolin temple. Quan Chi also gives this task to Sub-Zero of the Lin Kuei clan. Hanzo and Bi-Han duel, resulting in Hanzo's death. Sub-Zero delivers the map to Quan Chi, who repays the Lin Kuei clan by eliminating all the members of the rival Shirai Ryu clan. Quan Chi also kills Shrai Ryu family members, including Scorpion's wife Harumi and his son Satoshi. The Lin Kuei Grandmaster applauds this action. Sub-Zero takes another assignment for Quan Chi, retrieving an amulet that, unknown to him, is the power source of Shinnok, the fallen Elder God who ruled the Netherrealm. Taking the amulet, Quan Chi leaves to the Netherrealm, but returns a fake to Shinnok, keeping the real amulet for himself. Afterward, the thunder god Raiden confronts Sub-Zero, holding him responsible for giving Quan Chi power a mortal is not meant to possess. To fix the situation, Raiden sends Sub-Zero to the Netherrealm where he meets Scorpion again, who is now a fiery specter. After defeating Hanzo's spirit, Sub-Zero eventually finds and defeats Shinnok, retrieving the fraudulent amulet and bringing it to Raiden. Returning to the Lin Kuei stronghold, Sub-Zero is told by the Grandmaster of his clan that his next task is to participate in the Mortal Kombat contest as one of several champions fighting for the sorcerer Shang Tsung. Despite this meaning he would be fighting against the forces of Earthrealm, the elder Sub-Zero agrees. This leads into the events of the first game.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: "Mortal Kombat 4" (1997) reveals the necromancer Quan Chi survived the events of "MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero". To help with Shinnok's invasion of the realms, Quan Chi releases Scorpion from the Netherrealm once more. The necromancer offers Scorpion a full resurrection as a living man, permanently free from the Netherrealm, if he kills the younger Sub-Zero. If the player reaches Sub-Zero's victory ending, Quan Chi reveals he is personally responsible for the death of the Shirai Ryu clan. Scorpion and Sub-Zero then attack simultaneously, killing the sorcerer before parting ways peacefully. In Scorpion's victory ending, which is considered canonical and leads into the next game, he defeats the younger Sub-Zero. Quan Chi suddenly appears and boasts of his involvement in killing Scorpion's clan and family. The necromancer then attempts to banish Scorpion to the Netherrealm permanently, but the ninja grabs him, sending them both into the Hellish realm.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion's "MK4" ending is carried over into "" (2002). In this game, Quan Chi escapes Scorpion and hires the Oni Drahmin and Moloch to protect him. In a non-canonical ending, Scorpion is killed when Drahmin and Moloch hurl him into a "Soulnado", a magical tornado consisting of tormented souls trapped between Earthrealm and Outworld. In "", Scorpion is depicted as having escaped the Netherrealm. The game's events lead Scorpion to accept a new role as the Elder Gods' servant, working as a protector of Earthrealm by helping prevent the merging of the realms by the villain Onaga.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the 2005 beat 'em up spin-off "", set during the events of "Mortal Kombat II", Scorpion is a boss character who attempts to kill the game's playable protagonists Liu Kang and Kung Lao.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the Konquest mode of "" (2006), Scorpion cuts a deal with the Elder Gods, offering to serve them in exchange for the resurrection of the Shirai Ryu, as well as his wife and son. Scorpion's clan and family are resurrected, but only as undead beings. Enraged, Scorpion seeks to destroy the Elder Gods' chance of preventing Armageddon by taking the elemental Blaze's power, but the Edenian demigod Taven defeats him. Scorpion is later killed by Sub-Zero in a battle royal amongst the series characters.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion appears in the 2008 crossover title "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe", participating in a war between the two titular franchises. In his ending, the essence of Dark Kahn finds a host in Scorpion's body, making him the most powerful being in the universe.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Starting with the "Mortal Kombat" reboot game (2011), an alternative-timeline is created by revising certain events of the franchise's first three games. When the reboot game introduces Scorpion, he is once again newly joining the tenth Mortal Kombat tournament. It is now established that Quan Chi was responsible for his original resurrection and not just his return in MK4. Quan Chi grants Scorpion his enhanced supernatural abilities and encourages him to kill their mutual enemy Bi-Han, though he keeps his own involvement in destroying the Shirai Ryu clan a secret. Attempting to alter the timeline in hopes of averting the path that eventually leads to Armageddon, Raiden convinces Scorpion to spare Bi-Han's life in exchange for the Elder Gods resurrecting the Shirai Ryu clan. Scorpion initially honors the deal, defeating but not killing Bi-Han before the tournament is completed, but Quan Chi provokes Scorpion into going back on his promise by showing him a vision of Sub-Zero and the Lin Kuei murdering his family and clan. Despite Bi-Han denying his involvement, Scorpion incinerates him and returns to the tournament grounds holding Sub-Zero's skull and spinal column. This leads Kuai Liang, who at the time calls himself "Tundra," to adopt the Sub-Zero mantle somewhat earlier than he did in the original timeline. The younger Sub-Zero later defeats Scorpion, but is prevented from destroying the undead warrior when his Lin Kuei comrades apprehend him on order by the clan's Grandmaster. Against his will, the younger Sub-Zero is then turned into a cyborg.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In Scorpion's non-canonical arcade ending to the "Mortal Kombat" reboot game, the spirits of the Shirai Ryu later appear before Scorpion and reveal the truth about their murder, then aid in killing Quan Chi. In Sub-Zero's non-canonical ending, he learns Quan Chi killed the Shirai Ryu as payment for the Lin Kuei's services. He reveals this information to Scorpion and they form their own "deadly alliance."


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In "Mortal Kombat X", which takes place two years after the previous game, Scorpion and Sub-Zero are both under the mental control of Quan Chi. The necromancer has restored Kuai Liang to human form, making him an undead warrior like Scorpion rather than leaving him a cyborg. Raiden and his allies later restore the two warriors to full life, freeing them from the necromancer's control. Over the course of the next two decades, the restored Hanzo Hasashi reforms the Shirai Ryu, making a new clan dedicated to the protection of Earth, and trains Takeda Takahashi, son of his ally and fellow warrior Kenshi. When Sub-Zero reveals proof Quan Chi was responsible for the destruction of the Shirai Ryu clan, while also acknowledging the Lin Kuei's role in the act and their history of dishonor, Scorpion finally accepts Kuai Liang as an ally. When the Special Forces capture Quan Chi, a revenge-driven Hanzo attacks them and releases the sorcerer so they can fight. Scorpion then decapitates Quan Chi, but not before the necromancer finishes reciting a spell that frees Shinnok, the fallen Elder God.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In "Mortal Kombat 11", two years after "MKX" and Shinnok's defeat, Hanzo continues to lead the Shirai Ryu as its Grandmaster. When the keeper of time Kronika attempts to erase Raiden from history, she brings a past version of the undead Scorpion to the present, recruiting him by promising to resurrect his clan and family. Meanwhile, the present-day Hanzo works with Sub-Zero to foil the Lin Kuei assassin turned cyborg called Sektor and his plans to build a Cyber Lin Kuei army for Kronika. They are successful and learn Sektor also played a role in murdering Scorpion's clan and family. After Kronika's forces compromise or destroy most of the bases of Earthrealm's defenders, Scorpion succeeds in recruiting Kharon, ferryman of the dead, and convinces his younger self to turn away from Kronika. He is then killed by the Outworld villain D'Vorah. Dying, Scorpion urges his younger self to abandon vengeance and defend Earthrealm. The younger Scorpion promises to do so, joining the allied forces of Earthrealm and Outworld to stop Kronika. In his non-canonical arcade ending, the younger Scorpion kills Kronika so he can restart history and ensure his loved ones' survival. When he discovers that otherworldly forces conspire to make sure the tragedy always occurs, he embarks on a new quest for revenge.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion appeared as a guest character in Midway's non-fighting titles "NBA Jam Tournament Edition" (1995), "The Grid" (2000), "MLB Slugfest: Loaded" (2004), and "" (2004).


