title: The Stage (album)

text: "Roman Sky" includes several orchestrated arrangements, similar to the ones throughout various songs appearing on "City of Evil". "Higher" is one of the album's most melodic and progressive tracks. It features a female choir near the end creating a very unusual and atmospheric outro harmonized with synthesizers, piano and a drifting bass line. The band's longest song to date, "Exist", in which Neil deGrasse Tyson makes an audio spoken word appearance at the end, which he wrote specifically for the album, showcases the band's further experimentation in progressive metal. Other songs also show elements of thrash metal and progressive metal, with some songs using fast drum patterns, blast beat and rapid riff structure, along with thrash-style shouting at some points. The album also includes an influence from their earlier metalcore style, including metalcore-style riffs and breakdowns, with "Paradigm" going as far as to include screamed vocals. The song "Fermi Paradox" has a black metal influence in the instrumental, with the blast beats and guitar work, but the band chose to put clean vocals over it.


title: The Stage (album)

text: "The Stage" is Avenged Sevenfold's first conceptual album (2010's "Nightmare" was planned to be a concept record, but such plans were nixed following The Rev's death). The album's concept is based on the future having such themes such as artificial intelligence and self-destruction of society, it includes a variety of science-driven themes including nuclear warfare ("Sunny Disposition"), a failed NASA test ("Higher"), Giordano Bruno's death sentence ("Roman Sky"), space exploration ("Fermi Paradox"), simulation hypothesis ("Simulation") and religion ("God Damn", "Angels"), all of these themes and events taking place on the same "stage": Earth. Thematically, the album deals with mankind's relationship with technology. Lyrical content of the album was inspired by the writings of Carl Sagan and Elon Musk.


title: The Stage (album)

text: In an interview with "Rolling Stone", vocalist M. Shadows commented as examples: "The song "Paradigm" talks about nanobots – and how they can potentially be used to cure diseases and help you live forever. But how much of a human being would you be at that point? If you're 70 percent machine and 30 percent human, are you going to lose yourself? Or a song like "Creating God" – computers are getting smarter and smarter, and all of a sudden they're becoming your god; they're so much more intelligent than you, you seem like apes to them, or ants".


title: The Stage (album)

text: The title-track "The Stage" talks about humanity and the way people have treated each other throughout history. It speaks from the perspective of a man growing up and realizing corruption of the world.


title: The Stage (album)

text: Closing track "Exist" was made as the band's approach to sonically represent The Big Bang, with the instrumental part in the first section (0:00-6:55) representing the creation of the universe and the second section (6:56-15:41) of the song representing the creation of Earth.


title: The Stage (album)

text: On October 28, 2016, the album was available for purchase on iTunes and for streaming on Spotify, following the band's live-streamed performance at the rooftop of the Capitol Records Building. Special bundles of the album were also made available on the band's webstore.


title: The Stage (album)

text: The band decided not to announce the album before its release, as vocalist M. Shadows stated "it completely takes away the mystique of the record" in an interview with "Rolling Stone".


title: The Stage (album)

text: It was also announced on Chris Jericho's podcast "Talk is Jericho" that 7 new songs would be added via streaming services at some point. In a later interview with Kerrang!, the band said that 6 songs are cover songs, while there is one original song that was unfinished for the album.


title: The Stage (album)

text: The first additional track, a cover version of the Mexican folk song, "Malagueña Salerosa" premiered on Sirius XM Octane on June 8, 2017. The second track, a cover of Mr. Bungle's "Retrovertigo" was released on June 30, 2017. The third track "Dose", an original song, was released on July 12, 2017 as a part of a Dungeon Hunter 5 easter egg. On August 4, 2017, a cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway" was released. The song features rhythm guitarist Zacky Vengeance on lead vocals, and The Vandals guitarist Warren Fitzgerald on additional guitar. A cover version of The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" was released on August 25, 2017. A cover version of The Rolling Stones' hit song "As Tears Go By" was released on September 8, 2017.


title: The Stage (album)

text: Along with the release of a cover of Pink Floyd's song "Wish You Were Here" on October 6, 2017, the band announced a deluxe edition of the album that includes all additional tracks and 4 live tracks, that was scheduled for a December 15, 2017 release. The release was later pushed back to December 22, 2017 due to unforeseen circumstances.


title: The Stage (album)

text: "The Stage" received positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream music critics, the album received an average score of 74, based on 9 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Music critics praised the new progressive style adopted. The album was described as a mix of Iron Maiden's anthemic style and Dream Theater's progressive songwriting. Ultimate Guitar wrote "with a renewed focus on sonic experimentation, speedy metal riffs, and deeper lyrical themes, Avenged Sevenfold release a very fine record with "The Stage".


title: The Stage (album)

text: "Metal Injection" even went on to say that "The Stage" is a "masterpiece", stating 'with its brilliant composition, vast and strong collection of sounds, this is the Avenged Sevenfold record that shines the brightest amongst the stars. "The Stage" isn't just a great step up from their previous work, but an outstanding addition to the halls of metal and rock that will forever be remembered.'


title: The Stage (album)

text: "What they did do was stick to their guns. And as the old guard of arena-filling hard rockers begin to diminish (physically, artistically), it's good to know there's someone dedicated to keeping the bar high." cited Jason Pettigrew for Alternative Press. NME's Anita Bhagwandas wrote that "it's evident the band have begun a new chapter where they appreciate rather than become their influences. They've truly arrived."


title: The Stage (album)

text: The album was also praised for its dynamic range and mastering quality. "Angry Metal-Fi" called "The Stage" "the best sounding metal record of 2016", noting how Avenged Sevenfold managed to break free from the loudness war.


title: The Stage (album)

text: In a mixed review, PopMatters' Chris Conaton wrote "Despite being a concept album, "The Stage" doesn't break much new ground for Avenged Sevenfold. They sound like the same band doing pretty much the same thing." Also in a mixed review, Exclaim!'s Bradley Zorgdrager cited "Though Hail to the King failed to live up to the royal expectations of its titular disguise, "The Stage"'s grandiosity smells of overcompensation; Avenged Sevenfold's crown lies somewhere in between."


title: The Stage (album)

text: Despite being a surprise release, "The Stage" debuted at number four on the "Billboard" 200 with 76,000 units, with 72,000 of that figure being pure album sales. As of January 2017, the album sold more than 170,000 copies in the US alone.


title: Bryan Clark

text: Bryan Emmett Clark (born March 14, 1964) is an American retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation and All Japan Pro Wrestling under the ring names The Nightstalker, Adam Bomb and Wrath and under his own name. He is a former WCW World Tag Team Champion and AJPW World Tag Team Champion.


title: Bryan Clark

text: Clark made his wrestling debut in 1989 under the ring name The Nightstalker and quickly rose to a main event status wrestler. Clark competed in the Minnesota-based American Wrestling Association. He appeared at live AWA house and television events, mainly in the mid-west area of The United States. Some of these matches were broadcast on the ESPN, AWA Championship Wrestling show. (ESPN Classic continues to air re-runs of the show). Wrestling legend Ox Baker began to manage Clark during this time, providing for some classic promotional segments with Baker on the mic. The Nightstalker had a heated feud with The Trooper (Del Wilkes, later to be known as The Patriot). This began as The Nightstalker appeared during a Trooper match versus W.T. Jones on April 13, 1990, at an ESPN televised show in Rochester, Minnesota. Ox Baker began to challenge any and all wrestlers to include Larry Zbyszko, even telling The Trooper that he "couldn't even join the boy scouts". Clark's in ring look included black and white face paint, while gripping an over-sized hatchet.


title: Bryan Clark

text: As the AWA went into dormancy in the fall of 1990, Clark made the jump to World Championship Wrestling. He made his first appearance on the November 10 edition of "WCW Saturday Night" and defeated Gary Jackson. Ten days later Clark faced Sid Vicious at and was defeated. He then formed an alliance with The Big Cat and was scheduled to team with him against Vicious and Dan Spivey at Starrcade. Clark would miss the pay-per-view and be replaced by The Motor City Madman.


title: Bryan Clark

text: Clark would be absent from WCW until October 1991, when he made an appearance as a masked "ghoul" at Halloween Havoc. Two months later he replaced an injured Diamond Studd at Starrcade to team with Rick Steiner in a losing effort to Vader and Mr. Hughes.


title: Bryan Clark

text: Clark moved to Herb Abrams' Universal Wrestling Federation, making his first appearance on June 19, 1992, at a TV taping in Spartanburg, SC. He had three matches, defeating Johnny Kid and Jake Steele while losing by disqualification to Death Row 3260.


title: Bryan Clark

text: Clark joined Smoky Mountain Wrestling in October 1992 and made his debut on a show in Knoxville, TN, losing to SMW Champion Brian Lee by countout. He later defeated Tracy Smothers to become the promotion's second-ever "Beat The Champ" Television Champion on February 2, 1993. He lost the title to Tim Horner six days later.


title: Bryan Clark

text: On March 8, 1993, Clark received a tryout match for the World Wrestling Federation, wrestling Reno Riggins at a "WWF Superstars" taping in North Charleston, South Carolina as The Nightstalker. He had another tryout match the following night at a "WWF Wrestling Challenge" taping, defeating Ricky Nelson. In May 1993, Clark debuted as Adam Bomb, the newest client of Johnny Polo. Wearing luminous green contact lenses, and sporting a red tongue. Bomb's gimmick was that of a survivor of the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown accident, which was further emphasized by his ring name being a pun on the "atom bomb". This gimmick was partly realistic; Clark had actually been born and raised in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, not far from Three Mile Island. Seven months after his debut, Harvey Wippleman replaced Polo as Bomb's manager because Polo wanted to focus on managing WWF Tag Team Champions The Quebecers. The Adam Bomb concept and costume was designed and created by Tom Fleming.


title: Bryan Clark

text: Bomb made his pay-per-view debut at Survivor Series, where he teamed up with Irwin R. Schyster, Diesel and "The Model" Rick Martel against Razor Ramon, The 1-2-3 Kid, Marty Jannetty and "The Macho Man" Randy Savage in an elimination match. His team went on to lose the match, though he was the last remaining wrestler for his team before being pinned by Jannetty after a roll-up.


title: Bryan Clark

text: Following this, he participated in the 1994 Royal Rumble, where he was the final entrant in the match. However, he lasted less than five minutes before being eliminated by Lex Luger. He also was one of nine wrestlers who helped Yokozuna beat Undertaker during a Casket match. Following the Rumble and a feud with Earthquake, at WrestleMania X, Bomb lost to Earthquake in 35 seconds. Bomb turned face after his manager Harvey Wippleman turned on him and helped new client Kwang attack him. As a face, he would throw rubber nuclear missiles into the audience as he walked to the ring and after he won a match. After briefly feuding with Kwang and Bam Bam Bigelow, Bomb was moved down the card and began competing exclusively on "WWF Superstars" before leaving the promotion in August 1995.


