title: Mofongo

text: Dominicans who feared the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo fled to Puerto Rico and New York City. Mofongo caught on quickly with Dominicans living in Puerto Rico and New York City. After Trujillo's death many Dominicans returned to the Dominican Republic, bringing the recipe for mofongo, which has remained popular ever since. The first Dominican cookbook with a recipe for mofongo is "Cocina Criolla", second edition by Amanda Ornes, in 1962. The recipe is called ""mafongo"" using roasted green plantains mashed with just chicarrón and oil. Ramona Hernández, director of the Dominican Studies Institute of the City University of New York, has said, "mofongo is a dish borrowed from Puerto Rico that has much success with Dominicans". Dominican chef Clara Gonzalez, also known as Aunt Clara, says in her cookbook, "mofongo has a special place in the Dominicans' hearts and stomachs but can be traced back to Puerto Rico".


title: Mofongo

text: Mofongo has become popular among Colombians, Cubans and Dominicans living in the United States and anywhere large numbers of Puerto Ricans or Dominicans reside.


title: Mofongo

text: Food Network chef and host Guy Fieri featured mofongo from Benny's Seafood (in Miami, Florida) and from El Bohio (in San Antonio, Texas) on two separate episodes of his show "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives". He liked the dish so much that he called it the "best fried thing I ever ate" on an episode of the show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate".


title: Mofongo

text: An episode of the Travel Channel's "Man v. Food Nation", set in Harlem, showed the host Adam Richman visiting a Spanish Harlem restaurant called La Fonda Boricua, where they make a giant 12-plantain mofongo called the "Mofongaso".


title: Mofongo

text: Perhaps the oldest song mentioning mofongo is called "Puertorriqueño" by Joe Valle and César Concepción.


title: Mofongo

text: On "Saturday Night Live", David Ortiz (a recurring impression played by Kenan Thompson) frequently refers to the dish when describing his "big lunch".


title: Mofongo

text: Mofongo was mentioned numerous times on the 1970s U.S. NBC situation comedy "Sanford & Son" when characters Fred and Lamont (Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson) interact with their Puerto Rican neighbor Julio (Gregory Sierra).


title: Mofongo

text: The 2021 animated PBS show "Alma's Way", about a Puerto Rican girl growing up in the Bronx with her family, frequently mentions mofongo as a favorite family dish.


title: Tachometer

text: A tachometer (revolution-counter, tach, rev-counter, RPM gauge) is an instrument measuring the rotation speed of a shaft or disk, as in a motor or other machine. The device usually displays the revolutions per minute (RPM) on a calibrated analogue dial, but digital displays are increasingly common.


title: Tachometer

text: The word comes from Greek "τάχος" ("táchos" "speed") and "μέτρον" ("métron" "measure"). Essentially the words tachometer and speedometer have identical meaning: a device that measures speed. It is by arbitrary convention that in the automotive world one is used for engine revolutions and the other for vehicle speed. In formal engineering nomenclature, more precise terms are used to distinguish the two.


title: Tachometer

text: The first tachometer was described by an Donkin]] in a paper to the Royal Society of Arts in 1810 for which he was awarded the Gold medal of the society. This consisted of a bowl of mercury constructed in such a way that centrifugal force caused the level in a central tube to fall when it rotated and brought down the level in a narrower tube above filled with coloured spirit. The bowl was connected to the machinery to be measured by pulleys.


title: Tachometer

text: The first mechanical tachometers were based on measuring the centrifugal force, similar to the operation of a centrifugal governor. The inventor is assumed to be the German engineer Dietrich Uhlhorn; he used it for measuring the speed of machines in 1817. Since 1840, it has been used to measure the speed of locomotives.


title: Tachometer

text: Tachometers or revolution counters on cars, aircraft, and other vehicles show the rate of rotation of the engine's crankshaft, and typically have markings indicating a safe range of rotation speeds. This can assist the driver in selecting appropriate throttle and gear settings for the driving conditions. Prolonged use at high speeds may cause inadequate lubrication, overheating (exceeding capability of the cooling system), exceeding speed capability of sub-parts of the engine (for example spring retracted valves) thus causing excessive wear or permanent damage or failure of engines. On analogue tachometers, speeds above maximum safe operating speed are typically indicated by an area of the gauge marked in red, giving rise to the expression of "redlining" an engine — revving the engine up to the maximum safe limit. Most modern cars typically have a revolution limiter which electronically limits engine speed to prevent damage. Diesel engines with traditional mechanical injector systems have an integral governor which prevents over-speeding the engine, so the tachometers in vehicles and machinery fitted with such engines sometimes lack a redline.


title: Tachometer

text: In vehicles such as tractors and trucks, the tachometer often has other markings, usually a green arc showing the speed range in which the engine produces maximum torque, which is of prime interest to operators of such vehicles. Tractors fitted with a power take-off (PTO) system have tachometers showing the engine speed needed to rotate the PTO at the standardized speed required by most PTO-driven implements. In many countries, tractors are required to have a speedometer for use on a road. To save fitting a second dial, the vehicle's tachometer is often marked with a second scale in units of speed. This scale is only accurate in a certain gear, but since many tractors only have one gear that is practical for use on-road, this is sufficient. Tractors with multiple 'road gears' often have tachometers with more than one speed scale. Aircraft tachometers have a green arc showing the engine's designed cruising speed range.


title: Tachometer

text: In older vehicles, the tachometer is driven by the RMS voltage waves from the low tension (LT contact breaker) side of the ignition coil, while on others (and nearly all diesel engines, which have no ignition system) engine speed is determined by the frequency from the alternator tachometer output. This is from a special connection called an "AC tap" which is a connection to one of the stator's coil output, before the rectifier. Tachometers driven by a rotating cable from a drive unit fitted to the engine (usually on the camshaft) exist - usually on simple diesel-engined machinery with basic or no electrical systems. On recent EMS found on modern vehicles, the signal for the tachometer is usually generated from an ECU which derives the information from either the crankshaft or camshaft speed sensor.


title: Tachometer

text: Tachometers are used to estimate traffic speed and volume (flow). A vehicle is equipped with the sensor and conducts "tach runs" which record the traffic data. These data are a substitute or complement to loop detector data. To get statistically significant results requires a high number of runs, and bias is introduced by the time of day, day of week, and the season. However, because of the expense, spacing (a lower density of loop detectors diminishes data accuracy), and relatively low reliability of loop detectors (often 30% or more are out of service at any given time), tach runs remain a common practice.


title: Tachometer

text: Speed sensing devices, termed variously "wheel impulse generators" (WIG), speed probes, or tachometers are used extensively in rail vehicles. Common types include opto-isolator slotted disk sensors and Hall effect sensors.


title: Tachometer

text: Hall effect sensors typically use a rotating target attached to a wheel, gearbox or motor. This target may contain magnets, or it may be a toothed wheel. The teeth on the wheel vary the flux density of a magnet inside the sensor head. The probe is mounted with its head a precise distance from the target wheel and detects the teeth or magnets passing its face. One problem with this system is that the necessary air gap between the target wheel and the sensor allows ferrous dust from the vehicle's underframe to build up on the probe or target, inhibiting its function.


title: Tachometer

text: Opto-isolator sensors are completely encased to prevent ingress from the outside environment. The only exposed parts are a sealed plug connector and a drive fork, which is attached to a slotted disk internally through a bearing and seal. The slotted disk is typically sandwiched between two circuit boards containing a photo-diode, photo-transistor, amplifier, and filtering circuits which produce a square wave pulse train output customized to the customers voltage and pulses per revolution requirements. These types of sensors typically provide 2 to 8 independent channels of output that can be sampled by other systems in the vehicle such as automatic train control systems and propulsion/braking controllers.


title: Tachometer

text: The sensors mounted around the circumference of the disk provide quadrature encoded outputs and thus allow the vehicle's computer to determine the direction of rotation of the wheel. This is a legal requirement in Switzerland to prevent "rollback" when starting from standstill. Strictly, such devices are not tachometers since they do not provide a direct reading of the rotational speed of the disk. The speed has to be derived externally by counting the number of pulses in a time period. It is difficult to prove conclusively that the vehicle is stationary, other than by waiting a certain time to ensure that no further pulses occur. This is one reason why there is often a time delay between the train stopping, as perceived by a passenger, and the doors being released. Slotted-disk devices are typical sensors used in odometer systems for rail vehicles, such as are required for train protection systems — notably the European Train Control System.


title: Tachometer

text: As well as speed sensing, these probes are often used to calculate distance travelled by multiplying wheel rotations by wheel circumference.


title: Tachometer

text: They can be used to automatically calibrate wheel diameter by comparing the number of rotations of each axle against a master wheel that has been measured manually. Since all wheels travel the same distance, the diameter of each wheel is proportional to its number of rotations compared to the master wheel. This calibration must be done while coasting at a fixed speed to eliminate the possibility of wheel slip/slide introducing errors into the calculation. Automatic calibration of this type is used to generate more accurate traction and braking signals, and to improve wheel slip detection.


title: Tachometer

text: A weakness of systems that rely on wheel rotation for tachometry and odometry is that the train wheels and the rails are very smooth and the friction between them is low, leading to high error rates if the wheels slip or slide. To compensate for this, secondary odometry inputs employ Doppler radar units beneath the train to measure speed independently.


title: Tachometer

text: In analogue audio recording, a tachometer is a device that measures the speed of audiotape as it passes across the head. On most audio tape recorders the tachometer (or simply "tach") is a relatively large spindle near the ERP head stack, isolated from the feed and take-up spindles by tension idlers.


title: Tachometer

text: On many recorders the tachometer spindle is connected by an axle to a rotating magnet that induces a changing magnetic field upon a Hall effect transistor. Other systems connect the spindle to a stroboscope, which alternates light and dark upon a photodiode.


title: Tachometer

text: The tape recorder's drive electronics use signals from the tachometer to ensure that the tape is played at the proper speed. The signal is compared to a reference signal (either a quartz crystal or alternating current from the mains). The comparison of the two frequencies drives the speed of the tape transport. When the tach signal and the reference signal match, the tape transport is said to be "at speed." (To this day on film sets, the director calls "Roll sound!" and the sound man replies "Sound speed!" This is a vestige of the days when recording devices required several seconds to reach a regulated speed.)