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion joined the cast of 2013's "" as a downloadable character. In his single-player battle ending, wondering how he ended up in this world, Scorpion confronted the demon Trigon, who summoned him out of anger that he had left his demon army and robbed him the glory of defeating the One-Earth High Councilor (Superman). Scorpion fights and defeats Trigon before taking command of his demonic forces, which he plans to use to rule the world.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion appeared in the first "Mortal Kombat" as one of three palette-swapped ninja characters along with Sub-Zero and Reptile. His early origins were revealed by the series' original chief character designer John Tobias in September 2011 when he posted several pages of old pre-production character sketches and notes on Twitter. Scorpion and Sub-Zero were simply described as "[a] palette swap for 2 ninjas—a hunter and the hunted," while Tobias also considered the concepts of either one of them fleeing their clan, or a "revenge story" involving the then-unnamed characters being part of rival clans. In regards to the game's strict memory limitations, co-creator and programmer Ed Boon recalled: "A lot of attention went into the economics of it, and so we knew that if we could take a character and change their color and use basically the same memory to create two characters, we'd save a lot of money and we'd have two characters."


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion was given a yellow palette because the developers decided it symbolized fire in contrast to Sub-Zero's ice blue. Their similar appearance but opposite nature "prompted the story behind them being these opposing ninja-clan-type characters." A third ninja swap, Reptile, was added in the third revision as a hidden non-playable character who was outfitted in green and used Scorpion's spear (along with Sub-Zero's freeze) as part of his offensive arsenal; he was devised by Boon as "a cooler version of Scorpion." The original costume was created from a modified ninja-like outfit bought at a Chicago costume shop and was red for filming in the first game, but a different yellow one with a quilted vest and knee-high shin guards was utilized for "Mortal Kombat II". This in turn made the other male ninja characters therein—Sub-Zero, Reptile, and hidden characters Smoke and Noob Saibot—palette swaps of Scorpion, with the latter two also using Scorpion's spear when players fought them separately in secret battles. Scorpion and the ninja characters were first played by Daniel Pesina, who was replaced by John Turk for "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3" and the 1996 compilation "Mortal Kombat Trilogy", while Sal Divita played the character in "MK: Mythologies".


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: While his ninja-outfit template from the first generation of games has remained relatively unchanged over time, the improved graphics of the post-"Mortal Kombat 4" three-dimensional releases have allowed more details to bettter differentiate the male ninja characters, and Scorpion's costumes were duly enhanced with objects such as two katana swords strapped to his back and his spear attached to a rope tied to his belt in "Deadly Alliance," and a set of ornate shoulder epaulets in "Deception," in which his alternate costume was a throwback to the two-dimensional "MK" titles. Scorpion's "MK2011" costume was inspired by his namesake, such as the character's abdomen-shaped shoulder pads, the two stinger-handled swords crisscrossed on his back, and the exoskeletal pattern on his hard-shell face mask. Scorpion was included with Sub-Zero, Reptile and Ermac in a bundle of classic costumes from the first "Mortal Kombat" that was released as downloadable content for the 2011 reboot. For "Injustice: Gods Among Us", he received a new costume designed by comic artist Jim Lee. In the original "Mortal Kombat"s fighter-selection screen, Scorpion had regular human eyes, as his identity as a resurrected specter was meant to be a mystery, but he was given solid yellow or white eyes for every release thereafter starting with "MKII", while actors portraying Scorpion in live-action media such as the feature films and the "" web series were outfitted with opaque contact lenses in order to achieve this effect.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion yells one of two taunts — "Get over here!" and "Come here!" — at his opponents when he hits them with his spear. They were voiced by Boon in the games and both feature films, but only one of them ("Come here!") was included in the home ports of "MK" and "MKII" due to memory constraints. According to Boon, the second of the character's phrases originated because he thought "it would be funny to have him yell out 'Get over here!' when he [threw the spear]," and he was thus encouraged to get behind the studio microphone and record the taunts. As confirmed by Daniel Pesina, that phrase was originally an idea of Kano's actor Richard Divizio, as was Scorpion's skull face, inspired by the classic film "Jason and the Argonauts". Twenty years after the first "MK" game's release, Boon included creating the spear move as well as the character itself among his personal high points of the franchise's history, adding: "I remember people sitting in my office all day just doing this uppercut [on a speared enemy] again and again, like 'Oh my God, that feels so good.' It just became the cornerstone of [the game]." "MKII" saw the debut of the phrase "Toasty!", which was voiced by series sound designer Dan Forden during a variation of Scorpion's "Flaming Skull" Fatality or at random when any of the game's characters landed an uppercut. According to Tobias, it first originated as "You're Toast!", which was a taunt bandied among the designers during game-testing sessions.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion's signature special move throughout the series has him hurling a harpoon-like spear (described as a kunai) attached to a length of rope at his opponents. The spear impales his opponents through the chest before Scorpion then pulls them in to close range for a free hit. This move was designed by Pesina, who did not like the original lasso move as it reminded him of that of Wonder Woman, and inspired by the ancient Asian weapons known as a rope dart. His other incumbent special move throughout the series, save for "Deadly Alliance," has been his Teleport Punch, where he flies offscreen during battle and then reappears to strike his opponent from behind. Scorpion additionally gained a new leg-takedown maneuver in "MKII" that was not well-received ("Sega Saturn Magazine" called it a "ridiculous" move that "no one ever used"). He was considered a lower-tier character by "GamePro" in their 1993 "MKII" character rankings, rating him eighth out of the game's twelve playables and describing both him and Sub-Zero as "formerly a top-tier character [who] doesn't have much of a chance in "MKII" since all of the male ninjas have some poor matchups," with Scorpion faring the worst against Jax and Mileena. Ed Lomas of "Sega Saturn Magazine" described the character as having "simple yet effective" special moves in "UMK3" that "make him good for beginners, [which] doesn't stop him from being a useful character," while his "trusty" spear was "perfect for setting up combos." GameSpy, in their "Deception" walkthrough, described the character as "a well-rounded character that has strengths in combos as well as in special and normal moves." They additionally described the spear as "useful as ever" in "Armageddon", adding, "Between [that and his] other special moves ... Scorpion pretty much has everything covered." Prima Games' "MK2011" strategy guide considered Scorpion to be well-balanced with no distinct weaknesses or advantages, while winning more than half of his fights against the game's other characters. He is also a playable character for both the versus and story modes in "Shaolin Monks", where his move sets in this game are largely identical to Liu Kang's with some original techniques.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion's signature finishing move from the original game up until "Mortal Kombat 4" was his "Fire Breath" Fatality, in which he removes his mask to reveal a skull right before immolating his opponent. A variation of this finisher was included in "MKII": entering a different button/joystick combination added the spoken "Toasty!" phrase that simultaneously appeared on the screen. While the "Fire Breath" was brought back for "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" in 2008, his spear has otherwise served as his primary tool in his Fatalities in the three-dimensional games, from impaling his opponents through the head and then decapitating them in "Deadly Alliance", using it to yank off their limbs in "Deception", and plunging it into their chest before kicking them through a portal that left nothing but a skinned corpse hanging from the spear's chain in "MK2011" ("Nether Gate"). His second Fatality in the reboot, "Split Decision", had Scorpion using one of his back-mounted swords to hack his opponent to pieces.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion would indirectly play a role in the fabrication of the-then nonexistent character Ermac when "Electronic Gaming Monthly" published a doctored screenshot of Scorpion from the original game in 1993. This subsequently spawned false player rumors of a glitch that would turn Scorpion's sprite red with the name "Error Macro" appearing in the energy bar. Ermac became playable in "UMK3," in which he was a red palette swap of Scorpion who shared his Teleport Punch.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion has a supporting role in Jeff Rovin's 1995 non-canon novel "Mortal Kombat", which is set before the events of the first game. He is depicted as a young man who gains his special powers after the soul of his deceased father merges with his body so it can be used as a vessel to seek revenge against Sub-Zero for his murder.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In Malibu Comics' "Mortal Kombat" miniseries "Blood and Thunder" (1994), Scorpion is simply a specter consumed by revenge against Sub-Zero, while his spear is changed to a spiked morning star attached to a length of chain or rope. Along with the main characters from the first game, he seeks to solve all the riddles inside Shang Tsung's mystical tome, the "Tao Te Zhan", in order to gain absolute power (which no one accomplishes). In the followup "Battlewave" miniseries (1995), Scorpion is returned to the living world by Outworld emperor Shao Kahn with a mystical gem called the Deathstone, and is put in command of an army of undead soldiers.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion plays a minor part in several issues of DC Comics' 2015 miniseries "Mortal Kombat X: Blood Ties", set before the events of the game.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion was played in a minor role by Chris Casamassa in the film "Mortal Kombat" (1995). The plot has him and Sub-Zero serving as slaves under Shang Tsung's command. He is killed by Johnny Cage in the Mortal Kombat tournament. Scorpion's spear is a living snake-like creature that shoots from a slit in his palm and has a limited range of flight. In the sequel "" (1997), Scorpion (played by J. J. Perry) again works for a higher power, this time Shao Kahn. Following a failed assassination attempt on Liu Kang and Kitana by Kahn's extermination squads due to the interference of the younger Sub-Zero, Scorpion suddenly appears and incapacitates Sub-Zero. He then kidnaps Kitana and is never seen again.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the 1995 animated film "", Scorpion is again depicted as a henchman to Shang Tsung opposite Sub-Zero, and their past connection is explored during the course of the film in a narrated computer-animated fight sequence.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion made one appearance in one episode of the 1996 animated series "" His rivalry with Sub-Zero is vaguely explored as no explicit mention is ever made of Sub-Zero having killed him. Scorpion instead serves as an independent entity of evil, while his spear was depicted as a green snake-like head attached to a length of chain.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the 1998 television series "", Scorpion (Chris Casamassa) commands his lover, Peron, to murder Sub-Zero's sister, and Sub-Zero kills Peron in retaliation, which culminates in a duel which ends in a stalemate due to the arrival of the show's main characters Kung Lao, Siro, and Taja.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the 2010 live-action short film "", directed by Kevin Tancharoen, Scorpion (Ian Anthony Dale) is addressed by his real name and is a voluntary prisoner being questioned by Deacon City police captain Jackson Briggs regarding an underground tournament hosted by Shang Tsung.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion is the titular protagonist of the animated film "". The film follows the basic contours of the first game's storyline, as well as Scorpion's origins and past life as Hanzo Hasashi and the murder of his family and clan by Sub-Zero (Quan Chi in disguise) and the Lin Kuei. He is shown to more explicitly aid the Earthrealm warriors in the Mortal Kombat tournament before achieving his goal of avenging his family and clan by killing Quan Chi in combat. He chooses to remain on the island, and dies as it is destroyed. Scorpion returns in the sequel "".