title: Bryan Clark

text: After leaving WWF, Clark continued using the Adam Bomb name in the independent circuit and England in 1996 where he worked for Hammerlock Bomb Alert Tour with Andre Baker.


title: Bryan Clark

text: At Uncensored 1997, Clark rejoined WCW as Wrath, a helmeted martial artist who, along with Mortis, battled Glacier and Ernest Miller. The four characters, collectively known as "Blood Runs Cold", was WCW's attempt to tap into the popularity of the "Mortal Kombat" video games. The angle continued until 1998 when Clark suffered an injury. After recovery, he returned to singles action later in the year as a face, debuting both a new attire and finishing move called the Meltdown while all Blood Runs Cold references were phased out. After a lengthy undefeated streak, Clark was rumored to be slated to become a future challenger to Bill Goldberg but had his momentum stopped on November 23, 1998, in a big loss to Kevin Nash. Wrath would continue to gain many victories into 1999 and entered a feud with Bam Bam Bigelow. At WCW/nWo Souled Out, Bigelow defeated Wrath to end the feud. Clark tore his ACL in a match against Jerry Flynn on April 15, 1999, and spent a year recuperating.


title: Bryan Clark

text: Clark returned to the ring in April 2000, now using his real name. He formed a tag team with Brian Adams known as KroniK, and both became members of the New Blood. However, KroniK switched allegiances to the Millionaires Club after Vince Russo betrayed them and, on May 15, 2000, they defeated Shane Douglas and The Wall to win the vacant World Tag Team Championship. They later lost the title on May 30 to New Blood members Shawn Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo. KroniK was granted a rematch for the title at Bash at the Beach on July 9, and was successful in reclaiming World Tag Team Championship. KroniK then entered a feud with the entire Natural Born Thrillers stable, but retained the title against the Thrillers before losing it to Vampiro and The Great Muta at New Blood Rising on August 13. Following the title loss, KroniK turned heel after Vince Russo managed to bribe them in order to have them attack Bill Goldberg, who would be fired if he lost a single match. However, Goldberg managed to overcome the odds and pinned both Clark and Adams in a handicap match at Halloween Havoc. KroniK continued working as "hired muscle" by helping The Boogie Knights battle The Filthy Animals, and eventually helped their former enemies the Natural Born Thrillers before turning face once again in January 2001 by siding with Ernest Miller.


title: Bryan Clark

text: KroniK was sidelined when Clark needed stitches for a wound from a chair shot while Adams was hospitalized with appendicitis. While they were injured, WCW was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation in March 2001.


title: Bryan Clark

text: Clark and Adams returned to the WWF on the September 4, 2001 episode of "SmackDown!" by attacking and double chokeslamming The Undertaker. The team would go on to face The Brothers of Destruction at Unforgiven 2001 in a match for the WCW Tag Team Championship, which Clark and Adams lost. After two dark matches and a pay-per-view appearance, Clark was released from his contract while Adams began working for the Heartland Wrestling Association, which served as WWF's developmental territory.


title: Bryan Clark

text: After Brian Adams was released from the WWF in November 2001, he and Clark reformed KroniK made a number of appearances on the independent circuit, most prominently for World Wrestling All-Stars and All Japan Pro Wrestling. During their time in AJPW, they defeated Keiji Mutoh and Taiyō Kea for the World Tag Team Championship on July 17, 2002. KroniK were later stripped of the title due to contract problems. They wrestled their last match together in January 2003, losing to Goldberg and Keiji Mutoh. Shortly afterwards, both Adams and Clark retired due to injuries.


title: Bryan Clark

text: In February 2006, Clark had surgery on his lower back for injuries sustained during his career. He owns the Trademarks to the KroniK, Adam Bomb and Wrath gimmicks during his time in WCW, WWE and the WWF. Following the death of his partner Brian Adams, Clark considered their time together as part of KroniK to be the highlight of his career. He occasionally trains other wrestlers and appears at conventions.


title: Bryan Clark

text: In July 2016, Clark was named part of a class action lawsuit filed against WWE which alleged that wrestlers incurred traumatic brain injuries during their tenure and that the company concealed the risks of injury. The suit was litigated by attorney Konstantine Kyros, who has been involved in a number of other lawsuits against WWE. The lawsuit was dismissed by US District Judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant in September 2018. The lawsuit is now being heard by the Supreme Court in the Fall of 2021.


title: Bryan Clark

text: In February 2020, Clark was arrested in Arizona on five felony charges relating to alleged acts between January and April 2019. They include conspiracy, drug possession, illegal control of enterprise, transporting or selling narcotics, and possessing a weapon during a drug offense. He pleaded not guilty to all. On June 18, 2021, all charges were “dismissed by prosecution motion” in the Superior Court of Maricopa County. Bryan Clark's entire case was thrown out.


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: Barbara Densmoor Harris (July 25, 1935 – August 21, 2018) was an American actress. She appeared in such movies as "A Thousand Clowns", "Plaza Suite", "Nashville", "Family Plot", "Freaky Friday", "Peggy Sue Got Married", and "Grosse Pointe Blank". Harris won a Tony Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. She also received four Golden Globe Award nominations.


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: Harris was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of Natalie (née Densmoor), a pianist, and Oscar Graham Harris, an arborist who later became a businessman. In her youth, Harris attended Senn High School and then Wilbur Wright College. She began her stage career as a teenager at the Playwrights Theatre in Chicago. Her fellow players included Edward Asner, Elaine May and Mike Nichols.


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: She was also a member of the Compass Players, the first ongoing improvisational theatre troupe in the United States, directed by Paul Sills, to whom she was married at that time. Though the Compass Players closed in disarray, a second theatre directed by Sills called "The Second City" opened in Chicago in 1959 and attracted national attention. Despite Sills and Harris having divorced by this time, Sills cast her in this company and brought her to New York to play in a Broadway edition at the Royale Theatre, opening on September 26, 1961. She was nominated for the 1962 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance.


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: A life member of the Actors Studio, Harris received a Tony Award nomination in 1962 for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for her Broadway debut in the original musical revue production "From the Second City", which ran at the Royale Theatre from September 26, 1961 to December 9, 1961. The revue also featured the young Alan Arkin and Paul Sand. Produced by Max Liebman (among others) and directed by Paul Sills, the production presented Harris in such sketches as "Caesar's Wife", "First Affair", "Museum Piece", and "The Bergman Film".


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: In a 2002 interview with the "Phoenix New Times", Harris recalled her ambivalence about even bringing the troupe to New York from Chicago. She said, "When I was at Second City, there was a vote about whether we should take our show to Broadway or not. Andrew Duncan and I voted no. I stayed in New York, but only because Richard Rodgers and Alan Jay Lerner came and said, 'We want to write a musical for you!' Well, I wasn't big on musical theater. I had seen part of "South Pacific" in Chicago and I walked out. But it was Richard Rodgers calling!"


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: While Rodgers and Lerner were busy working on their original musical for her, she won the Theatre World Award for her role in playwright Arthur Kopit's dark comedic farce, "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad". She earned a nomination for the 1966 Tony for Best Actress in a Musical for "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" (1965), a Broadway musical created for her by Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane. She starred as Daisy Gamble, a New Yorker who seeks out the help of a psychiatrist to stop smoking. Under hypnosis, the apparently kooky, brash, and quirky character reveals unexpected hidden depths. During her hypnotic trances, she becomes fascinating to the psychiatrist as she reveals herself as a woman who has lived many past lives, one of them ending tragically. While critics were divided over the merits of the show, they praised Harris's performance. The show opened on October 14, 1965 at the Mark Hellinger Theater and ran for 280 performances, earning a total of three Tony nominations. Harris performed numbers from the show with John Cullum on "The Bell Telephone Hour" ("The Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner", broadcast on February 27, 1966). She had previously appeared on Broadway with Anne Bancroft in a 1963 production of Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children", staged by Jerome Robbins, at the Martin Beck Theater; the production received five Tony Award nominations.


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: Harris gave another well-received performance in "The Apple Tree", another Broadway musical created for her, this time by the team of composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick. The show, in which Harris co-starred with Alan Alda and Larry Blyden and was directed by Mike Nichols, opened at the Shubert Theater on October 5, 1966 and closed on November 25, 1967. The show was based on three tales by Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton, and Jules Feiffer and Harris starred in all three. She played Eve in Twain's "The Diary of Adam and Eve", a melodramatically campy temptress in "The Lady Or The Tiger?", and two roles in Jules Feiffer's "Passionella". She was the forlorn, soot-stained nasal-congested chimney-sweep who wants only to be "a beautiful glamorous movie star, for its own sake", and, by virtue of an instantaneous costume-change, the huge-bosomed, gold-gowned, blonde bombshell of a movie star she always dreamed she'd be. Richard Watts Jr. of the "New York Post" wrote "[t]here are many high triumphs of the imagination in the vastly original musical comedy ... [b]ut it is Miss Harris who provides it with the extra touch of magic." Walter Kerr called her "the square root of noisy sex" and "sweetness carried well into infinity". Harris captured the 1967 Tony for Best Actress in a Musical as well as "Cue Magazine"'s "Entertainer of the Year" award. Of her friend and colleague Mike Nichols, she said in 2002, "Mike Nichols was a toughie. He could be very kind, but if you weren't first-rate, watch out. He'd let you know."


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: After reading scripts for David Merrick, Harris directed a Broadway production of "The Penny Wars" by Elliott Baker in 1969 starring Kim Hunter, George Voskovec, and Kristoffer Tabori. She stopped appearing on stage after "The Apple Tree", except for the off-Broadway first American production of Brecht and Weill's "Mahagonny" in 1970, in which she played the role of Jenny, originally created by Lotte Lenya. In the 2002 interview, Harris said, "Who wants to be up on the stage all the time? It isn't easy. You have to be awfully invested in the fame aspect, and I really never was. What I cared about was the discipline of acting, whether I did well or not."


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: From 1961 through 1964, she appeared as a guest star on such popular television series as "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Naked City", "Channing" and "The Defenders". In 1965, she made an auspicious feature film debut as social worker Sandra Markowitz in the screen version of "A Thousand Clowns". She co-starred opposite Jason Robards Jr., who played the freewheeling, eternally optimistic guardian of his teenage nephew, the custody of whom is threatened by authorities' dim view of his bohemian lifestyle. "The New York Times" critic wrote on December 9, 1965 that the movie "has the new and sensational Barbara Harris playing the appropriately light-headed girl". Harris and Robards won Golden Globe nominations. She then the screen version of Arthur Kopit's darkly comic "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad" (1967) with Rosalind Russell as the monstrous mother of Robert Morse who takes the stuffed corpse of her dead husband along on trips. Reviewing the latter film for "The New York Times" on February 16, 1967, critic Bosley Crowther wrote, "Barbara Harris from the original play cast is as wacky as she was on the stage — casual and direct and totally blasé about the boisterous business of sex. Her tussle to accomplish her purpose, with the corpse falling out into the room every time she is about to score a field goal, is still the funniest scene."


