title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: As a film fanatic, Imagawa perceived that referencing world cinema would help illustrate the real world settings in "G Gundam". The production staff primarily wished to utilize sightseeing guide books, but found that these books did not show the locations from the perspective of everyday people. The battlegrounds in the first several episodes were conveyed using a number of multimedia works including films by Federico Fellini, Woody Allen, Alfred Hitchcock, and Yılmaz Güney; films based on Wong Fei-hung; video clips of the band Swing Out Sister; music by the groups Genesis and Magma; and scenery from Monty Python acts. Each episode's introductory narration, provided by the character Stalker, was inspired by American television dramas such as "Star Trek" and "The Twilight Zone". In the same manner, certain "G Gundam" character names and their techniques were drawn from films, most prominently the Hong Kong "wuxia" genre. For instance, the alternate name of antagonist Master Asia, , is named directly after the protagonist of a film of the same title. Additionally, the villain Wong Yunfat is based heavily on Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat, specifically the actor's appearance in the film "God of Gamblers". Some elements in "G Gundam" were taken from other anime and manga. A key scene at the series midpoint involving the Shining Gundam's gold-colored "Super Mode" was inspired by "Saint Seiya". Another instance towards the show's climax, where the hero's rivals join him to fight a greater opposing force, was a commonly used motif in "Weekly Shōnen Jump" comics, most notably "Ring ni Kakero".


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: Some of the settings in "G Gundam" were planned using location scouting, a technique Imagawa learned while working on his directorial debut, "Mister Ajikko". He stated that this type of research can "upgrade" animation production quality when supplemented by indirect experience from watching films. For the prison in Neo Russia, Imagawa drew from the architecture of the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, which he coincidentally toured one year before "G Gundam"s development. When his superiors requested he restrict the show's setting to one location, Imagawa used the city Shinjuku (beginning in the 12th episode) as an opportunity for his staff to learn and practice location scouting within Japan. Changing countries every week in the show's early run was overwhelming for the set designers and background artists, yet the crew felt Imagawa "over-elaborate" on Shinjuku. The story transitioned to Guyana so that the artists could apply a simpler, dense forest environment. Once this portion of the anime's plot concluded, staff members flew to Hong Kong to research and record for the Neo Hong Kong story arc. Imagawa mentioned that Neo Hong Kong does not possess its own space colony in "G Gundam", so he wanted to accurately depict the country as one that continues to thrive on Earth. The director speculated that it would be difficult to illustrate Hong Kong due to its amount of detail, but he was very satisfied with the background artist's work.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: Imagawa credits himself for conceiving a majority of the various Gundams participating in the finals of the Neo Hong Kong arc. The director worked closely with mecha artists to create these "one-shot" opponents and found many of the comical and eccentric designs very charming, especially the windmill-shaped Hurricane Gundam of Neo Holland. The designs for Neo Singapore's Ashura Gundam and Neo Malaysia's Skull Gundam were included in the show as winners of contests held by the Kodansha publications "Comic BonBon" and "TV Magazine"; Imagawa expressed regret that these Gundams were used as enemy characters since they were designed by young fans of the anime.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: Around the 40th episode, Imagawa focused on adding a romantic theme into "G Gundam"s narrative. He explained that he was "not good at depicting female characters" when directing and he had not previously "written a 'normal' relationship of man and woman". "G Gundam" was Imagawa's first attempt at a "love story", though he admitted it took him the entire length of the series demonstrates this point. The show's final scene shows Domon and Rain riding off together on the horse Fuun Saiki; Imagawa sensed that the cliché of the hero with his damsel on a white horse was "the safe road" given the director's lack of experience with love stories. Imagawa polarized the production studio staff when he decided to insert the English phrase "Love-Love" into Domon and Rain's final attack against the Devil Gundam. Sunrise producer Masahiko Minami protested that it sounded so "unseemly" that he even confronted Imagawa about it at the director's home. However, Imagawa not only thought the phrase had a nice ring to it but wanted to include it because he had already found success in defying convention with "G Gundam". Imagawa was prepared to take the risk of any harsh criticism for its use in the finale. "I didn't even care if I wouldn't be able to work in the industry because of that 'Love-Love'," he said. "I truly believe that one cannot work as a director without enthusiasm and a love of challenges."


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: The "Mobile Fighter G Gundam" television series originally aired in Japan the terrestrial channel TV Asahi from April 22, 1994, to March 31, 1995, for a total of 49 episodes. The show would not reach North American audiences until many years later. "Mobile Suit Gundam Wing", a series that succeeded "G Gundam" on Japanese television in 1995, was first localized in North America by Bandai Entertainment in early 2000. "Gundam Wing" was a huge success in the United States while being broadcast on the popular afternoon Toonami block of Cartoon Network often beating block stalwarts "Dragon Ball Z" and "Sailor Moon" and was the highest-rated program on all of Cartoon Network for a time. In late 2001, Bandai acquired the rights to distribute an English-dubbed version of "G Gundam" with voice casting recorded by Ocean Productions in their Blue Water studio in Calgary, Alberta. The English-language version of "G Gundam" premiered as a free screening at the Sony Metreon Action Theatre in San Francisco on March 30, 2002. "G Gundam" began airing on Toonami on August 5, 2002. Due to the channel's censorship policies, some edits were made for the broadcast. This mainly involved altering the names of several mobile fighters, such as changing God Gundam and Devil Gundam to Burning Gundam and Dark Gundam respectively. The show was also aired on the channel's "Midnight Run" and as part of its Saturday programming in November 2002. Cartoon Network officially dropped "G Gundam" from its afternoon schedule the following June. The series has since been re-broadcast on the Japanese cable network Family Gekijo and the satellite channel Animax.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: Bandai Entertainment released "G Gundam" on DVD in North America in four box sets and in twelve separate volumes (each disc containing four to five episodes). The DVDs contain both the English-dubbed and Japanese-subtitled versions, as well as extras such as production notes from the director. The first three volumes and first box set were released on November 5, 2002. The second box set and next three volumes were released on February 4, 2003. The third box set and next three volumes were released on April 22, 2003. The final box set and last three volumes were released on June 17, 2003. Bandai re-released the series as part of its "Anime Legends" label in two larger collections on May 9 and June 27, 2006. "G Gundam" has had similar DVD releases in Japan; a collection containing the entire series was placed on sale October 27, 2010. "G Gundam" has further been made available on various video on demand services including Amazon Instant Video, the broadband access site Bandai Channel, and Bandai's official GundamInfo YouTube channel. Due to the closure of Bandai Entertainment, the series has been out-of-print. On October 11, 2014, at their 2014 New York Comic-Con panel, Sunrise announced they will be releasing all of the Gundam franchise, including "G Gundam" in North America though distribution from Right Stuf Inc., beginning in Spring 2015. On March 29, 2017, Crunchyroll began streaming the series on their website. Right Stuf will release the series on Blu-ray and DVD in 2018.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: A large amount of printed fiction related to "Mobile Fighter G Gundam" has been published since the original Japanese airing of the series. The first was a manga adaptation of the show, illustrated by Kōichi Tokita and serialized in Kodansha's "Comic BonBon" from April 1994 to April 1995. Three bound volumes ("tankōbon") collecting the individual chapters were released by Kodansha between October 6, 1994, and May 6, 1995. During the airing of the TV series in North America, Tokyopop acquired the rights to publish an English-translated version of the manga. All three volumes were released between June 17 and October 7, 2003. A light novel adaptation of the TV series by Yoshitake Suzuki was published in three books by Kadokawa Shoten under its "Sneaker Bunko" label between August 29, 1995, and March 1, 1997. In addition to the adaptations, a plethora of one-shot side stories and spin-offs to the main plot that have been published in various Japanese magazines. Two manga were serialized in certain editions of Kodansha's "Comic BonBon". The first was a side story titled , detailing Sai Sai Ci's journey to improve his fighting skills after losing to Domon in the 13th Gundam Fight finals. The manga was written and illustrated by Toshiya Murakami, serialized from December 1994 to April 1995 and released as a "tankōbon" on June 6, 1995. The second was a prequel story titled , telling of a young Master Asia's participation in the 7th Gundam Fight. Authored by Kitarou Ototoi, this manga was serialized from March to December 1996 and released in "tankōbon" form on January 8, 1997.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: From 2010 to 2016, Kadokawa Shoten's "Gundam Ace" magazine serialized a 26-volume "G Gundam" manga retelling written by series director Yasuhiro Imagawa and illustrated by the show's character collaborator Kazuhiko Shimamoto with his associated Honō Production studio. Imagawa described this manga as "the complete version of the story, the master work version". The first part, titled , was serialized from July 26, 2010, to August 26, 2011; seven "tankōbon" were released from December 25, 2010, to December 26, 2011. The second part, subtitled , was serialized from September 26, 2011 to January 26, 2013; eight "tankōbon" were released from December 26, 2011 to July 26, 2013. A third part, subtitled , was serialized from February 26, 2013 to 2015; seven "tankōbon" volumes were released from July 26, 2013 to August 26, 2015. A fourth and final part, subtitled , was serialized from 2015 to August 26, 2016; four "tankōbon" volumes were released from August 26, 2015 to September 26, 2016.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: A total of four soundtrack albums containing the background and vocal music of "Mobile Fighter G Gundam" were released during the show's original television run in Japan. All of them were republished by Starchild on March 5, 1999. The first album, "Round 1 & 2", is two discs of music. The second album, "Round 3", contains music and a special audio drama featuring the show's Japanese voice actors. The third album, "Round 4", contains the rest of the background music. The final album, "Round 5", features vocal image songs performed by the voice cast as well as instrumental versions of the show's two opening themes. Vocal songs from the show have also been included on various "Gundam" music compilations.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: Bandai has published three Japan-exclusive fighting video games based solely on "Mobile Fighter G Gundam". The first game, developed by Pandora Box for the Super Famicom, was released on December 27, 1994. The second game, also developed by Natsume, was released for the PlayStation on October 10, 2002, as the 12th volume of the Simple Characters 2000 series. The third game was released for mobile phones supported by Japan's i-mode and FOMA services on November 6, 2006. In addition, characters and mecha from "G Gundam" have appeared in various "Gundam" crossover games such as "", the "SD Gundam G Generation" series, the "" series, and Banpresto's "Super Robot Wars" franchise, among others.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: Bandai has marketed a large amount of collectible merchandise based on "G Gundam" in both Japanese and North American territories. This includes plastic model kits ranging from 1:144 to 1:60 scales; expensive garage kits made from resin; and action figures, some of which are exclusive to North America. Sunrise produced a promotional short film centered on "G Gundam" as the third entry of an OVA series known as "Gundam Evolve", packaged as a limited edition bonus with the Master Grade GF13-017NJ Shining Gundam model kit. Numerous guide/art books relating to "G Gundam" have been published. There are two Japanese books published by MediaWorks: released in August 1994 and released in June 1995. Another book, , was published by Dai Nippon Kaiga Co. in September 1995. Rapport released an art book titled in 1994. Hobby Japan published a book in its "Gundam Weapons" series in July 2002, dedicated to collecting and building scale models based on the show. An English-language guide book, "Mobile Fighter G Gundam Technical Manual", was released by Tokyopop in North America on November 12, 2002. The Japanese clothing company Cospa sells officially licensed apparel featuring "G Gundam".