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Hiroyuki Sanada plays Scorpion in the reboot film "Mortal Kombat" (2021). With his wife, eldest child, and clan murdered at the hands of the Lin Kuei clan and their leader Bi-Han, Hanzo Hasashi seeks revenge. After swearing revenge and killing a number of Lin Kuei assassins, he is killed by Bi-Han as well. A vengeful spectre banished to the Netherrealm, Hasashi returns as Scorpion centuries later to fight Bi-Han, now as Sub-Zero, next to Cole Young, the descendant of Hasashi's surviving child. Sanada was not familiar with the Mortal Kombat franchise prior to the film's development, but researched the character, whom he called "a very tasty role for an actor: family man changed to fighting machine."


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Along with the original series characters, Scorpion was highlighted on an individual track from The Immortals' album "" (1994), titled "Lost Soul Bent on Revenge".


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion has featured in various types of merchandise during his tenure in the "MK" series, mostly action figures and sculptures. Hasbro released the first Scorpion figures in 1994: a 3.75" version in which his mask was blue and he was packaged with a plastic scorpion accessory, then a twelve-inch figure whose design and packaged weaponry were more in line with the games. Toy Island distributed a Scorpion figure in 1996 as part of their "MK Trilogy" collection, which included a pair of hookswords, and Infinite Concepts put out a Scorpion figure in 1999. Jazwares released a 6" "Deception" figure in 2005, and a 2006 "Shaolin Monks" figure that was also included as part of a Hot Topic-exclusive two-pack with Sub-Zero, in addition to a collection of figures in 2011: a 4" figure from their "MK2011" line, a "Klassic" four-incher, and a "Retro" figure that featured an interchangeable skull head and which was packaged with Sub-Zero, Reptile and Smoke in a box set. Syco Collectibles released a host of Scorpion merchandise in 2011-2012: 10" (with glow-in-the-dark eyes) and 18" polystone statues, along with two busts—a 1:2 scale with a 15" base and light-up eyes; and a smaller bust with an 11" base that featured a detachable head. Pop Culture Shock distributed a life-sized bust in 2011 that featured removable shoulder pads and light-up eyes, as well as a 19" statuette based on his "UMK3" design as part of their "Mortal Kombat Klassics" collection. A 16.5" mixed-media statue was released by the company in 2012, in which Scorpion was sculpted in a spear-throwing pose and was outfitted in all black.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion was one of thirteen "MK2011" characters depicted on life-sized standing cardboard cutouts from Advanced Graphics. Funko released a Scorpion bobblehead in 2011, and he was one of twenty characters featured on 2.5" x 3.5" collectible magnets by Ata-Boy Wholesale that year. He appeared along with other Mortal Kombat series villains Kabal, Quan Chi, and Shao Kahn in a collection of 2.5" super-deformed figures released by Jazwares in 2012.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion has made several cameo appearances in television programs, such as "Drawn Together", "Robot Chicken", and "The Cleveland Show". The character was featured along with Raiden, Ermac, Jax, and Shang Tsung in a 2014 animated short film produced by Comedy Central that parodied the "Mortal Kombat" games.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion, along with Sub-Zero, is often regarded as one of the most popular and iconic characters in the "Mortal Kombat" franchise, and in the fighting-game genre in general. "Game Informer" rated Scorpion the third best fighting game character in 2009, while UGO Networks ranked Scorpion second only to the series' main protagonist Liu Kang in their 2012 list of the top characters in the franchise. "PLAY" magazine ranked him fourth on their list of top ninja characters in 2013. Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar, in 2012, ranked him as the seventh best fighting game character in the genre's history due to the "coolness of his 'undead antagonist' factor. Despite the fact that he started out as a mere palette swap, Scorpion's appeal made him a frontrunner in every major "MK" game to date." "Complex" featured Scorpion in a whole host of best-of lists: he was ranked the fifth-most brutal fighter in the series and the 15th best video game mascot, in addition to Complex naming him the fourth-"most dominant" fighting game character in 2012.


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: As Scorpion is regularly intertwined with Sub-Zero throughout the series, they have often been paired together in regards to critical reception. Sharing the fifth spot on the top video-game ninja list by "PC World" in 2009. He tied with Sub-Zero at the top of Game Revolution's 2006 list of the top ten "old school" "MK" characters, and a 2011 GamesRadar article discussed their evolution across the "Mortal Kombat" series, citing them as its two most popular characters. Together, Scorpion and Sub-Zero were voted the fifth most iconic characters in the two-decade history of the PlayStation by readers of "PlayStation Official Magazine – UK" in 2015. GamePro ranked Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and the other ninjas from the series third in their 2009 list of the best palette-swapped video game characters, adding that Midway Games "has turned the art of making new characters from other, different-colored characters into a science."