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: In Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite" (1971) with Walter Matthau, the British entertainment magazine "Time Out" called the "delightful" Harris' gifts "wasted". She had only slightly better opportunities in "The War Between Men and Women" (1972) with Jack Lemmon.


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: She earned an Oscar nomination for the 1971 film (which co-starred Dustin Hoffman) "Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?", about a rich, successful, womanizing pop songwriter suffering a debilitating but oddly liberating mental crisis. The script was by Herb Gardner, who also wrote "A Thousand Clowns".


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: In 1975, Harris appeared in one of her signature film roles in Robert Altman's masterpiece "Nashville", playing Albuquerque, a ditzy, scantily clad country singing hopeful who may be far more opportunistic and calculating than she would first appear. Accounts of the film's chaotic and inspired production, particularly in Jan Stuart's book "The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman's Masterpiece", indicate a clash between actress and director. Harris earned a Golden Globe nomination (one of 11 for the film); as Oscar-nominated co-star Lily Tomlin put it, "I was the hugest of Barbara Harris fans; I thought she was so stunning and original." Although the two were set to reunite with Altman in a sequel, that film was never made.


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: The following year, Alfred Hitchcock cast her in "Family Plot" as a bogus spiritualist who searches for a missing heir and a family fortune with her cab driver boyfriend. Among a cast that included Bruce Dern, William Devane, and Karen Black, Hitchcock was particularly delighted by Harris' quirkiness, skill and intelligence. She received praise from critics as well as a Golden Globe nomination for the film, which was based on the novel "The Rainbird Pattern" by Victor Canning, and which marked a reunion of Hitchcock with Ernest Lehman, who had created the original screenplay for "North by Northwest". In her 2002 "Phoenix New Times" interview, she admitted that she "turned down Alfred Hitchcock when he first asked me to be in one of his movies". After agreeing to star in "Family Plot", she recalled that "Hitchcock was a wonderful man." The film was Hitchcock's last and inasmuch as Harris appears by herself in its final shot (in which she winks at the audience), she has the distinction of being the actor who, so to speak, ended Alfred Hitchcock's long and illustrious career.


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: Harris continued to appear in films of the 1970s-80s, including "Freaky Friday" (1976) with a young Jodie Foster, "Movie Movie" for director Stanley Donen, and "The North Avenue Irregulars" with Edward Herrmann and Cloris Leachman. She co-starred in "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" (1979) with one of her former Broadway leading men, Alan Alda (who also wrote the screenplay), a tale of a liberal Washington Senator caught in an affair with a younger woman, played by Meryl Streep.


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: In 1981, she starred in "Second-Hand Hearts" for esteemed director Hal Ashby as "Dinette Dusty", a recently widowed waitress and would-be singer who marries a boozy carwash worker named "Loyal", played by Robert Blake to get back her children from their paternal grandparents. The film, based on a highly sought-after "road movie" screenplay by Charles Eastman, was a critical and box office disaster that tarnished the careers of all concerned. Critic Vincent Canby in his negative "The New York Times" review on May 8, 1981 opined, "[t]he film's one bright spot is Barbara Harris, who plays Dinette as sincerely as possible under awful conditions. She looks great even when she's supposed to be tacky, and is genuinely funny as she tries to make sense out of Loyal's muddled philosophizing, which, of course, the screenplay requires her to match." Harris was offscreen until 1986 when she played the mother of Kathleen Turner in "Peggy Sue Got Married". Her last films were "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (1988) and "Grosse Pointe Blank" (1997).


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: Harris retired from acting and began teaching. When asked in 2002 if she would resume her acting career, she said, "Well, if someone handed me something fantastic for $10 million, I'd work again. But I haven't worked in a long time as an actor. I don't miss it. I think the only thing that drew me to acting in the first place was the group of people I was working with: Ed Asner, Paul Sills, Mike Nichols, Elaine May. And all I really wanted to do back then was rehearsal. I was in it for the process, and I really resented having to go out and do a performance for an audience, because the process stopped; it had to freeze and be the same every night. It wasn't as interesting."


title: Barbara Harris (actress)

text: In 2005, she briefly resurfaced, guest starring as The Queen and as Spunky Brandburn on "Anne Manx on Amazonia", an audio drama by the Radio Repertory Company of America, which aired on XM Satellite Radio.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Ahmad Shah Bahadur , also known as Mirza Ahmad Shah or Mujahid-ud-Din Ahmad Shah Ghazi (23 December 1725 – 1775 AD), was the fourteenth Mughal Emperor, born to Emperor Muhammad Shah. He succeeded his father to the throne in 1748, at the age of 22. When Ahmed Shah Bahadur came to power, ( 1748–1754) the Mughal Empire was collapsing. Furthermore, his administrative weakness eventually led to the rise of the usurping Imad-ul-Mulk.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: As a Prince, he defeated Ahmed Shah Abdali in the Battle of Manupur in 1748, Ahmed Shah Bahadur inherited a much weakened Mughal state as emperor for six years, but left all affairs of state to rivalling factions. He was deposed by the Vizier Imad-ul-Mulk and later blinded along with his mother. He spent the remaining years of his life in prison and died in 1775 CE.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Prince Ahmad was born in 1725 to the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah and his consort Qudsia Begum. Decentralization during his father's reign, the Maratha Wars and the blow from Nadir Shah's invasion had initiated the decline of the Mughal Empire.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: As a young Prince Ahmad developed a weakness for women, though this was restricted under his father's supervision. He is also known to have been an illiterate and never took part in military training, largely due to the attitude of his miserly father, who stinted him and used to browbeat him, never even giving him a sufficient allowance requisite of imperial princes, despite the fact that at that time there was still no shortage of funds for the imperial household. He was strongly supported by his step-mother, Badshah Begum, who adopted him as her own son, after the loss of her biological child; this was instrumental in his succession to the throne; as well as by his mother, who managed the state affairs along with the Head Eunuch of the "harem", Javed Khan "Nawab Bahadur", during his reign, since he sought the harem more than his duties to the empire.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: After the death of the Mughal viceroy of Lahore, Zakariya Khan Bahadur, his two sons, Yahya Khan Bahadur and Mian Shah Nawaz Khan, the Emir of Multan, fought each other for succession. After defeating his elder brother Mian Shah Nawaz Khan declared himself the Mughal viceroy of Punjab. This weakness was quickly exploited by Ahmad Shah Durrani who initiated another campaign with 30,000 cavalry to assist Shah Nawaz Khan, who was resented for tax-evasion in the Mughal imperial court and opposed by the Grand Vizier, Qamar-ud-Din Khan, who was the father-in-law of Yahya Khan.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In April 1748, Ahmad Shah Abdali joined by Shah Nawaz Khan invaded the Indus River Valley, prompting Muradyab Khan Kalhoro the Subedar of Sindh to dispatch reinforcements to assist the Mughal Army along the river banks. Prince Ahmad and Qamar-ud-Din Khan, Hafiz Rahmat Khan, Safdarjung, Intizam-ud-Daula, Nasir Khan the former Subedar of Ghazni and Kabul, Yahya Khan and Ali Mohammed Khan were dispatched by Muhammad Shah to command a large army of 75,000 to confront the 12,000 advancing Durrani's. During the Battle of Manupur (1748), in Sirhind by the river Sutlej both forces fought a decisive battle and Prince Ahmad was nominally victorious after a Durrani wagon filled with gunpowder exploded, he was thereupon conferred with the title Bahadur. In spite of this victory, Muhammad Shah seriously mourned the fall of Qamaruddin Khan, who was killed during the battle by a stray artillery shell. After Ahmad Shah Durrani's retreat the Mughal aligned Khanate of Kalat, Nawab Amir of Bhawalpur remained aligned to Mughal Empire. Qamaruddin Khan's son Moin-ul-Mulk, (Mir Mannu) also a recognised war hero from the Battle of Manupur, was instituted as the Mughal Viceroy of Punjab, by the new Mughal Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: The Battle of Manupur had a considerable impact on the tactical prowess of Ahmad Shah Bahadur. When he became emperor, he is known to have introduced and organised the "Purbiya" camel corps particularly in the years 1751–54 to combat the invading Durranis and the rebellious Sikhs in the North-West regions of his empire.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: The news of his confidant, Qamaruddin Khan's death during the Sirhind conflict (Battle of Manupur (1748)) led to Muhammad Shah's grave sickness and eventual death soon afterwards. Prince Ahmad ascended the throne on 18 April 1748 and was crowned on 28 April 1748 at Red Fort in Delhi. He assumed the title "Abu Nasir Mujahid-ud-Din Ahmad Shah Ghazi".