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: "Mobile Fighter G Gundam" received mediocre television ratings during its run on Japanese television in 1994 and 1995. According to Nikkei Business Publications, the series saw an average of just 4.02% viewership for the Kantō region and Greater Tokyo Area throughout its 49-episode run. The overall ratings for "G Gundam" were higher than that of the previous series "Mobile Suit Victory Gundam" and slightly lower than the following series "Mobile Suit Gundam Wing". Critically, "G Gundam" was met with some controversy upon its Japanese debut. "G Gundam" replicates very little of the dramatic, militaristic conventions of prior "Gundam" series, setting itself apart with a different tone; taking place outside the franchise's main timeline; and foregoing large-scale, armed conflicts in favor of tournament-style, martial arts matches. Director Yasuhiro Imagawa claimed to have taken a large amount of criticism for these changes from both fans and design staff members. "G Gundam" ultimately proved very popular in Japan.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: Early in the show's North American run, Bandai reported that "G Gundam" had the top ratings of any anime show for the period. The company considered the show to be a "hit" at the time. However, officials for Toonami recounted in 2006 that no "Gundam" series earned significant viewer ratings after the first North American airing of "Gundam Wing" in 2000. "G Gundam" received an overall positive critical reception amid its mainstream exposure in the United States. Nonetheless, views on "G Gundam"s plot remain largely mixed. Negative reactions to the plot mostly stem from its stark contrast to preceding "Gundam" entries that have traditionally focused on deep political and social issues in the midst of war. AnimeNation writer John Oppliger considered "G Gundam" to be "the plague of the "Gundam" franchise" and "one of the biggest mis-steps in anime history" due to its elimination of such serious subtext. Both Bamboo Dong of the Anime News Network and Duncan Scott of "Protoculture Addicts" were also initially disappointed for the same reason, with the latter writer feeling that the series features "Gundam" in its title purely for marketing reasons. Derrick L. Tucker of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews called the series' episodic storyline its "most profound weakness", whereby "the narrative exists to move the viewer from fight to fight". Tucker also found that the potential for its more dramatic themes, such as tension between Domon and Master Asia or Domon's romantic relationship with Rain, is "overshadowed from start to finale by the show's domineering, if repetitive action sets".


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: Other critics were more accepting of the plot as it progressed, overlooking comparisons to past "Gundam" series. "Animerica" editor Mark Simmons, Martin Ouellette of "Protoculture Addicts", and anime journalist Mike Toole have all shared opinions that the show can be immensely enjoyed by not taking it too seriously. David Smith of IGN denoted "G Gundam" "the greatest giant robot series that has ever been" because of the seemingly "over-the-top" nature that drives the premise. Smith asserted, ""G Gundam" maintains a completely straight face through every second. That's the trick, because to let the audience laugh for one moment would break the effect. You don't laugh at "G Gundam" – you become completely absorbed in the wondrous violence of it all." Simmons concluded that the addition of components like "nanotechnological plagues, evil armies, zombie legions, betrayal, and heartbreak [...] make the end result entertaining for more sophisticated viewers as well as for youngsters enticed by the colorful shiny robots". Toole stated that despite valid criticism that the plot is "silly and exaggerated" and its introductory episodes suffering from "battle of the week fare", the debut of Master Asia triggers "some great character development". Dong similarly appreciated the show more in its Neo Hong Kong story arc and perceived it much easier for a new viewer to begin watching at any point in the series than with other "Gundam" installments.


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: The large cast of characters and mecha in "G Gundam" has received mostly praise from critics. Toole, Tucker, Ouellette, and Smith made positive mention of the primary characters for their unique designs and attributes; all four reviewers have noted many of the supporting characters to be overly stereotypical with regard to their nationality. Toole particularly enjoyed the protagonist Domon, whom he described as very well-rounded, and regarded Master Asia as "both a great hero and a great villain". Tucker interpreted the main characters "stylized and distinctive" which possess individual motivations that give them "dynamic appeal". Tucker was also impressed with the design variety and color format of the mobile fighters, which break the mold set by the conventional Gundam template. Toole and Smith together felt that the more campy Gundam stereotypes added to the show's endearment. While referring to Neo America's mobile fighter, Smith exclaimed, "This show has a cowboy/boxer/quarterback/surfer Gundam, for God's sake." Simmons equivalently and sarcastically summarized, "This is a world where the space colony of Neo Holland is represented by a Gundam that transforms into a giant windmill."


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: During the North American DVD production interviews for "Mobile Fighter G Gundam", Imagawa was asked to address the message "See you again Gundam Fight 14" shown at the last cut of the final episode. He answered that it was simply word play and had no intention of affirming a sequel to the anime. Granted its large number of manga side-stories, Imagawa surmised that it would be "impossible" to create an animated sequel or OVA series to "G Gundam" and disclosed he would not direct it if there were. He said, "I believe "G Gundam" is a series that started as a program for kids and eventually worked out because I stayed vividly aware of that until the very last moment, overcoming a lot of obstacles and bad situations (in terms of directing)."


title: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

text: Oppliger found that "G Gundam" had established a legacy within the anime industry, albeit a different one from its 1979 namesake. He elaborated that "G Gundam" represents a "catalyst for development within Japan’s anime industry" for being the first complete reboot of the "Gundam" franchise and the first of many "Gundam" TV series to feature a self-contained storyline separate from the traditional franchise continuity. In 2001, "G Gundam" was listed by the Japanese magazine "Animage" among the top 100 most important anime in history in terms of historical significance, influence and impact on the anime industry.


title: Severny Island

text: Severny Island () is a Russian Arctic island. It is the northern island of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.


title: Severny Island

text: It was historically called Lütke Land after Friedrich Benjamin von Lütke, who explored it. It lies approximately 400 km north of the Russian mainland. It has an area of , making it the 30th-largest island in the world. It is part of Russian Arctic National Park.


title: Severny Island

text: Severny Island is separated from Yuzhny Island ("Southern") by the narrow Matochkin Strait. Forty percent of the island is covered by the Severny Island ice cap, which is the largest glacier by area and by volume in Europe (if counted as part of it). Severny Island is known for its numerous glaciers. Cape Flissingsky is the easternmost point of Severny Island.


title: Severny Island

text: The climate for Severny Island is extremely cold, with even the warmest months not reaching the freezing mark. The climate is severe, and temperature varies from 3° to -8° F (-16° to -22° C) in winter to 36° to 44° F (2° to 7° C) in summer. There are frequent fogs and strong winds


title: Severny Island

text: Unlike Yuzhny Island, Severny has an inner ice cap with numerous glaciers, most of which have their terminus on the eastern or western shore of the island.


title: Severny Island

text: The cape of Sukhoy Nos, located at the southern end of the island, was used for nuclear weapons testing between 1958 and 1961. The Tsar Bomba hydrogen bomb test on October 30, 1961 destroyed all buildings in the village of Severny (both wooden and brick). The village was located 55 kilometres (34 miles) from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range. Tsar Bomba was the most powerful nuclear weapon detonated and was the most powerful anthropogenic explosion in human history. It had a yield of 50 megatons of TNT, scaled down from its maximum 100 megaton design yield. Severny is now the site of a Russian Army base and has a harbor.


title: Pomaks

text: Pomaks (; ; ) are Bulgarian-speaking Muslims inhabiting northwestern Turkey, Bulgaria and northeastern Greece. The c. 220,000 strong ethno-confessional minority in Bulgaria is recognized officially as Bulgarian Muslims by the government. The term has also been used as a wider designation, including also the Slavic Muslim populations of North Macedonia and Albania.


title: Pomaks

text: Most Pomaks today live in Turkey where they have settled as muhacirs as a result of escaping previous ethnic cleansing in Bulgaria.


title: Pomaks

text: Bulgaria recognizes their language as a Bulgarian dialect whereas in Greece and Turkey they self-declare their language as the Pomak language. The community in Greece is commonly fluent in Greek, and in Turkey, Turkish, while the communities in these two countries, especially in Turkey, are increasingly adopting Turkish as their first language as a result of education and family links with the Turkish people.


title: Pomaks

text: They are not officially recognized as one people with the ethnonym of "Pomaks". The term is widely used colloquially for Eastern South Slavic Muslims, considered derogatory. However, in Greece and Turkey the practice for declaring the ethnic group at census has been abolished for decades. Different members of the group today declare a variety of ethnic identities: Bulgarian, Pomak, ethnic Muslims, Turkish and other.