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Special moves and Fatalities have been mostly very well received. In 2010, IGN listed Scorpion's "Flaming Skull" as the second best "MK" Fatality without specifying any particular title in the series, due to how the player's perception of the character changes when he removes his mask. They called it an "enduring classic", noting that the finisher was notably unchanged in future games as a result of its connection with the character. His spear attack was ranked ninth in GameSpot's 2002 list of the top ten fighting-game special moves of all time as the single most powerful yet balanced attack in the original game, as well as for its initial shock value, furthermore deeming it "the definitive "Mortal Kombat" move." The "Nether Gate" from "MK2011" was included by "FHM" on their list of the game's nine most brutal Fatalities. His "MKII" Friendship, shared with Sub-Zero and Reptile, placed in Prima Games' 2014 list of the series' top 50 Fatalities, in addition to the "Nether Gate", his stage Fatality from "MK2011", and the "Flaming Skull" from the original "MK". "Paste" rated it the fourth best Fatality from "MK2011," in addition to rating the "Flaming Skull" as the third best finisher from the first game. However, his Animality from "UMK3/Trilogy" (a penguin that lays an exploding egg) tied with that of Rain as the eighth worst finisher in the series according to "GamePro".


title: Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

text: Scorpion's catchphrase "Get over here!" was listed in "PLAY"s joke list of ten best chat-up lines. According to "PlayStation Universe" in 2011, Scorpion "has spawned one of the most iconic catchphrases in gaming history" and "remains a firm fan favorite nineteen years since his debut."


title: Microbiology

text: Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, protistology, mycology, immunology, and parasitology.


title: Microbiology

text: Eukaryotic microorganisms possess membrane-bound organelles and include fungi and protists, whereas prokaryotic organisms—all of which are microorganisms—are conventionally classified as lacking membrane-bound organelles and include Bacteria and Archaea. Microbiologists traditionally relied on culture, staining, and microscopy. However, less than 1% of the microorganisms present in common environments can be cultured in isolation using current means. Microbiologists often rely on molecular biology tools such as DNA sequence based identification, for example the 16S rRNA gene sequence used for bacteria identification.


title: Microbiology

text: Viruses have been variably classified as organisms, as they have been considered either as very simple microorganisms or very complex molecules. Prions, never considered as microorganisms, have been investigated by virologists, however, as the clinical effects traced to them were originally presumed due to chronic viral infections, and virologists took search—discovering "infectious proteins".


title: Microbiology

text: The existence of microorganisms was predicted many centuries before they were first observed, for example by the Jains in India and by Marcus Terentius Varro in ancient Rome. The first recorded microscope observation was of the fruiting bodies of moulds, by Robert Hooke in 1666, but the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher was likely the first to see microbes, which he mentioned observing in milk and putrid material in 1658. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is considered a father of microbiology as he observed and experimented with microscopic organisms in the 1670s, using simple microscopes of his own design. Scientific microbiology developed in the 19th century through the work of Louis Pasteur and in medical microbiology Robert Koch.


title: Microbiology

text: The existence of microorganisms was hypothesized for many centuries before their actual discovery. The existence of unseen microbiological life was postulated by Jainism which is based on Mahavira's teachings as early as 6th century BCE (599 BC - 527 BC). Paul Dundas notes that Mahavira asserted the existence of unseen microbiological creatures living in earth, water, air and fire. Jain scriptures describe nigodas which are sub-microscopic creatures living in large clusters and having a very short life, said to pervade every part of the universe, even in tissues of plants and flesh of animals. The Roman Marcus Terentius Varro made references to microbes when he warned against locating a homestead in the vicinity of swamps "because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and thereby cause serious diseases."


title: Microbiology

text: Persian scientists hypothesized the existence of microorganisms, such as Avicenna in his book "The Canon of Medicine", Ibn Zuhr (also known as Avenzoar) who discovered scabies mites, and Al-Razi who gave the earliest known description of smallpox in his book "The Virtuous Life" (al-Hawi).


title: Microbiology

text: In 1546, Girolamo Fracastoro proposed that epidemic diseases were caused by transferable seedlike entities that could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact, or vehicle transmission.


title: Microbiology

text: In 1676, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who lived most of his life in Delft, Netherlands, observed bacteria and other microorganisms using a single-lens microscope of his own design. He is considered a father of microbiology as he used simple single-lensed microscopes of his own design. While Van Leeuwenhoek is often cited as the first to observe microbes, Robert Hooke made his first recorded microscopic observation, of the fruiting bodies of moulds, in 1665. It has, however, been suggested that a Jesuit priest called Athanasius Kircher was the first to observe microorganisms.


title: Microbiology

text: Kircher was among the first to design magic lanterns for projection purposes, so he must have been well acquainted with the properties of lenses. He wrote "Concerning the wonderful structure of things in nature, investigated by Microscope" in 1646, stating "who would believe that vinegar and milk abound with an innumerable multitude of worms." He also noted that putrid material is full of innumerable creeping animalcules. He published his "Scrutinium Pestis" (Examination of the Plague) in 1658, stating correctly that the disease was caused by microbes, though what he saw was most likely red or white blood cells rather than the plague agent itself.


title: Microbiology

text: The field of bacteriology (later a subdiscipline of microbiology) was founded in the 19th century by Ferdinand Cohn, a botanist whose studies on algae and photosynthetic bacteria led him to describe several bacteria including "Bacillus" and "Beggiatoa". Cohn was also the first to formulate a scheme for the taxonomic classification of bacteria, and to discover endospores. Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch were contemporaries of Cohn, and are often considered to be the fathers of modern microbiology and medical microbiology, respectively. Pasteur is most famous for his series of experiments designed to disprove the then widely held theory of spontaneous generation, thereby solidifying microbiology's identity as a biological science. One of his students, Adrien Certes, is considered the founder of marine microbiology. Pasteur also designed methods for food preservation (pasteurization) and vaccines against several diseases such as anthrax, fowl cholera and rabies. Koch is best known for his contributions to the germ theory of disease, proving that specific diseases were caused by specific pathogenic microorganisms. He developed a series of criteria that have become known as the Koch's postulates. Koch was one of the first scientists to focus on the isolation of bacteria in pure culture resulting in his description of several novel bacteria including "Mycobacterium tuberculosis", the causative agent of tuberculosis.


title: Microbiology

text: While Pasteur and Koch are often considered the founders of microbiology, their work did not accurately reflect the true diversity of the microbial world because of their exclusive focus on microorganisms having direct medical relevance. It was not until the late 19th century and the work of Martinus Beijerinck and Sergei Winogradsky that the true breadth of microbiology was revealed. Beijerinck made two major contributions to microbiology: the discovery of viruses and the development of enrichment culture techniques. While his work on the tobacco mosaic virus established the basic principles of virology, it was his development of enrichment culturing that had the most immediate impact on microbiology by allowing for the cultivation of a wide range of microbes with wildly different physiologies. Winogradsky was the first to develop the concept of chemolithotrophy and to thereby reveal the essential role played by microorganisms in geochemical processes. He was responsible for the first isolation and description of both nitrifying and nitrogen-fixing bacteria. French-Canadian microbiologist Felix d'Herelle co-discovered bacteriophages in 1917 and was one of the earliest applied microbiologists.


title: Microbiology

text: The branches of microbiology can be classified into applied sciences, or divided according to taxonomy, as is the case with bacteriology, mycology, protozoology, virology, phycology, and microbial ecology. There is considerable overlap between the specific branches of microbiology with each other and with other disciplines, and certain aspects of these branches can extend beyond the traditional scope of microbiology A pure research branch of microbiology is termed cellular microbiology.


title: Microbiology

text: While some people have fear of microbes due to the association of some microbes with various human diseases, many microbes are also responsible for numerous beneficial processes such as industrial fermentation (e.g. the production of alcohol, vinegar and dairy products), antibiotic production and act as molecular vehicles to transfer DNA to complex organisms such as plants and animals. Scientists have also exploited their knowledge of microbes to produce biotechnologically important enzymes such as Taq polymerase, reporter genes for use in other genetic systems and novel molecular biology techniques such as the yeast two-hybrid system.


