title: Uterus

text: Animals which lay eggs have an oviduct, and there are quite a few reptiles which are viviparous or ovoviviparous.


title: Link

text: A link, also hyperlink in computing, is a part of a chain. A chain is made of many pieces of metal; each piece is a link.


title: Link

text: Today, people also use the word link in a new way. The World Wide Web on the Internet is made of many different Web pages. The computer software that people use to make these pages (HTML) lets us go to other pages in a very fast and easy way.


title: Link

text: The person who makes the web page can tell the computer to show a word or a picture on the Web page as a link. This means that when we click on the link with our computer mouse, the computer will show us the new page we want to see. Most links are blue, but they can be any color.


title: Link

text: The color of the link will change to dark blue when clicked as the web browser recognises it in the browser's cache. Unless the cache is cleared, the link will always stay dark blue.


title: Link

text: There are many ways in making a link on a web page. The process is different for different internet software.


title: Link

text: WikiSyntax like MediaWiki uses a simpler way of making links. To create a link to another page of the same website:


title: Link

text: <nowiki>[url]http://www.example.com[/url]</nowiki>, or <nowiki>[url=http://www.example.com]Link text[/url]</nowiki>


title: Neolithic revolution

text: The Neolithic revolution was the first agricultural revolution. It was a gradual change from nomadic hunting and gathering communities to agriculture and settlement. It changed the way of life of the communities which made the change. It occurred in different prehistoric human societies at different times. Many societies changed 9–7 thousand years ago


title: Neolithic revolution

text: The term refers to the general time period over which these developments took place. It also applies to the developments in social organization and technology. These included the adoption of early agriculture techniques, crop cultivation, and the domestication of animals.


title: Neolithic revolution

text: The Neolithic revolution led to people living in permanent or semi-permanent settlements. Because of this fewer people led a nomadic lifestyle. To be able to know who the crops grown belonged to, the concept of land ownership was developed. The natural environment was changed, population sizes grew, and people ate more vegetable and cereal foods in their diet. Hierarchies developed in society. Grain was stored, and could be traded. Surplus production from good crop yields helped societies survive bad years.


title: Neolithic revolution

text: With domesticated animals such as dogs, goats, sheep, and cattle, and crops, human society changed. Now, having crops and livestock, they no longer needed to move around. They could build better settlements. Their diet also changed. It included more oats and vegetables. People also started to keep and manage food: it was not advisable to eat all grain seeds, because then there would be no seeds left to plant the next year. Also, there were surplus in some years and that could be traded for other goods with other peoples.


title: Neolithic revolution

text: These changes happened independently in several parts of the world. They did not happen in the same order. The earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. It is still unclear to what extent plants were domesticated in Britain, or if permanently settled communities existed at all. Early Japanese societies used pottery "before" developing agriculture.


title: Neolithic revolution

text: In the Paleolithic there were more than one human species, but only the modern human reached the Mesolithic and Neolithic.


title: Neolithic revolution

text: Vere Gordon Childe gave the name "Neolithic Revolution" to this process in the 1920s. He thought that it was as important as the Industrial Revolution (which happened in the 18th and 19th century).


title: New wave music

text: New Wave (or New Wave music) is a style of rock music that developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. New wave music was inspired by the punk rock movement.


title: New wave music

text: New Wave music is rock music mixed with other types of music, such as punk rock music, funk, disco, ska and pop.


title: New wave music

text: In essence, New Wave maintained the rebellious and energetic side of punk rock, yet was less raw and aggressive. Whilst a lot of New Wave was lyrically complex, much New Wave was pop-based, containing simple melodies and catchy hooks. Additionally, New Wave music was also very electronic in nature, and made strong usage of synthesizers. New Wave is a broad term, and as such, New Wave artists varied greatly in style, ranging from pure rock, to synthpop, to reggae-influenced music. New Wave, as a genre, additionally had a strong visual aesthetic, and is noted for the colourful fashions which New Wave artists would sport in the 1980s.