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: He appointed Safdarjung, the Nawab of Oudh, as Grand Vizier, Imad-ul-Mulk as Mir Bakshi, and Moin-ul-Mulk, the son of Qamaruddin Khan, as the governor of Punjab


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: The main servant of the Mughal court, Javed Khan, was given the official title of "Nawab Bahadur" and an army of 5000. Together with the emperor's mother, who was given a force of 50,000, Javed Khan became the effective regent. Javed Khan's rise to power and his authority was seen as an affront to the nobility and the aristocracy of the empire, and in particular to the emperor's soldiers.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Qudsia Begum made every effort to protect the high authority that was granted to Javed Khan and authorised him to use force against those who opposed and resented both him and her. After Safdarjung survived an assassination attempt in 1749 (plotted by Javed Khan), due to his response tensions erupted in the Mughal court when he tried to de-legitimise any relatives of his predeceasing Grand Viziers he also tried to drive out all the members of the imperial Afghan faction from positions of authority due to the stipends they received from the eunuch. These policies brought Safdarjung in conflict with the principal members of the Turani Faction and particularly Javed Khan.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In 1750, Javed Khan arrested the Mughal commander Salabat Khan, who had demanded pay for his 18,000 troops who had been recalled to Delhi after completing the assigned expedition against Marwar. While imprisoned, Salabat Khan sold all his property to pay his troops in order to halt a possible revolt and thenceforth lived in poverty like a Dervish.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Angered by the policies of the Grand Vizier, Ahmad Khan Bangash attacked Safdarjung's possessions in Awadh, during which Safdarjung was wounded in the neck.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Safdarjung responded by amassing an army that included Jat and Maratha mercenaries. This defeated Qudsia Begum's loyalists in Rohilkhand, at which point Ahmad Shah demanded an immediate cease of hostilities. Safdarjung obeyed but also ordered his Turkish units, led by Muhammad Ali Jerchi, to assassinate Javed Khan for his involvement in the malevolence in August 1752.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Safdarjung's action cleared the path for the rise of Qudsia Begum's opponents within Javed Khan's faction, such as Intizam-ud-Daula.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In the year 1752 the Maratha Confederacy imposed a unilateral protectorate over the Mughal imperial court in Delhi. This move caused the emperor and his subjects to retaliate against the Peshwa in 1754.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In May 1753, Ahmad Shah Bahadur chose the 18-year-old Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III famously known as Imad-ul-Mulk, the son of the dead Intizam-ud-Daula, to counter the growing influence of Safdarjung. Imad-ul-Mulk gathered opposition to Safdarjung, and was joined by Hafiz Rahmat Khan Barech, Qudsia Begum and Ahmad Shah Bahadur himself. Safdarjung was defeated and stripped of his estates and authority but the influence of his supporters such as Suraj Mal and the Capture of Delhi (1753) meant that he was forgiven and allowed to withdraw to Awadh.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In the aftermath of Dehli"s plundering and consequent alliance with the Marathas, Imad-ul-Mulk emerged as the new regent. However, his prowess was feared by Ahmad Shah Bahadur, who became estranged from him after Imad-ul-Mulk had collected 1,500,000 "dams" but refused to pay salaries to the Mughal army and imperial officials. Ahmad Shah Bahadur declared reinstatement of Safdarjung as his Grand Vizier. He tried to remove Imad-ul-Mulk from the imperial court, which caused Imad-ul-Mulk to send Aqibat Mahmud to arrest the emperor and then seek an alliance with the Maratha's led by Raghunathrao, the brother of the Peshwa Nanasaheb I.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Even though cannons and sharpshooters were loaded upon the elephants. The Emperor was defeated at Sikandarabad by the Maratha empire.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: According to the Marathas, 8000 warriors were captured (mostly women). And the imperial household was humiliated.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: "Sikandarabad Incident" is considered to be the last raid conducted by the emperor against the Maratha empire.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: But Imad-ul-Mulk and his allies had realised this plan. Aided by the Marathas, led by Malhar Rao Holkar, he defeated Safdarjung. The Emperor then collected a large army and camped at Sikandarabad, where the Maratha chieftain Raghunathrao, Malhar Rao Holkar and 2,000 Marathas, together with Imad-ul-Mulk, routed his army at the First Battle of Sikandarabad (1754). Ahmad Shah fled to Delhi, leaving his mother, wives and a retinue of 8,000 women behind. Imad-ul-Mulk with the support of Raghunathrao proceeded to Delhi, where he imprisoned both the emperor and his mother.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Meanwhile, following the battle at Sikandarabad, the ailing Safdarjung fled to Awadh and a Mughal general laid siege to Bhurtpore, which Suraj Mal and his Jat rebels controlled. After being reinstated as the Grand Vizier, Imad-ul-Mulk moved out of Delhi to support his lieutenant with a fresh supply of ammunition.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: It was during this confrontation that Imad-ul-Mulk claimed that Ahmad Shah Bahadur sent secret dispatches to Suraj Mal, encouraging him to fight and promised to advance to the aid of the Jats. He had intercepted the letters, made peace with Suraj Mal, and returned to Delhi, where he blinded Ahmad Shah. After hearing of this action Safdarjung fell ill and died.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: The weak but influential Ahmad Shah Bahadur maintained correspondence from distant loyal vassals and Nawabs such as Chanda Sahib, Nawab of Tinnevelly (his southernmost subject) and Muzaffar Jung.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Muhammad Shah bestowed him with the title Nasir Jung and later the next Mughal Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur appointed him as the Subedar of the Deccan and bestowed him with the title "Nasir-ud-Daula", he was killed by the renegade Himmat Khan in 1750.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In 1749, Joseph François Dupleix allied with Chanda Sahib and Muzaffar Jung, the two strong designated Mughal administrators in the Deccan and sought bring them into power in their respective regions. Other leaders such as Hyder Ali also sided with the French. Soon the Chanda Sahib, Muzzafar Jung and the French led by Patissier and De Bussy had the capacity to defeat the alarmed Nawab of the Carnatic Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan during the Battle of Ambur.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In response to this power struggle among the Mughal subjects in the Deccan, Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah and Nasir Jung aligned themselves with the English in 1750. When Nasir Jung tried to recapture Gingee Fort, from De Bussy he was halted, defeated and killed by the forces of the troublesome Himmat Khan, the Nawab of Kadapa. Dupleix, who was the real power behind the successors, soon delegated a formidable governance to his allies: Muzaffar Jung was declared the Nizam of Mughal lands in eastern-Deccan and Chanda Sahib was declared the new Nawab of the Carnatic. The French were perceived as powerful aristocrats throughout the Mughal Empire; their English counterparts, however, had their reputations tarnished by the alleged acts of piracy since the days of Aurangzeb.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Salabat Khan, the "Mir Bakshi" and commander of the Mughal army, was joined by Bhakt Singh in Marwar against the forces of Ram Singh and Ishvari Singh. The sides fought each other in 1750 at the Battle of Raona. Immediately after the battle, Ishwari Singh reconciled with Salabat Khan and the confrontation ended in ceasefire. Soon afterwards the Maratha Confederacy invaded Jaipur and Ishwari Singh committed suicide.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In 1749, Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded India for a second time. The reasons for the invasion were the same as the first one, he claimed the revenue of 4 districts (Sarkars) of Punjab assigned for the support of the impoverished "Subah" of Kabul, an arrangement which existed previously in Mughal times and was imposed on the Mughals after they ceded that Subah to Nadir Shah in 1739. Abdali's forces fought Moin-ul-Mulk, the Mughal governor of Punjab, to a stalemate, but the latter was duped into signing a treaty accepting Abdali's demands.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: The terms of the 1749 not being fulfilled, Abdali invaded India a third time in 1752 and swept all before him before the gates of Lahore. Here a fierce battle was fought, and Moin-ul-Mulk's brave lieutenant, Raja Koramal was killed. Moin-ul-Mulk was captured, but Abdali pardoned him due to his courageousness in battle, afterwards reappointed him governor of the Subah. The Mughal Court became frantic lest a repeat of 1739 should occur. The Grand Wazir, Safdar Jung enlisted the help of 50,000 Marathas on promise of a large sum of money, but before he could do anything, an equally frantic Emperor signed a peace treaty with the Abdali, acting upon the advice of his mother's favourite, the eunuch Javed Khan Nawab Bahadur. According to the terms of the treaty, Punjab (including Multan and Sindh) and Kashmir were to be administered by the Abdali in the Emperor's name, and any Governor of the Subah appointed by the Emperor had to have Abdali's approval. This was only a face saving gesture, in reality the Subah's had been ceded to the Afghans. They would be officially annexed by them in 1757, following Imad-ul-Mulk's aborted attempt to restore them to Mughal control.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Various chieftains of the Maratha Confederacy had defeated the subjects of Ahmad Shah Bahadur in Gujarat and Orissa. Until 1753 Gujarat continued to be a part of the Mughal Empire, but in that year the Imperial Governor was deposed by the Marathas, and it was during that havoc that the Raj Bovri Mosque complex was destroyed during a massive fray. In response to the annexation of Gujarat, the Mughal Emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur appointed and strengthened the Nawab of Junagarh Nawab Muhammad Bahadur Khanji and bestowed various titles and authority to various entities loyal to the Mughal Empire in the region. Ahmad Shah Bahadur and Safdarjung also dispatched Salabat Khan and an army of 18,000 to an expedition to quell all rebels in Rajput territories and to gather support for the regions garrisons.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In 1751 after defending his territories from the Marathas for nearly 11 years, Alivardi Khan the Nawab of Bengal, and "Faujdars" from various regions such as Patna, Dacca and Orissa were overrun by large force of Marathas under the command of Raghoji I Bhonsle, who eventually annexed Odisha for the Maratha Confederacy. Only Midnapore remained in Mughal hands, and Alivardi Khan, the Mughal governor of Bengal, was forced to pay the Chauth tribute to the Marathas, as had been instructed to him by the late Emperor Muhammad Shah.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In 1751, Chanda Sahib and his lieutenants Reza Sahib and Muhammed Yusuf Khan were defeated by Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah and Clive during the Battle of Arcot. Later onward's Muzaffar Jung faced the averse uncooperative Nawabs of Kurnool, Cuddapah and Savanur after they jointly attacked Muzaffar Jung' encampments of 3000 troops, during the confrontation the Nawab of Savanur was killed, the Nawab of Kurnool was shot and wounded but apathetic Himmat Khan, the Nawab of Kadapa, challenged Muzaffar Jung to a duel. Charging their Howdah's at each other, they eliminated each other in combat.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: The news of Muzaffar Jung's death had created a great sense of shock and panic among the Mughals and the French were also affected by this unforeseeable event. De Bussy rose to the occasion and almost risked the wrath of the imperial court when he chose his brother Salabat Jung as the new "Subedar of the Deccan", without the approval of Ahmad Shah Bahadur. Together they entered Hyderabad on 12 April and then marched against the Marathas to strengthen the Mughal garrison at Aurangabad on 18 June. Unwilling to allow his brother to gain power, Intizam-ud-Daula, an influential general in the Mughal army, abandoned his post and threatened to march into the Deccan with an army of 150,000 and overthrow Salabat Jung with the assistance of their Maratha adversary Balaji Bajirao.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Instead of awaiting an imminent invasion Dupleix decided to challenge the Marathas and inflicted a defeat upon their leader Balaji Bajirao by taking advantage of a lunar eclipse in December 1751. The coalition of De Bussy and Salabat Jung efficiently marched towards Poona delivering a series of crushing defeats upon the Marathas and their allies for the first time in decades. In the following year De Bussy enforced the Peace Treaty of Ahmadnagar upon the Marathas.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: Intizam-ud-Daula was poisoned by his own troops for pursuing an alliance with Balaji Bajirao. The Nawab of the Carnatic Chanda Sahib was killed in a mutiny after he was defeated by Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah and Clive in 1752. Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah was then recognised as the next Nawab of the Carnatic, mainly by arousing the sympathies of Ahmad Shah Bahadur.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: In 1753, De Bussy led his coalition in order to capture the Northern Circars this move would also trigger another series of victories against the Maratha chieftain Raghoji I Bhonsle in 1754. This campaign continued until 1757 and Salabat Jung and De Bussy's inflicted a series of upon the Maratha around their own strongholds near Poona. This alliance with the French had greatly contributed to the advancement of Salabat Jung's forces, in 1756 Salabat Jung's forces utilised heavy muskets known as "Catyocks", which were attached to the ground, it was known to have fired more rapidly than a cannon. These new weapons would completely reverse fortunes of the Maratha rebels.