title: Pomaks

text: The name "Pomak" first appeared in the Bulgarian Christian-heretical language surroundings of North Bulgaria (the regions of Lovech, Teteven, Lukovit, Byala Slatina). According to one theory, it comes from the expression "по-ямак" ("more than a Yemek", "more important than a Yamak", similar to "пó юнак", i.e. "more than a hero"). It has also been argued that the name comes from the dialectal words "помáкан, омáкан, омáчен, помáчен" (pomákan, omákan, omáchen, pomáchen), meaning "tormented, tortured".


title: Pomaks

text: Their precise origin has been interpreted differently by Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish historians, but it is generally considered they are descendants of native Eastern Orthodox Bulgarians, and Paulicians who also previously converted to Orthodoxy and Catholic faith, who converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule of the Balkans. Information through Ottoman and Catholic missionaries reports supports this theory.


title: Pomaks

text: A specific DNA mutation, HbO, which emerged about 2,000 years ago on a rare haplotype is characteristic of the Greek Pomaks. Its frequency increased as a consequence of high genetic drift within this population. This indicates that the Greek Pomaks are an isolated population with limited contacts with their neighbours. A 2014 study also confirmed high homozygosity and according to MDS analysis the Greek Pomaks cluster among European populations, near the general Greek population.


title: Pomaks

text: Pomaks are today usually considered descendants of native Orthodox Bulgarians and Paulicians who converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule of the Balkans. They started to become Muslim gradually, from the Ottoman occupation (early 15th century) to the end of the 18th century. Subsequently, these people became part of the Muslim community of the millet system. At that time people were bound to their millets by their religious affiliations (or their confessional communities), rather than their ethnic origins, according to the "millet" concept.


title: Pomaks

text: A monk Pachomios Roussanos (1508–1553), who visited the mountain area of Xanthi, mentioned that around 1550 only 6 or 9 villages had turned to Islam. Furthermore the documents show that not only Islam has been spread in the area at that time, but that the Pomaks participated in Ottoman military operations voluntarily as is the case with the village of Shahin (Echinos).


title: Pomaks

text: In North Central Bulgaria (the regions of Lovech, Teteven, Lukovit, Byala Slatina) the Ottoman authorities requested in 1689, after the Chiprovtsi Uprising, for military reasons Bulgarian Paulicians (heterodox Christian sect) to convert to one of the officially recognized religions in the Ottoman Empire. One part of them became the "Bulgarian-Christians" by converting to Ottoman recognized Christian denominations, either the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church or the Roman Catholic Church, while the other part converted to Islam and began to be called "Pomaks". So, in North Central Bulgaria Pomaks became those of Bulgarian Christian heretics, for which it was unacceptable or impossible to convert to the Eastern Orthodox Christian because of dogmatic, economic, family or other reasons.


title: Pomaks

text: The mass turn to Islam in the Central Rhodope Mountains happened between the 16th and the 17th century. According to the Codes of Bishop of Philippoupolis and the Czech historian and slavicist Konstantin Josef Jireček in the middle of the 17th century, some Bulgarian provosts agreed to become Muslim en masse. They visited the Ottoman local administrator to announce their decision, but he sent them to the Greek bishop of Philippoupolis Gabriel (1636–1672). The bishop could not change their mind. According to the verbal tradition of the Greeks of Philippoupolis, a large ceremony of mass circumcision took place in front of the old mosque of the city, near the Government House. After that, the villagers became Muslim, too. According to the verbal tradition of the Bulgarians, Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha (1656–1661) threatened the Bulgarians of Chepino Valley that he would execute them if they didn't turn to Islam. In 1656, Ottoman military troops entered the Chepino valley and arrested the local Bulgarian provosts, in order to transfer them in the local Ottoman administrator. There, they converted to Islam. Grand Vizier Mehmed Köprülü, after the mass Islamization, destroyed 218 churches and 336 chapels in these areas. A lot of Bulgarians preferred to die instead of becoming Muslim. According to recent investigations the theory of forced conversion to Islam, supported by some scientists, has no solid grounds with all or most evidence being faked or misinterpreted. At the same time, the sincerity of the convert is a subject to suspicion and interrogation. Some authors for example, explain the mass conversions that occurred in the 17th century with the tenfold increase of the Jizya tax. Muslim communities prospered under the Ottoman Empire, as the Sultan was also the Caliph. Ottoman law did not recognize such notions as ethnicity or citizenship; thus, a Muslim of any ethnic background enjoyed precisely the same rights and privileges.


title: Pomaks

text: Meanwhile, the perception of the "millet" concept was altered during the 19th century and rise of nationalism within the Ottoman Empire begun. After the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Pomaks in the Vacha valley, apprehensive of retribution for their role in the bloody suppression of the April Uprising two years earlier, rebelled against Eastern Rumelia and established an autonomous state, called Republic of Tamrash. In 1886 the Ottoman government accepted the Bulgarian rule over Eastern Rumelia and that was the end of the free Pomak state. During the Balkan Wars, at 16 August 1913, an Islamic revolt begun in the Eastern Rhodopes and Western Thrace. At 1 September 1913, the "Provisional Government of Western Thrace" (Garbi Trakya Hukumet i Muvakkatesi) was established in Komotini. The Ottoman administration didn't support the rebels and finally under the neutrality of Greek and Ottoman governments, Bulgaria took over the lands on 30 October 1913. The rebels requested support by the Greek state and put Greek major in Alexandroupoli. Bulgaria, after a brief period of control over the area, passed the sovereignty of Western Thrace at the end of World War I. The Provisional Government was revived between 1919 and 1920 under French protectorate (France had annexed the region from Bulgaria in 1918) before Greece took over in June 1920.


title: Pomaks

text: After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, the religious "millet" system disappeared and the members of the Pomak groups today declare a variety of ethnic identities, depending predominantly on the country they live in.


title: Pomaks

text: There is no specific Pomak dialect of the Bulgarian language. Within Bulgaria, the Pomaks speak almost the same dialects as those spoken by the Christian Bulgarians with which they live side by side and Pomaks living in different regions speak different dialects. In Bulgaria there is a trend for dialects to give way to the standard Bulgarian language and this is also affecting the dialects spoken by the Pomaks and their usage is now rare in urban areas and among younger people. As part of the "wider Pomak community", the Torbeshi and Gorani in North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo speak Macedonian or Torlakian dialects (incl. the Gora dialect), which are sometimes also considered to be part of the "wider Bulgarian dialect continuum".


title: Pomaks

text: Most Pomaks speak some of the Eastern Bulgarian dialects, mainly the Rup dialects in Southern Bulgaria and the Balkan dialects in Northern Bulgaria. The Pomaks living in the Bulgarian part of the Rhodopes speak the Rhodope (especially the Smolyan, Chepino, Hvoyna and Zlatograd subdialects) and Western Rup (especially the Babyak and Gotse Delchev sub-dialects) dialects. The Smolyan dialect is also spoken by the Pomaks living in the Western Thrace region of Greece. The Pomaks living in the region of Teteven in Northern Bulgaria speak the Balkan dialect, specifically the Transitional Balkan sub-dialect. The Rup dialects of the Bulgarian language spoken in Western Thrace are called in Greece Pomak language (Pomaktsou). Similar to Paulician dialect, it has words and resemblance to the grammatical forms of the Armenian language


title: Pomaks

text: The Pomak language is taught at primary school level (using the Greek alphabet) in the Pomak regions of Greece, which are primarily in the Rhodope Mountains. The Pomaks of Thrace were, together with Turks and Roma, exempted from the population exchanges provided by the Lausanne Treaty (1923). The treaty made no mention of their language, but declared that their languages of education should be Turkish and Greek. The main school manual used for the teaching the language is 'Pomaktsou' by Moimin Aidin and Omer Hamdi, Komotini 1997. There is also a Pomak-Greek dictionary by Ritvan Karahodja, 1996. The Pomak dialects are on the Eastern side of the Yat isogloss of Bulgarian, yet many pockets of western Bulgarian speakers remain. A large number of them no longer transmit it; they have adopted Turkish as a first language and Greek as a second language. Recently the Community of the Pomaks of Xanthi, has announced its request to be treated equally and therefore to have the right of education in Greek schools without the obligation of learning the Turkish language.


title: Pomaks

text: The Pomaks in Bulgaria are referred to as "Bulgarian Muslims" (българи-мюсюлмани "Bǎlgari-Mjusjulmani"), and under the locally used names "Ahryani" (pejorative, meaning "infidels"), Pogantsi, Poturani, Poturnatsi, Eruli, Charaklii, etc. They mainly inhabit the Rhodope Mountains in Smolyan Province, Kardzhali Province, Pazardzhik Province and Blagoevgrad Province. There are Pomaks in other parts of Bulgaria as well. There are a few Pomak villages in Burgas Province, Lovech Province, Veliko Tarnovo Province and Ruse Province. Officially no ethnic Pomaks are recorded, while 67,000 declared Muslim and ethnic Bulgarian identity, down from 131,000 who declared Muslim Bulgarian identity at the 2001 census. Unofficially, there may be between 150,000 and 250,000 Pomaks in Bulgaria, though maybe not in the ethnic sense as one part declare Bulgarian, another part – Turkish ethnic identity. During the 20th century the Pomaks in Bulgaria were the subject of three state-sponsored forced assimilation campaigns – in 1912, the 1940s and the 1960s and 1970s which included the change of their Turkish-Arabic names to ethnic Bulgarian Christian Orthodox ones and in the first campaign conversions from Islam to Eastern Orthodoxy. The first two campaigns were abandoned after a few years, while the third was reversed in 1989. The campaigns were carried out under the pretext that the Pomaks as ancestral Christian Bulgarians who had been converted to Islam and who therefore needed to be repatriated back to the national domain. These attempts were met with stiff resistance by many Pomaks.


title: Pomaks

text: Pomaks in Turkey community is present mostly in Eastern Thrace and to a lesser extent in Anatolia, where they are called in Turkish "Pomaklar", and their speech, "Pomakça". The Pomak community in Turkey is unofficially estimated between 300,000.