title: Microbiology

text: Bacteria can be used for the industrial production of amino acids. "Corynebacterium glutamicum" is one of the most important bacterial species with an annual production of more than two million tons of amino acids, mainly L-glutamate and L-lysine. Since some bacteria have the ability to synthesize antibiotics, they are used for medicinal purposes, such as Streptomyces to make aminoglycoside antibiotics.


title: Microbiology

text: A variety of biopolymers, such as polysaccharides, polyesters, and polyamides, are produced by microorganisms. Microorganisms are used for the biotechnological production of biopolymers with tailored properties suitable for high-value medical application such as tissue engineering and drug delivery. Microorganisms are for example used for the biosynthesis of xanthan, alginate, cellulose, cyanophycin, poly(gamma-glutamic acid), levan, hyaluronic acid, organic acids, oligosaccharides polysaccharide and polyhydroxyalkanoates.


title: Microbiology

text: Microorganisms are beneficial for microbial biodegradation or bioremediation of domestic, agricultural and industrial wastes and subsurface pollution in soils, sediments and marine environments. The ability of each microorganism to degrade toxic waste depends on the nature of each contaminant. Since sites typically have multiple pollutant types, the most effective approach to microbial biodegradation is to use a mixture of bacterial and fungal species and strains, each specific to the biodegradation of one or more types of contaminants.


title: Microbiology

text: Symbiotic microbial communities confer benefits to their human and animal hosts health including aiding digestion, producing beneficial vitamins and amino acids, and suppressing pathogenic microbes. Some benefit may be conferred by eating fermented foods, probiotics (bacteria potentially beneficial to the digestive system) or prebiotics (substances consumed to promote the growth of probiotic microorganisms). The ways the microbiome influences human and animal health, as well as methods to influence the microbiome are active areas of research.


title: Microbiology

text: Research has suggested that microorganisms could be useful in the treatment of cancer. Various strains of non-pathogenic clostridia can infiltrate and replicate within solid tumors. Clostridial vectors can be safely administered and their potential to deliver therapeutic proteins has been demonstrated in a variety of preclinical models.


title: Microbiology

text: Some bacteria are used to study fundamental mechanisms. An example of model bacteria used to study motility or the production of polysaccharides and development is "Myxococcus xanthus".


title: Nitrate

text: Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the chemical formula . Salts containing this ion are called nitrates. Nitrates are common components of fertilizers and explosives. Almost all inorganic nitrates are soluble in water. An example of an insoluble nitrate is bismuth oxynitrate.


title: Nitrate

text: The ion is the conjugate base of nitric acid, consisting of one central nitrogen atom surrounded by three identically bonded oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar arrangement. The nitrate ion carries a formal charge of −1. This charge results from a combination formal charge in which each of the three oxygens carries a − charge, whereas the nitrogen carries a +1 charge, all these adding up to formal charge of the polyatomic nitrate ion. This arrangement is commonly used as an example of resonance. Like the isoelectronic carbonate ion, the nitrate ion can be represented by resonance structures:


title: Nitrate

text: A rich source of inorganic nitrate in the human diets come from leafy green foods, such as spinach and arugula. (inorganic nitrate) is the viable active component within beetroot juice and other vegetables. Drinking water is also a dietary source.


title: Nitrate

text: Dietary nitrate supplementation delivers positive results when testing endurance exercise performance.


title: Nitrate

text: Ingestion of large doses of nitrate either in the form of pure sodium nitrate or beetroot juice in young healthy individuals rapidly increases plasma nitrate concentration by a factor of 2 to 3, and this elevated nitrate concentration can be maintained for at least 2 weeks. Increased plasma nitrate stimulates the production of nitric oxide, NO. Nitric oxide is an important physiological signaling molecule that is used in, among other things, regulation of muscle blood flow and mitochondrial respiration.


title: Nitrate

text: Nitrite consumption is primarily determined by the amount of processed meats eaten, and the concentration of nitrates in these meats. Although nitrites are the nitrogen compound chiefly used in meat curing, nitrates are used as well. Nitrates lead to the formation of nitrosamines. The production of carcinogenic nitrosamines may be inhibited by the use of the antioxidants vitamin C and the alpha-tocopherol form of vitamin E during curing.


title: Nitrate

text: Anti-hypertensive diets, such as the DASH diet, typically contain high levels of nitrates, which are first reduced to nitrite in the saliva, as detected in saliva testing, prior to forming nitric oxide.


title: Nitrate

text: Nitrate salts are found naturally on earth in arid environments as large deposits, particularly of nitratine, a major source of sodium nitrate.


title: Nitrate

text: Nitrates are produced by a number of species of nitrifying bacteria in the natural environment using ammonia or urea as a source of nitrogen and source of free energy. Nitrate compounds for gunpowder were historically produced, in the absence of mineral nitrate sources, by means of various fermentation processes using urine and dung.


title: Nitrate

text: Lightning strikes in earth's nitrogen- and oxygen-rich atmosphere produce a mixture of oxides of nitrogen, which form nitrous ions and nitrate ions, which are washed from the atmosphere by rain or in occult deposition.


title: Nitrate

text: Nitrates are used as fertilizers in agriculture because of their high solubility and biodegradability. The main nitrate fertilizers are ammonium, sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium salts. Several million kilograms are produced annually for this purpose.


title: Nitrate

text: Nitrates are used as oxidizing agents, most notably in explosives, where the rapid oxidation of carbon compounds liberates large volumes of gases (see gunpowder for an example). Sodium nitrate is used to remove air bubbles from molten glass and some ceramics. Mixtures of the molten salt are used to harden some metals.


title: Nitrate

text: Nitrate was also used as a film stock through nitrocellulose. Due to its high combustibility, the studios swapped to acetate safety film in 1950.


title: Nitrate

text: In the medical field, nitrates are used in the prophylaxis and management of Acute Coronary Syndromes/MI/Heart attacks. These class of drugs are also known as nitrovasodilators.


title: Nitrate

text: Almost all methods for detection of nitrate rely on its conversion to nitrite followed by nitrite-specific tests. The reduction of nitrate to nitrite is effected by copper-cadmium material. The sample is introduced with a flow injection analyzer, and the resulting nitrite-containing effluent is then combined with a reagent for colorimetric or electrochemical detection. The most popular of these assays is the Griess test, whereby nitrite is converted to a deeply colored azo dye suited for UV-vis spectroscopic analysis. The method exploits the reactivity of nitrous acid derived from acidification of nitrite. Nitrous acid selectively reacts with aromatic amines to give diazonium salts, which in turn couple with a second reagent to give the azo dye. The detection limit is 0.02 to 2 μM. Such methods have been highly adapted to biological samples.


title: Nitrate

text: The acute toxicity of nitrate is low. "Substantial disagreement" exists about the long-term risks of nitrate exposure. The two areas of possible concern are that (i) nitrate could be a precursor to nitrite in the lower gut, and nitrite is a precursor to nitrosamines, which are implicated in carcinogenesis, and (ii) nitrate is implicated in methemoglobinemia, a disorder of hemoglobin in red blood cells.


title: Nitrate

text: Nitrates do not affect infants and pregnant women. Blue baby syndrome is caused by a number of other factors such as gastric upset, such as diarrheal infection, protein intolerance, heavy metal toxicity etc., with nitrates playing a minor role.


title: Nitrate

text: Through the Safe Drinking Water Act, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has set a maximum contaminant level of 10 mg/L or 10 ppm of nitrate in drinking water.


title: Nitrate

text: An acceptable daily intake (ADI) for nitrate ions was established in the range of 0–3.7 mg (kg body weight) day by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JEFCA).