title: New wave music

text: When MTV started broadcasting in 1981, many New Wave bands had their music videos played on television. This made New Wave music more popular. A well-known New Wave video is "Whip It" by Devo.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: Sound recording and reproduction is the storage of sound and playing it back so that a person can hear the same sound more than once. It is a process wherein sound waves are captured by a machine. The machine converts the waves into electrical signals or digital data, that are then stored on recording media (such as gramophone records, cassette tapes, compact discs or computer hard drives). The sound can then be played back by reversing the process.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: Most recordings are of music, people speaking or singing, and sound effects. They are usually used for entertainment (fun), or for scientific and historical reasons.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: Sound is recorded onto a medium by different methods. The ways that recordings are made have changed a lot since sound was first recorded.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: The first machines for recording sound were mechanical, not electrical. The phonograph was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in 1877. Phonographs have a spinning cylinder covered in a soft material such as tin foil, lead, wax, or amberol. Sound waves shake a small needle so that its motion carries the waves. As the cylinder turns, the needle draws the motion of the sound waves in the soft coating. This made the cylinder a recording of the sound that was in the needle.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: This recording is played back by tracing another needle through the groove in the cylinder. This recreates the small vibrations in the playback needle. These vibrations could be amplified (made louder) to create louder, more audible sound.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: The phonograph was useful for making single recordings, but a big disadvantage was the difficulty of making copies of the cylinders.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: The problem of copying recordings got better with the invention of the gramophone (also called the "phonograph" in American English) around 1888. The gramophone works in much the same way as the phonograph, but instead of a cylinder, the needle's grooves are etched into a disk record which turns on a spinning table. Because the record media was flat, copying recordings was much simpler. Pressing the original recording onto a plate of shellac created a negative master, where the grooves were bumps on the surface instead of being scratched into the surface. The master could be used to produce many copies through the opposite process.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: Originally, records spun at a rate of 78 rotations per minute, or 78 rpm. As technology got better, records could spin more slowly, but still reproduce sound better and play for longer amounts of time. 45 rpm became common in the middle 20th century, and by the late 1900s most records were 33 rpm.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: In the late 1930s the tape recorder appeared. Tape recorders use a magnetic tape as a medium, with a "recording head" to store the sound on the tape. Sound waves are converted into an electrical signal inside the recorder. This signal goes into the head, where it changes the polarity of very small magnets. Tape moves past the head at a constant speed, and its magnetic particles are rearranged by these magnets to a pattern that represents the sound wave. These magnetic patterns are much like the small grooves of a cylinder or disc record in the way that they represent the vibration energy of sound waves.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: When a tape is played back, it runs past a "playback head" which reads the magnetic patterns off the tape and converts them back into an electrical signal. The electrical signal can then be converted into sound waves or copied to some other kind of sound-processing machine.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: A magnetic tape is divided into several "tracks". Each track uses up part of the width of the tape, and can store a completely different recording that can be played back at the same time as the other tracks. A two-track tape has one track on half of the tape and another track on the other half. A four-track tape has four tracks all lying next to one another, like a highway with four lanes. Most tape recordings today are stereophonic (or "stereo"), meaning that they have two tracks which are meant to be played together. Usually one is played on the listener's left side and the other is on the listener's right side, to match the listener's two ears.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: Early tapes were wound flat on a storage reel and transferred to a "take-up reel" as they were recorded or played. After recording or playback, they were "rewound" so that they were stored only on the storage reel. This kind of system is usually called "reel to reel" today. It is still used today for some professional recording and playback, but for home use reels were mostly replaced with other kinds of tape in the 1970s. Cassettes are small cartridges containing two reels inside. Cassettes move a four-track tape in either of two directions, corresponding to their "side A" and "side B" labels. The reel on the left contains the unplayed or unrecorded tape, and the reel on the right contains the tape that has already passed the recording or playback head. When you turn the cassette over, the tape still moves from left to right, but this is really the opposite direction. The "side A" recording plays two tracks as stereo, and the "side B" recording plays the other two.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: Eight-track tapes were popular for a while in the 1970s and 1980s. Eight-tracks work much like cassettes, but the tape is a loop: it repeats after being played all the way through. Because it has eight tracks, there are four "programs" to select from, each in stereo. Eight-tracks are not very popular anymore, but can still be found in hobbyist collections.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: Professional tape-recording systems may have even more tracks, or might use them differently. Usually a system like this is designed to allow someone to mix the tracks in different ways than they were originally recorded. However, there is a kind of recording called quadraphonic that uses four-track tape to play four different tracks at the same time. A good quadraphonic recording can sound much more "real" than stereo or monophonic recordings.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: Tape recording technology was used from the early days of computing to store digital information. As computer technology improved, so did magnetic tape technology. In the 1980s Digital Audio Tape (DAT) technology emerged. DAT is designed to work much like cassette, except DAT's magnetic patterns represent digital data instead of sound vibrations. This digital data is a digital audio recording which can be copied and reproduced with many different computer systems. Moving to digital takes the medium one step farther from the original sound. Instead of being a sound medium, the DAT is a data medium, and the data is a sound medium. This is more technically complex, but also more flexible. DAT has been used for many kinds of data recording, in addition to sound.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: The compact disc (CD) medium was developed in the 1980s as a new way to bring digital recordings of music to the market. Except for the introduction of the CD-ROM and several kinds of recordable CD, the CD has not changed much since then. Like DAT, it is a data medium rather than a way of recording vibrations directly. It was introduced to provide music in a way that is cheap for manufacturers but relatively high-quality, but it has since been adapted to meet many data-storage needs. Like DAT, the CD requires computer technology to record and to play.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: By the 1990s, CDs had replaced cassettes and records as the main kind of commercial music media. Today, although CDs are still very popular, "online" digital recordings like MP3s are gaining fast.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: The earliest methods of recording sound involved the live recording of the performance directly to the recording medium. This was an entirely mechanical process, often called "acoustical recording". The sound of the performers was captured by a diaphragm with the cutting needle connect to it. The needle made the grooves in the recording medium.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: To make this process as efficient as possible the diaphragm was located at the apex of a cone and the performer(s) would crowd around the other end. If a performer was too loud then they would need to move back from the mouth of the cone to avoid drowning out the other performers. As a result of this, in early Jazz recordings a block of wood was used in place of the bass drum.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: The introduction of electrical recording made it possible to use microphones to capture the sound of the performance. The leading record labels switched to the electric microphone process in 1925, and most other record companies followed their lead by the end of the decade. Electrical recording increased the flexibity and sound quality. However once the performance was still cut to the recording medium, so if a mistake was made the recording was useless.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: Electrical recording made it possible to record one part to disc and then play that back while playing another part, recording both parts to a second disc. This is called "over-dubbing". The first commercially issued records using over-dubbing were released by the Victor Talking Machine Company in the late 1920s. However overdubbing was of limited use until the introduction of analog audio tape. Use of tape overdubbing was pioneered by Les Paul and is called 'sound on sound' recording. In this way performances could be built up over time.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: The analog tape recorder made it possible to erase or record over a previous recording so that mistakes could be fixed. Another advantage of recording on tape is the ability to cut the tape and join it back together. This allows the recording to be edited. Pieces of the recording can be removed, or rearranged. See Audio editing


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: The introduction of electronic instruments (especially keyboards and synthesisers), effects and other instruments has led to the importance of MIDI in recording. For example, using MIDI timecode, it is possible to have different equipment 'trigger' without direct human intervention at the time of recording.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: In more recent times, computers (digital audio workstation) have found an increasing role in the recording studio, as their use eases the tasks of cutting and looping, as well as allowing for instantaneous changes, such as duplication of parts, the addition of affects and the rearranging of parts of the recording.


title: Sound recording and reproduction

text: The French bookseller and printer Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville was the earliest known inventor of sound recording. It is believed he invented the first ever sound recording device known as the Phonautograph.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibians are members of the class Amphibia. The living ones are frogs (including toads), salamanders (including newts) and caecilians. They are four-legged vertebrates which are cold blooded.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibians lay their eggs in water, usually in a foam nest. After hatching they are tadpoles, which live in the water and have gills. The tadpoles change into adults in a process called metamorphosis. When they are adult, they have lungs to breathe instead of gills, and legs. Adult amphibians also use their skin to take in oxygen, and some species of salamanders do not have lungs.


title: Amphibian

text: The earliest amphibians evolved in the Devonian from lobe-finned fish which had jointed leg-like fins with digits. They could crawl along the sea bottom. Some had developed primitive lungs to help them breathe air when the stagnant pools of the Devonian swamps were low in oxygen. They could also use their strong fins to hoist themselves out of the water and onto dry land if necessary.


title: Amphibian

text: For tens of millions of years, during the Carboniferous and early Permian, amphibia were top predators on land, especially in the low-lying tropical river systems. In drier conditions, they were less effective, and the ancestors of mammals and reptiles (the Synapsids and Sauropsids) gradually took over the land. They laid cleidoic eggs, which had hard shells, and could be laid out of water. Most of the early large amphibians went extinct in the Triassic period; a few survived to the Lower Cretaceous.


title: Amphibian

text: The only living amphibiana today are the Lissamphibia. These include the Anura (frogs and toads), Caudata (salamanders and newts) and Gymnophiona (caecilians). They are all rather small, compared with mammals or reptiles. The smallest frog and vertebrate in the world is the New Guinea frog ("Paedophryne amauensis"). The biggest amphibian is the Chinese giant salamander ("Andrias davidianus").