title: Pomaks

text: Today the Pomaks () in Greece inhabit the region of East Macedonia and Thrace in Northern Greece, particularly the eastern regional units of Xanthi, Rhodope and Evros. Their estimated population is 50,000, only in Western Thrace. Until the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) and the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923 did Pomaks inhabit a part of the regions of Moglena – Almopia (Karadjova), Kastoria and some other parts of Greek Macedonia and North Macedonia. German sightseer Adolf Struck in 1898 describes Konstantia (in Moglena) as a big village with 300 houses and two panes, inhabited exclusively by Pomaks. Greek nationalist scholars and government officials frequently refer to the Pomaks as "slavicised" Greek Muslims, to give the impression that they are the descendants of Ottoman-era Greek converts to Islam like the Vallahades of Greek Macedonia.


title: Pomaks

text: The Macedonian Muslims (or "Torbeši"), are also referred to as Pomaks, especially in historical context. They are a minority religious group in North Macedonia, although not all espouse a Macedonian national identity and are linguistically distinct from the larger Muslim ethnic groups in the country, Albanians and Turks. However the estimated 100,000 Pomaks in North Macedonia maintain a strong affiliation to the Turkish identity.


title: Pomaks

text: Slavic-speaking Muslims, sometimes referred to as "Pomaks", live also in the Albanian region of Golloborda. However these people are also referred to as "Torbeš". Within Macedonian academia, their language has been regarded as Macedonian, while within Bulgarian academia, their dialect is considered as part of the Bulgarian language. Part of this people still self-identify as Bulgarians.


title: Pomaks

text: The Gorani occasionally are also referred to as Pomaks in historical context. They are people who inhabit the Gora region, located between Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia. The general view is that they should be treated as a distinct minority group. Part of these people are already albanised. By the last censuses at the end of the 20th century in Yugoslavia they have declared themselves to be ethnic Muslims, like Bosniaks.


title: Clifford Robinson (basketball, born 1966)

text: Clifford Ralph Robinson (December 16, 1966August 29, 2020) was an American professional basketball player who played 18 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Selected in the second round of the 1989 NBA draft, he played the first eight seasons of his career with the Portland Trail Blazers, followed by stints with the Phoenix Suns, Detroit Pistons, Golden State Warriors, and New Jersey Nets. Robinson received the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award in 1993 and was selected as an NBA All-Star in 1994. He played college basketball for the UConn Huskies.


text: Robinson played four seasons at the University of Connecticut beginning in 1985. The Huskies won the 1988 National Invitation Tournament championship, and he was named to the all-tournament team. Robinson was later named to UConn's All-Century men's basketball team. On February 5, 2007, Robinson's number "00" was retired at Gampel Pavilion during halftime of a UConn basketball game against Syracuse as part of the "Huskies of Honor" ceremony which recognized personal accomplishments of 13 former players and 3 coaches.


text: Robinson was selected with the 36th overall pick in the second round of the 1989 NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers. Robinson played for the Trail Blazers for eight seasons. Portland made the playoffs each year he was on the team, and played in the NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992. Robinson won the Sixth Man of the Year Award in 1992–93 after averaging 19.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and a career-best 1.99 blocks per game. He was an All-Star with the team in 1994. Following Game 4 of the 1992 Western Conference Finals against the Utah Jazz, Robinson performed a victory dance that he later told press was named the "Uncle Cliffy". The nickname stuck with Robinson for the rest of his career. Following a game against the Golden State Warriors on February 22, 1995, Robinson was forced to end his 461 iron man streak of consecutive games played since the start of his career. This streak stands as a franchise record for the Trail Blazers.


text: Robinson signed with the Phoenix Suns as a free agent on August 25, 1997, where he remained for four more seasons. The highlight of his tenure with the Suns was registering a career-best 50 points against the Denver Nuggets on January 16, 2000. He became the oldest player in NBA history to register his first 50-point game, aged 33 years and 2 months.


text: Robinson was traded to the Detroit Pistons on June 29, 2001, in exchange for Jud Buechler and John Wallace.


text: Robinson was traded to the Golden State Warriors on August 21, 2003, along with Pepe Sánchez, in exchange for Bob Sura. Although he played all 82 games during the regular season, it would be the first season in his career where he would not participate in the NBA playoffs.


text: On February 14, 2005, Golden State traded Robinson to the New Jersey Nets in exchange for two second-round draft picks. He played with the Nets for two more seasons until he was released by the team in July 2007. Robinson then retired.


text: Robinson was arrested for marijuana possession and driving under the influence in February 2001 and received a one-game suspension. Robinson was also suspended for five games in February 2005 while playing for Golden State, and was suspended for five games during the NBA playoffs on May 12, 2006 for violating terms of the league's drug policy for the second time in two seasons.


text: Robinson held career NBA per-game averages of 14.2 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.05 steals, and 1.03 blocks. His 1,380 games played are the 13th most all time in the NBA. and second among players eligible for the 2015 Basketball Hall of Fame (after Kevin Willis). At the end of the 2013–14 NBA season, his 42,561 minutes played in the NBA ranked him 19th among all players, 14th among retired players, and first among players eligible for the 2016 class of the Basketball Hall of Fame.


text: Robinson was one of only two players drafted in the 1980s that was still active in the league in 2007, with the other being Kevin Willis. He played in the NBA Playoffs in all but one of his 18 seasons in the league, with his 2003–04 campaign with the Golden State Warriors being the exception. As of the 2014 NBA Playoffs, his 141 playoff games played ranked him 16th among inactive players not yet in the Hall of Fame, although he had a low .393 field goal percentage (compared to .438 during the regular season) and 2.1 Win Shares in those games.


text: At 6'10", he was the tallest player to make more than 1,000 three-pointers until he was surpassed by Dirk Nowitzki and Rashard Lewis; Robinson made 1,253 threes in his career. Among players who qualified for the 2015 Class of the Basketball Hall of Fame, Robinson ranked fifth among all players for field goals made and first among those 6'10" or taller.


text: Robinson is one of seven players to record 1,300 steals and 1,300 blocked shots in their ABA/NBA career - the others are Kevin Garnett, Julius Erving, Bobby Jones, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Ben Wallace.


text: Robinson was a contestant in the of the American reality television series "Survivor" (filmed in 2013 and broadcast the following year). The theme for the season was Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty, and Robinson was placed on the "Brawn" tribe, Aparri. Although he did not initially plan to reveal his identity, he was recognized by Yung "Woo" Hwang, who admitted to being a fan of Robinson. Once his identity was revealed, he did not attempt to cover it up. After a tribe swap, Trish Hegarty revealed her strong distaste for Robinson and convinced fellow tribemate Tony Vlachos to vote with her to eliminate him. He was the fifth contestant of the season to be voted out, finishing in 14th place.


text: In 2014, Robinson was named to a team assembled by Dennis Rodman as part of his "basketball diplomacy" effort in North Korea with the job of playing an exhibition match against the Northern Korean Senior National Basketball Team to celebrate the birthday of Kim Jong-un. The team also included Kenny Anderson, Vin Baker, Craig Hodges, Doug Christie, Sleepy Floyd, Charles D. Smith, and four "streetballers".


text: During his post-basketball life, Robinson became an entrepreneur in the cannabis industry, selling assorted cannabis products under his "Uncle Cliffy" brand name. He was also an advocate for the legalization of cannabis, supporting efforts to reform cannabis laws in the states of Oregon and Connecticut. During his time in the NBA, Robinson used cannabis to help relieve pain and anxiety, and to avoid the undesirable side effects caused by pharmaceutical drugs. He partially attributed the longevity of his NBA career to his use of cannabis.


text: Robinson appeared in the 2019 Netflix film "Grass Is Greener", which examines the history of cannabis prohibition in the United States.


text: On September 21, 2003, Robinson married Heather Lufkins on the island of Barbados. His son Isaiah Robinson played basketball for the Jefferson High School Democrats in Portland and the Houston Baptist Huskies.


text: Robinson suffered a stroke in March 2017 that paralyzed the left side of his body, but he soon recovered much of his arm and leg movement. He had a tumor removed from his jaw in March 2018.


text: In March 2019, Robinson underwent surgery for cancer treatment. He died of lymphoma on August 29, 2020, at the age of 53.


title: Decarboxylation

text: Decarboxylation is a chemical reaction that removes a carboxyl group and releases carbon dioxide (CO). Usually, decarboxylation refers to a reaction of carboxylic acids, removing a carbon atom from a carbon chain. The reverse process, which is the first chemical step in photosynthesis, is called carboxylation, the addition of CO to a compound. Enzymes that catalyze decarboxylations are called decarboxylases or, the more formal term, carboxy-lyases (EC number 4.1.1).


title: Decarboxylation

text: Decarboxylation is one of the oldest known organic reactions. It is one of the processes assumed to accompany pyrolysis and destructive distillation. Metal salts, especially copper compounds, facilitate the reaction via the intermediacy of metal carboxylate complexes. Decarboxylation of aryl carboxylates can generate the equivalent of the corresponding aryl anion, which in turn can undergo cross coupling reactions.


title: Decarboxylation

text: Decarboxylation of alkanoic acids is often slow. Thus, typical fatty acids do not decarboxylate readily. Overall, the facility of decarboxylation depends upon stability of the carbanion intermediate . Important exceptions are the decarboxylation of beta-keto acids, β,γ-unsaturated acids, and α-phenyl, α-nitro, and α-cyanoacids. Such reactions are accelerated due to the formation of a zwitterionic tautomer in which the carbonyl is protonated and the carboxyl group is deprotonated.


title: Decarboxylation

text: Decarboxylations are the bases of many named reactions. These include Barton decarboxylation, Kolbe electrolysis, Kochi reaction, and Hunsdiecker reaction. All are radical reactions. The Krapcho decarboxylation is a related decarboxylation of an ester. The Tsuji–Trost reaction involves the intermediacy of an allyl complex.