title: Tachometer

text: Having perfectly regulated tape speed is important because the human ear is very sensitive to changes in pitch, particularly sudden ones, and without a self-regulating system to control the speed of tape across the head, the pitch could drift several percent. This effect is called a wow-and-flutter, and a modern, tachometer-regulated cassette deck has a wow-and-flutter of 0.07%.


title: Tachometer

text: Tachometers are acceptable for high-fidelity sound playback, but not for recording in synchronization with a movie camera. For such purposes, special recorders that record pilottone must be used.


title: Tachometer

text: Tachometer signals can be used to synchronize several tape machines together, but only if in addition to the tach signal, a directional signal is transmitted, to tell slave machines in which direction the master is moving.


title: Bell 212

text: The Bell 212 (also known as the "Twin Two-Twelve") is a two-blade, medium helicopter that first flew in 1968. Originally manufactured by Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, production was moved to Mirabel, Quebec, Canada in 1988, along with all Bell commercial helicopter production after that plant opened in 1986.


title: Bell 212

text: The 212 was marketed to civilian operators and has up to a 15-seat capacity, with one pilot and fourteen passengers. In cargo-carrying configuration the 212 has an internal capacity of 220 ft (6.23 m). An external load of up to 5,000 lb (2,268 kg) can be carried.


title: Bell 212

text: Based on the stretched fuselage Bell 205, the Bell 212 was originally developed for the Canadian Forces as the "CUH-1N" and later redesignated as the "CH-135". The Canadian Forces took delivery of 50 starting in May 1971. At the same time the United States military services ordered 294 Bell 212s under the designation UH-1N.


title: Bell 212

text: By 1971, the Bell 212 had been developed for commercial applications. Among the earliest uses of the type in civil aviation was by Helicopter Service AS of Norway to be used in support of offshore drilling; it proved popular across the offshore sector in particular as it had been certified for operating under marginal weather conditions. Today, the 212 can be found used in logging operations, maritime rescue and resupply in the Arctic on the Distant Early Warning Line or North Warning System.


title: Bell 212

text: The 212 is powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6T-3 Twin-Pac made up of two coupled PT6 power turbines driving a common gearbox. They are capable of producing up to 1,800 shp (1,342 kW). Should one power section fail the remaining section can deliver 900 shp (671 kW) for 30 minutes, or 765 shp (571 kW) continuously, enabling the 212 to maintain cruise performance at maximum weight.


title: Bell 212

text: Early 212s configured with an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) package were required to have a large and very obvious fin attached to the roof of the aircraft, above and slightly behind the cockpit. This fin was initially determined necessary to alter the turning performance of the aircraft during complex instrument flight maneuvers, but is no longer required due to revised stipulations of the type certificate. Many aircraft still fly with the modification.


title: Bell 212

text: In 1979, with the purchase of eight by the Civil Air Authority, the 212 became the first U.S. helicopter sold in the People's Republic of China.


title: Bell 212

text: The ICAO designator for this aircraft as used in a flight plan is "B212". Bell developed the Model 212 further with the Bell 412; the major difference being the composite four-blade main rotor. The last Bell 212 was delivered in 1998.


title: Bell 212

text: The Bell 212 is used by many private and commercial operators, it is particularly popular in the oil industries and for law enforcement use.


title: Drill bit

text: Drill bits are cutting tools used in a drill to remove material to create holes, almost always of circular cross-section. Drill bits come in many sizes and shapes and can create different kinds of holes in many different materials. In order to create holes drill bits are usually attached to a drill, which powers them to cut through the workpiece, typically by rotation. The drill will grasp the upper end of a bit called the "shank" in the chuck.


title: Drill bit

text: Drills come in standardized drill bit sizes. A comprehensive drill bit and tap size chart lists metric and imperial sized drills alongside the required screw tap sizes. There are also certain specialized drill bits that can create holes with a non-circular cross-section.


title: Drill bit

text: Most drill bits for consumer use have straight shanks. For heavy duty drilling in industry, bits with tapered shanks are sometimes used. Other types of shank used include hex-shaped, and various proprietary quick release systems.


title: Drill bit

text: The diameter-to-length ratio of the drill bit is usually between 1:1 and 1:10. Much higher ratios are possible (e.g., "aircraft-length" twist bits, pressured-oil gun drill bits, etc.), but the higher the ratio, the greater the technical challenge of producing good work.


title: Drill bit

text: The best geometry to use depends upon the properties of the material being drilled. The following table lists geometries recommended for some commonly drilled materials.


title: Drill bit

text: Many different materials are used for or on drill bits, depending on the required application. Many hard materials, such as carbides, are much more brittle than steel, and are far more subject to breaking, particularly if the drill is not held at a very constant angle to the workpiece; e.g., when hand-held.


title: Drill bit

text: The twist drill bit is the type produced in largest quantity today. It comprises a cutting point at the tip of a cylindrical shaft with helical flutes; the flutes act as an Archimedean screw and lift swarf out of the hole.


title: Drill bit

text: The modern-style twist drill bit was invented by Sir Joseph Whitworth in 1860. They were later improved by Steven A. Morse of East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, who experimented with the pitch of the twist. The original method of manufacture was to cut two grooves in opposite sides of a round bar, then to twist the bar (giving the tool its name) to produce the helical flutes. Nowadays, the drill bit is usually made by rotating the bar while moving it past a grinding wheel to cut the flutes in the same manner as cutting helical gears.


title: Drill bit

text: The geometry and sharpening of the cutting edges is crucial to the performance of the bit. Small bits that become blunt are often discarded because sharpening them correctly is difficult and they are cheap to replace. For larger bits, special grinding jigs are available. A special tool grinder is available for sharpening or reshaping cutting surfaces on twist drill bits in order to optimize the bit for a particular material.


title: Drill bit

text: Manufacturers can produce special versions of the twist drill bit, varying the geometry and the materials used, to suit particular machinery and particular materials to be cut. Twist drill bits are available in the widest choice of tooling materials. However, even for industrial users, most holes are drilled with standard high-speed steel bits.


title: Drill bit

text: The most common twist drill bit (sold in general hardware stores) has a point angle of 118 degrees, acceptable for use in wood, metal, plastic, and most other materials, although it does not perform as well as using the optimum angle for each material. In most materials it does not tend to wander or dig in.


title: Drill bit

text: A more aggressive angle, such as 90 degrees, is suited for very soft plastics and other materials; it would wear rapidly in hard materials. Such a bit is generally self-starting and can cut very quickly. A shallower angle, such as 150 degrees, is suited for drilling steels and other tougher materials. This style of bit requires a starter hole, but does not bind or suffer premature wear so long as a suitable feed rate is used.


title: Drill bit

text: Drill bits with no point angle are used in situations where a blind, flat-bottomed hole is required. These bits are very sensitive to changes in lip angle, and even a slight change can result in an inappropriately fast cutting drill bit that will suffer premature wear.


title: Drill bit

text: "Long series" drill bits are unusually long twist drill bits. However, they are not the best tool for routinely drilling deep holes, as they require frequent withdrawal to clear the flutes of swarf and to prevent breakage of the bit. Instead, gun drill (through coolant drill) bits are preferred for deep hole drilling.


title: Drill bit

text: A step drill bit is a drill bit that has the tip ground down to a different diameter. The transition between this ground diameter and the original diameter is either straight, to form a counterbore, or angled, to form a countersink. The advantage to this style is that both diameters have the same flute characteristics, which keeps the bit from clogging when drilling in softer materials, such as aluminum; in contrast, a drill bit with a slip-on collar does not have the same benefit. Most of these bits are custom-made for each application, which makes them more expensive.


title: Drill bit

text: A unibit (often called a step drill bit) is a roughly conical bit with a stairstep profile. Due to its design, a single bit can be used for drilling a wide range of hole sizes. Some bits come to a point and are thus self-starting. The larger-size bits have blunt tips and are used for hole enlarging.


title: Drill bit

text: Unibits are commonly used on sheet metal and in general construction. One drill bit can drill the entire range of holes necessary on a countertop, speeding up installation of fixtures. They are often used on softer materials, such as plywood, particle board, drywall, acrylic, and laminate. They can be used on very thin sheet metal, but metals tend to cause premature bit wear and dulling.


title: Drill bit

text: Unibits are ideal for use in electrical work where thin steel, aluminum or plastic boxes and chassis are encountered. The short length of the unibit and ability to vary the diameter of the finished hole is an advantage in chassis or front panel work. The finished hole can often be made quite smooth and burr-free, especially in plastic.


title: Drill bit

text: An additional use of unibits is deburring holes left by other bits, as the sharp increase to the next step size allows the cutting edge to scrape burrs off the entry surface of the workpiece. However, the straight flute is poor at chip ejection, and can cause a burr to be formed on the exit side of the hole, more so than a spiral twist drill bit turning at high speed.


title: Drill bit

text: The unibit was invented by Harry C. Oakes and patented in 1973. It was sold only by the Unibit Corporation in the 1980s until the patent expired, and was later sold by other companies. Unibit is a trademark of Irwin Industrial Tools.


title: Drill bit

text: Although it is claimed that the stepped drill was invented by Harry C. Oakes it was in fact first produced by Bradley Engineering, Wandsworth, London in the 1960s and named the Bradrad. It was marketed under this name until the patent was sold to Halls Ltd.uk by whom it is still produced.


title: Drill bit

text: Hole saws take the form of a short open cylinder with saw-teeth on the open edge, used for making relatively large holes in thin material. They remove material only from the edge of the hole, cutting out an intact disc of material, unlike many drills which remove all material in the interior of the hole. They can be used to make large holes in wood, sheet metal and other materials.