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibia are found everywhere in the world, except Antarctica, and there are about 5,565 different species: 88% of them are in the Anura. In number of species, they are more successful than mammals, though they occupy a smaller range of habitats. However, it is said that amphibian populations have been declining all over the world. Conservation is therefore an important concern.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibians like to live near freshwater in warm weather. There have also been species which live in forests, deserts and arctic conditions. Adult amphibians use lungs, and they also get oxygen through their skin, so long as it is moist.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibians may be camouflaged in brown and green, and if so they are prey for birds and reptiles. Their colour gives them camouflage, which is their main defence.


title: Amphibian

text: Alternatively, many other amphibia have toxic skin, which is harmful to predators. These are poisonous to eat. This is an important defence against predation. Connected to this is the use of warning colouration. They may be in vivid colours of red, black, and yellow. Research into the rough-skinned newt and the garter snake shows this is a typical case of co-evolution. Where they live in the same area, the newts get more poisonous, and the snakes develop more resistance to the poison.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibians have colour vision and depth of focus for clear sight. They also have eyelids, glands and ducts which keep the eyes moist. These are adaptations to life on land: amphibia were the first vertebrates to have these features.


title: Amphibian

text: Some amphibia, such as the frog known as the common coquí, lay eggs out of water (in this case, on palm leaves). The eggs develop directly into adult frogs, by-passing the tadpole stage. Others, like mudpuppies and olms, have a different development. In a process called neoteny, they become sexually developed as tadpoles with gills. They continue to live in the water.


title: Amphibian

text: The order Anura includes the frogs and toads. There is no fundamental difference between frogs and toads. Frogs have a short body, webbed digits (fingers or toes), protruding eyes, forked tongue and no tail. They are exceptional jumpers: many of their features, particularly their long, powerful legs, are adaptations to improve jumping performance. They often live in semi-aquatic or inhabit humid areas.


title: Amphibian

text: A popular distinction is often made between frogs and toads on the basis of their appearance. Toads' warty skin is an adaptation for making their toxic slime. Apart from these glands, their skin is dry, and that is an adaptation to drier habitats. These features have evolved a number of times independently: convergent evolution. The distinction has no taxonomic basis. The only family exclusively given the common name "toad" is Bufonidae (the "true toads"), but many species from other families are commonly called "toads".


title: Amphibian

text: Newts are salamanders which spend their life in the water even though they are adults. They are classified in the subfamily Pleurodelinae of the family Salamandridae.


title: Amphibian

text: Respiration differs between species of salamanders. Species that lack lungs respire through gills. In most cases, these are external gills, visible as tufts on either side of the head. Some salamanders that are terrestrial have lungs that are used in respiration, although these are simple and sac-like, unlike the more complex organs found in mammals. Many species, such as the Olm, have both lungs and gills as adults.


title: Amphibian

text: Some terrestrial species lack both lungs and gills and perform gas exchange through their skin. Even some species with lungs also respire through the skin in this manner.


title: Amphibian

text: The skin of salamanders secretes mucus. This helps to keep the animal moist when on dry land, keeps their salt balance while in water, and lubricates during swimming. Salamanders also secrete poison from glands in their skin, and some additionally have skin glands for secreting courtship pheromones.


title: Amphibian

text: Axolotls, from the genus "Ambystoma" (or mole salamanders), are neotenic amphibians. This means they get to sexual maturity and reproduce while still in a larval form.


title: Amphibian

text: Most salamanders and newts have some defence against predators, usually a poison which makes them uneatable. Their bright colours are warning colouration. If, instead, they are camouflaged, this means they are probably not protected by a toxin.


title: Amphibian

text: The second line of defence is to shed their tail, which can grow again. The tail wriggles a bit, attracts the predator while the business part of the salamander moves off.


title: Amphibian

text: There are over 350 lungless salamanders. Most of them are terrestrial and are active in daytime. Lungless salamanders may communicate with their nose. Slender salamanders are found in the Pacific Coast. They are sometimes called "worm salamanders". This is because they have slimmer (skinny) bodies than most salamanders. If touched, slender salamanders will bounce on the ground and then run away.


title: Amphibian

text: The order Gymnophiona includes the caecilians. These are long, cylindrical, limbless animals that look like snakes or worms. Their skin has circular folds, increasing their similarity to the segments of earthworms. Some are aquatic, but most live underground in burrows they hollow out. Many caecilians give birth to live young. In species which lay eggs, the eggs may undergo metamorphosis before they hatch. Caecilians are found in tropical Africa, Asia and Central and South America. There are 171 different species.


title: Amphibian

text: Their skins make a mucus that makes them slippery enough to slip through the earth. They can make a toxic material in their skins, as many frogs and toads do.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibians are the only vertebrates to go through metamorphosis. This means that their young look different from their adult. Amphibians usually reproduce in early spring to late summer, though some reproduce in winter and fall. Most frogs and toads, such as the common frog ("Rana temporalis"), gather in large groups to ponds, rivers, swamps and lakes to breed. Male frogs and toads may croak to attract a female. When a female frog has chosen a mate, the male frog hops on top of her. They swim together as she lay eggs in the water. Sometimes, males fight to mate with a female. Frogs can lay up to 100 to 60,000 eggs in one clutch. This is called "frogspawn".


title: Amphibian

text: It is a fundamental feature of amphibia that their reproduction is, one way or another, tied to water. This is because their eggs, although covered by jelly, cannot survive long in dry conditions.


title: Amphibian

text: Most female amphibians lays her eggs in water. Males release sperm to fertilize them. The eggs are laid one by one or in batches. Batches of eggs can look like a long chain or a ball of foam. They may wrap their eggs around plants in the water. They do this so their eggs will not drift away.


title: Amphibian

text: Tree frogs usually lay their eggs on a leaf in a rainwater pool. Bullfrogs, such as the male American bullfrog and the male African bullfrog, stay with their tadpoles and protect them from predators. They also move their tadpoles by using their nose to dig a channel to another place where there is more water. They do this so their tadpoles do not dry up. Most amphibians leave their eggs to look after themselves. Fish and other animals eat most of their eggs. Male midwife toads carry their eggs on their backs. When they are ready to hatch, the toad goes back to the water and release them.


title: Amphibian

text: Tadpoles do not have lungs when they hatch and instead have gills. Because gills have a large surface area, tadpoles can get more oxygen by using them. Young tadpoles have their gills exposed. When they get older, their gills are covered over by skin. When they hatch, tadpoles eat constantly. The tadpoles eat what is left of their eggs, this is usually their first food.


title: Amphibian

text: Frog, toad and newt tadpoles eat plants such as algae and pondweed or filter feed. When they get older, they may start to feed on tiny animals in the water. Salamander tadpoles and surinam horned toad tadpoles are carnivorous throughout their tadpole stage. Surinam horned toad tadpoles are very aggressive. They eat other tadpoles if food is nowhere to be found. The eggs of the spadefoot toad hatches in three days. Their tadpoles complete their metamorphosis in six to eight days. This is because spadefoot toads lay their eggs in places where water will dry up soon.