title: Decarboxylation

text: Hydrodecarboxylations involve the conversion of a carboxylic acid to the corresponding hydrocarbon. This is conceptually the same as the more general term "decarboxylation" as defined above except that it specifically requires that the carboxyl group is, as expected, replaced by a hydrogen. The reaction is especially common in conjunction with the malonic ester synthesis and Knoevenagel condensations. The reaction involves the conjugate base of the carboxyl group, a carboxylate ion, and an unsaturated receptor of electron density, such as a protonated carbonyl group. Where reactions entail heating the carboxylic acid with concentrated hydrochloric acid, such a direct route is impossible as it would produce protonated carbon dioxide. In these cases, the reaction is likely to occur by initial addition of water and a proton.


title: Decarboxylation

text: Decarboxylations are pervasive in biology. They are often classified according to the cofactors that catalyze the transformations. Biotin-coupled processes effect the decarboxylation of malonyl-CoA to acetyl-CoA. Thiamine (T:) is the active component for decarboxylation of alpha-ketoacids, including pyruvate:


title: Decarboxylation

text: Pyridoxal phosphate promotes decarboxylation of amino acids. Flavin-dependent decarboxylases are involved in transformations of cysteine.


title: Decarboxylation

text: Iron-based hydroxylases operate by reductive activation of using the decarboxylation of alpha-ketoglutarate as an electron donor. The decarboxylation can be depicted as such:


title: Decarboxylation

text: Upon heating, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinolic acid decarboxylates to give the psychoactive compound Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol. When cannabis is heated in vacuum, the decarboxylation of tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) appears to follow first order kinetics. The log fraction of THCA present decreases steadily over time, and the rate of decrease varies according to temperature. At 10-degree increments from 100 to 140 °C, half of the THCA is consumed in 30, 11, 6, 3, and 2 minutes; hence the rate constant follows Arrhenius' law, ranging between 10 and 10 in a linear log-log relationship with inverse temperature. However, modelling of decarboxylation of salicylic acid with a water molecule had suggested an activation barrier of 150 kJ/mol for a single molecule in solvent, much too high for the observed rate. Therefore, it was concluded that this reaction, conducted in the solid phase in plant material with a high fraction of carboxylic acids, follows a pseudo first order kinetics in which a nearby carboxylic acid precipitates without affecting the observed rate constant. Two transition states corresponding to indirect and direct keto-enol routes are possible, with energies of 93 and 104 kJ/mol. Both intermediates involve protonation of the alpha carbon, disrupting one of the double bonds of the aromatic ring and permitting the beta-keto group (which takes the form of an enol in THCA and THC) to participate in decarboxylation.


title: Decarboxylation

text: In beverages stored for long periods, very small amounts of benzene may form from benzoic acid by decarboxylation catalyzed by the presence of ascorbic acid.


title: Decarboxylation

text: The addition of catalytic amounts of cyclohexenone has been reported to catalyze the decarboxylation of amino acids. However, using such catalysts may also yield an amount of unwanted by-products.


title: Seed dispersal

text: In Spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vectors, such as the wind, and living (biotic) vectors such as birds. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant individually or collectively, as well as dispersed in both space and time. The patterns of seed dispersal are determined in large part by the dispersal mechanism and this has important implications for the demographic and genetic structure of plant populations, as well as migration patterns and species interactions. There are five main modes of seed dispersal: gravity, wind, ballistic, water, and by animals. Some plants are serotinous and only disperse their seeds in response to an environmental stimulus. These modes are typically inferred based on adaptations, such as wings or fleshy fruit. However, this simplified view may ignore complexity in dispersal. Plants can disperse via modes without possessing the typical associated adaptations and plant traits may be multifunctional.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Seed dispersal is likely to have several benefits for different plant species. Seed survival is often higher away from the parent plant. This higher survival may result from the actions of density-dependent seed and seedling predators and pathogens, which often target the high concentrations of seeds beneath adults. Competition with adult plants may also be lower when seeds are transported away from their parent.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Seed dispersal also allows plants to reach specific habitats that are favorable for survival, a hypothesis known as directed dispersal. For example, "Ocotea endresiana" (Lauraceae) is a tree species from Latin America which is dispersed by several species of birds, including the three-wattled bellbird. Male bellbirds perch on dead trees in order to attract mates, and often defecate seeds beneath these perches where the seeds have a high chance of survival because of high light conditions and escape from fungal pathogens.


title: Seed dispersal

text: In the case of fleshy-fruited plants, seed-dispersal in animal guts (endozoochory) often enhances the amount, the speed, and the asynchrony of germination, which can have important plant benefits.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Seeds dispersed by ants (myrmecochory) are not only dispersed short distances but are also buried underground by the ants. These seeds can thus avoid adverse environmental effects such as fire or drought, reach nutrient-rich microsites and survive longer than other seeds. These features are peculiar to myrmecochory, which may thus provide additional benefits not present in other dispersal modes.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Seed dispersal may also allow plants to colonize vacant habitats and even new geographic regions. Dispersal distances and deposition sites depend on the movement range of the disperser, and longer dispersal distances are sometimes accomplished through diplochory, the sequential dispersal by two or more different dispersal mechanisms. In fact, recent evidence suggests that the majority of seed dispersal events involves more than one dispersal phase.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Seed dispersal is sometimes split into "autochory" (when dispersal is attained using the plant's own means) and "allochory" (when obtained through external means).


title: Seed dispersal

text: Long-distance seed dispersal (LDD) is a type of spatial dispersal that is currently defined by two forms, proportional and actual distance. A plant's fitness and survival may heavily depend on this method of seed dispersal depending on certain environmental factors. The first form of LDD, proportional distance, measures the percentage of seeds (1% out of total number of seeds produced) that travel the farthest distance out of a 99% probability distribution. The proportional definition of LDD is in actuality a descriptor for more extreme dispersal events. An example of LDD would be that of a plant developing a specific dispersal vector or morphology in order to allow for the dispersal of its seeds over a great distance. The actual or absolute method identifies LDD as a literal distance. It classifies 1 km as the threshold distance for seed dispersal. Here, threshold means the minimum distance a plant can disperse its seeds and have it still count as LDD. There is a second, unmeasurable, form of LDD besides proportional and actual. This is known as the non-standard form. Non-standard LDD is when seed dispersal occurs in an unusual and difficult-to-predict manner. An example would be a rare or unique incident in which a normally-lemur-dependent deciduous tree of Madagascar was to have seeds transported to the coastline of South Africa via attachment to a mermaid purse (egg case) laid by a shark or skate.[6] A driving factor for the evolutionary significance of LDD is that it increases plant fitness by decreasing neighboring plant competition for offspring. However, it is still unclear today as to how specific traits, conditions and trade-offs (particularly within short seed dispersal) affect LDD evolution.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Autochorous plants disperse their seed without any help from an external vector, as a result this limits plants considerably as to the distance they can disperse their seed.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Two other types of autochory not described in detail here are blastochory, where the stem of the plant crawls along the ground to deposit its seed far from the base of the plant, and herpochory (the seed crawls by means of trichomes and changes in humidity).


title: Seed dispersal

text: "Barochory" or the plant use of gravity for dispersal is a simple means of achieving seed dispersal. The effect of gravity on heavier fruits causes them to fall from the plant when ripe. Fruits exhibiting this type of dispersal include apples, coconuts and passionfruit and those with harder shells (which often roll away from the plant to gain more distance). Gravity dispersal also allows for later transmission by water or animal.


title: Seed dispersal

text: "Ballochory" is a type of dispersal where the seed is forcefully ejected by explosive dehiscence of the fruit. Often the force that generates the explosion results from turgor pressure within the fruit or due to internal tensions within the fruit. Some examples of plants which disperse their seeds autochorously include: "Arceuthobium spp.", "Cardamine hirsuta", "Ecballium spp.", "Euphorbia heterophylla", "Geranium spp.", "Impatiens spp.", "Sucrea spp", "Raddia spp." and others. An exceptional example of ballochory is "Hura crepitans"—this plant is commonly called the dynamite tree due to the sound of the fruit exploding. The explosions are powerful enough to throw the seed up to 100 meters.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Witch hazel uses ballistic dispersal without explosive mechanisms by simply squeezing the seeds out at approx. 45 km/h (28 mph).


title: Seed dispersal

text: Allochory refers to any of many types of seed dispersal where a vector or secondary agent is used to disperse seeds. These vectors may include wind, water, animals or others.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Wind dispersal ("anemochory") is one of the more primitive means of dispersal. Wind dispersal can take on one of two primary forms: seeds or fruits can float on the breeze or, alternatively, they can flutter to the ground. The classic examples of these dispersal mechanisms, in the temperate northern hemisphere, include dandelions, which have a feathery pappus attached to their fruits (achenes) and can be dispersed long distances, and maples, which have winged fruits (samaras) that flutter to the ground.


title: Seed dispersal

text: An important constraint on wind dispersal is the need for abundant seed production to maximize the likelihood of a seed landing in a site suitable for germination. Some wind-dispersed plants, such as the dandelion, can adjust their morphology in order to increase or decrease the rate of germination. There are also strong evolutionary constraints on this dispersal mechanism. For instance, Cody and Overton (1996) found that species in the Asteraceae on islands tended to have reduced dispersal capabilities (i.e., larger seed mass and smaller pappus) relative to the same species on the mainland. Also, "Helonias bullata", a species of perennial herb native to the United States, evolved to utilize wind dispersal as the primary seed dispersal mechanism; however, limited wind in its habitat prevents the seeds to successfully disperse away from its parents, resulting in clusters of population. Reliance on wind dispersal is common among many weedy or ruderal species. Unusual mechanisms of wind dispersal include tumbleweeds, where the entire plant (except for the roots) is blown by the wind. "Physalis" fruits, when not fully ripe, may sometimes be dispersed by wind due to the space between the fruit and the covering calyx which acts as an air bladder.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Many aquatic (water dwelling) and some terrestrial (land dwelling) species use "hydrochory", or seed dispersal through water. Seeds can travel for extremely long distances, depending on the specific mode of water dispersal; this especially applies to fruits which are waterproof and float on water.