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: After his deposition in 1754, Ahmad Shah Bahadur was imprisoned at the Salimgarh Fort. He stayed there for the rest of his life, dying in 1775 at the age of 49 during the reign of Emperor Shah Alam II. One of his sons, (Mahmud Shah Bahadur Bidar-Bakht) reigned briefly in 1788 as "Shah Jahan IV".


title: Ahmad Shah Bahadur

text: His tomb is located in a burial enclosure enjoined to the Moti Masjid, in the vicinity of Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki's dargah in Mehrauli.


title: Ekta Sohini

text: Ekta Sohini is an Indian actress and the wife of the actor Mohnish Bahl. After several small 1980s television roles, she made her film debut opposite Arbaaz Ali Khan in the coming-of-age romance film "Solah Satra" (1990) and starred as Aditya Pancholi's love interest in "Naamcheen" (1991) and "Tahalka" (1992). Her daughter Pranutan Bahl is also an actress.


title: PTRD-41

text: The PTRD-41 (Shortened from Russian, "ProtivoTankovoye Ruzhyo Degtyaryova"; "Противотанковое однозарядное ружьё системы Дегтярёва образца 1941 года"; "Degtyaryov Single Shot Anti-Tank Weapon System Model of 1941") was an anti-tank rifle produced and used from early 1941 by the Soviet Red Army during World War II. It was a single-shot weapon which fired a 14.5×114 mm round, which was able to penetrate German tanks such as the Panzer III and early models of the Panzer IV. Although unable to penetrate the frontal armor of late-war German tanks, it could penetrate their thinner side armor at close ranges as well as thinly armored self-propelled guns and half-tracks.


title: PTRD-41

text: In 1939, in its invasion of Poland the USSR captured several hundred Polish Model 35 anti-tank rifles, which had proved effective against the German invasion of Poland from the West. Vasily Degtyaryov copied its lock and several features of the German Panzerbüchse 38 when hasty construction of an anti-tank rifle was ordered in July 1941.


title: PTRD-41

text: The PTRD and the similar but semi-automatic PTRS-41 were the only individual anti-tank weapons available to the Red Army in numbers upon the outbreak of the war with Germany. The 14.5 mm armor-piercing bullet had a muzzle velocity of . The 64g bullet had a 39g steel core and could penetrate around 30mm of armor at 500m, and 40mm of armor at 100m. During the initial invasion, and indeed throughout the war, most German tanks had side armor thinner than 40 mm (Panzer I and Panzer II: 13–20 mm, Panzer III and Panzer IV series: 30 mm, Panzer V Panther (combat debut mid-1943): 40–50 mm).


title: PTRD-41

text: After World War II the PTRD was also used extensively by North Korean and Chinese armed forces in the Korean War. During this war, William Brophy, an American Army Ordnance officer, mounted a .50 BMG (12.7 mm) barrel to a captured PTRD to examine the effectiveness of long-range shooting. Furthermore, Americans also captured certain number of PTRD from Viet Cong in Vietnam War. The weapon proved effective out to .


title: Keep the Faith

text: Keep the Faith is the fifth studio album by American rock band Bon Jovi, released on November 3, 1992, by Mercury Records. It is Bon Jovi's last studio album to feature all five original band members as bass guitarist Alec John Such was dismissed from the band in 1994. It is Bon Jovi's first album since 1985's "7800° Fahrenheit" not to be produced by Bruce Fairbairn. The album was produced by Bob Rock and was recorded at the Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia. "Keep the Faith" marked a change to a "more serious interpretation of the band's pop-metal groove". It is also Bon Jovi's longest album to date, clocking in at 66 minutes.


title: Keep the Faith

text: "Keep the Faith" peaked at number five on the US "Billboard" 200 chart and was certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album produced several hits for the band, including "Keep the Faith", "Bed of Roses" and "In These Arms".


title: Keep the Faith

text: Following the completion of the New Jersey tour, the band went on hiatus. During their time off, Jon Bon Jovi wrote the soundtrack for "Young Guns II", which was released in 1990 as the "Blaze of Glory" album and Richie Sambora released his first solo album called "Stranger in This Town". By this time, Jon Bon Jovi fired his longtime manager, Doc McGhee and created Bon Jovi Management. Jon Bon Jovi decided to take on a larger role, and more responsibilities within the band. In October 1991 the band went to the Caribbean island of St. Thomas to discuss plans for the future; the band's internal problems were solved and they were ready to have a go at a comeback.


title: Keep the Faith

text: In January 1992 the band headed to Little Mountain Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia. They spent seven months making the album with Bob Rock producing. Originally the band had approached Bruce Fairbairn, who produced "Slippery When Wet" and "New Jersey", but he was working on Aerosmith's "Get a Grip" at the time. Most of the recording was done in Vancouver, although a couple of tracks and overdubs were laid down in Los Angeles.


title: Keep the Faith

text: "When we got back together in a room in Vancouver," noted Jon Bon Jovi in 2007, "we closed the door and ignored what had happened to our genre of music. We'd been kicked in the teeth by Nirvana, but we didn't pay attention to that. We got rid of the clichés, wrote some socially conscious lyrics and got a haircut. I didn't do a grunge thing and I didn't do a rap thing. But I knew I couldn't re-write 'Livin' on a Prayer' again, so I didn't try. And it paid off."


title: Keep the Faith

text: Of the thirty songs written for the album, a couple were co-written by David Bryan and a couple by Desmond Child; the rest being by Jon Bon Jovi/Richie Sambora compositions and by Bon Jovi alone. Fourteen songs made it to the final album. Bon Jovi wrote most of the album's songs alone.


title: Keep the Faith

text: Before the band reunited in the studio, Bon Jovi spent the summer of 1991 in anonymity, riding his motorbike in places like Arizona, gaining experiences that inspired him to write "Dry County" and "Bed of Roses". He later commented "It would never have been possible [for me] to write songs like 'Bed of Roses' or 'Dry County' five years ago."


title: Keep the Faith

text: "Keep the Faith" was released on November 3, 1992. To promote the album, Bon Jovi returned to their roots playing a few dates at the small New Jersey clubs where they had started their career. The band appeared on "MTV Unplugged", a different show from the other episodes of the MTV Unplugged series, capturing Bon Jovi in an intimate, "in the round" experience, performing acoustic and electric renditions of classic hits (Bon Jovi and non-Bon Jovi tracks) and new material from "Keep the Faith". The concert was released commercially in 1993 as "".


title: Keep the Faith

text: In the US, "Keep the Faith" debuted at number five on the "Billboard" 200 Top Albums in November 1992 while peaking at number one in the UK and Australia. Six singles were released from the album between November 1992 and April 1994, with four singles issued in the United States, and two others released only outside the US.


title: Keep the Faith

text: The album's first single, "Keep the Faith", was released on October 12, 1992, a month before the album. On the US "Billboard" charts, the song topped the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock Tracks chart while reaching number twenty nine on the "Billboard" Hot 100; elsewhere, it reached top ten on the singles charts in UK, Ireland, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Australia.


title: Keep the Faith

text: "Bed of Roses" was released as the second single on January 11, 1993. On the US "Billboard" charts, the song reached number ten on the Hot 100. Elsewhere, it reached number two in Canada and number ten in Australia and Germany. Three more commercial singles were released in 1993. "In These Arms", released on May 3, reached number six in Canada, number nine in the UK, and number ten in Australia and Ireland. It also hit the Top 40 in the US "Billboard" Hot 100. "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", released on July 26, reached number seventeen in the UK. "I Believe" was released on September 20, reaching number eleven on the UK Singles Chart in October. On March 7, 1994, the album's last single, "Dry County", was released; it reached number nine on the UK Singles Chart. In October 1994, the album was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).


title: Keep the Faith

text: "Keep the Faith" is the third most-represented album in Bon Jovi's concert setlists behind "Slippery When Wet" and "New Jersey". This representation is due entirely to the singles, of which "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" and the title track have been live staples. Of the pure album tracks, "Blame It on the Love of Rock and Roll" and "I Want You" were each only played once during 1993, whilst "If I Was Your Mother" was performed live only twice during the Keep the Faith Tour and not subsequently. "Little Bit of Soul" has appeared live only twice during special radio sessions and Bon Jovi have performed "Fear" live only six times, all during the French and Spanish legs of the album's supporting tour in April 1993.


title: Keep the Faith

text: Some Latin American releases feature "Cama de Rosas" (Spanish version of "Bed of Roses") as bonus track.


title: Keep the Faith

text: Some releases misspell "Dry County" as "Dry Country". Other releases misspell "Blame It On The Love Of Rock & Roll" as "Blame In On The Love Of Rock & Roll".


title: Amrita Puri

text: Amrita Puri (born 20 August 1983) is an Indian actress. She made her film debut with the ensemble romantic comedy-drama "Aisha" (2010), which earned her Filmfare nominations for Best Female Debut and Best Supporting Actress. Puri had her first commercial success three years later with the male buddy film "Kai Po Che!" (2013).


title: Amrita Puri

text: Puri made her Bollywood film debut with Rajshree Ojha's "Aisha" in 2010. The ensemble romantic comedy-drama, co-starring Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Ira Dubey, Cyrus Sahukar, Anand Tiwari, Arunoday Singh and Lisa Haydon, saw Puri portray Shefali Thakur, a friend of Kapoor's eponymous lead. The film proved to be a semi-hit at the box-office and earned Puri two nominations at the 56th Filmfare Awards – Best Female Debut and Best Supporting Actress.


title: Amrita Puri

text: After the moderate response of "Aisha", Puri appeared opposite Kunal Khemu in Vishal Mahadkar's directorial debut—the crime thriller "Blood Money" (2012)—in which she portrayed the wife of Khemu's character.


title: Amrita Puri

text: Puri next appeared in Abhishek Kapoor's buddy drama "Kai Po Che!" (2013) alongside Sushant Singh Rajput, Amit Sadh and Rajkummar Rao. An adaptation of the novel "The 3 Mistakes of My Life", she was cast as Vidya Bhatt, a district level cricketer's younger sister who falls in love with his best friend.


title: Amrita Puri

text: In 2021, she played the role of Mehr in the family drama short film "Clean" which premiered on Amazon Mini and received critical acclaim for her performance.