title: Drill bit

text: Center drill bits, occasionally known as Slocombe drill bits, are used in metalworking to provide a starting hole for a larger-sized drill bit or to make a conical indentation in the end of a workpiece in which to mount a lathe center. In either use, the name seems appropriate, as the bit is either establishing the "center" of a hole or making a conical hole for a lathe "center". However, the true purpose of a center drill bit is the latter task, while the former task is best done with a "spotting drill bit" (as explained in detail below). Nevertheless, because of the frequent lumping together of both the terminology and the tool use, suppliers may call center drill bits "combined-drill-and-countersinks" in order to make it unambiguously clear what product is being ordered. They are numbered from 00 to 10 (smallest to largest).


title: Drill bit

text: Center drill bits are meant to create a conical hole for "between centers" manufacturing processes (typically lathe or cylindrical-grinder work). That is, they provide a location for a (live, dead, or driven) center to locate the part about an axis. A workpiece machined between centers can be safely removed from one process (perhaps turning in a lathe) and set up in a later process (perhaps a grinding operation) with a negligible loss in the co-axiality of features (usually total indicator reading (TIR) less than ; and TIR < is held in cylindrical grinding operations, as long as conditions are correct).


title: Drill bit

text: Traditional twist drill bits may tend to wander when started on an unprepared surface. Once a bit wanders off course it is difficult to bring it back on center. A center drill bit frequently provides a reasonable starting point as it is short and therefore has a reduced tendency to wander when drilling is started.


title: Drill bit

text: While the above is a common use of center drill bits, it is a technically incorrect practice and should not be considered for production use. The correct tool to start a traditionally drilled hole (a hole drilled by a high-speed steel (HSS) twist drill bit) is a "spotting drill bit" (or a "spot drill bit", as they are referenced in the U.S.). The included angle of the spotting drill bit should be the same as, or greater than, the conventional drill bit so that the drill bit will then start without undue stress on the bit's corners, which would cause premature failure of the bit and a loss of hole quality.


title: Drill bit

text: Most modern solid-carbide bits should not be used in conjunction with a spot drill bit or a center drill bit, as solid-carbide bits are specifically designed to start their own hole. Usually, spot drilling will cause premature failure of the solid-carbide bit and a certain loss of hole quality. If it is deemed necessary to chamfer a hole with a spot or center drill bit when a solid-carbide drill bit is used, it is best practice to do so after the hole is drilled.


title: Drill bit

text: When drilling with a hand-held drill the flexibility of the bit is not the primary source of inaccuracy—it is the user's hands. Therefore, for such operations, a center punch is often used to spot the hole center prior to drilling a pilot hole.


title: Drill bit

text: A bit used to enlarge an existing hole is called a core drill bit. The existing hole may be the result of a core from a casting or a stamped (punched) hole. The name comes from its first use, for drilling out the hole left by a "foundry core", a cylinder placed in a mould for a casting that leaves an irregular hole in the product. This core drill bit is solid.


title: Drill bit

text: These core drill bits are similar in appearance to reamers as they have no cutting point or means of starting a hole. They have 3 or 4 flutes which enhances the finish of the hole and ensures the bit cuts evenly. Core drill bits differ from reamers in the amount of material they are intended to remove. A reamer is only intended to enlarge a hole a slight amount which, depending on the reamers size, may be anything from 0.1 millimeter to perhaps a millimeter. A core drill bit may be used to double the size of a hole.


title: Drill bit

text: Using an ordinary two-flute twist drill bit to enlarge the hole resulting from a casting core will not produce a clean result, the result will possibly be out of round, off center and generally of poor finish. The two fluted drill bit also has a tendency to grab on any protuberance (such as flash) which may occur in the product.


title: Drill bit

text: A hollow cylindrical bit which will cut a hole with an annular cross-section and leave the inner cylinder of material (the "core") intact, often removing it, is also called a core drill bit or annular cutter. Unlike other drills, the purpose is often to retrieve the core rather than simply to make a hole. A diamond core drill bit is intended to cut an annular hole in the workpiece. Large bits of similar shape are used for geological work, where a deep hole is drilled in sediment or ice and the drill bit, which now contains an intact core of the material drilled with a diameter of several centimeters, is retrieved to allow study of the strata.


title: Drill bit

text: A countersink is a conical hole cut into a manufactured object; a countersink bit (sometimes called simply countersink) is the cutter used to cut such a hole. A common use is to allow the head of a bolt or screw, with a shape exactly matching the countersunk hole, to sit flush with or below the surface of the surrounding material. (By comparison, a counterbore makes a flat-bottomed hole that might be used with a hex-headed capscrew.) A countersink may also be used to remove the burr left from a drilling or tapping operation.


title: Drill bit

text: Used almost exclusively for deep hole drilling of medium to large diameter holes (approximately diameter). An ejector drill bit uses a specially designed carbide cutter at the point. The bit body is essentially a tube within a tube. Flushing water travels down between the two tubes. Chip removal is back through the center of the bit.


title: Drill bit

text: Gun drills are straight fluted drills which allow cutting fluid (either compressed air or a suitable liquid) to be injected through the drill's hollow body to the cutting face.


title: Drill bit

text: Indexable drill bits are primarily used in CNC and other high precision or production equipment, and are the most expensive type of drill bit, costing the most per diameter and length. Like indexable lathe tools and milling cutters, they use replaceable carbide or ceramic inserts as a cutting face to alleviate the need for a tool grinder. One insert is responsible for the outer radius of the cut, and another insert is responsible for the inner radius. The tool itself handles the point deformity, as it is a low-wear task. The bit is hardened and coated against wear far more than the average drill bit, as the shank is non-consumable. Almost all indexable drill bits have multiple coolant channels for prolonged tool life under heavy usage. They are also readily available in odd configurations, such as straight flute, fast spiral, multiflute, and a variety of cutting face geometries.


title: Drill bit

text: Typically indexable drill bits are used in holes that are no deeper than about 5 times the bit diameter. They are capable of quite high axial loads and cut very fast.


title: Drill bit

text: Left-hand bits are almost always twist bits and are predominantly used in the repetition engineering industry on screw machines or drilling heads. Left-handed drill bits allow a machining operation to continue where either the spindle cannot be reversed or the design of the machine makes it more efficient to run left-handed. With the increased use of the more versatile CNC machines, their use is less common than when specialized machines were required for machining tasks.


title: Drill bit

text: Screw extractors are essentially left-hand bits of specialized shape, used to remove common right-hand screws whose heads are broken or too damaged to allow a screwdriver tip to engage, making use of a screwdriver impossible. The extractor is pressed against the damaged head and rotated counter-clockwise and will tend to jam in the damaged head and then turn the screw counter-clockwise, unscrewing it. For screws that break off deeper in the hole, an extractor set will often include left handed drill bits of the appropriate diameters so that grab holes can be drilled into the screws in a left handed direction, preventing further tightening of the broken piece.


title: Drill bit

text: A spade drill bit for metal is a two part bit with a tool holder and an insertable tip, called an insert. The inserts come in various sizes that range from . The tool holder usually has a coolant passage running through it. They are capable of cutting to a depth of about 10 times the bit diameter. This type of drill bit can also be used to make stepped holes.


title: Drill bit

text: Straight fluted drill bits do not have a helical twist like twist drill bits do. They are used when drilling copper or brass because they have less of a tendency to "dig in" or grab the material.


title: Drill bit

text: A trepan, sometimes called a BTA drill bit (after the Boring and Trepanning Association), is a drill bit that cuts an annulus and leaves a center core. Trepans usually have multiple carbide inserts and rely on water to cool the cutting tips and to flush chips out of the hole. Trepans are often used to cut large diameters and deep holes. Typical bit diameters are and hole depth from up to .


title: Drill bit

text: The brad point drill bit (also known as lip and spur drill bit, and dowel drill bit) is a variation of the twist drill bit which is optimized for drilling in wood.


title: Drill bit

text: Conventional twist drill bits tend to wander when presented to a flat workpiece. For metalwork, this is countered by drilling a pilot hole with a spotting drill bit. In wood, the brad point drill bit is another solution: the center of the drill bit is given not the straight chisel of the twist drill bit, but a spur with a sharp point, and four sharp corners to cut the wood. While drilling, the sharp point of the spur pushes into the soft wood to keep the drill bit in line.


title: Drill bit

text: Metals are typically isotropic, so even an ordinary twist drill bit will shear the edges of the hole cleanly. "Wood" drilled across the grain, however, produces long strands of wood fiber. These long strands tend to pull out of the hole, rather than being cleanly cut at the hole edge. The brad point drill bit has the outside corner of the cutting edges leading, so that it cuts the periphery of the hole before the inner parts of the cutting edges plane off the base of the hole. By cutting the periphery first, the lip maximizes the chance that the fibers can be cut cleanly, rather than having to be pulled messily from the timber.


title: Drill bit

text: Brad point drill bits are also effective in soft plastic. When using conventional twist drill bits in a handheld drill, where the drilling direction is not maintained perfectly throughout the operation, there is a tendency for hole edges to be "smeared" due to side friction and heat.


title: Drill bit

text: In metal, the brad point drill bit is confined to drilling only the thinnest and softest sheet metals, ideally with a drill press. The bits have an extremely fast cutting tool geometry: no point angle, combined with a large (considering the flat cutting edge) lip angle, causes the edges to take a very aggressive cut with relatively little point pressure. This means these bits tend to bind in metal; given a workpiece of sufficient thinness, they have a tendency to punch through and leave the bit's cross-sectional geometry behind.


title: Drill bit

text: Spade bits are used for rough boring in wood. They tend to cause splintering when they emerge from the workpiece. Woodworkers avoid splintering by finishing the hole from the opposite side of the work. Spade bits are flat, with a centering point and two cutters. The cutters are often equipped with spurs in an attempt to ensure a cleaner hole. With their small shank diameters relative to their boring diameters, spade bit shanks often have flats forged or ground into them to prevent slipping in drill chucks. Some bits are equipped with long shanks and have a small hole drilled through the flat part, allowing them to be used much like a bell-hanger bit. Intended for high speed use, they are used with electric hand drills. Spade bits are also sometimes referred to as "paddle bits".