title: Amphibian

text: Tadpoles of frogs and toads start to grow their back legs first. They then grow front legs a few weeks later. When tadpoles grow their limbs they are called "froglets". This is because they look rather like a smaller version of adult frogs and toads. Tadpoles will also start to grow a backbone after growing their front limbs. After this, their mouths get bigger and their eyes will stick out more. After a tadpole has grown its hands, their tails continue to get shorter until there is nothing left of them.


title: Amphibian

text: Salamanders and newts can be found living in streams. Salamanders can be found in rotten logs, holes or underground places that are wet such as under leaves. Web-toed salamanders live in habitats where there are a lot of rocks. They like to hide under rocks and stones. The tailed frogs, like to live in cold water habitats. In their habitat, amphibians like to live where there are a lot of places to hide. These include nearby small trees, logs and plants. While underwater they like to hide near aquatic plants and rocks. Tree and dart frogs like to live in forests on trees, plants and on the ground under leaves.


title: Amphibian

text: Some amphibia can be found living in the desert or the arctic. The desert froglet lives in the desert. They are only active at night, when temperatures are much cooler. It rarely rains in the desert and because of this, desert frogs will burrow to keep cool. They use their mucus to keep them wet. They will spread it all over their bodies. The mucus will harden to keep the water it produces from escaping. Once the desert frog has done this, it will stay in its cocoon and will not move. They will stay like this for several months to years until a rainstorm. Desert frogs and toads lose water more quickly. The spadefoot toad will spit on the ground. Once they have done this, they will lay on it. Their bodies will take in the water. Their bodies are thin and have a lot of blood vessels, this helps them to be able to take water through their skin. The California newt can survive a fire by spreading its mucous over its body.


title: Amphibian

text: Arctic frogs such as the wood frog, moor frog and the common frog has to live with freezing temperatures for a long time. They will burrow in places where they can get into a cocoon. Like every living organisms, amphibians must have water to survive. Amphibians however, need freshwater. Some frogs such as burrowing frogs can keep water in their bladders. This allows them to stay underground without drying up. The crab-eating frog lives near water that is somewhat salty. They will eat saltwater crabs. Torrent salamanders lives in cold waters. Because of this they have shorter lungs. Short lungs helps them to float easily.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibia are world-wide, though restricted in distribution by their need for moist or watery habitats to reproduce.


title: Amphibian

text: Many amphibia have secretions in their skin which makes them toxic. They do not produce toxins themselves. They get toxins from what they eat. They eat insects in their habitat. These insects get the poison from a plant. The toxin has been discovered in beetles. This means that they are likely the cause of poisons found in amphibians. Amphibians do not produce batrachotoxin in captivity, which means that it is not harmful to touch them. The American Indian tribe comechingóns used the toxins of the arrow dart frogs when hunting.


title: Amphibian

text: Newts in the genus "Taricha" has a poison called tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin. Scientists believe that toxins in newts are caused by bacteria in the genera "Pseudoalteromonas", "Pseudomonas" and "Vibrio". Because of this, the newts do not have a lot of predators. However, some species of snakes have develop a resistance. This means that they can eat newts without the toxin hurting them. It is a case of co-evolution.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibians' eyes have lids, glands and ducts. They have good colour vision Caecilian eyes are small and dark. Most of them are blind. Most amphibians have a good sense of smell, even underwater.


title: Amphibian

text: The skeletal system of amphibians are similar to other four-legged animals. They have a spine, rib cage, long bones such as the humerus and femur. They also have short bones such as the phalanges, metacarpals, and metatarsals. Most amphibians have four limbs, except for caecilians. The bones in amphibians are hollow and do not weigh much.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibia are predators. They mostly eat live invertebrates and animals that do not move too quickly. These include caterpillars, earthworms, crayfish, water beetles, snails and dragon fly larvae. Many amphibians use their sticky tongues to catch their prey. They swallow the animal whole, but may chew it just a bit for it to go down their throats. The Ranidae family and the Ceratophrys genus eat almost anything they can fit into their mouths. These include rodents, birds, ducklings, small fish and small mammals. Most frogs are cannibalistic, and may eat each other if food is nowhere to be found. Some amphibians may even eat their own tadpoles and eggs if there is no food for them.


title: Amphibian

text: In captivity, pet frogs will be given crickets, worms, small fish, rodents and fruit flies. Adult amphibians can help decrease the mosquito population by eating most of their larvae.


title: Amphibian

text: Caecilians eat earthworms, termites and beetle larvae, and also small lizards. Caecilians rely on their smell to find food. They like to eat earthworms and will find them by picking up their chemical signals. Salamanders and newts are fed a lot of different types of worms. These include blood worms and earthworms. They can eat small fish such as goldfish, fathead minnows and guppies. Salamanders also eat crickets and pinkies, which are baby rats.


title: Amphibian

text: The amphibian population have been decreasing from all locations in the world. Scientists have said that the declining of amphibians is one of the most critical threats to global biodiversity. A number of causes are believed to be involved. These include habitat destruction, over-exploitation, pollution, introduced species, climate change, destruction of the ozone layer, and diseases like chytridiomycosis. Ultraviolet radiation damages the skin, eyes and eggs of amphibians. However, the declines of amphibian population are still not understood.


title: Amphibian

text: The Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP) have released a global strategy to help the amphibian population. It was developed by over 80 leading experts. The Amphibian Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) are working on another global strategy to help amphibian populations. The Amphibian Ark (AA) is an organization that was created to help the public be aware of the decline in amphibian populations. They have been working with zoos and aquaria around the world. They try to encourage them to create a natural habitat for threatened amphibians. Another project is the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project (PARCP) which are trying to spread awareness about chyridiomycosis. The disease is spreading into eastern Panama and threatening all amphibians living there.


title: Amphibian

text: On January 21, 2008, Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) released a statement to the public. It was created by Helen Meredith, who identified nature's most endangered species. Meredith explains that 85% of the top 100 endangered amphibians list are receiving little or no conservation attention.


title: Amphibian

text: Bullfrog legs are a source of food for Southern United States and the Midwestern United States. People hunt bullfrogs at night near rivers. The bullfrogs' legs are cooked, while their backs are fried. In China, bullfrogs are sold alive for eating. However, they are later cooked dead with vegetables. In the state of California, people must have a license to catch bullfrogs for food. In schools, bullfrogs are dissected in biology classes. Usually, this is done in grammar school. The dissecting is a method for teaching students the anatomy of a bullfrog. The emperor newt is hunted in China for food. They are also used there for medicine. Burrowing frogs are able to hold water in their bladder, because of this indigenous Australians use them to drink water.