title: Amrita Puri

text: Puri made her television debut with the series "Stories by Rabindranath Tagore" in 2015 in which she had an episodic role. In 2016, she portrayed the lead role of Harleen Kaur opposite Purab Kohli in the series "P.O.W. - Bandi Yuddh Ke" that aired on StarPlus and ended in 2017. In 2019, she was a part of two web series – "Four More Shots Please!" as Kavya Arora and "Made In Heaven" as Devyani Singh.


title: Amrita Puri

text: In 2022, she played the lead role of Anju Bhatt in the web series "Ranjish Hi Sahi" on Voot along with Tahir Raj Bhasin and Amala Paul.


title: Sharabha

text: Sharabha (, ,Tamil: ஸரபா, , Telugu: శరభ) or Sarabha is a part-lion and part-bird beast in Hindu history, who is described eight-legged and more powerful than a lion or an elephant, possessing the ability to clear a valley in one jump. In later literature, Sharabha is described as an eight-legged deer.


title: Sharabha

text: The Shaiva scriptures narrate that god Shiva assumed the form of Sharabha to pacify Narasimha - the fierce man-lion avatar of Vishnu worshipped by the Vaishnava sect. This form is popularly known as Sharabeshwara ("Lord Sharabha") or Sharabeshwaramurti. The Vaishnavas refute the portrayal of Narasimha as being destroyed by Shiva-Sharabha and regard Sharabha as a name of Vishnu. The Vimathgira purana, Vathistabhaana purana, Bhalukka purana, and other puranas narrate that Vishnu assumed the form of the ferocious Gandabherunda bird-animal to combat Sharabha.


title: Sharabha

text: In Sanskrit literature, Sharabha is initially described as an aggressive beast that roared and scared other animals in the hills and forest areas. Similies compare warriors to Sharabha. In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, this form of Sharabha was defined as a lion-slaying monster with eight legs, eyes on the top; living in the forest and which ate raw flesh. It is also mentioned as residing on Mount Krauncha but not as a monster but as an ordinary beast along with lions and tigers on mount Gandhamadana. The epic also includes Sharabha in the list of edible animals - the "mrigajatis"- the animal group of antelope, deer, hare, bear, ruru deer, sambar, gayal, boar, and buffalo - which was offered as part of food at dinner to guests. Sharabha appears primarily as the incarnation of the god Shiva, as a name of a monkey-king in the epic Ramayana, also as a proper name of heroes and serpent Nāgas and one of the names of god Vishnu as well as Buddha. In defining the ecological theme in Hindu medicine related to jungle and the aroma of meats, Sharabha has also been listed among the deer natives of Kashmir, Nepal, and Sikkim. However, the features explained are of an eight legged animal of the size of a camel with huge horns and conjectured as a large Himalayan goat.


title: Sharabha

text: In Puranic literature, Sharabha is associated with god Shiva, who incarnates to subdue fierce manifestations of Vishnu. The legend of Sharabha fighting Narasimha - the man-lion form of Vishnu - brings to fore the overt rivalry between the devotees of Vishnu (Vaishnava sect) and those of Shiva (Shaiva sect), which exposes the fierce debate aspect. The "Shiva Purana" The "Sharabha Upanishad" portrays Sharabha with two heads, two wings, eight legs of the lion with sharp claws and a long tail. The "Kalika Purana" describes Sharabha as black in colour, with four feet downwards and four feet uplifted, with an enormous body. It also has a long face and nose, nails, eight legs, eight tusks, a cluster of manes, and a long tail. It jumps high repeatedly making a loud cry.


title: Sharabha

text: The iconography of Sharabeshwaramurti (Shiva as Sharabha) is specifically defined in texts such as "Kamikagama" and "Sritattvanidhi". In Kamikagama, Sharabha is described in the form of a bird with golden color, with two uplifted wings, two red eyes, four legs in the form of a lion touching the ground, four legs with claws upwards, and with an animal tail. The top part of the body is shown as human but with the face of a lion with an ornamented crown; side tusks are also depicted giving an overall frightening sight. It also shows the Narasimha beneath Sharabha's legs as a lion-faced human with "anjali" (hands folded prayer gesture). (See Infobox image)


title: Sharabha

text: In the "Sritattvanidhi", the depiction prescribed for Sharabeshwaramurti is of thirty arms; arms on the right are to hold thunderbolt, mushti, abhaya, chakra (discus), sakti, staff, goad, sword, khatvanga, axe, akshamala, a bone, bow, musala, and fire; and the left hands to display noose, varada, mace, arrow, flag, and another type of sword, a snake, a lotus flower, skull-cup, pustaka, plough, and mrudanga with one hand encircling Durga in a hug. This form is extolled to usher good luck, cure all diseases and destroy all enemies.


title: Sharabha

text: The Chola dynasty in Tamil Nadu was particularly favourable to the beliefs of Shaiva sect. It is said that the sectarian aspect got highlighted during their reign. This is evident from the four Sharabha images, the earliest at the Vikramsolishwaram temple near Kumbakonam built by Vikrama Chola (1118–35). The other images are at Darasuram and Kampahareshvarar temple, Thirubuvanam built by a Chola ruler, Kulottunga Chola III where Sharabha's image is housed in a separate shrine.


title: Sharabha

text: A sculpture of Sharbeshwaramurti in the Tribhuvanam temple, a Shiva temple in Tanjore district, in Tamil Nadu is seen with three legs, with body and face of a lion and a tail. It has four human arms, the right upper hand holds axe, noose is held in the lower right hand, the deer in the upper left hand and fire in the lower left hand. Narasimha is shown with eight arms in the Airavatesvara Temple at Darasuram, a rare image of the Chola period, in black basalt, depicts Shiva as Sharabha. It is deified in an exclusive small shrine, as part man, beast and bird, destroying the man-lion incarnation of Vishnu, Narasimha. This highlights the hostility between the Shaivite and Vaishnavite sects. In Maharashtra the stone cut Sharabha idol is placed on the outer walls of the entrance gate of many historic forts.


title: Sharabha

text: In iconographic representations of the myth of Shiva vis-à-vis Vishnu, Sharabha form has been built around Narasimha but substantially embellished with wings to represent Kali and Durga to denote the female powers (shaktis) of Shiva; Sharabha is also shown with a bird head and a serpent in his beak head.


title: Sharabha

text: The Hindu epic "Mahabharata" narrates: a dog, with the help of a Rishi (sage) assumes various animal forms - starting from a dog to a tiger then to an elephant followed by a lion and a sharabha - terrorized every one in the hermitage of the Rishi. Eventually, Sharabha assumed a further fiercer form. In this fierce form he wanted to devour the Rishi. The Rishi then narrating the process of change in Sharabha's development, as a result of his benevolence, cursed Sharabha to go back to his original form of a dog. The epic does not relate Shiva to Sharabha.


title: Sharabha

text: The legend of Sharabha as an incarnation of Shiva is narrated in many Hindu scriptures and each presents a different version to suit one's religious beliefs. But one common refrain in all these depictions is that Sharabha is a combination of a huge animal-bird beast with enormous strength manifested with the purpose of pacifying similar ferocious avatar of Vishnu such as Narasimha (man-lion).


title: Sharabha

text: The Narasimha-Sharabha legend is linked to deities assuming mythical animal forms to slay or subdue each other. Vishnu assumed the form of Narasimha to slay Hiranyakashipu, an asura (demon) king, who was terrorising the universe, and was a devotee of Shiva.


title: Sharabha

text: While the canon ending of the tale of Narasimha is that he returned to Vaikuntha after his fury vanished when he beheld the devotion of Prahlada, Shaivas sought to made retroactive changes to assert Shiva's supremacy. The "Shiva Purana" mentions: After slaying Hiranyakashipu, Narasimha's wrath threatened the world. At the behest of the gods, Shiva sent Virabhadra to tackle Narasimha. When that failed, Shiva manifested as Sharabha.


title: Sharabha

text: The Shiva Purana and some puranas mention Sharabha attacking Narasimha and immobilising him. He thus quelled Narasimha's terrifying rage. It is also said that Sharabha then decapitated and de-skinned Narasimha so Shiva could wear the hide and lion-head as a garment. The "Linga Purana" and the "Sharabha Upanishad" also mention the mutilation and murder of Narasimha. After the mutilation, Vishnu assumed his normal form and retired to his abode, after duly praising Shiva. It was from here on that Shiva came to be known as "Sharabeshamurti" or "Simhagnamurti".


title: Sharabha

text: The "Skanda Purana" considers Narasimha as a mere irritation to Hiranyakasipu and not a threat to the world, contrary to what was brought out in the Shiva and Linga Puranas. The perception was that Vishnu may permanently adopt the fierce form of Narasimha, which would be detrimental to his role of doing good deeds. Hence, the purpose of Shiva assuming the form of Sharabha was to ensure that the lion body of Vishnu was discarded and he got united with his original divine form. Narasimha struck Sharabha with his body, it was Vishnu who groaned in pain and not Sharabha who was in an "adamantine body". It was then that Vishnu realised that Sharabha was none other than Shiva and bowed and praised Sharabha. Shiva then blesses Vishnu and gives him a boon to kill demons. A Purana ends the story with gods fearing that Sharabha may not be able to control his rage and thus urging Shiva to give up his Sharabha form. Thereafter, Shiva dismembered Sharabha's form; his limbs were given away and his torso became a Kapalika. The "Vamana Purana" too discusses the tale, ending with Narasimha becoming the calm Vishnu again and Sharabha becoming a lingam, the symbol of Shiva.


title: Sharabha

text: In the "Kalika Purana", Varaha - Vishnu's boar avatar - had amorous dalliance with the earth goddess. He and his three boar sons then created mayhem in the world, which necessitated Shiva to take the form of Sharabha, to kill the Varaha form. Here, Narasimha appears to aid Varaha. Sharabha kills Narasimha first and then kills Varaha, allowing Vishnu to reabsorb the energies of both his forms. Finally, Sharabha defeats Vishnu.


title: Sharabha

text: Vaishnava followers including Dvaita scholars, such as Vijayendra Tirtha (1514–93) refute the portrayal of Narasimha as being destroyed by Sharabha as they consider the Shaivite Puranas as tamasic - and thus not authoritative. The refutation of the Sharabha legend along with ten other Shaivite legends is discussed in a text by Vijayindra Tirtha called "Shaivasarvasvakhandanam".


title: Sharabha

text: The Vathistabhaana purana, Vimathgira purana, Pradhana purana, Prahladhaswayam Purana, Bhalukka purana and many other puranas narrate that Narasimha took the form of Gandabherunda (literally "the mighty two-headed"), a more ferocious two-headed bird-animal, who combats and kills Shiva-Sharabha.