title: Drill bit

text: Spoon bits consist of a grooved shank with a point shaped somewhat like the bowl of a spoon, with the cutting edge on the end. The more common type is like a gouge bit that ends in a slight point. This is helpful for starting the hole, as it has a center that will not wander or walk. These bits are used by chair-makers for boring or reaming holes in the seats and arms of chairs. Their design is ancient, going back to Roman times. Spoon bits have even been found in Viking excavations. Modern spoon bits are made of hand-forged carbon steel, carefully heat-treated and then hand ground to a fine edge.


title: Drill bit

text: Spoon bits are the traditional boring tools used with a brace. They should never be used with a power drill of any kind. Their key advantage over regular brace bits and power drill bits is that the angle of the hole can be adjusted. This is very important in chairmaking, because all the angles are usually eyeballed. Another advantage is that they do not have a lead screw, so they can be drilled successfully in a chair leg without having the lead screw peek out the other side.


title: Drill bit

text: When reaming a pre-bored straight-sided hole, the spoon bit is inserted into the hole and rotated in a clockwise direction with a carpenters' brace until the desired taper is achieved. When boring into solid wood, the bit should be started in the vertical position; after a "dish" has been created and the bit has begun to "bite" into the wood, the angle of boring can be changed by tilting the brace a bit out of the vertical. Holes can be drilled precisely, cleanly and quickly in any wood, at any angle of incidence, with total control of direction and the ability to change that direction at will.


title: Drill bit

text: Parallel spoon bits are used primarily for boring holes in the seat of a Windsor chair to take the back spindles, or similar round-tenon work when assembling furniture frames in green woodworking work.


title: Drill bit

text: The spoon bit may be honed by using a slipstone on the inside of the cutting edge; the outside edge should never be touched.


title: Drill bit

text: Forstner bits, named after their inventor, Benjamin Forstner, bore precise, flat-bottomed holes in wood, in any orientation with respect to the wood grain. They can cut on the edge of a block of wood, and can cut overlapping holes; for such applications they are normally used in drill presses or lathes rather than in hand-held electric drills. Because of the flat bottom of the hole, they are useful for drilling through veneer already glued to add an inlay.


title: Drill bit

text: The bit includes a center brad point which guides it throughout the cut (and incidentally spoils the otherwise flat bottom of the hole). The cylindrical cutter around the perimeter shears the wood fibers at the edge of the bore, and also helps guide the bit into the material more precisely. Forstner bits have radial cutting edges to plane off the material at the bottom of the hole. The bits shown in the images have two radial edges; other designs may have more. Forstner bits have no mechanism to clear chips from the hole, and therefore must be pulled out periodically.


title: Drill bit

text: Sawtooth bits are also available, which include many more cutting edges to the cylinder. These cut faster, but produce a more ragged hole. They have advantages over Forstner bits when boring into end grain.


title: Drill bit

text: Originally the Forstner bit was very successful with gunsmiths because of its ability to drill an exceedingly smooth-sided hole.


title: Drill bit

text: The center bit is optimized for drilling in wood with a hand brace. Many different designs have been produced.


title: Drill bit

text: The center of the bit is a tapered screw thread. This screws into the wood as the bit is turned, and pulls the bit into the wood. There is no need for any force to push the bit into the workpiece, only the torque to turn the bit. This is ideal for a bit for a hand tool. The radial cutting edges remove a slice of wood of thickness equal to the pitch of the central screw for each rotation of the bit. To pull the bit from the hole, either the female thread in the wood workpiece must be stripped, or the rotation of the bit must be reversed.


title: Drill bit

text: The edge of the bit has a sharpened spur to cut the fibers of the wood, as in the brad point drill bit. A radial cutting edge planes the wood from the base of the hole. In this version, there is minimal or no spiral to remove chips from the hole. The bit must be periodically withdrawn to clear the chips.


title: Drill bit

text: Center bits do not cut well in the end grain of wood. The central screw tends to pull out, or to split the wood along the grain, and the radial edges have trouble cutting through the long wood fibers.


title: Drill bit

text: The cutting principles of the auger bit are the same as those of the center bit above. The auger adds a long deep spiral flute for effective chip removal.


title: Drill bit

text: Two styles of auger bit are commonly used in hand braces: the Jennings or Jennings-pattern bit has a self-feeding screw tip, two spurs and two radial cutting edges. This bit has a double flute starting from the cutting edges, and extending several inches up the shank of the bit, for waste removal. This pattern of bit was developed by Russell Jennings in the mid-19th century.


title: Drill bit

text: The Irwin or solid-center auger bit is similar, the only difference being that one of the cutting edges has only a "vestigal flute" supporting it, which extends only about up the shank before ending. The other flute continues full-length up the shank for waste removal. The Irwin bit may afford greater space for waste removal, greater strength (because the design allows for a center shank of increased size within the flutes, as compared to the Jenning bits), or smaller manufacturing costs. This style of bit was invented in 1884, and the rights sold to Charles Irwin who patented and marketed this pattern the following year.


title: Drill bit

text: Both styles of auger bits were manufactured by several companies throughout the early- and mid-20th century, and are still available new from select sources today.


title: Drill bit

text: The diameter of auger bits for hand braces is commonly expressed by a single number, indicating the size in 16ths of an inch. For example, #4 is 4/16 or 1/4 in (6 mm), #6 is 6/16 or 3/8 in (9 mm), #9 is 9/16 in (14 mm), and #16 is 16/16 or 1 in (25 mm). Sets commonly consist of #4-16 or #4-10 bits.


title: Drill bit

text: The bit shown in the picture is a modern design for use in portable power tools, made in the UK in about 1995. It has a single spur, a single radial cutting edge and a single flute. Similar auger bits are made with diameters from 6 mm (3/16 in) to 30 mm (1 3/16 in). Augers up to long are available, where the chip-clearing capability is especially valuable for drilling deep holes.


title: Drill bit

text: The gimlet bit is a very old design. The bit is the same style as that used in the gimlet, a self-contained tool for boring small holes in wood by hand. Since about 1850, gimlets have had a variety of cutter designs, but some are still produced with the original version. The gimlet bit is intended to be used in a hand brace for drilling into wood. It is the usual style of bit for use in a brace for holes below about diameter.


title: Drill bit

text: The tip of the gimlet bit acts as a tapered screw, to draw the bit into the wood and to begin forcing aside the wood fibers, without necessarily cutting them. The cutting action occurs at the side of the broadest part of the cutter. Most drill bits cut the base of the hole. The gimlet bit cuts the side of the hole.


title: Drill bit

text: The hinge sinker bit is an example of a custom drill bit design for a specific application. Many European kitchen cabinets are made from particle board or medium-density fiberboard (MDF) with a laminated melamine resin veneer. Those types of pressed wood boards are not very strong, and the screws of butt hinges tend to pull out. A specialist hinge has been developed which uses the walls of a diameter hole, bored in the particle board, for support. This is a very common and relatively successful construction method.


title: Drill bit

text: A Forstner bit could bore the mounting hole for the hinge, but particle board and MDF are very abrasive materials, and steel cutting edges soon wear. A tungsten carbide cutter is needed, but the complex shape of a forstner bit is difficult to manufacture in carbide, so this special drill bit with a simpler shape is commonly used. It has cutting edges of tungsten carbide brazed to a steel body; a center spur keeps the bit from wandering.


title: Drill bit

text: An adjustable wood bit, also known as an expansive wood bit, has a small center pilot bit with an adjustable, sliding cutting edge mounted above it, usually containing a single sharp point at the outside, with a set screw to lock the cutter in position. When the cutting edge is centered on the bit, the hole drilled will be small, and when the cutting edge is slid outwards, a larger hole is drilled. This allows a single drill bit to drill a wide variety of holes, and can take the place of a large, heavy set of different size bits, as well as providing uncommon bit sizes. A ruler or vernier scale is usually provided to allow precise adjustment of the bit size.


title: Drill bit

text: These bits are available both in a version similar to an auger bit or brace bit, designed for low speed, high torque use with a brace or other hand drill (pictured to the right), or as a high speed, low torque bit meant for a power drill. While the shape of the cutting edges is different, and one uses screw threads and the other a twist bit for the pilot, the method of adjusting them remains the same.


title: Drill bit

text: The diamond masonry mortar bit is a hybrid drill bit, designed to work as a combination router and drill bit. It consists of a steel shell, with the diamonds embedded in metal segments attached to the cutting edge. These drill bits are used at relatively low speeds.


title: Drill bit

text: The masonry bit shown here is a variation of the twist drill bit. The bulk of the tool is a relatively soft steel, and is machined with a mill rather than ground. An insert of tungsten carbide is brazed into the steel to provide the cutting edges.


title: Drill bit

text: Masonry bits typically are used with a hammer drill, which hammers the bit into the material being drilled as it rotates; the hammering breaks up the masonry at the drill bit tip, and the rotating flutes carry away the dust. Rotating the bit also brings the cutting edges onto a fresh portion of the hole bottom with every hammer blow. Hammer drill bits often use special shank shapes such as the SDS type, which allows the bit to slide within the chuck when hammering, without the whole heavy chuck executing the hammering motion.


title: Drill bit

text: Masonry bits of the style shown are commonly available in diameters from 3 mm to 40 mm. For larger diameters, core bits are used. Masonry bits up to long can be used with hand-portable power tools, and are very effective for installing wiring and plumbing in existing buildings.


title: Drill bit

text: A , similar in appearance and function to a hole punch or chisel, is used as a hand powered drill in conjunction with a hammer to drill into stone and masonry. A star drill bit's cutting edge consists of several blades joined at the center to form a star pattern.


title: Drill bit

text: Glass bits have a spade-shaped carbide point. They generate high temperatures and have a very short life. Holes are generally drilled at low speed with a succession of increasing bit sizes. Diamond drill bits can also be used to cut holes in glass, and last much longer.