title: Amphibian

text: Amphibians are also kept as pets. They are kept in aquariums or a terrarium. A terrarium is a tank that is decorated with plants and soil on one side. On the other side, there is water. Most amphibians would need one place for land and another for water. Each type of amphibian should have its special needs taken care of. Semi-aquatic amphibians need both land and water divided in the tank. Tropical frogs would need mist and high humidity in their terrariums. Water for amphibia needs dechlorination. The chlorine in tap water can kill amphibia. Some amphibians popular exotic pets, and are found in pet stores that sell reptiles.


title: Logistics

text: Logistics is the term which generally means the management of transportation of information, from one place to another. Logistics involves things like transportation, inventory, packaging, supplies and sometimes, social security and warehousing.


title: Logistics

text: There are many types of logistics, for example : military logistics, business logistics and production logistics and marketing logistics.


title: Logistics

text: A logistics company is an enterprise that provides services for the transportation, processing and storage of goods, assisting its customers in the process of promoting goods from the manufacturer to the consumer.


title: Surgery

text: Surgery is an operation that involves cutting, taking out, changing or fixing parts of the human body. Doctors who do surgeries are called surgeons. Many surgeons are experts in certain areas; for example, a surgeon that operates on bones is called an orthopaedic surgeon.


title: Surgery

text: Surgery (operations) can be very simple, like taking a tooth out. Surgery can also be very complicated, like repairing a damaged heart.


title: Surgery

text: Operating rooms have to be very clean places. The doctors and nurses go to great lengths to keep the room clean where the surgery is done. Regular cleaning of the room and its tools keeps everything clean and germ-free.


title: Surgery

text: Everyone in the operating room must wear special clothes, hats, shoes, gowns, gloves and masks that are clean and germ free. The only people allowed there are the doctors and nurses as well as the patient.


title: Surgery

text: When people have operations they are normally put to sleep with general anaesthesia. When the patients are asleep, they cannot feel anything. In some kinds of surgery local anesthesia (stopping the pain in the place where the cutting is done) is enough.


title: Surgery

text: In recent years, many patients that cannot get the required surgery in their own country, or find the costs too high, travel to another country for medical care. This is called medical tourism.


title: Claude Monet

text: One of his most famous paintings was called "Water Lilies", which he repeated many times in various conditions.


title: Claude Monet

text: Monet was born in Paris, France. His father wanted him to help run the family's grocery business. However, Monet wanted to be an artist. When he was young he met the painter Eugène Boudin who taught him to use oil paints, and encouraged him to paint out of doors.


title: Claude Monet

text: Monet joined the French Army in Algeria for two years from 1860 to 1862. When he became ill he left the army to study art at university. He did not like the way art was taught, and joined the painter Charles Gleyre in his studio. He met other artists here, including Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. They shared their ideas about painting.


title: Claude Monet

text: In 1866 Monet had a child with Camille Doncieux, who had been his model. They married in 1870 and had two children, Michel and Joseph. In 1870 he moved to England to escape the Franco-Prussian War, and in 1871 he moved to Argenteuil near Paris where he painted some of his most famous pictures. In 1873 he painted "Impression, Sunrise", showing the sea at Le Havre. When this picture was shown in 1874 one critic took its title and called the group of artists "Impressionists". He intended to make fun of the artists, but the name has stuck and this is what people today call this style of painting.


title: Claude Monet

text: In 1879 Camille died of tuberculosis. Alice Hoschedé decided to help Monet by taking care of his children as well as her own. In 1883 they moved to a house in Giverny where Monet planted a large garden. Monet married Alice in 1892.


title: Claude Monet

text: Monet found that his garden inspired him to paint pictures of it, particularly the water lilies. Alice died in 1911, and his son Jean was killed in World War I in 1914.


title: Claude Monet

text: Monet used broad brush strokes to build up his pictures, and painted quite quickly to try and get the idea of the light he could see into his paintings. If you go very close to one of his pictures it is hard to see what it shows, but if you stand back everything becomes clear.


title: Claude Monet

text: His later paintings include series, in which he paints the same subject in different lights. For example, he painted a series of pictures of haystacks in a field, and another series of pictures of the west front of Rouen Cathedral. There are many paintings of the lilies in his garden at Giverny.


title: Commerce

text: Commerce is another word for trade or business, and can mean simply the buying and selling of goods and services. Some commerce involves high finance and big companies and organisations. Commercial real estate is a place for commerce, a place to do business. Interstate commerce is the movement of goods, money or transportation between two or more states. International trade is the exchange of goods and services between countries.


title: Witchcraft

text: Witchcraft is the use of magical powers. This might be for healing, seeing into the future, causing harm, or for religion. A person practicing witchcraft is called a witch, although a man practicing witchcraft is often mistakenly called a wizard (a word from Northern Europe), a warlock (in general witchcraft warlock means traitor) (a word from 14th century England), a sorcerer, or shaman (a term for people who practice magic in parts of Asia). Such people are said to have a knowledge of the chemical (or pharmaceutical) effects of certain herbs or shrubs. Witches can use this knowledge to help people who are sick or to hurt them.


title: Witchcraft

text: Witchcraft is different throughout the world and can be seen as good or bad depending on where you are. Today, many people practice a peaceful kind of witchcraft, called Wicca. However, there are still many other people who are scared of witchcraft and think that it is bad. Throughout history, there have been stories about good and bad witches. In European history, witches were accused of physically making and performing spells to harm people. They could also harm people by using their mind. However, this belief was not real and was often used to explain why bad things happened sometimes. In Africa, witches don't use physical tools or actions to curse. They can cause harm by just thinking about it. In fact, one may be unaware of being a witch, or may have been convinced of their witch nature by the suggestion of others. This understanding was described by anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard, who studied African magical beliefs.


title: Witchcraft

text: Éva Pócs (a scholar and folklorist) states that there are four reasons a person is accused of witchcraft:


title: Witchcraft

text: "Neighbourhood witches" are the product of neighbourhood arguments, and are found only in rural village communities where the inhabitants largely rely on each other. Such accusations follow the breaking of some social norm, such as the failure to return a borrowed item, and any person part of the normal exchange could potentially be accused. Claims of "sorcerer" witches and "supernatural" witches could arise out of social tensions, but not exclusively; the supernatural witch in particular often had nothing to do with community conflict, but expressed tensions between the human and supernatural worlds; and in Eastern and Southeastern Europe such supernatural witches became an ideology explaining calamities that befell entire communities.


title: Witchcraft

text: It is believed that witches can perform magic by using plants, casting spells, or using their mind. The use of plants is often called herbalism and this involves collecting or growing herbs to use in potions or medicines to help or hurt people, animals, or things.