title: Nitrate

text: In freshwater or estuarine systems close to land, nitrate can reach concentrations that are lethal to fish. While nitrate is much less toxic than ammonia, levels over 30 ppm of nitrate can inhibit growth, impair the immune system and cause stress in some aquatic species. Nitrate toxicity remains a subject of debate.


title: Nitrate

text: In most cases of excess nitrate concentrations in aquatic systems, the primary sources are wastewater discharges, as well as surface runoff from agricultural or landscaped areas that have received excess nitrate fertilizer. The resulting eutrophication and algae blooms result in anoxia and dead zones. As a consequence, as nitrate forms a component of total dissolved solids, they are widely used as an indicator of water quality.


title: Nitrate

text: Symptoms of nitrate poisoning in domestic animals include increased heart rate and respiration; in advanced cases blood and tissue may turn a blue or brown color. Feed can be tested for nitrate; treatment consists of supplementing or substituting existing supplies with lower nitrate material. Safe levels of nitrate for various types of livestock are as follows:


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Dragged Across Concrete is a 2018 American neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by S. Craig Zahler. It stars an ensemble cast that includes Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Tory Kittles, Michael Jai White, Jennifer Carpenter, Laurie Holden, Fred Melamed, Udo Kier, Thomas Kretschmann, and Don Johnson. The story follows two childhood friends and two police detectives that are suspended for police brutality who in a desperate need for money, are embroiled in a robbery done by a professional thief.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Zahler started working on "Dragged Across Concrete" right after he finished development of his previous film "Brawl in Cell Block 99", which also starred Vaughn, Carpenter, and Johnson. Vaughn recommended Zahler to Gibson, who he previously worked with in "Hacksaw Ridge", and Gibson agreed to star in the film, later followed by Kittles and White. Filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia between July and September 2017 under a production budget of $15 million.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: It premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2018, and received a limited theatrical and video-on-demand simultaneous release from Summit Entertainment on March 22, 2019. It was met with a mixed to positive critical reception, with praise directed toward Gibson's performance as well as its dark setting and themes; although it was criticized for its lengthy runtime, excessive violence, and what some critics perceived as right-wing bias due to its treatment on racism and police brutality. In response to the criticism, Zahler maintains that his films are non-political and that he does not care what other people think. The film received several nominations at the 45th Saturn Awards, but was also shortlisted for "Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property" at the 40th Golden Raspberry Awards.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: In the fictional city of Bulwark, recent parolee Henry Johns chastises his mother for returning to prostitution and taking drugs, before reuniting with his handicapped younger brother Ethan.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Three weeks later, police detectives Brett Ridgeman and Anthony Lurasetti are suspended without pay by the police department after a video leaked online revealing them committing police brutality on a drug dealer. Both detectives are desperate for money, with Ridgeman needing cash to move to a safer neighborhood for his family, while Lurasetti stalls in proposing to his girlfriend Denise. On a tip from Friedrich, a wealthy businessman with criminal connections, Ridgeman recruits Lurasetti to help him surveil and rob Lorentz Vogelmann, a professional thief.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Henry and his childhood friend Biscuit are hired by Vogelmann as getaway drivers, whose crew: Black Gloves and Grey Gloves, have committed a series of robberies to buy a customized bulletproof van. Vogelmann and his crew then rob a bank, taking the employees and customers as hostages. A bank employee, Kelly Summers, who came back to work from her maternity leave, is shot and executed by the bank robbers after preventing a colleague from notifying the police via email. The thieves castrate the bank manager and then escape with the bullion and a hostage, Cheryl, while being tailed by Ridgeman and Lurasetti, which Henry notices. Unsettled by Vogelmann and his henchmen's brutality, Henry and Biscuit are then forced to surrender their weapons. Realizing they may be killed, Henry chooses not to reveal to Biscuit or the thieves that they are being followed by the detectives. Lurasetti learns of the atrocities committed by the thieves and berates Ridgeman for not intervening sooner or notifying the authorities, but Ridgeman asserts that law enforcement would be too late, and only the two of them can deal with the thieves. Lurasetti opts against delaying his marriage proposal to Denise and leaves her a voicemail guiding her to the engagement ring.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Arriving at a garage in the countryside, Biscuit leaps out of the van and is shot, as Henry wounds Grey Gloves with a hidden gun. Mortally wounded, Biscuit swallows the van's key; imploring Henry to take care of his mother and later is shot dead by thieves. Cheryl is sent to pull Biscuit's body into the van and Black Gloves cuts the key out of Biscuit's stomach, as Ridgeman and Lurasetti arrive and ram the van, knocking it over. Threatened by Vogelmann, Cheryl seemingly escapes from the van and as Lurasetti attempts to rescue her, shoots Lurasetti, mortally wounding him, before being executed by Ridgeman. Ridgeman then quickly kills Black Gloves as he exits the van. Ridgeman hands the dying Lurasetti his phone and he listens to a voicemail from Denise who declines his proposal before succumbing to his wounds.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Ridgeman fills the van with tear gas, and kills Gray Gloves just as he surrenders. Before he can torch the van, Henry fires a warning shot and insists the valuable contents of the van be spared. Ridgeman climbs on top of the van and kills Vogelmann before the latter can shoot him through the retractable slit. Henry shoots Ridgeman in the foot and reveals that he has recorded the entire incident on his cellphone and identifies Ridgeman as a detective. Disarming Henry, Ridgeman proposes they split the score, and together they load the bodies and the bullion in the getaway car. Towing Lurasetti's car to a dump site, Ridgeman reveals a hidden firearm and threatens Henry to delete the video. Henry and Ridgeman both shoot at each other, with Henry mortally wounding Ridgeman. Henry agrees with the dying Ridgeman to bury Lurasetti and take care of Ridgeman's family and later buries all the bodies and promises the deceased Biscuit that he will return and give a proper burial.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Eleven months later, Henry lives in a lavish mansion with his mother and brother. He sends Ridgeman's family a package containing a share of the gold bullion.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: On February 1, 2017, right after finishing production of his previous film "Brawl in Cell Block 99", S. Craig Zahler signed to direct "Dragged Across Concrete", a crime thriller based on police brutality, from a screenplay he had written. The script is 162 pages long and remained unchanged at the time of filming, and is Zahler's favorite screenplay to write. The story is influenced from the film "The Killing" directed by Stanley Kubrick and the films "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Prince of the City" directed by Sidney Lumet, of which "Prince of the City" being one of Zahler's favorite films.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Zahler is more interested in building the world of his scripts than writing the plots, and had the film touch on sensitive topics such as racism. He writes to his own liking and doesn't care about the audience's reactions as he is not chasing a mass audience. Zahler states: "I’m aware there are lines and moments in my films and books and future movies that will land poorly for some people or get people to hate me. That is your right. I have a right to do my own vision and hope it’s enough to get me to the next one." In an interview with "The Daily Beast", Zahler states that the intent of the film is not to address societal ills or invoke a provocation, but to explore "splitting hairs in terms of what the difference is" between the societal issues. Zahler exemplifies Brett Ridgeman, one of the characters in the film, is "an embittered guy, not really happy with his station in life, and with a heavy hand, and doing some stuff that he shouldn’t be doing, and he’s suspended" and trying to get himself out of the hole that he dug with all of these mistakes. Vince Vaughn, who plays Brett's partner Anthony Lurasetti, states that "Dragged Across Concrete" is "not an agenda movie" but a morality tale.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: "Dragged Across Concrete" has slice of life scenes not related to the plot progression, such as Jennifer Carpenter's character Kelly Summer not wanting to leave her child for work, Vince Vaughn's character Anthony Lurasetti eating a sandwich in a car, and Tory Kittles' character Henry Johns talking to Michael Jai White's character "Biscuit" about their childhoods, and are some of Zahler's favorite scenes in the film. Despite these scenes taking a lot of the running time in the film, Zahler believes that coupled with the atmosphere and the subsequent twists, the scenes result in the characters becoming more interesting than the plot.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Keith Kjarval of Unified Pictures produced the film along with Zahler and Dallas Sonnier of Cinestate, Assemble Media's Jack Heller, and Sefton Fincham of Look to the Sky Films, with Kjarval's Unified Film Fund financing. The project sought a distributor at the European Film Market at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2017. In May 2017, Lionsgate acquired the US distribution rights to the film, and would release it through its subsidiary, Summit Entertainment.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Vince Vaughn starred in S. Craig Zahler's previous film "Brawl in Cell Block 99" as the lead character Bradley Thomas. Vaughn gave the script of "Dragged Across Concrete" to Mel Gibson, who worked with Vaughn in the 2016 film "Hacksaw Ridge" as the film director, asking him to star in the film and recommended him to watch "Brawl in Cell Block 99". Zahler was able to contact Gibson through Vaughn and hoped that he would star in the film. On February 1, 2017, Gibson signed on to the film, with him and Vaughn starring as police officers that are suspended due to committing police brutality.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: On August 2, 2017, Jennifer Carpenter and Don Johnson, who had worked with Zahler in "Brawl in Cell Block 99", signed onto the film, followed by Tory Kittles, Michael Jai White, Tattiawna Jones, and Laurie Holden. Since Vaughn and Gibson are both well-known conservatives in Hollywood, "The Daily Beast" claims this may hinder the financing of the film. However, Zahler believes they are the perfect match for their respective roles, and the studio is willing to give more funds to the film's production after Vaughn and Gibson's casting. Zahler praised Gibson for his collaboration and acting in the film. Gibson previously played a police officer in the 1987 film "Lethal Weapon", but the film had no bearing on the script nor the casting changes of "Dragged Across Concrete".