title: Drill bit

text: A great number of holes with small diameters of about 1 mm or less must be drilled in printed circuit boards (PCBs) used by electronic equipment with through-hole components. Most PCBs are made of highly abrasive fiberglass, which quickly wears steel bits, especially given the hundreds or thousands of holes on most circuit boards. To solve this problem, solid tungsten carbide twist bits, which drill quickly through the board while providing a moderately long life, are almost always used. Carbide PCB bits are estimated to outlast high-speed steel bits by a factor of ten or more. Other options sometimes used are diamond or diamond-coated bits.


title: Drill bit

text: In industry, virtually all drilling is done by automated machines, and the bits are often automatically replaced by the equipment as they wear, as even solid carbide bits do not last long in constant use. PCB bits, of narrow diameter, typically mount in a collet rather than a chuck, and come with standard-size shanks, often with pre-installed stops to set them at an exact depth every time when being automatically chucked by the equipment.


title: Drill bit

text: Very high rotational speeds—30,000 to 100,000 RPM or even higher—are used; this translates to a reasonably fast linear speed of the cutting tip in these very small diameters. The high speed, small diameter, and the brittleness of the material, make the bits very vulnerable to breaking, particularly if the angle of the bit to the workpiece changes at all, or the bit contacts any object. Drilling by hand is not practical, and many general-purpose drilling machines designed for larger bits rotate too slowly and wobble too much to use carbide bits effectively.


title: Drill bit

text: Resharpened and easily available PCB drills have historically been used in many prototyping and home PCB labs, using a high-speed rotary tool for small-diameter bits (such as a Moto-Tool by Dremel) in a stiff drill-press jig. If used for other materials these tiny bits must be evaluated for equivalent cutting speed vs material resistance to the cut (hardness), as the bit's rake angle and expected feed per revolution are optimised for high-speed automated use on fiberglass PCB substrate.


title: Drill bit

text: Installer bits, also known as bell-hanger bits or fishing bits, are a type of twist drill bit for use with a hand-portable power tool. The key distinguishing feature of an installer bit is a transverse hole drilled through the web of the bit near the tip. Once the bit has penetrated a wall, a wire can be threaded through the hole and the bit pulled back out, pulling the wire with it. The wire can then be used to pull a cable or pipe back through the wall. This is especially helpful where the wall has a large cavity, where threading a fish tape could be difficult. Some installer bits have a transverse hole drilled at the shank end as well. Once a hole has been drilled, the wire can be threaded through the shank end, the bit released from the chuck, and all pulled forward through the drilled hole. These bits are made for cement, block and brick; they are not for drilling into wood. Sinclair Smith of Brooklyn, New York was issued for this invention on January 25, 1898.


title: Drill bit

text: Another, different, bit also called an installer bit has a very long flexible shaft, typically up to long, with a small twist bit at the end. The shaft is made of spring steel instead of hardened steel, so it can be flexed while drilling without breaking. This allows the bit to be curved inside walls, for example to drill through studs from a light switch box without needing to remove any material from the wall. These bits usually come with a set of special tools to aim and flex the bit to reach the desired location and angle, although the problem of seeing where the operator is drilling still remains.


title: Drill bit

text: This flexible installer bit is used in the US, but does not appear to be routinely available in Europe.


title: Drill bit

text: Different shapes of shank are used. Some are simply the most appropriate for the chuck used; in other cases particular combinations of shank and chuck give performance advantages, such as allowing higher torque, greater centering accuracy, or efficient hammering action.


title: Omnism

text: Omnism is the recognition and respect of all religions and their gods or lack thereof. Those who hold this belief are called omnists, sometimes written as omniest. In recent years, the term has been resurfacing due to the interest of modern-day self-described omnists who have rediscovered and begun to redefine the term. Omnism is similar to syncretism, the belief in a fusion of faiths in harmony. However, it can also be seen as a way to accept the existence of various religions without believing in all that they profess to teach. Many omnists say that all religions contain truths, but that no one religion offers all that is truth.


title: Omnism

text: Contemporary usage has modified "belief in all religions" to refer more to an acceptance of the legitimacy of all religions. The "Oxford English Dictionary" elaborates that an omnist believes "in a single transcendent purpose or cause uniting all things or people". That is not necessarily the conclusion of those who describe themselves as omnists. Some omnists interpret this to mean that all religions contain varying elements of a common truth, or place omnism in opposition to dogmatism, in that omnists are open to potential truths from all religions. However, this does not mean that there is a single transcendent purpose or cause that unites. There may indeed be an infinite number of possibilities, or a deeper form of uncertainty in reality. There may be an influence more akin to existentialism in which consciousness is a power or force that helps determine the reality, yet is not a divine influence.


title: Omnism

text: The Oxford dictionary defines an omnist as "a person who believes in all faiths or creeds; a person who believes in a single transcendent purpose or cause uniting all things or people, or the members of a particular group of people".


title: Omnism

text: In this regard, omnism does not appear to be a form of theology, as it neither espouses nor opposes particular beliefs about God. Instead, it affirms the necessity of one arriving at an understanding of reality based on personal experience, engagement, and inquiry, and an acceptance of the validity and legitimacy of the differing understandings of others. In this, there is, however, an implied system of values or ethics.


title: Pantanal

text: The Pantanal () is a natural region encompassing the world's largest tropical wetland area, and the world's largest flooded grasslands. It is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but it extends into Mato Grosso and portions of Bolivia and Paraguay. It sprawls over an area estimated at between . Various subregional ecosystems exist, each with distinct hydrological, geological and ecological characteristics; up to 12 of them have been defined.


title: Pantanal

text: Roughly 80% of the Pantanal floodplains are submerged during the rainy seasons, nurturing a biologically diverse collection of aquatic plants and helping to support a dense array of animal species.


title: Pantanal

text: The name "Pantanal" comes from the Portuguese word "pântano" that means "big wetland", "big bog", "big swamp", "big quagmire" or "big marsh" plus the suffix "-al", that means "abundance, agglomeration, collection"; By comparison, the Brazilian highlands are locally referred to as the "planalto", that means "plateau" or, literally, "high plain".


title: Pantanal

text: The Pantanal is about , gently-sloped basin that receives runoff from the upland areas (the Planalto highlands) and slowly releases the water through the Paraguay River and tributaries. The formation is a result of the large, concave pre-Andean depression of the earth's crust, related to the Andean orogeny of the Tertiary. It constitutes an enormous internal river delta, in which several rivers flowing from the surrounding plateau merge, depositing their sediments and erosion residues, which have been filling, throughout the years, the large depression area of the Pantanal. This area is also one of the distinct physiographic provinces of the larger Parana-Paraguay Plain area, which encompasses a total of .


title: Pantanal

text: The Pantanal is bounded by the Chiquitano dry forests to the west and northwest, by the Arid Chaco dry forests to the southwest, and the Humid Chaco to the south. The Cerrado savannas lie to the north, east and southeast. The Pantanal is a tropical wet and dry region with an average annual temperate of and rainfall at a year. Throughout the year, temperature varies about with the warmest month being November (with an average temperature of ) and the coldest month being June (with an average temperature of ). Its wettest month is January (with an average of ) and its driest is June (with an average of ).


title: Pantanal

text: Floodplain ecosystems such as the Pantanal are defined by their seasonal inundation and desiccation. They shift between phases of standing water and phases of dry soil, when the water table can be well below the root region. Soils range from high levels of sand in higher areas to higher amounts of clay and silt in riverine areas.


title: Pantanal

text: Elevation of the Pantanal ranges from above sea level. Annual rainfall over the flood basin is between , with most rainfall occurring between November and March. Annual average precipitation ranged from 920 to 1,540 mm in the years 1968-2000. In the Paraguay River portion of the Pantanal, water levels rise between two meters to five meters seasonally; water fluctuations in other parts of the Pantanal are less than this. Flood waters tend to flow slowly ( per second) due to the low gradients and high resistance offered by the dense vegetation.


title: Pantanal

text: When rising river waters first contact previously dry soil, the waters become oxygen-depleted, rendering the water environs anoxic. Many natural fish kills can occur if there are no oxygenated water refuges available. The reason for this remains speculative: it may be due to the growth of toxin-producing bacteria in the deoxygenated water rather than as a direct result of lack of oxygen.


title: Pantanal

text: The vegetation of the Pantanal, often referred to as the "Pantanal complex", is a mixture of plant communities typical of a variety of surrounding biome regions: these include moist tropical Amazonian rainforest plants, semiarid woodland plants typical of northeast Brazil, Brazilian "cerrado" savanna plants and plants of the "Chaco" savannas of Bolivia and Paraguay. Forests usually occur at higher altitudes of the region, while grasslands cover the seasonally inundated areas. The key limiting factors for growth are inundation and, even more importantly, water-stress during the dry season.


title: Pantanal

text: According to Embrapa, approximately 2,000 different plants have been identified in the Pantanal biome and classified according to their potential, with some presenting significant medicinal promise.


title: Pantanal

text: The Pantanal ecosystem is home to some 463 species of birds, 269 species of fishes, more than 236 species of mammals, 141 species of reptiles and amphibians, and over 9,000 subspecies of invertebrates.


title: Pantanal

text: The apple snail is a keystone species in Pantanal's ecosystem. When the wetlands are flooded once a year, the grass and other plants will eventually die and start to decay. During this process, decomposing microbes deplete the shallow water of all oxygen, suffocating larger decomposers. Unlike other decomposing animals, the apple snails have both gills and lungs, making it possible for them to thrive in anoxic waters where they recycle the nutrients. To get oxygen, they extend a long snorkel to the water surface, pumping air into their lungs. This ability allows them to consume all the dead plant matter and turn it into nutritious fertilizer available for the plants in the area. The snails themselves are also food for a variety of animals.


title: Pantanal

text: Among the rarest animals to inhabit the wetland of the Pantanal are the marsh deer ("Blastocerus dichotomus") and the giant river otter ("Pteronura brasiliensis"). Parts of the Pantanal are also home to the following endangered or threatened species: the hyacinth macaw ("Anodorhyncus hyacinthinus") (a bird endangered due to smuggling), the crowned solitary eagle, the maned wolf ("Chrysocyon brachyurus"), the bush dog ("Speothos venaticus"), the South American tapir ("Tapirus terrestris") and the giant anteater ("Myrmecophaga tridactyla"). Common species in the Pantanal include the capybara ("Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris"), Ocelot "(Leopardus pardalis)" and the yacare caiman ("Caiman yacare"). According to 1996 data, there were 10 million caimans in the Pantanal, making it the highest concentration of crocodilians in the World.