title: Seed dispersal

text: The water lily is an example of such a plant. Water lilies' flowers make a fruit that floats in the water for a while and then drops down to the bottom to take root on the floor of the pond.


title: Seed dispersal

text: The seeds of palm trees can also be dispersed by water. If they grow near oceans, the seeds can be transported by ocean currents over long distances, allowing the seeds to be dispersed as far as other continents.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Mangrove trees grow directly out of the water; when their seeds are ripe they fall from the tree and grow roots as soon as they touch any kind of soil. During low tide, they might fall in soil instead of water and start growing right where they fell. If the water level is high, however, they can be carried far away from where they fell. Mangrove trees often make little islands as dirt and detritus collect in their roots, making little bodies of land.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Animals can disperse plant seeds in several ways, all named "zoochory". Seeds can be transported on the outside of vertebrate animals (mostly mammals), a process known as "epizoochory". Plant species transported externally by animals can have a variety of adaptations for dispersal, including adhesive mucus, and a variety of hooks, spines and barbs. A typical example of an epizoochorous plant is "Trifolium angustifolium", a species of Old World clover which adheres to animal fur by means of stiff hairs covering the seed. Epizoochorous plants tend to be herbaceous plants, with many representative species in the families Apiaceae and Asteraceae. However, epizoochory is a relatively rare dispersal syndrome for plants as a whole; the percentage of plant species with seeds adapted for transport on the outside of animals is estimated to be below 5%. Nevertheless, epizoochorous transport can be highly effective if seeds attach to wide-ranging animals. This form of seed dispersal has been implicated in rapid plant migration and the spread of invasive species.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Seed dispersal via ingestion and defecation by vertebrate animals (mostly birds and mammals), or "endozoochory", is the dispersal mechanism for most tree species. Endozoochory is generally a coevolved mutualistic relationship in which a plant surrounds seeds with an edible, nutritious fruit as a good food resource for animals that consume it. Such plants may advertise the presence of food resource by using colour. Birds and mammals are the most important seed dispersers, but a wide variety of other animals, including turtles, fish, and insects (e.g. tree wētā and scree wētā), can transport viable seeds. The exact percentage of tree species dispersed by endozoochory varies between habitats, but can range to over 90% in some tropical rainforests. Seed dispersal by animals in tropical rainforests has received much attention, and this interaction is considered an important force shaping the ecology and evolution of vertebrate and tree populations. In the tropics, large animal seed dispersers (such as tapirs, chimpanzees, black-and-white colobus, toucans and hornbills) may disperse large seeds with few other seed dispersal agents. The extinction of these large frugivores from poaching and habitat loss may have negative effects on the tree populations that depend on them for seed dispersal and reduce genetic diversity. A variation of endozoochory is regurgitation of seeds rather than their passage in faeces after passing through the entire digestive tract. The seed dispersal by birds and other mammals are able to attach themselves to the feathers and hairs of these vertebrates, which is their main method of dispersal.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Seed dispersal by ants ("myrmecochory") is a dispersal mechanism of many shrubs of the southern hemisphere or understorey herbs of the northern hemisphere. Seeds of myrmecochorous plants have a lipid-rich attachment called the elaiosome, which attracts ants. Ants carry such seeds into their colonies, feed the elaiosome to their larvae and discard the otherwise intact seed in an underground chamber. Myrmecochory is thus a coevolved mutualistic relationship between plants and seed-disperser ants. Myrmecochory has independently evolved at least 100 times in flowering plants and is estimated to be present in at least 11 000 species, but likely up to 23 000 or 9% of all species of flowering plants. Myrmecochorous plants are most frequent in the fynbos vegetation of the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, the kwongan vegetation and other dry habitat types of Australia, dry forests and grasslands of the Mediterranean region and northern temperate forests of western Eurasia and eastern North America, where up to 30–40% of understorey herbs are myrmecochorous. Seed dispersal by ants is a mutualistic relationship and benefits both the ant and the plant.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Seed predators, which include many rodents (such as squirrels) and some birds (such as jays) may also disperse seeds by hoarding the seeds in hidden caches. The seeds in caches are usually well-protected from other seed predators and if left uneaten will grow into new plants. In addition, rodents may also disperse seeds via seed spitting due to the presence of secondary metabolites in ripe fruits. Finally, seeds may be secondarily dispersed from seeds deposited by primary animal dispersers, a process known as diplochory. For example, dung beetles are known to disperse seeds from clumps of feces in the process of collecting dung to feed their larvae.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Other types of zoochory are "chiropterochory" (by bats), "malacochory" (by molluscs, mainly terrestrial snails), "ornithochory" (by birds) and "saurochory" (by non-bird sauropsids). Zoochory can occur in more than one phase, for example through "diploendozoochory", where a primary disperser (an animal that ate a seed) along with the seeds it is carrying is eaten by a predator that then carries the seed further before depositing it.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Dispersal by humans ("anthropochory") used to be seen as a form of dispersal by animals. Its most widespread and intense cases account for the planting of much of the land area on the planet, through agriculture. In this case, human societies form a long-term relationship with plant species, and create conditions for their growth.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Recent research points out that human dispersers differ from animal dispersers by having a much higher mobility, based on the technical means of human transport. On the one hand, dispersal by humans also acts on smaller, regional scales and drives the dynamics of existing biological populations. On the other hand, dispersal by humans may act on large geographical scales and lead to the spread of invasive species.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Humans may disperse seeds by many various means and some surprisingly high distances have been repeatedly measured. Examples are: dispersal on human clothes (up to 250 m), on shoes (up to 5 km), or by cars (regularly ~ 250 m, singles cases > 100 km). Seed dispersal by cars can be a form of unintentional transport of seeds by humans, which can reach far distances, greater than other conventional methods of dispersal. Cars that carry soil are able to contain viable seeds, a study by Dunmail J. Hodkinson and Ken Thompson found that the most common seeds that were carried by vehicle were broadleaf plantain ("Plantago major"), Annual meadow grass ("Poa annua"), rough meadow grass ("Poa trivialis"), stinging nettle ("Urtica dioica") and wild chamomile ("Matricaria discoidea").


title: Seed dispersal

text: Deliberate seed dispersal also occurs as seed bombing. This has risks, as unsuitable provenance may introduce genetically unsuitable plants to new environments.


title: Seed dispersal

text: Seed dispersal has many consequences for the ecology and evolution of plants. Dispersal is necessary for species migrations, and in recent times dispersal ability is an important factor in whether or not a species transported to a new habitat by humans will become an invasive species. Dispersal is also predicted to play a major role in the origin and maintenance of species diversity. For example, myrmecochory increased the rate of diversification more than twofold in plant groups in which it has evolved because myrmecochorous lineages contain more than twice as many species as their non-myrmecochorous sister groups. Dispersal of seeds away from the parent organism has a central role in two major theories for how biodiversity is maintained in natural ecosystems, the Janzen-Connell hypothesis and recruitment limitation. Seed dispersal is essential in allowing forest migration of flowering plants. It can be influenced by the production of different fruit morphs in plants, a phenomenon known as heterocarpy. These fruit morphs are different in size and shape and have different dispersal ranges, which allows seeds to be dispersed for varying distances and adapt to different environments.


title: Seed dispersal

text: In addition, the speed and direction of wind are highly influential in the dispersal process and in turn the deposition patterns of floating seeds in the stagnant water bodies. The transportation of seeds is led by the wind direction. This effects colonization situated on the banks of a river or to wetlands adjacent to streams relative to the distinct wind directions. The wind dispersal process can also affect connections between water bodies. Essentially, wind plays a larger role in the dispersal of waterborne seeds in a short period of time, days and seasons, but the ecological process allows the process to become balanced throughout a time period of several years. The time period of which the dispersal occurs is essential when considering the consequences of wind on the ecological process.


title: Royal arms of England

text: The royal arms of England are the arms first adopted in a fixed form at the start of the age of heraldry (circa 1200) as personal arms by the Plantagenet kings who ruled England from 1154. In the popular mind they have come to symbolise the nation of England, although according to heraldic usage nations do not bear arms, only persons and corporations do (however in Western Europe, especially in today's France, arms can be territorial civil emblems). The blazon of the arms of Plantagenet is: "Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale or armed and langued azure", signifying three identical gold lions (also known as leopards) with blue tongues and claws, walking past but facing the observer, arranged in a column on a red background. Although the tincture "azure" of tongue and claws is not cited in many blazons, they are historically a distinguishing feature of the arms of England. This coat, designed in the High Middle Ages, has been variously combined with those of the Kings of France, Scotland, a symbol of Ireland, the House of Nassau and the Kingdom of Hanover, according to dynastic and other political changes occurring in England, but has not altered since it took a fixed form in the reign of Richard I of England (1189–1199), the second Plantagenet king.


title: Royal arms of England

text: Although in England the official blazon refers to ""lions"", French heralds historically used the term ""leopard"" to represent the "lion passant guardant", and hence the arms of England, no doubt, are more correctly blazoned, ""leopards"". Without doubt the same animal was intended, but different names were given according to the animal's pose; in later times the name "lion" was given to both.


title: Royal arms of England

text: Royal emblems depicting lions were first used by Danish Vikings, Saxons (Lions were adopted in Germanic tradition around the 5th century, they were re-interpreted in a Christian context in the western kingdoms of Gaul and Northern Italy in the 6th and 7th centuries) and Normans. Later, with Plantagenets a formal and consistent English heraldry system emerged at the end of the 12th century. The earliest surviving representation of an escutcheon, or shield, displaying three lions is that on the Great Seal of King Richard I (1189–1199), which initially displayed one or two lions rampant, but in 1198 was permanently altered to depict three lions passant, perhaps representing Richard I's principal three positions as King of the English, Duke of Normandy, and Duke of Aquitaine. In 1340, Edward III of England laid claim to the throne of France, and thus adopted the national emblem of France which he quartered with his paternal arms, the royal arms of England. He placed the French arms in the 1st and 4th quarters. This quartering was adjusted, abandoned and restored intermittently throughout the Middle Ages as the relationship between England and France changed. When the French king altered his arms from "semée of fleur-de-lys", to only three, the English quartering eventually followed suit. After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland entered a personal union, the arms of England and Scotland were marshalled (combined) in what has now become the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. It appears in a similar capacity to represent England in the arms of Canada and on the Late Queen's Personal Canadian Flag. The coat of three lions continues to represent England on several coins of the pound sterling, forms the basis of several emblems of English national sports teams (although with altered tinctures) and endures as one of the most recognisable national symbols of England.