title: Witchcraft

text: In popular artwork, witches can be seen using big metal cooking bowls called cauldrons to mix their spell ingredients. Witches also use wands, brooms, sticks, candles, swords, and fire to perform spells.


title: Witchcraft

text: In some cultures, witches can harm people just by using their mind and thinking bad thoughts about a person. In these cultures, witches do not need any items and can potentially be anyone in the community.


title: Witchcraft

text: Of these three categories the "tagati" is almost exclusively female, the "sangoma" is usually female, and the "inyanga" is almost exclusively male. Much of what witchcraft represents in Africa has been misunderstood and mistaken for European witchcraft. African scholar Uchenna Okeja argues that witchcraft in Africa today plays a very different social role than in Europe of the past—or present—and should be understood through an African, rather than Western view.


title: Witchcraft

text: When the first Europeans came to the New World, they brought with them the Christian religion and their fear of supernatural witches. Native Americans had their own religion and beliefs. Since the Christian European settlers were living with these Native Americans and also African slaves (who had their own non-Christian religions and beliefs), this scared them. The Europeans were already scared, far away from their home in the New World with different plants and animals. This fear lead to violent crimes such as accusing and murdering people who they thought were witches and were hurting them with supernatural powers.


title: Witchcraft

text: The most famous witch accusations were the 1692-1693 Salem Witch trials. During these trials, 150 people were accused of being witches, and 19 people were killed by hanging. Every Halloween season, Salem, Massachusetts hosts a Halloween festival in which they highlight their towns notorious history with the 1692 Salem Witch trials. This festival often involves live music, parties, and vendors selling witch-themed items.


title: Witchcraft

text: Throughout the world there are many people who claim to have supernatural powers such as; psychics, mediums, palm readers and New Age healers. These people are sometimes members of witchcraft religions like Wicca. These people perform tricks to entertain and heal people such as tarot card reading, astrology, crystal healing, Reiki healing, talking to dead family members, or seeing the future.


title: Witchcraft

text: The belief in witchcraft and its practice seem to have been widespread in the Ancient Near East and Nile Valley. It played a clear role in the cultures of ancient Egypt and in Babylonia. Later tradition included an Akkadian anti-witchcraft ritual, the Maqlû. A section from the Code of Hammurabi (about 2000 B.C.) prescribes:If a man has put a spell upon another man and it is not justified, he upon whom the spell is laid shall go to the holy river; into the holy river shall he plunge. If the holy river overcome him and he is drowned, the man who put the spell upon him shall take possession of his house. If the holy river declares him innocent and he remains unharmed the man who laid the spell shall be put to death. He that plunged into the river shall take possession of the house of him who laid the spell upon him.


title: Witchcraft

text: There are many examples of witches in Greek mythology, such as Circe, who was a sorcerer in Homers’ Odyssey. Circe used potions to put spells on visitors to her house, and she could turn people into pigs.


title: Witchcraft

text: Druids were members of the high-ranking professional class in ancient Celtic cultures. They were religious leaders, legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals, and political advisors


title: Witchcraft

text: The earliest record of the druids comes from two Greek texts from circa 300 BCE: one, a history of philosophy written by Sotion of Alexandria, and the other a study of magic widely attributed to Aristotle. Both texts are now lost, but were quoted in the 2nd century CE work "Vitae" by Diogenes Laërtius.Some say that the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed the Magi, and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaei, among the Indians the Gymnosophistae, and among the Celts and Gauls men who were called druids and semnothei, as Aristotle relates in his book on magic, and Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Succession of Philosophers.


title: Witchcraft

text: - Diogenes Laërtius,  Vitae, Introduction, Section 1Later Greek and Roman texts from the third century BCE refer to "barbarian philosophers", possibly in reference to the Gaulish druids.


title: Witchcraft

text: In Medieval times, witchcraft gradually became an enemy of Christianity. Christians thought that witchcraft was the work of the devil, and the Bible was used as evidence against witchcraft. Verses such as Deuteronomy 18:11–12 and Exodus 22:18 ("Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live") were very influential.


title: Witchcraft

text: In Europe in the Late Medieval/Early Modern period, Catholics, Protestants, and state leaders became very afraid of the power of witches. There were large witch-hunts in many places. People believed that the devil was using witches to try to overthrow Christianity, so tens or hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and others were put in prison, tortured, and had lands and possessions taken away from them. Most of these witches were women, because people believed women were more likely to be witches.


title: Witchcraft

text: Witch-trials looked for evidence to prove that a person was a witch. Evidence included such things as signs of plant medicine, or images of non-Christian gods. One way to physically test if a person was a witch was to 'swim a witch'. This meant they would throw them in a river with their hands tied. If they sank, they were innocent. If they floated, they were guilty of witchcraft and were hanged. This violent practice was not based on any actual evidence. Instead, it allowed the witch-hunter to look right and powerful for the scared people who were watching.


title: Witchcraft

text: In South America, people continue to practice a form of witchcraft which started before the arrival of European Christianity. Throughout the Andes, there are many places called witch markets, such as the Mercado de las Brujas in La Paz, Bolivia. These markets sell items such as plant medicines


title: Witchcraft

text: Witches are often seen in art and cinema. Many movies have focused on witches and witchcraft such as; "Bewitched", "Harry Potter", the Wizard of Oz, "Hocus Pocus", and "Rosemary's Baby". Many television shows also have witches and witchcraft. Some examples are: Charmed (1998 and ), American Horror Story: Coven, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.


title: Enrique Iglesias

text: Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler (born 8 May 1975) is a Spanish pop singer-songwriter. He was born in Madrid. His parents are Spanish singer Julio Iglesias (born 1943) and Filipina journalist Isabel Preysler (born 1951).


title: Enrique Iglesias

text: His career started on Mexican label Fonovisa. They helped turn him into one of the most popular artists in Latin America and in the Latin market in the United States. He sold more Spanish albums than any other artists in the 1990s. Before 2000, he made a crossover into the mainstream English market. He signed a unique multi-album deal with Universal Music for $48,000,000. Universal Music Latino would release his Spanish albums and Interscope would release English albums. In 2010 he signed to Universal Republic and released his first full bilingual album.


title: Enrique Iglesias

text: Enrique Iglesias has sold over 100 million records worldwide and has had two Billboard Hot 100 #1s and one #3. He holds the record for producing twenty-two number #1 Spanish language singles on the Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks. Altogether, Iglesias has 69 number-one rankings on the various "Billboard" charts.


title: Enrique Iglesias

text: Enrique Iglesias is one of the most celebrated Latin musical artists of all time. He has won 16 Billboard Music Awards and 23 Billboard Latin Music Awards. He has also won 5 American Music Awards, a Grammy, a Latin Grammy and 7 World Music Awards. He won an award for Best International Pop Act at the MTV India Awards.