title: Pantanal

text: There are thirteen species of herons and egrets, six species of ibises and spoonbills, and five species of kingfishers that use the Pantanal as a breeding and feeding ground. There are nineteen species of parrots documented in the Pantanal, including five species of macaws. Some migratory birds include the American golden plover, Peregrine falcon, and the Bobolink.


title: Pantanal

text: Most fish are detritivores, primarily ingesting fine particles from sediments and plant surfaces. This is characteristic of fish living in South American flood-plains in general. Fish migration between river channels and flood-plain regions occurs seasonally. These fish have many adaptations that allow them to survive in the oxygen-depleted flood-plain waters.


title: Pantanal

text: In addition to the caiman, some of the reptiles that inhabit the Pantanal are the yellow anaconda ("Eunectes notaeus"), the gold tegu ("Tupinambis teguixin"), the red-footed tortoise ("Geochelone carbonaria") and the green iguana ("Iguana iguana").


title: Pantanal

text: The Pantanal region includes essential sanctuaries for migratory birds, critical nursery grounds for aquatic life, and refuges for such creatures as the yacare caiman, deer, and Pantanal jaguar. It is important to note that most species are not under threat due to the low deforestation rates (less than 17%) of native vegetation now in the area due to new regulations.


title: Pantanal

text: A portion of the Pantanal in Brazil has been protected as the Pantanal Matogrossense National Park. This park, established in September 1981, is located in the municipality of Poconé in the State of Mato Grosso, between the mouths of the Baía de São Marcos and the Gurupi Rivers. The park was designated a Ramsar Site of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention on May 24, 1993.


title: Pantanal

text: The SESC Pantanal Private Natural Heritage Reserve ("Reserva Particular do Patrimonio Natural SESC Pantanal") is a privately owned reserve in Brazil, established in 1998 and in size. It is located in the north-eastern portion, known as "Poconé" Pantanal, not far from the Pantanal National Park. It is a mix of permanent rivers, seasonal streams, permanent and seasonal floodplain freshwater lakes, shrub-dominated wetlands and seasonally flooded forests, all dedicated to nature preservation, and was designated a Ramsar Site of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention.


title: Pantanal

text: Otuquis National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area is a national park of Bolivia in the Pantanal. The entrance to Otuquis National park is through the town of Puerto Suarez.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Acacia s.l. (pronounced or ), known commonly as mimosa, acacia, thorntree or wattle, is a polyphyletic genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae. It was described by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773 based on the African species "Acacia nilotica". Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not. All species are pod-bearing, with sap and leaves often bearing large amounts of tannins and condensed tannins that historically found use as pharmaceuticals and preservatives.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: The genus "Acacia" constitutes, in its traditional circumspection, the second largest genus in Fabaceae ("Astragalus" being the largest), with roughly 1,300 species, about 960 of them native to Australia, with the remainder spread around the tropical to warm-temperate regions of both hemispheres, including Europe, Africa, southern Asia, and the Americas (see List of "Acacia" species). The genus was divided into five separate genera under the tribe "Acacieae". The genus now called "Acacia" represents the majority of the Australian species and a few native to southeast Asia, Réunion, and Pacific Islands. Most of the species outside Australia, and a small number of Australian species, are classified into "Vachellia" and "Senegalia". The two final genera, "Acaciella" and "Mariosousa", each contain about a dozen species from the Americas (but see "Classification" below for the ongoing debate concerning their taxonomy).


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: English botanist and gardener Philip Miller adopted the name "Acacia" in 1754. The generic name is derived from (), the name given by early Greek botanist-physician Pedanius Dioscorides (middle to late first century) to the medicinal tree "A. nilotica" in his book "Materia Medica". This name derives from the Ancient Greek word for its characteristic thorns, (; "thorn"). The species name "nilotica" was given by Linnaeus from this tree's best-known range along the Nile river. This became the type species of the genus.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: The traditional circumscription of "Acacia" eventually contained approximately 1,300 species. However, evidence began to accumulate that the genus as described was not monophyletic. Queensland botanist Les Pedley proposed the subgenus "Phyllodineae" be renamed "Racosperma" and published the binomial names. This was taken up in New Zealand but generally not followed in Australia, where botanists declared more study was needed.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Eventually, consensus emerged that "Acacia" needed to be split as it was not monophyletic. This led to Australian botanists Bruce Maslin and Tony Orchard pushing for the retypification of the genus with an Australian species instead of the original African type species, an exception to traditional rules of priority that required ratification by the International Botanical Congress. That decision has been controversial, and debate continued, with some taxonomists (and many other biologists) deciding to continue to use the traditional "Acacia sensu lato" circumscription of the genus, in defiance of decisions by an International Botanical Congress. However, a second International Botanical Congress has now confirmed the decision to apply the name "Acacia" to the mostly Australian plants, which some had been calling "Racosperma", and which had formed the overwhelming majority of "Acacia sensu lato". Debate continues regarding the traditional acacias of Africa, possibly placed in "Senegalia" and "Vachellia", and some of the American species, possibly placed in "Acaciella" and "Mariosousa".


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Acacias belong to the subfamily Mimosoideae, the major clades of which may have formed in response to drying trends and fire regimes that accompanied increased seasonality during the late Oligocene to early Miocene (~25 mya). Pedley (1978), following Vassal (1972), viewed Acacia as comprising three large subgenera, but subsequently (1986) raised the rank of these groups to genera Acacia, "Senegalia" ("s.l.") and "Racosperma", which was underpinned by later genetic studies.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: In common parlance, the term "acacia" is occasionally applied to species of the genus "Robinia", which also belongs in the pea family. "Robinia pseudoacacia", an American species locally known as black locust, is sometimes called "false acacia" in cultivation in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: The leaves of acacias are compound pinnate in general. In some species, however, more especially in the Australian and Pacific Islands species, the leaflets are suppressed, and the leaf-stalks (petioles) become vertically flattened in order to serve the purpose of leaves. These are known as "phyllodes". The vertical orientation of the phyllodes protects them from intense sunlight since with their edges towards the sky and earth they do not intercept light as fully as horizontally placed leaves. A few species (such as "Acacia glaucoptera") lack leaves or phyllodes altogether but instead possess cladodes, modified leaf-like photosynthetic stems functioning as leaves.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: The small flowers have five very small petals, almost hidden by the long stamens, and are arranged in dense, globular or cylindrical clusters; they are yellow or cream-colored in most species, whitish in some, or even purple ("Acacia purpureopetala") or red ("Acacia leprosa" 'Scarlet Blaze'). "Acacia" flowers can be distinguished from those of a large related genus, "Albizia", by their stamens, which are not joined at the base. Also, unlike individual "Mimosa" flowers, those of "Acacia" have more than ten stamens.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: The plants often bear spines, especially those species growing in arid regions. These sometimes represent branches that have become short, hard, and pungent, though they sometimes represent leaf-stipules. "Acacia armata" is the kangaroo-thorn of Australia, and "Acacia erioloba" (syn. "Acacia eriolobata") is the camelthorn of Africa.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Acacia seeds can be difficult to germinate. Research has found that immersing the seeds in various temperatures (usually around 80 °C (176 °F)) and manual seed coat chipping can improve growth to around 80%.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: In the Central American bullthorn acacias—"Acacia sphaerocephala", "Acacia cornigera" and "Acacia collinsii" — some of the spiny stipules are large, swollen and hollow. These afford shelter for several species of "Pseudomyrmex" ants, which feed on extrafloral nectaries on the leaf-stalk and small lipid-rich food-bodies at the tips of the leaflets called Beltian bodies. In return, the ants add protection to the plant against herbivores. Some species of ants will also remove competing plants around the acacia, cutting off the offending plants' leaves with their jaws and ultimately killing them. Other associated ant species appear to do nothing to benefit their hosts.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Similar mutualisms with ants occur on "Acacia" trees in Africa, such as the whistling thorn acacia. The acacias provide shelter for ants in similar swollen stipules and nectar in extrafloral nectaries for their symbiotic ants, such as "Crematogaster mimosae". In turn, the ants protect the plant by attacking large mammalian herbivores and stem-boring beetles that damage the plant.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: The predominantly herbivorous spider "Bagheera kiplingi", which is found in Central America and Mexico, feeds on nubs at the tips of the acacia leaves, known as Beltian bodies, which contain high concentrations of protein. These nubs are produced by the acacia as part of a symbiotic relationship with certain species of ant, which also eat them.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: In Australia, "Acacia" species are sometimes used as food plants by the larvae of hepialid moths of the genus "Aenetus" including "A. ligniveren". These burrow horizontally into the trunk then vertically down. Other Lepidoptera larvae which have been recorded feeding on "Acacia" include brown-tail, "Endoclita malabaricus" and turnip moth. The leaf-mining larvae of some bucculatricid moths also feed on "Acacia"; "Bucculatrix agilis" feeds exclusively on "Acacia horrida" and "Bucculatrix flexuosa" feeds exclusively on "Acacia nilotica".