title: Royal arms of England

text: When the royal arms take the form of an heraldic flag, it is variously known as the Royal Banner of England, the Banner of the Royal Arms, the Banner of the King (Queen) of England, or by the misnomer the Royal Standard of England. This royal banner differs from England's national flag, the St George's Cross, in that it does not represent any particular area or land, but rather symbolises the sovereignty vested in the rulers thereof.


title: Royal arms of England

text: The first documented use of royal arms dates from the reign of Richard I (1189–1199). Much later antiquarians would retrospectively invent attributed arms for earlier kings, but their reigns pre-dated the systematisation of hereditary English heraldry that only occurred in the second half of the 12th century. Lions may have been used as a badge by members of the Norman dynasty: a late-12th century chronicler reports that in 1128, Henry I of England knighted his son-in-law, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, and gave him a gold lion badge. The memorial enamel created to decorate Geoffrey's tomb depicts a blue coat of arms bearing gold lions. His youngest son, William FitzEmpress, used an equestrian seal showing a coat with a single lion rampant, while the eldest son, Henry II (1133–1189) used a lion as his emblem, and based on the arms used by his sons and other relatives, he may have used a coat of arms with a single lion or two lions, though no direct testimony of this has been found. His children experimented with different combinations of lions on their arms. Richard I (1189–1199) used a single lion rampant, or perhaps two lions affrontés, on his first Great Seal of England, but later used three lions passant in his 1198 Great Seal. The arms bear a striking resemblance to the family arms of the Hohenstaufen Emperors adopted at nearly the same time, which Richard would have been acquainted with from his travels, and would show his personal alliance with them. Richard's brother John had used a seal during the reigns of his father and elder brother that showed two lions passant, but his adoption of his brother's three-lion arms on his succession established this as the lasting design of the royal arms of England.


title: Royal arms of England

text: In 1340, following the extinction of the House of Capet, Edward III claimed the French throne. In addition to initiating the Hundred Years' War, Edward III expressed his claim in heraldic form by quartering the royal arms of England with the arms of France. This quartering continued until 1801, with intervals in 1360–1369 and 1420–1422.


title: Royal arms of England

text: Following the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the throne of England was inherited by the Scottish House of Stuart, resulting in the Union of the Crowns: the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland were united in a personal union under James VI and I. As a consequence, the royal arms of England and Scotland were combined in the king's new personal arms. Nevertheless, although referencing the personal union with Scotland and Ireland, the royal arms of England remained distinct from the royal arms of Scotland, until the two realms were joined in a political union in 1707, leading to a unified royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom.


title: Royal arms of England

text: On 1 May 1707, the kingdoms of England and Scotland were merged to form that of Great Britain; this was reflected by impaling their arms in a single quarter. The claim to the French throne continued, albeit passively, until it was mooted by the French Revolution and the formation of the French First Republic in 1792. During the peace negotiations at the Conference of Lille, from July to November 1797, the French delegates demanded that the King of Great Britain abandon the title of King of France as a condition of peace. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Under King George III of the United Kingdom, a proclamation of 1 January 1801 set the royal style and titles and modified the royal arms, removing the French quarter and putting the arms of England, Scotland and Ireland on the same structural level, with the dynastic arms of Hanover moved to an inescutcheon.


title: Royal arms of England

text: English heraldry flourished as a working art up to around the 17th century, when it assumed a mainly ceremonial role. The royal arms of England continued to embody information relating to English history. Although the Acts of Union 1707 placed England within the Kingdom of Great Britain, prompting new, British royal arms, the royal arms of England are still used occasionally in an official capacity, and has continued to endure as one of the national symbols of England, and has a variety of active uses. For instance, the coats of arms of both The Football Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board have a design featuring three lions passant, based on the historic royal arms of England. In 1997 (and again in 2002), the Royal Mint issued a British one pound (£1) coin featuring three lions passant to represent England. To celebrate St George's Day, in 2001, Royal Mail issued first– and second-class postage stamps with the royal crest of England (a crowned lion), and the royal arms of England (three lions passant) respectively.


title: Royal arms of England

text: Various accessories to the escutcheon (shield) were added and modified by successive English monarchs. These included a crest (with mantling, helm and crown); supporters (with a compartment); a motto; and the insignia of an order of knighthood. These various components made up the full achievement of arms.


title: Royal arms of England

text: The first addition to the shield was in the form of a crest borne above the shield. It was during the reign of Edward III that the crest began to be widely used in English heraldry. The first representation of a royal crest was in Edward's third Great Seal, which showed a helm above the arms, and thereon a gold lion passant guardant standing upon a chapeau, and bearing a royal crown on its head. The design underwent minor variations until it took on its present form in the reign of Henry VIII: "The Royal Crown proper, thereon a lion statant guardant Or, royally crowned also proper".


title: Royal arms of England

text: The exact form of crown used in the crest varied over time. Until the reign of Henry VI it was usually shown as an open circlet adorned with fleurs-de-lys or stylised leaves. On Henry's first seal for foreign affairs the design was altered with the circlet decorated by alternating crosses formy and fleurs-de-lys. From the reign of Edward IV the crown bore a single arch, altered to a double arch by Henry VII. The design varied in details until the late 17th century, but since that time has consisted of a jewelled circlet, above which are alternating crosses formy and fleurs-de-lys. From this spring two arches decorated with pearls, and at their intersection an orb surmounted by a cross formy. A cap of crimson velvet is shown within the crown, with the cap's ermine lining appearing at the base of the crown in lieu of a torse. The shape of the arches of the crown has been represented differently at different times, and can help to date a depiction of the crest.


title: Royal arms of England

text: The helm on which the crest was borne was originally a simple steel design, sometimes with gold embellishments. In the reign of Elizabeth I a pattern of helm unique to the royal arms was introduced. This is a gold helm with a barred visor, facing the viewer. The decorative mantling (a stylised cloth cloak that hangs from the helm) was originally of red cloth lined with ermine, but was altered to cloth of gold lined ermine by Elizabeth.


title: Royal arms of England

text: Animal supporters, standing on either side of the shield to hold and guard it, first appeared in English heraldry in the 15th century. Originally, they were not regarded as an integral part of arms, and were subject to frequent change. Various animals were sporadically shown supporting the royal arms of England, but it was only with the reign of Edward IV that their use became consistent. Supporters fell under the regulation of the Kings of Arms in the Tudor period. The heralds of that time also prochronistically created supporters for earlier monarchs, and although these attributed supporters were never used by the monarchs concerned, they were later used to signify them on public buildings or monuments completed after their deaths, for instance at St. George's Chapel, in Windsor Castle.


title: Royal arms of England

text: The boar adopted by Richard III prompted William Collingbourne's quip "The Rat, the Cat, and Lovell the Dog, Rule all England under the Hog", and William Shakespeare's derision in "Richard III". The red dragon, a symbol of the Tudor dynasty, was added upon the accession of Henry VII, and used by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. After the Union of the Crowns, the supporters of the arms of the British monarch became—and have remained—the Lion and the Unicorn, representing England and Scotland respectively.


title: Royal arms of England

text: Edward III founded the Order of the Garter in about 1348. Since then, the full achievement of the royal arms has included a representation of the Garter, encircling the shield. This is a blue circlet with gold buckle and edging, bearing the order's Old French motto "Honi soit qui mal y pense" ("Shame be to him who thinks evil of it") in gold capital letters.


title: Royal arms of England

text: A motto, placed on a scroll below the royal arms of England, seems to have first been adopted by Henry IV in the early 15th century. His motto was "Souverayne" ("sovereign"). His son, Henry V adopted the motto "Dieu et mon droit" ("God and my right"). While this motto has been exclusively used since the accession of George I in 1714, and continues to form part of the royal arms of the United Kingdom, other mottoes were used by certain monarchs in the intervening period. "Veritas temporis filia" ("truth is the daughter of time") was the motto of Mary I (1553–1558), "Semper Eadem" ("always the same") was used by Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and Anne (1702–1714), James I (1603–1625) sometimes used "Beati pacifici" ("blessed are the peacemakers"), while William III (1689–1702) used the motto of the House of Orange: "Je maintiendrai" ("I will maintain").


title: Royal arms of England

text: The royal banner of England is the English banner of arms and so has always borne the royal arms of England—the personal arms of England's reigning monarch. When displayed in war or battle, this banner signalled that the sovereign was present in person. Because the royal banner depicted the royal arms of England, its design and composition changed throughout the Middle Ages. It is variously known as the royal banner of England, the banner of the royal arms, the banner of the king of England, or by the misnomer of the royal standard of England; Arthur Charles Fox-Davies explains that it is "a misnomer to term the banner of the royal arms the Royal Standard", because "the term standard properly refers to the long tapering flag used in battle, by which an overlord mustered his retainers in battle". The archaeologist and antiquarian Charles Boutell also makes this distinction. This royal banner differs from England's national flag, St George's Cross, in that it does not represent any particular area or land, but rather symbolises the sovereignty vested in the rulers thereof.


title: Royal arms of England

text: Several families depicted below here and officially entitled to bear the Lions of England, either through descent through the male line (illegitimate), or through the female line (e.g. the Dukes of Norfolk and their descendants).