title: Enrique Iglesias

text: As well as being named "King of Latin Pop", he has won 15 Premios Lo Nuestro awards. In 2000, he was awarded Most Fashionable Artist at the VH1/"Vogue" Fashion Awards. In 2001, for the release of his second English studio album "Escape", he received awards for Best-Selling Pop Male Artist and European Male Artist at the World Music Awards. Iglesias won an award for Most Successful Spanish Artist of the Decade at Premios Ondas in 2002.


title: Woke

text: Woke ( ) is a word which originally referred to awareness about racism and discrimination. It later came to include an awareness of other issues of social inequality, for example regarding gender and sexual orientation. Since the late 2010s it has also been used as a general word for left-wing political movements and viewpoints which emphasise the identity politics of people of color (those who are not white), LGBT people, and women.


title: Woke

text: The phrase "stay woke" began within the everyday language of some African Americans in the 1930s, because in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) "woke" is instead of "woken", the usual form of "wake".


title: Woke

text: After the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, the word was used by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists who wanted to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans in the US. It became an Internet meme and was increasingly utilised by individuals who were not African American to show that they supported BLM. Popular among millennials, the word spread worldwide and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.


title: Woke

text: The word ended up being used as a catch-all term to describe left-wing ideologies, often centred on the identity politics of minority groups and informed by academic movements like critical race theory, which identified themselves as being devoted to social justice. This included BLM, anti-racism, and campaigns on women's and LGBT issues. By 2020, parts of the political right in some Western countries were ironically using the word "woke" to describe left-wing movements and ideologies they disagreed with. In turn, some left-wing activists came to consider it an offensive term used to belittle those campaigning against discrimination.


title: Audi

text: Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer with headquarters in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, and has been an almost wholly-owned (99.7%) subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group since 1964. Audi AG was founded by August Horch and the current CEO of Audi AG is Rupert Stadler.


title: Cyrus Cylinder

text: The Cyrus Cylinder () or Cyrus Charter ( "") is a very old clay cylinder, which is now broken into many pieces. It has writing on it in the Akkadian language in the name of Persia's Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great. It was made in the 6th century BC. It was found near the ruins of Babylon, Mesopotamia (now in Iraq) in 1879. It is currently in the British Museum in London.


title: Axel jump

text: An Axel jump is a jump in figure skating. It is the most famous and recognizable skating jump. It starts with the skater going forward. It is the only jump that does and that helps people know that the jump is an Axel jump. Because all skating jumps are landed going backwards, the Axel jump has an extra half rotation (full circle) in the air than all other skating jumps.


title: Axel jump

text: The first skater to do a double Axel in competition was Dick Button, and Carol Heiss Jenkins was the first woman to do it. The first skater to do a triple Axel in competition was Vern Taylor. The first woman to do it was Midori Ito.


title: Axel jump

text: The first pairs skater to do a "throw triple Axel" (he helps her with the jump) were Rena Inoue & John Baldwin. It is not known who did the first "throw double Axel".


title: Axel jump

text: The Axel can be a single Axel (1 and a half rotations in the air), a double Axel (two and a half rotations in the air), or a triple Axel (three and a half rotations in the air). Most junior and senior skaters do a double Axel.


title: Axel jump

text: Only 15 female figure skaters have done a ratified triple Axel in competition: Midori Ito (the first one to do it), Tonya Harding, Yukari Nakano, Ludmila Nelidina, Mao Asada (the first one to land three triple Axels in one competition), Kimmie Meissner, , , , , , , Sofia Akatieva, Sofia Samodelkina, , , and Hana Yoshida. Only 11 have done it in ISU-sanctioned international competitions (Kimmie Meissner, Sofia Akatieva, Sofia Samodelkina, and Ayaka Hosoda did triple axels at national championships).


title: Axel jump

text: According to the International Judging System, the base value of a triple Axel jump is 8.0, and that of a double Axel is 3.3.


title: Axel jump

text: Because the Axel is the most famous skating jump, many people make a mistake and call all skating jumps as "Axel jumps". This has led to many mistakes in sports reporting of figure skating, for example a report in 2006 saying that Miki Ando was the first female skater to land a quad Salchow in an international competition, which is a different jump.


title: History of video game consoles (fifth generation)

text: The fifth generation of video game consoles began in 1993 and ended in 2003. The fifth generation was also called the 32-bit, 64-bit or the 3D generation of video game consoles. Throughout the fifth generation, only three consoles were among the most popular video game consoles in this era. These consoles include, the Sega Saturn (1994), the Sony PlayStation (1994), and the Nintendo 64 (1996). In different parts of the world, console sales varied widely. However, the PlayStation was the best-selling system of the fifth generation. The 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Amiga CD32 and PC-FX and other consoles were also part of this generation. However, those systems were not very successful.


text: The handheld game consoles of the fifth generation were not that successful. The first handheld, Sega Nomad had a lifespan of two years. The Virtual Boy only had less than one year. Both of them were discontinued. Nintendo's Game Boy Color became the best-selling handheld video console of the fifth generation. There were two updated versions of the original Game Boy such as the Game Boy Light (Japan only) and the Game Boy Pocket.


text: The bit ratings of consoles in the 5th generation began to blur & were less of a selling feature than the previous "bit wars" of the 8 and 16 bit era. The number of "bits" in console names referred to the CPU word size. It had been used by hardware marketers as a "show of power" for many years. The fifth generation saw the increase of emulation. The development of the Internet made it possible to save and download tape and ROM images of older games. This led the seventh generation consoles to make many older games available for purchase or download.


title: Casino

text: A casino is a gambling establishment where gambling with declared monetary or other property gains is carried out using roulette, gaming tables for card games and dice, gambling machines, and other gambling equipment. The board game is conducted with the help of assistants - the dealer.


title: Casino

text: In modern English, casinos are places associated with gambling. These are often built on or around hotels, cruise ships, restaurants and certain other places.


title: Casino

text: There are lots of casinos in the US state of Nevada and especially in the area of Las Vegas called the "Strip". Other places famous for their casinos is Monte Carlo in Monaco and Macau in China, but they are also prevalent in certain other parts of the world.


title: Casino

text: In Mexico, gambling is regulated by the Gaming Regulations. It regulates all gambling games and is governed by the law except the National Lottery, which is ruled through its own regulation.


title: Casino

text: Gambling in Canada is regulated on the Federal level by the Criminal Code of Canada whose Section 201- 207 provides for laws relating to betting and gambling.


title: Casino

text: The principle of most games held in the casino is the result of the game, for its participant depends, first of all, on the element of chance. In casino games, a casino can act as the actual organizer (roulette, blackjack, craps), and as a serving party (Texas poker, Omaha poker, baccarat, etc.).