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: In Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand, the feathery shoots of "Acacia pennata" (common name "cha-om", ชะอม and "su pout ywet" in Burmese) are used in soups, curries, omelettes, and stir-fries.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Various species of acacia yield gum. True gum arabic is the product of "Acacia senegal", abundant in dry tropical West Africa from Senegal to northern Nigeria.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: "Acacia nilotica" (syn. "Acacia arabica") is the gum arabic tree of India, but yields a gum inferior to the true gum arabic. Gum arabic is used in a wide variety of food products, including some soft drinks and confections.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: The gum of "Acacia xanthophloea" and "Acacia karroo" has a high sugar content and is sought out by the lesser bushbaby. "Acacia karroo" gum was once used for making confectionery and traded under the name "Cape Gum". It was also used medicinally to treat cattle suffering poisoning by "Moraea" species.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: "Acacia" species have possible uses in folk medicine. A 19th-century Ethiopian medical text describes a potion made from an Ethiopian species (known as "grar") mixed with the root of the "tacha", then boiled, as a cure for rabies.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: An astringent medicine high in tannins, called catechu or cutch, is procured from several species, but more especially from "Senegalia catechu" (syn. "Acacia catechu"), by boiling down the wood and evaporating the solution so as to get an extract. The catechu extract from "A. catechu" figures in the history of chemistry in giving its name to the catechin, catechol, and catecholamine chemical families ultimately derived from it.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: A few species are widely grown as ornamentals in gardens; the most popular perhaps is "A. dealbata" (silver wattle), with its attractive glaucous to silvery leaves and bright yellow flowers; it is erroneously known as "mimosa" in some areas where it is cultivated, through confusion with the related genus "Mimosa".


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Another ornamental acacia is the fever tree. Southern European florists use "A. baileyana", "A. dealbata", "A. pycnantha" and "A. retinodes" as cut flowers and the common name there for them is mimosa.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Ornamental species of acacias are also used by homeowners and landscape architects for home security. The sharp thorns of some species are a deterrent to trespassing, and may prevent break-ins if planted under windows and near drainpipes. The aesthetic characteristics of acacia plants, in conjunction with their home security qualities, makes them a reasonable alternative to constructed fences and walls.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: "Acacia farnesiana" is used in the perfume industry due to its strong fragrance. The use of acacia as a fragrance dates back centuries.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Egyptian mythology has associated the acacia tree with characteristics of the tree of life, such as in the Myth of Osiris and Isis.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Several parts (mainly bark, root, and resin) of "Acacia" species are used to make incense for rituals. Acacia is used in incense mainly in India, Nepal, and China including in its Tibet region. Smoke from acacia bark is thought to keep demons and ghosts away and to put the gods in a good mood. Roots and resin from acacia are combined with rhododendron, acorus, cytisus, salvia, and some other components of incense. Both people and elephants like an alcoholic beverage made from acacia fruit.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: According to Easton's Bible Dictionary, the acacia tree may be the "burning bush" (Exodus 3:2) which Moses encountered in the desert. Also, when God gave Moses the instructions for building the Tabernacle, he said to "make an ark" and "a table of acacia wood" (Exodus 25:10 & 23, Revised Standard Version). Also, in the Christian tradition, Christ's crown of thorns is thought to have been woven from acacia.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Acacia was used for Zulu warriors' iziQu (or isiKu) beads, which passed on through Robert Baden-Powell to the Scout movement's Wood Badge training award.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: In Russia, Italy, and other countries, it is customary to present women with yellow mimosas (among other flowers) on International Women's Day (March 8). These "mimosas" may be from "A. dealbata" (silver wattle).


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: In 1918, May Gibbs, the popular Australian children's author, wrote the book 'Wattle Babies', in which a third-person narrator describes the lives of imaginary inhabitants of the Australian forests (the 'bush'). The main characters are the Wattle Babies, who are tiny people that look like acacia flowers and who interact with various forest creatures. Gibbs wrote "Wattle Babies are the sunshine of the Bush. In Winter, when the sky is grey and all the world seems cold, they put on their yellowest clothes and come out, for they have such cheerful hearts." Gibbs was referring to the fact that an abundance of acacias flower in August in Australia, in the midst of the southern hemisphere winter.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: The bark of various Australian species, known as wattles, is very rich in tannin and forms an important article of export; important species include "A. pycnantha" (golden wattle), "A. decurrens" (tan wattle), "A. dealbata" (silver wattle) and "A. mearnsii" (black wattle).


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Black wattle is grown in plantations in South Africa and South America. The pods of "A. nilotica" (under the name of "neb-neb"), and of other African species, are also rich in tannin and used by tanners. In Yemen, the principal tannin substance was derived from the leaves of the salam-tree ("Acacia etbaica"), a tree known locally by the name "qaraẓ" ("garadh"). A bath solution of the crushed leaves of this tree, into which raw leather had been inserted for prolonged soaking, would take only 15 days for curing. The water and leaves, however, required changing after seven or eight days, and the leather needed to be turned over daily.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Some "Acacia" species are valuable as timber, such as "A. melanoxylon" (blackwood) from Australia, which attains a great size; its wood is used for furniture, and takes a high polish; and "A. omalophylla" (myall wood, also Australian), which yields a fragrant timber used for ornaments. "A. seyal" is thought to be the shittah-tree of the Bible, which supplied shittim-wood. According to the Book of Exodus, this was used in the construction of the Ark of the Covenant. "A. koa" from the Hawaiian Islands and "A. heterophylla" from Réunion are both excellent timber trees. Depending on abundance and regional culture, some "Acacia" species (e.g. "A. fumosa") are traditionally used locally as firewoods. It is also used to make homes for different animals.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: In Indonesia (mainly in Sumatra) and in Malaysia (mainly in Sabah), plantations of "A. mangium" are being established to supply pulpwood to the paper industry.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Acacia wood pulp gives high opacity and below average bulk paper. This is suitable in lightweight offset papers used for Bibles and dictionaries. It is also used in paper tissue where it improves softness.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: For the same reasons it is favored as an erosion-control plant, with its easy spreading and resilience, some varieties of acacia are potentially invasive species. At least fourteen "Acacia" species introduced to South Africa are categorized as invasive, due to their naturally aggressive propagation. One of the most globally significant invasive acacias is black wattle "A. mearnsii", which is taking over grasslands and abandoned agricultural areas worldwide, especially in moderate coastal and island regions where mild climate promotes its spread. Australian/New Zealand Weed Risk Assessment gives it a "high risk, score of 15" rating and it is considered one of the world's 100 most invasive species.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Extensive ecological studies should be performed before further introduction of acacia varieties, as this fast-growing genus, once introduced, spreads quickly and is extremely difficult to eradicate.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Nineteen different species of "Acacia" in the Americas contain cyanogenic glycosides, which, if exposed to an enzyme which specifically splits glycosides, can release hydrogen cyanide (HCN) in the "leaves". This sometimes results in the poisoning death of livestock.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: If fresh plant material spontaneously produces 200 ppm or more HCN, then it is potentially toxic. This corresponds to about 7.5 μmol HCN per gram of fresh plant material. It turns out that, if acacia "leaves" lack the specific glycoside-splitting enzyme, then they may be less toxic than otherwise, even those containing significant quantities of cyanic glycosides.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: Some "Acacia" species containing cyanogens include "Acacia erioloba", "A. cunninghamii", "A. obtusifolia", "A. sieberiana", and "A. sieberiana" var. "woodii"


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: The Arbre du Ténéré in Niger was the most isolated tree in the world, about from any other tree. The tree was knocked down by a truck driver in 1973.


title: Acacia sensu lato

text: In Nairobi, Kenya, the Thorn Tree Café is named after a Naivasha thorn tree ("Acacia xanthophloea") in its centre. Travelers used to pin notes to others to the thorns of the tree. The current tree is the third of the same variety.


title: Madge Sinclair

text: Madge Dorita Sinclair CD (née Walters; April 28, 1938 – December 20, 1995) was a Jamaican actress best known for her roles in "Cornbread, Earl and Me" (1975), "Convoy" (1978), "Coming to America" (1988), "Trapper John, M.D." (1980–1986), and the ABC TV miniseries "Roots" (1977). Sinclair also voiced the character of Sarabi, Mufasa's mate and Simba's mother, in the Disney animated feature film "The Lion King" (1994). A five-time Emmy Award nominee, Sinclair won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series for her role as "Empress" Josephine in "Gabriel's Fire" in 1991.


title: Madge Sinclair

text: Born Madge Dorita Walters in Kingston, Jamaica, to Jamaican parents Herbert and Jemima Walters, Sinclair studied at Shortwood College for Women. After completing her studies, she worked as a teacher in Jamaica until 1966, when she left for New York to pursue her career in acting. Sinclair began acting with Joseph Papp's Public Theatre. In 1971 she portrayed Clytemnestra in the New York Shakespearean Festival production of "The Wedding of Iphigenia".


title: Madge Sinclair

text: Sinclair made her film debut as Mrs. Scott in "Conrack" (1974) opposite Jon Voight; a role which earned her a nomination for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture. Her next major critical success was as Bell in the 1977 ABC mini-series "Roots" for which she received her first nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.


title: Madge Sinclair

text: Following "Roots", she starred in the 1978 film "Convoy" as the Widow Woman, and she played Leona Hamilton in "Cornbread, Earl and Me". Also in 1978, she co-starred in the short-lived sitcom "Grandpa Goes to Washington". Sinclair went on to a long-running stint in the 1980s as nurse Ernestine Shoop on the series "Trapper John, M.D." opposite Pernell Roberts. She received three Emmy nominations for her work on the show, and critic Donald Bogle praised her for "maintaining her composure and assurance no matter what the script imposed on her". In 1988, Sinclair played Queen Aoleon alongside James Earl Jones's King Jaffe Joffer in the Eddie Murphy comedy "Coming to America", which reunited her on screen with her "Roots" husband and co-star John Amos. Later, both Sinclair and Jones would reunite as the queen and king, respectively, for the roles of Sarabi and Mufasa, Simba’s parents, in the blockbuster Disney animated film "The Lion King" (1994). The film became one of the best-selling titles ever on home video. It would also be her last film role. The two also collaborated on the series "Gabriel's Fire", which earned Sinclair an Emmy in 1991 for Best Supporting Actress in a Dramatic Series, famously beating out the expected winner, "L.A. Law" Diana Muldaur.