title: Royal arms of England

text: The House of Hanover stopped bearing the arms of England, and the United Kingdom, when they succeeded as Dukes of Brunswick in the German Empire. The Duke of Brunswick was generally understood to have lost the right to bear the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, under which they also lost their British Royal Duchy, the Dukedom of Cumberland and Teviotdale as well as their place in the line of succession to the British throne. However, after being deposed/abdicating in 1918 with the rest of the German princes, they resumed using the arms of the Kingdom of Hanover, which included the Arms of the United Kingdom. Their right to do so is not undisputed. However, as they reside outside the United Kingdom, there is no generally accepted international legal recourse.


title: Royal arms of England

text: The Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha are a similar situation, having been also been deprived of their British tile, Duke of Albany, and place in the succession in 1917.


title: Royal arms of England

text: Several ancient English towns displayed the royal arms of England upon their seals and, when it occurred to them to adopt insignia of their own, used the royal arms, albeit with modification, as their inspiration. For instance, in the arms of New Romney, the field is changed from red to blue. Hereford changes the lions from gold to silver, and in the 17th century was granted a blue border charged with silver saltires in allusion to its siege by a Scottish army during the English Civil War. The town council of Faversham changes only the hindquarters of the three lions to silver. Berkshire County Council bore arms with two golden lions in reference to its royal patronage and the Norman kings' influence upon the early history of Berkshire.


title: Royal arms of England

text: The royal arms of England features on the tabard, the distinctive traditional garment of English officers of arms. These garments were worn by heralds when performing their original duties—making royal or state proclamations and announcing tournaments. Since 1484 they have been part of the Royal Household. Tabards featuring the royal arms continue to be worn at several traditional ceremonies, such as the annual procession and service of the Order of the Garter at Windsor Castle, the State Opening of Parliament at the Palace of Westminster, the coronation of the British monarch at Westminster Abbey, and state funerals in the United Kingdom.


title: Royal arms of England

text: The Royal Standard of the United Kingdom is used in Imperial College London's coat of arms depicting the close historic link of the university with the Royal Family. The university was born out of Queen Victoria and Prince Consort Albert vision of an area of culture and science in London, now called Albertopolis. King Edward VII granted the college the arms in 1908 by royal warrant.


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: "Don't Bring Me Down" is the ninth and final track on the English rock band the Electric Light Orchestra's 1979 album "Discovery". It is their highest-charting hit in the United States to date.


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: "Don't Bring Me Down" is the band's second-highest-charting hit in the UK, where it peaked at number 3, and their biggest hit in the United States, peaking at number 4 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. It also charted well in Canada (number 1) and Australia (number 6). This was the first single by ELO not to include a string section.


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: The song ends with the sound of a door slamming. According to producer Jeff Lynne, this was a metal fire door at Musicland Studios where the song was recorded.


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: The song was dedicated to the NASA Skylab space station, which re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia on 11 July 1979.


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: On 4 November 2007, Lynne was awarded a BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc) Million-Air certificate for "Don't Bring Me Down" for the song having reached two million airplays.


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: A common mondegreen in the song is the perception that, following the title line, Lynne shouts "Bruce!" In the liner notes of the ELO compilation "Flashback" and elsewhere, Lynne has explained that he is singing a made-up word, "Groos", which some have suggested sounds like the German expression "Gruß," meaning "greeting." Lynne has explained that originally he did not realize the meaning of the syllable, and he just used it as a temporary placekeeper to fill a gap in the lyrics, but upon learning the German meaning he decided to leave it in. After the song's release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as "Bruce" that Lynne actually began to sing the word as "Bruce" for fun at live shows.


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: ELO engineer Reinhold Mack remembers the genesis of the term differently, stating that Lynne was actually singing "Bruce" as a joke in advance of an Australian tour "referring to how many Australian guys are called Bruce."


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: AllMusic's Donald Guarisco praised ELO for not including a string section in the song: "Electric Light Orchestra can easily be summed up as 'pop music with strings.' Thus, it is pretty ironic that the group's biggest American hit, "Don't Bring Me Down", features no string section at all", adding that "it proved that Electric Light Orchestra could be just as interesting without the string section and thus paved the way for later string-less hits like "Hold On Tight" and "Calling America", concluding that it was a song that was "powerful enough for rock fans but dance-friendly enough for the disco set". "Billboard" found the song to be Beatlesque while praising the multiple "irresistible" instrumental and vocal hooks. "Cash Box" similarly described it as being influenced by the Beatles, particularly the song "You Can't Do That," and said that the song "brims with overdubbed Lynne harmonies and a pounding rhythm track." "Ultimate Classic Rock" rated "Don't Bring Me Down" as the 97th greatest classic rock song, saying it "may just be Jeff Lynne's most concise and representative musical statement."


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: A music video was produced, which showed the band performing the song interspersed with various animations relating to the song's subject matter, including big-bottomed majorettes and a pulsating neon frankfurter. The band's three resident string players are depicted playing keyboards in the music video.


title: Don't Bring Me Down

text: Jeff Lynne re-recorded the song in his own home studio. It was released on a compilation album with other re-recorded ELO songs called "".


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: The Color of Pomegranates is a 1969 Soviet Armenian art film written and directed by Sergei Parajanov. The film is a poetic treatment of the life of 18th-century Armenian poet and troubadour Sayat-Nova. It has appeared in many polls as one of the greatest films ever made and was hailed as revolutionary by Mikhail Vartanov. The film is now regarded as a landmark in film history.


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: "The Color of Pomegranates" is a biography of the Armenian "ashug" Sayat-Nova (King of Song) that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally. The film is presented with little dialogue using active tableaux which depict the poet's life in chapters: Childhood, Youth, Prince's Court (where he falls in love with a tsarina), The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death and Death. There are sounds and music and occasional singing but dialogue is rare. Each chapter is indicated by a title card and framed through both Sergei Parajanov's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems. Actress Sofiko Chiaureli notably plays six roles in the film, both male and female. According to Frank Williams, Parajanov's film celebrates the survival of Armenian culture in face of oppression and persecution, "There are specific images that are highly charged—blood-red juice spilling from a cut pomegranate into a cloth and forming a stain in the shape of the boundaries of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia; dyers lifting hanks of wool out of vats in the colours of the national flag, and so on".


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: Parajanov, the director, said his inspiration was "the Armenian illuminated miniature," and that he "wanted to create that inner dynamic that comes from inside the picture, the forms and the dramaturgy of colour." He also described this film as a series of Persian miniatures.


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: His close friend Mikhail Vartanov has maintained that Parajanov's misunderstood cinematic language is "simple and only appears to be complex" and he partly demystified it in "".


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: Some Russian versions of "The Color of Pomegranates" have Special Edition features. "The Memories of Sayat Nova", by Levon Grigoryan, is a 30-minute synopsis that explains what is happening in the tableaux and in each chapter of the poet's life. G. Smalley asserts that every carefully composed image in "The Color of Pomegranates" is coded to a meaning, but the key to interpreting them is missing. He agrees with Parajanov that "If someone sat down to watch "The Color of Pomegranates" with no background, they would have no idea what they were seeing." The making of the film and its different versions are explored in the other special features: "Introduction" by writer and filmmaker Daniel Bird; "The World Is A Window: Making The Colour of Pomegranates"—a new documentary by Daniel Bird; and "Commentary" by Levon Abrahamyan, moderated by Daniel Bird.


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: The film was shot at numerous historic sites in Armenia, including the Sanahin Monastery, the Haghpat Monastery, the St. John church at Ardvi, and the Akhtala Monastery. All are medieval churches in the northern province of Lori. Locations in Georgia included the Alaverdi Monastery, the countryside surrounding the David Gareja monastery complex, and the Dzveli Shuamta complex near Telavi. Azerbaijani locations included the Old City of Baku and Nardaran Fortress.


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: Soviet censors and Communist Party officials objected to Parajanov's stylized, poetic treatment of Sayat-Nova's life and complained that it failed to educate the public about the poet. As a result, the film's title was changed from "Sayat-Nova" to "The Color of Pomegranates", and all references to Sayat-Nova's name were removed from the credits and chapter titles in the original Armenian release version. The Armenian writer Hrant Matevosyan wrote new, abstractly poetic Armenian-language chapter titles. Officials further objected to the film's abundance of religious imagery, although a great deal of religious imagery still remains in both surviving versions of the film. Initially the State Committee for Cinematography in Moscow refused to allow distribution of the film outside of Armenia. It premiered in Armenia in October 1969, with a running time of 77 minutes.


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: The filmmaker Sergei Yutkevich, who had served as a reader for the script in the State Committee for Cinematography's Script Editorial board, recut the film slightly and created new Russian-language chapter titles in order to make the film easier to understand and more palatable to the authorities. In addition to cutting a few minutes' worth of footage—some of it clearly due to its religious content—he changed the order of some sequences. The film ultimately received only a limited release in the rest of the Soviet Union, in Yutkevich's 73-minute version.


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 15 retrospectively collected reviews, with an average rating of 7.09/10. In 1980 Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote that "the film is elusive in any circumstances. However, anything this purely mysterious has its magic." "The Color of Pomegranates" made the Top 10 list for 1982 in "Cahiers du cinéma".


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: Filmmaker Mikhail Vartanov has said, "Besides the film language suggested by Griffith and Eisenstein, the world cinema has not discovered anything revolutionarily new until "The Color of Pomegranates", not counting the generally unaccepted language of the "Andalusian Dog" by Buñuel". According to Michelangelo Antonioni, "Parajanov's "Color of Pomegranates" is of a stunningly perfect beauty. Parajanov, in my opinion, is one of the best film directors in the world."


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard said, “In the temple of cinema there are images, light and reality. Sergei Paradjanov was the master of that temple…”


title: The Color of Pomegranates

text: Film critic Gilbert Adair argued that "although in both style and content it gives us the impression, somehow, of predating the invention of the cinema, no historian of the medium who ignores "The Color of Pomegranates" can ever be taken seriously." The work ranked 84th in the 2012 "Sight & Sound" critics' poll of the world's greatest films and appeared in another list of the greatest films by "Time Out".