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Principal photography on the film began in Vancouver, British Columbia on July 17, 2017 and wrapped on September 16, 2017. Zahler wants "Dragged Across Concrete" to be seen as realistic by the audience, filming an actual car collision on set for one of the scenes rather than supplemented in the editing room. Shooting of the film is extremely challenging due to complex and dangerous stunts when filming a broken window, a car crash, or someone being shot. "Dragged Across Concrete" is less violent than Zahler's previous films "Bone Tomahawk" and "Brawl in Cell Block 99" due to the difference in weapons and fighting styles utilized by the characters.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: The film's soundtrack was composed by S. Craig Zahler and his friend Jeff Herriott, having previously worked together in "Bone Tomahawk" and "Brawl in Cell Block 99". The duo wrote several soul pieces and recruiting the rhythm and blues group The O'Jays to sing the songs. Zahler was influenced by jazz musicians such as Charles Mingus and John Coltrane in creating the soundtrack.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Lakeshore Records released the soundtrack on March 22, 2019, in CD, Digital, and Vinyl formats, which coincided with the release date of the film. Pat Padua of "The Washington Post" called some of the music pieces "slightly jarring, but they contribute to a sense of reality that is at once familiar and unsettling."


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: In May 2017, Lionsgate acquired the US distribution rights to the film, and would release it through its subsidiary, Summit Entertainment. The film's world premiere was at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2018. "Dragged Across Concrete" was then given a theatrical and video on demand release in the United States on March 22, 2019.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: "Dragged Across Concrete" was released on digital download, DVD and Blu-ray disc in the United States under Lionsgate Films on April 30, 2019, including two special features, a short featurette titled Moral Conflict: Creating Cinema That Challenges and a forty-minute 3-part featurette, Elements of a Crime. Studio Canal released it in the U.K. on August 19, 2019, across all three formats.


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: "Dragged Across Concrete" received positive reviews from critics and audiences alike, with praise directed towards Gibson's performance, worldbuilding, and the dark themes while criticism is directed towards the lengthy runtime and excessive violence. Reception was more polarized on the film's treatment on racism and police brutality, with some reviewers claiming the film endorses right-wing ideology. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "Dragged Across Concrete" holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's consensus reads, "As grim and grinding as its title, "Dragged Across Concrete" opts for slow-burning drama instead of high-speed thrills -- and has just the right cast to make it work." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 60 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: Kevin Maher of "The Times" gave the film four out of five stars, writing: "in this new, bleak and often unexpectedly grand genre movie (it’s essentially a buddy-cop flick, but with operatic ambitions), the thread out of place, both irritably scratching and strangely arresting, is Mel Gibson." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" also rated "Dragged Across Concrete" four out of five stars, stating: "this is a long film, but there is something so horribly compelling about its unhurried slouch towards the precipice." David Fear of "Rolling Stone" awarded the film a three and a half out of five stars, praising Gibson's performance and the world-building: ""Dragged Across Concrete" is apt to send crime-film fanatics, especially ones who prefer their pulp nasty, brutish and incredibly long, into frothing fits of glee." Kieran Fisher of Film School Rejects praised the dialogue interactions between the detectives, Kittles' performance, and Zahler's intention to challenge the moral position of the audience, while acknowledging that the film will attract controversy: "Still, if you just want to see a great crime epic that cares more about telling a great story than promoting an agenda, you’ll want to check out "Dragged Across Concrete". It’s going to be a contender for the best of 2019 when it’s all said and done, even if some viewers will feel guilty about enjoying it so much."


title: Dragged Across Concrete

text: At the 40th Golden Raspberry Awards, "Dragged Across Concrete" was nominated in a new category, "Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property." WhatCulture criticized the nomination, saying that "It feels as though voters just wanted to nominate "Joker" for the enormous social media publicity it would generate, and then shaped a dubious awards category around it. "Dragged Across Concrete" is an even weirder pick, though, both because of its low-budget nature and the fact that there's not that much carnage in it. Michael Bay's "6 Underground" is clearly a far worthier nominee than either of those films, given how much obvious human collateral damage is racked up amid the chaotic action sequences."