title: Sharabha

text: There is also a reference to Sharabha in the "Vishnu sahasranama", the thousand names of Vishnu, and the literal meaning seems to suggest the praise of Sharabha (the lion-killing animal). Adi Shankaracharya refutes the sectarian Sharabha story and refers to this 356th name of Vishnu sahasranama as not mentioning the lion-killing animal at all and instead interprets the name to mean, "As the Lord shines in the body as the indwelling Self, He is called Sharabha, while the body is sara (perishable)."


title: Sharabha

text: Narasimhan Krishnamachari, a scholar on Vishishtadvaita philosophy, states that the name "Sharabha" has been interpreted in two ways namely; the first interpretation means "the Destroyer (of those who transgress the bounds of ethics)," as given by the Sri Vaishnavite commentator, Parasara Bhattar and the second interpretation as given by Adi Sankara, among others. The former is based on the Sanskrit verb SR, which means "to injure to destroy". According to C. V. Radhakrishna Sastri, "Sara also refers to an arrow, and the perishable body shines if it is aimed at Bhagavan, because He shines in that body."


title: Sharabha

text: In the Jataka tales of the Buddha's previous lives, there is narration related to his birth as Bodhisattva in a forest as a Sharabha, the eight-legged deer. This story is of one compassion of the deer shown towards the King who wanted to hunt the deer. The King, while trying to hunt the deer, fell into a precipice with his horse. The deer instead of abandoning the king to his fate rescued him. The King was deeply touched by the compassion shown by the deer and thereafter promulgated a decry stating that hunting was an illegal activity in his country.


title: Sharabha

text: In Tibetan Buddhism, sharabha is represented as a beast with a goat's head and horns, a lion's mane and horse's body and legs. It symbolizes determination, strength and speed. Sometimes, it is represented additionally with horns of an antelope and claws of an eagle. Sometimes, the goat head is replaced by a lion's, horse's feet by a lion's and horns can be of a ram. A common feature of all representations is the horse's body. It is often depicted as mounts of young Devas or dwarfs in a "Torana" – a six-level archway behind an enlightenment throne of a Buddha or Bodhisattva. Together with the devas, they symbolize the perfection of effort (virya).


title: Sharabha

text: The Government of Karnataka, the University of Mysore and the Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited (KSDL-an industrial unit owned by the Government of Karnataka) have adopted Sharabha, with modifications and also appropriate justifications, as flankers of their emblazoned emblem, the Gandaberunda.


title: Sharabha

text: In Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited logo, Sharabha is depicted in the form of a body of a lion with the head of an elephant to represent the virtues of wisdom, courage and strength.


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: Sergeant York is a 1941 American biographical film about the life of Alvin C. York, one of the most decorated American soldiers of World War I. Directed by Howard Hawks and starring Gary Cooper in the title role, the film was a critical and commercial success, and became the highest-grossing film of 1941.


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: The film was based on York's diary, as edited by Tom Skeyhill, and adapted by Harry Chandlee, Abem Finkel, John Huston, Howard E. Koch, and Sam Cowan (uncredited). York refused, several times, to authorize a film version of his life story, but finally yielded to persistent efforts to finance the creation of an interdenominational Bible school. The story that York insisted on Cooper for the title role comes from a telegram that producer Jesse L. Lasky wrote to Cooper pleading with him to accept the part, to which he signed York's name.


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: Cooper went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, while the film also won Best Film Editing and was nominated in nine other categories, including Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Walter Brennan), and Supporting Actress (Margaret Wycherly). The American Film Institute ranked the film 57th in the its 100 most inspirational American movies. It also rated Alvin York 35th in its list of the top 50 heroes in American cinema.


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: In 2008, "Sergeant York" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: Before America's entry into World War I, Alvin York is a poor, young farmer in rural Tennessee, living with his widowed mother, sister, and younger brother. Alvin's leisure time is spent fighting and getting drunk with friends. Alvin's goal is to purchase a piece of farmland, fertile "bottomland". Alvin works hard to acquire the price for the land, and is given an extension by the owner. Alvin's sharpshooting skills enable him to raise the money needed, but the owner reneges, making Alvin angry and bitter. En route to seek revenge, Alvin and his mule are struck by lightning. The incident prompts Alvin's conversion to Christianity.


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: When the U.S. enters World War I, Alvin seeks exemption as a conscientious objector, which is denied. Alvin is torn between fighting for his country and the biblical prohibition against killing. His sympathetic commanding officer gives him leave to go home and come to a decision. Alvin reconciles his moral conflict after reading the biblical injunction to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: During the Meuse–Argonne offensive, York's qualms vanish when he sees his friends and comrades being killed as they assault a strong German position. With his superiors dead or incapacitated, he takes charge. He infiltrates the German lines by himself and finds a position that lets him enfilade the main German defensive trench. He kills so many German soldiers that they eventually surrender to him en masse. One of the prisoners of war treacherously grenades Alvin's good friend, "Pusher" Ross, and is gunned down by York. He and the handful of survivors from his unit lead their many captives behind their lines, but have a hard time finding anyone to take the Germans off their hands. The officer who finally does is astonished to learn that so few men captured so many of the enemy.


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: York is decorated and hailed as a national hero, but desires to return home. He rejects commercial offers that would make him wealthy, explaining that he could not take money for doing his duty. York returns home to marry his fiancée, Gracie. To his surprise, the state has purchased the bottomland farm and built a house for Gracie and him.


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: "Sergeant York" was a success at the box office and became the highest-grossing film of 1941. This was influenced by the attack on Pearl Harbor, which occurred while the film was still playing in theaters. The film's patriotic theme helped recruit soldiers; young men sometimes went directly from the movie theater to military enlistment offices. After its initial release, the film was frequently reshown at theaters all over America during the war as a quick replacement for box-office flops and as a theme program for bond sales and scrap drives.


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $6,075,000 domestically and $2,184,000 internationally.


title: Sergeant York (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 88% rating based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10.


title: Dynastinae

text: Dynastinae or rhinoceros beetles are a subfamily of the scarab beetle family (Scarabaeidae). Other common names – some for particular groups of rhinoceros beetles – include Hercules beetles, unicorn beetles or horn beetles. Over 1500 species and 225 genera of rhinoceros beetles are known.


title: Dynastinae

text: Many rhinoceros beetles are well known for their unique shapes and large sizes. Some famous species are, for example, the Atlas beetle ("Chalcosoma atlas"), common rhinoceros beetle ("Xylotrupes ulysses"), elephant beetle ("Megasoma elephas"), European rhinoceros beetle ("Oryctes nasicornis"), Hercules beetle ("Dynastes hercules"), Japanese rhinoceros beetle or "kabutomushi" ("Allomyrina dichotoma"), ox beetle ("Strategus aloeus") and the Eastern Hercules beetle ("Dynastes tityus").


title: Dynastinae

text: The Dynastinae are among the largest of beetles, reaching more than in length, but are completely harmless to humans because they cannot bite or sting. Some species have been anecdotally claimed to lift up to 850 times their own weight. An extinct Eocene "Oryctoantiquus borealis" was the largest fossil scarabeid, with a length of . Some modern Oryctini grew up to . Common names of the Dynastinae refer to the characteristic horns borne only by the males of most species in the group. Each has a horn on the head and another horn pointing forward from the center of the thorax. The horns are used in fighting other males during mating season, and for digging. The size of the horn is a good indicator of nutrition and physical health.


title: Dynastinae

text: The body of an adult rhinoceros beetle is covered by a thick exoskeleton. A pair of thick wings lie atop another set of membranous wings underneath, allowing the rhinoceros beetle to fly, although not very efficiently, owing to its large size. Their best protection from predators is their size and stature. Additionally, since they are nocturnal, they avoid many of their predators during the day. When the sun is out, they hide under logs or in vegetation to camouflage themselves from the few predators big enough to want to eat them. If rhinoceros beetles are disturbed, some can release very loud, hissing squeaks. The hissing squeaks are created by rubbing their abdomens against the ends of their wing covers. Rhinoceros beetles are relatively resilient; a healthy adult male can live up to 2–3 years. The females rarely live long after they mate.


title: Dynastinae

text: These beetles' larval stages can be several years long. The larvae feed on rotten wood and the adults feed on nectar, plant sap, and fruit. First, the larvae hatch from eggs and later develop into pupae before they reach adult status (see picture at left). The females lay 50 eggs on average. Contrary to what their size may imply, adult rhinoceros beetles do not eat large amounts, unlike their larvae, which eat a significant amount of rotting wood.


title: Dynastinae

text: Male Japanese rhinoceros beetles ("Allomyrina dichotoma") fight to dominate sap sites. Males use their horns to pry rival males off the area, which also may give them the chance to mate with a female. In this and other species that defend mating sites, larger males with larger horns mate more frequently, as they win more contests. Small males often avoid larger males and exhibit alternative strategies to gain access to females.


title: Dynastinae

text: Rhinoceros beetles have become popular pets in parts of Asia, due to being relatively clean, easy to maintain, and safe to handle. Also in Asia, male beetles are used for gambling fights. Since males naturally have the tendency to fight each other for the attention of females, they are the ones used for battle. To get the two male beetles to lock in combat, a female beetle is used, or a small noisemaker duplicating the female's mating call.


title: Dynastinae

text: Entomologist Séverin Tchibozo suggests the larvae contain much more protein (40%) than chicken (20%) and beef (approximately 18%), and they could become a protein source for a large human population.


title: Dynastinae

text: Dr. MinJun Kim, leading a team of engineers in National Science Foundation-funded research, examined the function and aerodynamics of "Allomyrina dichotoma" with the help of researchers in Drexel University's Mechanical Engineering Department and in collaboration with Konkuk University in South Korea. Rhinoceros beetles could play a big part in the next generation of aircraft design.


title: Dynastinae

text: Some species can become major pests, e.g., in tree plantations. Usually though, beetle population densities are not as high as in some other pest insects, and they typically prefer food trees which are already sick or dying from some other cause. Some species' larvae, however, will attack healthy trees or even root vegetables, and when they occur in large numbers, can cause economically significant damage. The fungus "Metarhizium anisopliae" is a proven biocontrol agent for beetle infestation in crops.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Amyloid beta (Aβ or Abeta) denotes peptides of 36–43 amino acids that are the main component of the amyloid plaques found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. The peptides derive from the amyloid precursor protein (APP), which is cleaved by beta secretase and gamma secretase to yield Aβ in a cholesterol-dependent process and substrate presentation. Aβ molecules can aggregate to form flexible soluble oligomers which may exist in several forms. It is now believed that certain misfolded oligomers (known as "seeds") can induce other Aβ molecules to also take the misfolded oligomeric form, leading to a chain reaction akin to a prion infection. The oligomers are toxic to nerve cells. The other protein implicated in Alzheimer's disease, tau protein, also forms such prion-like misfolded oligomers, and there is some evidence that misfolded Aβ can induce tau to misfold.