title: Madge Sinclair

text: Sinclair played the role of Lally in the 1991 Channel 4 television miniseries "The Orchid House" (based on Phyllis Shand Allfrey's novel of the same name), directed by Horace Ové, and also received critical praise for her supporting role in the 1992 television movie "" with JoBeth Williams. In 1993, Sinclair came to London to appear on stage at the Cochrane Theatre in "The Lion", by Michael Abbensetts and directed by Horace Ové, for the Talawa Theatre Company. In 1994, she played a supporting role in the short-lived ABC-TV sitcom "Me and the Boys", which starred Steve Harvey. Sinclair, in her brief role as the captain of the USS "Saratoga" in "", is commonly cited as the first female Starfleet starship captain to appear in "Star Trek." Years later, Sinclair played Geordi La Forge's mother, captain of the USS "Hera", in ""<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "". Her final acting role was in an episode of the sitcom "Dream On", which first aired one month before her death.


title: Madge Sinclair

text: Sinclair was married to Royston Sinclair, a Jamaican police officer, from 1956 until 1969 and had two sons with him, Garry and Wayne Sinclair. In 1982, Sinclair married actor Dean Compton, to whom she was still married at the time of her death. Sinclair died on December 20, 1995, after a 13-year battle with leukemia. Her remains were cremated and her ashes were scattered in her hometown in Jamaica. She was awarded the Order of Distinction, rank of Commander, by the prime minister of Jamaica.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn ("Wuppertal Suspension Railway") is a suspension railway in Wuppertal, Germany.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: Its original name was ("Eugen Langen Monorail Overhead Conveyor System"). It is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world and is a unique system in Germany.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: Designed by Eugen Langen and offered first to the cities of Berlin, Munich, and Breslau who all turned it down, the installation with elevated stations was built in Barmen, Elberfeld, and Vohwinkel between 1897 and 1903; the first track opened in 1901. The railway line is credited with growth of the original cities and their eventual merger into Wuppertal. The " is still in use as a normal means of local public transport, moving 25 million passengers annually, per the 2008 annual report. New rail cars were ordered in 2015, called Generation 15, and the first new car went into service in December 2016.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The Schwebebahn runs along a route of , at a height of about above the River Wupper between and () and about above the valley road between and (). At one point the railway crosses the A46 motorway. The entire trip takes about 30 minutes. The Schwebebahn operates within the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) and accepts tickets issued by the VRR companies.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn had a forerunner: in 1824, Henry Robinson Palmer of Britain presented a railway system which differed from all previous constructions. It was a low single-rail suspension railway on which the carriages were drawn by horses. Friedrich Harkort, a Prussian industrial entrepreneur and politician, loved the idea. He saw big advantages for the transportation of coal to the early industrialised region in and around the Wupper valley. Harkort had his own steel mill in Elberfeld; he built a demonstration segment of the Palmer system and set it up in 1826 on the grounds of what is today the Wuppertal tax office. He tried to attract public attention to his railway plans.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: On 9 September 1826, the town councillors of Elberfeld met to discuss the use of a "Palmer's Railway" from the Ruhr region, Hinsbeck, or Langenberg, to the Wupper valley, Elberfeld, connecting Harkort's factories. Friedrich Harkort inspected the projected route with a surveyor and a member of the town council. The plans never went ahead because of protests from the transport branch and owners of mills that were not on the routes.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: In 1887 the cities of Elberfeld and Barmen formed a commission for the construction of an elevated railway or '. In 1894 they chose the system of the engineer Eugen Langen of Cologne, and in 1896 the order was licensed by the City of Düsseldorf. In 2003, the Rhine Heritage Office (' or LVR) announced the discovery of an original section of the test route of the Schwebebahn.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: Construction on the actual Schwebebahn began in 1898, overseen by the government's master builder, Wilhelm Feldmann. On 24 October 1900, Emperor Wilhelm II participated in a monorail trial run.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: In 1901 the railway came into operation. It opened in sections: the line from Kluse to Zoo/Stadion opened on 1 March, the line to the western terminus at Vohwinkel opened on 24 May, while the line to the eastern terminus at Oberbarmen did not open until 27 June 1903. Around of steel were used to produce the supporting frame and the stations. The construction cost 16 million gold marks. The railway was closed owing to severe damage during World War II, but reopened as early as 1946.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The Schwebebahn now carries approximately 80,000 passengers through the city per weekday. Since 1997, the supporting frame has been largely modernized, and many stations have been reconstructed and brought up to date technically. Kluse station, at the theatre in Elberfeld, was destroyed during the Second World War and was reconstructed during the modernization phase. Work was planned to be completed in 2001, but a serious accident took place in 1999 which left five people dead and 47 injured. That, along with delivery problems, delayed completion. By 2004, the cost of the reconstruction work had increased from €380 million to €480 million.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: On 15 December 2009, the Schwebebahn suspended its operations due to safety concerns. Several of the older support structures needed to be renewed, a process that was completed on 19 April 2010.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: In 2012, the Schwebebahn was closed for significant periods to allow upgrades to the system: from 7 to 21 July and 6 August to 22 October, and on weekends in September (15/16) and November (10/11). The modernization was completed and the line fully reopened on 19 August 2013.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: On 10 November 2011, " signed a contract with Vossloh Kiepe to supply a new fleet of Generation 15 or GTW 15 trains to gradually replace the ageing GTW 72 fleet. The 31 new articulated cars were assembled by Vossloh España in Valencia, Spain, featuring a light blue livery and having cushioned seating, air conditioning, information displays, LED lights, improved disabled access, and induction motors with energy recovery during braking. The first new train was commissioned by WSW in 2015 and entered regular passenger service on 18 December 2016, at which point the line's power supply voltage was raised from 600 to 750 V.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The GTW 72 stock was gradually withdrawn from service as the new trains were introduced, the last of which operated immediately prior to the line's shutdown in November 2018. WSW announced it would not scrap any of the GTW 72 stock, but instead offer 21 of the vehicles for sale and three for free, as long as they remained in the city of Wuppertal.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: In November 2018 a bus bar detached and fell to the ground but nobody was injured. Following this accident, the Schwebebahn was closed down for nearly nine months. It re-opened on 1 August 2019.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The cars are suspended from a single rail built underneath a supporting steel frame. The cars hang on wheels which are driven by multiple electric motors operating at 750 volts DC, fed from a live rail below the running rail.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: Until August 2019, the Schwebebahn used block signalling like other light- and heavy-rail systems. Signals with red, green, and yellow lights, present at every station, signalled the driver if the next block, usually continuing until the next station, was free or not. The yellow aspect was mostly used to warn about construction work ahead, while a blinking red light warned about more severe problems.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: Today, the Schwebebahn uses the European Train Control System, allowing for shorter distances between trains.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The supporting frame and tracks are made out of 486 pillars and bridgework sections. When the line was originally built, Anton Rieppel, head of MAN-Werk Gustavsburg, designed the structural system, which he patented. At each end of the line is a servicing depot, including a loop of track to allow the trains to be turned around.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The current fleet consists of 31 articulated cars. The cars are 24 metres long and have 4 doors. One carriage can seat 48 with approximately 130 standing passengers. The top speed is and the average speed is .


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The "" (Emperor's car), the original train used by Emperor Wilhelm II during a test ride on 24 October 1900, is still operated on scheduled excursion services, special occasions and for charter events.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The Schwebebahn is alluded to in Theodor Herzl's 1902 utopian novel "" ("The Old New Land"). For Herzl, the Schwebebahn was the ideal form of urban transport, and he imagined a large monorail built in its style in Haifa.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: A sequence in Lyrical Nitrate, using film from between 1905 and 1915, features the Schwebebahn. Rüdiger Vogler and Yella Rottländer's characters ride the Schwebebahn in Wim Wenders's 1974 movie "Alice in the Cities" ('). It also appears in the 1992 Dutch movie "The Sunday Child" (') by Pieter Verhoeff, in Tom Tykwer's 2000 film "The Princess and the Warrior" (""), and as a background to a number of outdoor dance choreographies in another Wim Wenders film – 2011's "Pina", where some dances are also set inside the cars.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The Schwebebahn is both subject and title of video work by the Turner Prize-nominated artist Darren Almond. Produced in 1995, Schwebebahn is the first of three videos that constitute his Train Trilogy.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: The denouement of the episode of the 1972 ITC TV series "The Adventurer" called "I'll Get There Sometime" takes place on the railway.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: In 2013 the "Schwebebahn Simulator 2013" was launched for Windows, Mac OS X and Wii U. In this simulator, the player controls the GTW 72.


title: Wuppertal Schwebebahn

text: In the "Add-on Wuppertal" DLC of the OMSI 2 bus simulator, there is the option for the player to control the Schwebebahn of the newest model (GTW 15), with all stations faithfully recreated.


title: The Idiot (album)

text: The Idiot is the debut studio album by American musician Iggy Pop, released on March 18, 1977, through RCA Records. After the break-up of his band the Stooges in 1974, Pop struggled with drug addiction. Although attempts to get sober proved unsuccessful, by 1976, he was ready to end his addiction. Pop accepted an invitation to accompany his friend David Bowie on his Isolar Tour. At the end of the tour, Pop agreed to join Bowie, also struggling with drug addiction, in moving to Europe to rid themselves of their addictions. The two settled into the Château d'Hérouville in Hérouville, where Bowie agreed to produce an album for Pop.


title: The Idiot (album)

text: Described by Pop as "a cross between James Brown and Kraftwerk", "The Idiot" marks a departure from the proto-punk of the Stooges to a more subdued, mechanical sound with electronic overtones. Recording for it began at the château in June 1976 and continued into July. Further sessions took place at Musicland Studios in Munich in August. Bowie composed most of the music and contributed a major portion of the instrumentation. Pop wrote most of the lyrics in response to the music Bowie was creating. The album's title was taken from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel of the same name, while Erich Heckel's painting "Roquairol" inspired its artwork.


title: The Idiot (album)

text: After the album was completed, Bowie began recording his next album "Low", which features a sound similar to "The Idiot". "Low" was released in January 1977 and was a commercial success, compelling RCA Records to release "The Idiot" two months later. Upon its release, the album received divided, albeit largely positive reviews from music critics, many of whom noted a change in musical tone from Pop's earlier work with the Stooges. It charted in the US, the UK, and Australia. It was accompanied by the release of two singles, "Sister Midnight" and "China Girl", in February and May 1977, respectively; Bowie later issued his own version of "China Girl" as a single in 1983.