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Resorts World Las Vegas is a resort, mall, and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada, United States. The property had been the site of the Stardust Resort and Casino until 2007, when Boyd Gaming demolished the resort to develop its Echelon Place project. Boyd halted construction in 2008 due to poor economic conditions and sold the property to Genting Group in March 2013. Genting immediately announced plans to redevelop the site as Resorts World Las Vegas, part of its Resorts World brand. The project re-used some of the partially finished Echelon buildings, including hotel and parking garage structures.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Groundbreaking was initially scheduled for 2014, with the first phase expected to open in 2016. However, the opening date was delayed several times due to redesigns of the project. Groundbreaking took place in May 2015, and construction began in late 2017. Further design changes were made after Wynn Resorts filed a lawsuit against Genting, alleging that Resorts World was too similar to the nearby Wynn/Encore properties. Wynn had accused Genting of misleading its visitors into believing that Resorts World was affiliated with the Wynn properties.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Resorts World opened on June 24, 2021. It is the first new resort to be completed on the Las Vegas Strip since the Cosmopolitan, which opened in 2010. At a cost of $4.3 billion, Resorts World is the most expensive resort property ever developed in Las Vegas. The resort includes a casino and a 59-story tower housing three Hilton hotels: the Las Vegas Hilton at Resorts World, with 1,774 rooms; Conrad Las Vegas at Resorts World, with 1,496 rooms; and Crockfords Las Vegas, with 236 rooms.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: In 2007, Boyd Gaming demolished its Stardust Resort and Casino on the northern Las Vegas Strip to develop Echelon Place, but construction was halted during the economic downturn of 2008. Four years later, Boyd Gaming began negotiations to sell the site to the Malaysia-based Genting Group. After months of negotiating, the site was sold to Genting for $350 million on March 4, 2013. On the same day, as part of its Resorts World brand, Genting Group announced plans to build the Chinese-themed Resorts World Las Vegas on the site, while using some of the unfinished Echelon buildings for the new project.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: The first phase of the project would total , including a casino spread across several floors, and a hotel with at least 3,500 rooms. Groundbreaking was scheduled for 2014, with the first phase scheduled to open in 2016. Genting expected to spend between $2 billion and $7 billion to complete the entire project. Notable planned features included a panda exhibit, a indoor water park, and a replica of the Great Wall of China, as well as of retail space and more than of convention space.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Resorts World Las Vegas was designed by Paul Steelman's architectural firm, Steelman Partners. Conceptual drawings depicted seven hotel towers that would surround the complex. It would be the largest Asian-themed resort on the Las Vegas Strip, and its target clientele would be middle-income residents of Asia. The project was expected to revitalize the northern portion of the Las Vegas Strip, although some analysts were concerned that the local hotel market had already been saturated, with more than 150,000 rooms. Genting Group paid $4 million per acre for the site, down from previous years when land on the Strip sometimes sold for a minimum of $17 million per acre.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Genting chose the site because of its size and location, and the fact that it included some partially built structures from the Echelon project, which would shorten the resort's construction period. Echelon's foundations and partially built hotel towers, as well as an unfinished Echelon parking garage on the property's southwest corner, would be incorporated into the new project. Paul Steelman stated that 90 percent of the foundations for the Echelon project had already been completed by Boyd Gaming. Before purchasing the Echelon property, Genting had considered building a resort on the former nearby site of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Genting was known to proceed slowly and quietly on some of its projects, as it did with Resorts World Las Vegas. Much of the final design work and planning was done privately. Early plans stated that the entire project would contain upon completion, including four hotel towers and a total of 6,648 rooms. The towers would be between 44 and 57 stories, with a maximum height of 679 feet.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: In December 2013, it was announced that the first phase was expected to cost $4 billion. The project would be developed over several years, through two or three phases. As of May 2014, the first phase would include 3,000 hotel rooms in a 674-foot tower, a casino with a total of 3,500 slot machines and table games, and 30 food and beverage outlets. Other attractions would include a large garden marking the property's entrance and a aquarium measuring 58 feet in height and containing various exotic fish. A shopping center resembling a Chinese village would be located along the property facing the Las Vegas Strip.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Construction was expected to begin later in 2014, with completion of the first phase expected to take 24 to 36 months. The project was expected to incorporate 80 to 85 percent of the old Echelon buildings. Genting had plans to eventually add three additional hotels to the project and possibly a theme park through future phases. Plans for a panda exhibit were still considered, but the company mentioned the difficulties in obtaining a panda permit from the Chinese government.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Genting delayed the resort's 2014 groundbreaking date to continue finalizing design plans for the project, with the first phase now expected to open in late 2017. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on May 5, 2015, with a new expected opening date of mid-2018. The ceremony included lion dancers, and was attended by approximately 250 people, including Nevada governor Brian Sandoval, lieutenant governor Mark Hutchison, U.S. Representative Cresent Hardy, Clark County Commissioners Steve Sisolak and Chris Giunchigliani, and Steve and Elaine Wynn.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: At the time, Paul Steelman said, "It's a Chinese-themed resort, but it's not a themed resort in the sense that we're sitting around trying to copy Tiananmen Square and make it a dusty old replica. It's not a fully-themed, over-the-top kind of thing where we're trying to copy every single thing in China." It was also announced that the resort would be known in Chinese as "Genting's World of China". The first phase would consist of the main hotel tower. The resort's panda habitat and water park were moved to the second phase of construction, and a 4,000-seat theater had also been moved to a future phase.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Following the groundbreaking, the project had approximately 100 construction workers engaged in site preparation. During the local summer of 2015, construction took place in the mornings and at night so that workers could avoid the summer heat. In October 2015, construction workers topped off half of the parking structure originally meant for Echelon. Up to that time, Genting had spent more than $50 million on construction and other work, including property maintenance.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Little construction had occurred up to that time, as Genting was awaiting various permits, including those needed for energy, sewer and water systems. In the meantime, the company continued to develop its plans for the rest of the project. Genting spokesman Michael Levoff stated that Resorts World Las Vegas was "one of the most cutting-edge and ambitious projects to be undertaken in the Las Vegas Strip in the last decade. A $4 billion project will not be built overnight; it requires a rigorous planning and approval process." The project would be partially financed with nearly $1 billion contributed by foreign investors through the EB-5 program.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: In January 2016, the Clark County Zoning Commission approved the project, which would have a Forbidden City design and was expected to eventually include more than 7,000 rooms in four high-rise hotels. The initial phase would include 3,307 rooms and more than of public space, including convention facilities and a movie theater. The first phase would also include a lake, part of a Chinese garden, which would be overlooked by a row of restaurants. The project's arena would remain part of a future phase. Work on the parking garage continued as of February 2016, but construction was otherwise non-existent.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: It was announced that activity on the site would begin in mid-2016, with full construction beginning towards the end of the year. The 56-story hotel tower and a casino were now expected to open in early 2019. The delay was attributed to ongoing work on the project's designs. Other factors were struggles with the devaluation of Malaysian currency and in the Chinese economy. At the time, the resort was expected to include a "celestial sphere" which would display guests' selfie images, a feature that was expected to appeal to millennial customers.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: By July 2016, Genting was finalizing designs for the hotel tower and the casino floor, ahead of plans to complete foundation work. In October 2016, approximately 30 people were on the site performing minor construction work. That month, PETA wrote a letter to Genting's chairman, Lim Kok Thay, pleading for him to have the resort's panda exhibit removed from the project. Genting stated that the exhibit had already been removed from the project "a long time ago." The planned water park and Great Wall replica were also removed from the final project.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Construction cranes were expected to be placed at the site in early 2017, but their unavailability delayed the start of construction. In May 2017, the resort's opening was delayed to 2020 after the project was redesigned to attract younger gamblers. The installation of cranes and the start of construction was expected within three months. The parking garage had already been finished, and was to be used by the eventual 5,000 construction workers. Edward Farrell, a casino industry executive who had just been announced as the first president of the resort, said that the project's earlier design "had a lot of traditional, older Chinese architecture and elements that were within it. The company has really taken a look at the market in Las Vegas throughout the past couple of years, and it has really shifted to something that's much more modern. [...] much more Shanghai than maybe Beijing, with technology and a modern looking feel."


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: Farrell further stated that the company went "back and forth on a lot of design elements. [...] The more modern Chinese theme fits in more to where we're really going with this resort. When we open up, we'll use the newest and most recent technology and have appeal to people over the next 30, 40, 50 years." Farrell also said that the design phase was nearing its end and that, "We've done a lot of construction that nobody has seen over the last two or three years — not exciting stuff, like utility lines, working out easements and building a garage with some office space." Upcoming construction would focus on the hotel towers and the casino structure.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: In October 2017, W.A. Richardson Builders was announced as the project's construction manager. That month, demolition began on some steel beams and concrete left from the Echelon project that would not be used in Genting's plans for Resorts World. Cranes were expected to be installed at the site over the following eight weeks, and the resort's opening was expected for late 2020. The hotel towers, adjacent to the eventual casino, were 10 stories tall at the time. Upon completion, the towers were to stand 56 stories and 679 feet, slightly taller than the Wynn Las Vegas resort, located just southeast of Resorts World on the other side of South Las Vegas Boulevard. It was expected that the towers would progress one floor every eight days during construction, which began later in 2017. As of October 2018, the project had reached the 35th floor. More than 1,000 construction workers engaged in steel, concrete, and glasswork throughout the site. Thousands of additional construction workers were expected to be on-site by mid-2019.


title: Resorts World Las Vegas

text: In December 2018, Wynn Resorts filed a federal trademark infringement lawsuit against Genting, alleging similarities between Resorts World and the Wynn/Encore properties. Alleged similarities included a curved facade and horizontal lines between panels of bronze glass. Wynn Resorts alleged that Genting planned to profit by misleading visitors of Resorts World into believing that it was affiliated with Wynn's properties. Wynn Resorts also alleged that someone involved in Resorts World Las Vegas had requested a local architect to produce a design for the project that would be identical or similar to Wynn's resorts.