title: Amyloid beta

text: A study has suggested that APP and its amyloid potential is of ancient origins, dating as far back as early deuterostomes.


title: Amyloid beta

text: The normal function of Aβ is not well understood. Though some animal studies have shown that the absence of Aβ does not lead to any obvious loss of physiological function, several potential activities have been discovered for Aβ, including activation of kinase enzymes, protection against oxidative stress, regulation of cholesterol transport, functioning as a transcription factor, and anti-microbial activity (potentially associated with Aβ's pro-inflammatory activity).


title: Amyloid beta

text: The glymphatic system clears metabolic waste from the mammalian brain, and in particular amyloid beta. Indeed, a number of proteases have been implicated by both genetic and biochemical studies as being responsible for the recognition and degradation of amyloid beta; these include insulin degrading enzyme and presequence protease. The rate of removal is significantly increased during sleep. However, the significance of the lymphatic system in Aβ clearance in Alzheimer's disease is unknown.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Aβ is the main component of amyloid plaques, extracellular deposits found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. Aβ can also form the deposits that line cerebral blood vessels in cerebral amyloid angiopathy. The plaques are composed of a tangle of Aβ oligomers and regularly ordered aggregates called amyloid fibrils, a protein fold shared by other peptides such as the prions associated with protein misfolding diseases.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Research suggests that soluble oligomeric forms of the peptide may be causative agents in the development of Alzheimer's disease. It is generally believed that Aβ oligomers are the most toxic. The ion channel hypothesis postulates that oligomers of soluble, non-fibrillar Aβ form membrane ion channels allowing the unregulated calcium influx into neurons that underlies disrupted calcium ion homeostasis and apoptosis seen in Alzheimer's disease. Computational studies have demonstrated that also Aβ peptides embedded into the membrane as monomers with predominant helical configuration, can oligomerize and eventually form channels whose stability and conformation are sensitively correlated to the concomitant presence and arrangement of cholesterol. A number of genetic, cell biology, biochemical and animal studies using experimental models support the concept that Aβ plays a central role in the development of Alzheimer's disease pathology.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Brain Aβ is elevated in people with sporadic Alzheimer's disease. Aβ is the main constituent of brain parenchymal and vascular amyloid; it contributes to cerebrovascular lesions and is neurotoxic. It is unresolved how Aβ accumulates in the central nervous system and subsequently initiates the disease of cells. Some researchers have found that the Aβ oligomers induce some of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease by competing with insulin for binding sites on the insulin receptor, thus impairing glucose metabolism in the brain. Significant efforts have been focused on the mechanisms responsible for Aβ production, including the proteolytic enzymes gamma- and β-secretases which generate Aβ from its precursor protein, APP (amyloid precursor protein). Aβ circulates in plasma, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and brain interstitial fluid (ISF) mainly as soluble Aβ40 Amyloid plaques contain both Aβ40 and Aβ42, while vascular amyloid is predominantly the shorter Aβ40. Several sequences of Aβ were found in both lesions. Generation of Aβ in the central nervous system may take place in the neuronal axonal membranes after APP-mediated axonal transport of β-secretase and presenilin-1.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Increases in either total Aβ levels or the relative concentration of both Aβ40 and Aβ42 (where the former is more concentrated in cerebrovascular plaques and the latter in neuritic plaques) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of both familial and sporadic Alzheimer's disease. Due to its more hydrophobic nature, the Aβ42 is the most amyloidogenic form of the peptide. However the central sequence KLVFFAE is known to form amyloid on its own, and probably forms the core of the fibril. One study further correlated Aβ42 levels in the brain not only with onset of Alzheimer's disease, but also reduced cerebrospinal fluid pressure, suggesting that a build-up or inability to clear Aβ42 fragments may play a role into the pathology.


title: Amyloid beta

text: The "amyloid hypothesis", that the plaques are responsible for the pathology of Alzheimer's disease, is accepted by the majority of researchers but is not conclusively established. An alternative hypothesis is that amyloid oligomers rather than plaques are responsible for the disease. Mice that are genetically engineered to express oligomers but not plaques (APP) develop the disease. Furthermore, mice that are in addition engineered to convert oligomers into plaques (APP X PS1ΔE9), are no more impaired than the oligomer only mice. Intra-cellular deposits of tau protein are also seen in the disease, and may also be implicated, as has aggregation of alpha synuclein.


title: Amyloid beta

text: While Aβ has been implicated in cancer development, prompting studies on a variety of cancers to elucidate the nature of its possible effects, results are largely inconclusive. Aβ levels have been assessed in relation to a number of cancers, including esophageal, colorectal, lung, and hepatic, in response to observed reductions in risk for developing Alzheimer's disease in survivors of these cancers. All cancers were shown to be associated positively with increased Aβ levels, particularly hepatic cancers. This direction of association however has not yet been established. Studies focusing on human breast cancer cell lines have further demonstrated that these cancerous cells display an increased level of expression of amyloid precursor protein.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Adults with Down syndrome had accumulation of amyloid in association with evidence of Alzheimer's disease, including declines in cognitive functioning, memory, fine motor movements, executive functioning, and visuospatial skills.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Aβ is formed after sequential cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP), a transmembrane glycoprotein of undetermined function. APP can be cleaved by the proteolytic enzymes α-, β- and γ-secretase; Aβ protein is generated by successive action of the β and γ secretases. The γ secretase, which produces the C-terminal end of the Aβ peptide, cleaves within the transmembrane region of APP and can generate a number of isoforms of 30-51 amino acid residues in length. The most common isoforms are Aβ and Aβ; the longer form is typically produced by cleavage that occurs in the endoplasmic reticulum, while the shorter form is produced by cleavage in the trans-Golgi network.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Autosomal-dominant mutations in APP cause hereditary early-onset Alzheimer's disease (familial AD, fAD). This form of AD accounts for no more than 10% of all cases, and the vast majority of AD is not accompanied by such mutations. However, familial Alzheimer's disease is likely to result from altered proteolytic processing. This is evidenced by the fact that many mutations that lead to fAD occur near γ-secretase cleavage sites on APP. One of the most common mutations causing fAD, London Mutation, occurs at codon 717 of the APP gene, and results in a valine to isoleucine amino acid substitution. Histochemical analysis of the APP V717I mutation has revealed extensive Aβ pathology throughout neuroaxis as well as widespread cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA).


title: Amyloid beta

text: The gene for the amyloid precursor protein is located on chromosome 21, and accordingly people with Down syndrome have a very high incidence of Alzheimer's disease.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Amyloid beta is commonly thought to be intrinsically unstructured, meaning that in solution it does not acquire a unique tertiary fold but rather populates a set of structures. As such, it cannot be crystallized and most structural knowledge on amyloid beta comes from NMR and molecular dynamics. Early NMR-derived models of a 26-aminoacid polypeptide from amyloid beta (Aβ 10–35) show a collapsed coil structure devoid of significant secondary structure content. However, the most recent (2012) NMR structure of (Aβ 1-40) has significant secondary and tertiary structure. Replica exchange molecular dynamics studies suggested that amyloid beta can indeed populate multiple discrete structural states; more recent studies identified a multiplicity of discrete conformational clusters by statistical analysis. By NMR-guided simulations, amyloid beta 1-40 and amyloid beta 1-42 also seem to feature highly different conformational states, with the C-terminus of amyloid beta 1-42 being more structured than that of the 1-40 fragment.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Low-temperature and low-salt conditions allowed to isolate pentameric disc-shaped oligomers devoid of beta structure. In contrast, soluble oligomers prepared in the presence of detergents seem to feature substantial beta sheet content with mixed parallel and antiparallel character, different from fibrils; computational studies suggest an antiparallel beta-turn-beta motif instead for membrane-embedded oligomers.


title: Amyloid beta

text: The suggested mechanisms by which amyloid beta may damage and cause neuronal death include the generation of reactive oxygen species during the process of its self-aggregation. When this occurs on the membrane of neurons in vitro, it causes lipid peroxidation and the generation of a toxic aldehyde called 4-hydroxynonenal which, in turn, impairs the function of ion-motive ATPases, glucose transporters and glutamate transporters. As a result, amyloid beta promotes depolarization of the synaptic membrane, excessive calcium influx and mitochondrial impairment. Aggregations of the amyloid-beta peptide disrupt membranes in vitro.


title: Amyloid beta

text: In AD brains, in addition to the characteristic aggregation of Aβ peptides that causes amyloid (senile) plaques, DNA damages also accumulate. Reactive oxygen species may be the major source of DNA damage in AD brains. CDK5 kinase phosphorylates APP at threonine 568 which stimulates Aβ peptide accumulation, and CDK5 activities also affect the DNA damage response, supporting the concept of a linkage of DNA damage with AD.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Researchers in Alzheimer's disease have identified several strategies as possible interventions against amyloid:


title: Amyloid beta

text: β- and γ-secretase are responsible for the generation of Aβ from the release of the intracellular domain of APP, meaning that compounds that can partially inhibit the activity of either β- or γ-secretase are highly sought after. In order to initiate partial inhibition of β- and γ-secretase, a compound is needed that can block the large active site of aspartyl proteases while still being capable of bypassing the blood-brain barrier. To date, human testing has been avoided due to concern that it might interfere with signaling via Notch proteins and other cell surface receptors.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Imaging compounds, notably Pittsburgh compound B, (6-OH-BTA-1, a thioflavin), can selectively bind to amyloid beta in vitro and in vivo. This technique, combined with PET imaging, is used to image areas of plaque deposits in those with Alzheimer's.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Amyloid beta can be measured semiquantitatively with immunostaining, which also allows one to determine location. Amyloid beta may be primarily vascular, as in cerebral amyloid angiopathy, or in amyloid plaques in white matter.


title: Amyloid beta

text: One sensitive method is ELISA which is an immunosorbent assay which utilizes a pair of antibodies that recognize amyloid beta.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Atomic force microscopy, which can visualize nanoscale molecular surfaces, can be used to determine the aggregation state of amyloid beta in vitro.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Vibrational microspectroscopy is a label-free method that measures the vibration of molecules in tissue samples. Amyloid proteins like Aβ can be detected with this technique because of their high content of β-sheet structures. Recently, the formation of Aβ fibrils was resolved in different plaque-types in Alzheimer's disease, indicating that plaques transit different stages in their development.


title: Amyloid beta

text: Dual polarisation interferometry is an optical technique which can measure early stages of aggregation by measuring the molecular size and densities as the fibrils elongate. These aggregate processes can also be studied on lipid bilayer constructs.