title: Casino

text: In the most casinos in the world gambling halls are divided into two types: a hall of traditional games and a games room. Games that have gained the most popularity in casinos around the world: roulette, blackjack, poker, baccarat, punto-banko, fun88, craps, slot machines etc.


title: Casino

text: In 1994 the internet brought forth the web's first online casino named the Gaming Club. It was developed by Microgaming software and is still operating with active players today. Microgaming became one of the internet casino industry's largest providers of online gambling software early on. Internet casinos are currently legal and regulated in the United Kingdom and some parts of the United States.


title: Siberian crane

text: The Siberian crane ("Grus leucogeranus") or Siberian white crane or snow crane, is a critically endangered crane. They occur in three groups: the eastern group, which migrates from eastern Siberia to China, the central group, which migrates from western Siberia to India, and the western group, which migrate from western Russia to Iran


title: Siberian crane

text: Adult Siberian cranes are 140 cm (5 ft) tall and weight 6 kg (13 lbs). Their plumage is pure white, except for some wing feathers, which are black. The front of the face does not have any feathers and is reddish in color.


title: Siberian crane

text: The eastern group is estimated to contain around 3000-4000 cranes, over 95% of the total population. In 2008, 3,750 individuals were counted at Poyang Lake in China, one of the breeding sites. This group of cranes breeds in the Yakutia region of northeastern Siberia and spends the winter in the Yangtze River valley. However, cranes sometimes are found in areas like Mongolia, Japan, and Korea, although they do not breed there.


title: Siberian crane

text: The central group is believed to breed in western Siberia, especially along the Ob River. These cranes spend the winter in India. Although no one has actually tracked a crane on its migration route, researchers believe the cranes in Siberia fly over Kazakhstan and Afghanistan to reach India's Keoladeo National Park. They believe this because cranes were seen in Kazakhstan and may have even nested there, and several cranes are known to stop in Afghanistan's lakes during their migration. However, cranes of the central group were last seen in 2002, and there were only four cranes. Therefore, many believe this group is now extinct.


title: Application programming interface

text: An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of functions, procedures, methods or classes used by computer programs to request services from the operating system, software libraries or any other service providers running on the computer. A computer programmer uses the API to make


title: Application programming interface

text: An API works by communicating with and exchanging data with other systems, acting as a messenger between the user and the system to retrieve the necessary data the user is requesting from the system.


title: Application programming interface

text: Types of API include web services API like the Twitter API, which allows programs to use the API to receive updates on tweets.


title: Mary Shelley

text: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English author. She is best known for writing the novel "Frankenstein". She was in her teens when she wrote the book. She later edited the poems of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley.


title: Mary Shelley

text: After her mother's death, Shelley lived with her older half-sister Fanny Imlay and their father. Fanny Imlay was Wollstonecraft's daughter from an affair she had with a soldier. Shelley's father married Mary Jane Clairmont in 1801. Clairmont already had two children and later had a son with Shelley's father. During that time, Shelleys's stepmother thought Shelley did not need be educated. Shelley did not give up because of that. She used her father's library and was often found reading by her mother's grave. Shelley's father often had visitors like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. She used those times to learn from them.


title: Mary Shelley

text: During May 1816, Mary and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley traveled to Lake Geneva. They spent the summer near the famous poet Lord Byron. In terms of English literature, it was a great summer. Percy began work on "Hymn To Intellectual Beauty" and "Mont Blanc". Mary was inspired to write her classic work.


title: Mary Shelley

text: One evening, the group of young writers decided to have a contest telling horror stories. Another guest, Dr. Oliver Polidori, came up with The Vampyre. This later had a strong influence on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Other guests told scary stories, but Mary could not think of one. But that night, she dreamt of the story she had wanted to tell. She wrote it down, and in time, her story would be published as Frankenstein. It became more successful than any of the other writings produced that summer. .


title: Mary Shelley

text: The year she published "The Modern Prometheus", known as Frankenstein was 1818. Mary was only 20 years-old. It is sometimes called the world's first science fiction novel. The ideas for both "Frankenstein" and Polidori's "The Vampyre" were from the famous poet, Lord Byron. The books "Frankenstein" and "The Vampyre" were both published on the same year. Once Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, her life became more interesting


title: Mary Shelley

text: Mary had many different sources for her work; one was the Promethean myth from Ovid. The influence of John Milton's "Paradise Lost" (the book the 'monster' finds in the cabin) is also seen in the novel. Also, she had read William Beckford's "Vathek".


title: Mary Shelley

text: In Mary Shelley's life, her romances led her father to disown her. When she was sixteen, Shelley met Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was 22 at the time. They both fell in love and ran away in 1814. By the time they returned to England, Mary was pregnant and her father wanted nothing to do with her. Returning to England in September 1816, Mary and Shelley stunned their two families. First, in November, Mary's older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, left the Godwin home and took her own life at a distant inn. Only weeks later, Shelley's first wife drowned herself in London's Hyde Park. She did not welcome Shelley's invitation to join Mary and himself in their new household.


title: Mary Shelley

text: Shortly after Harriet's death, Shelley and Mary married, now with Godwin's blessing. Their attempts to gain custody of Shelley's two children by Harriet failed. Even though this happened, their writing careers enjoyed more success. In the spring of 1817, Mary finished "Frankenstein". Mary had two sons and a daughter. The daughter died in infancy and the elder son when he was two. Mary and Percy were both vegetarians, and strong advocates for animal rights. One can see references to vegetarianism in her writing. For example, in her novel "Frankenstein", the 'monster' was a vegetarian. After Percy's death in 1822, she returned to England to finished Shelley's writings. Also educating their only surviving child.


title: Mary Shelley

text: Mary Shelley died of brain cancer on February 1, 1851 in London. Her body got buried at St. Peter's Churchyard in Bournemouth, in the English county of Dorset


title: Mary Shelley

text: Four films have shown Mary Shelley, and the basic idea of the "Frankenstein" story in 1816: "Gothic" directed by Ken Russell (1986), "Haunted Summer" directed by Ivan Passer (1988), "Remando al Viento" (English title: "Rowing with the Wind") directed by Gonzalo Suárez (1988) and "Mary Shelley" directed by Haifaa al-Mansour (2017)


title: El Salvador

text: El Salvador () is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital and largest city is San Salvador. Other important cities are: Santa Ana and Sonsonate. El Salvador borders the Pacific Ocean on the south, and the countries of Guatemala to the west and Honduras to the north and east.


title: El Salvador

text: In 2010 El Salvador ranked in the top 10 Latin American countries in terms of Human Development Index. It was in the top 3 in Central America (behind Costa Rica and Panama). Also, tropical forests and overall forests have expanded by nearly 20% from the year 1992 to 2010, making it one of the few countries experiencing reforestation.


title: El Salvador

text: In El Salvador there are only two seasons. The dry season starts in mid-October and it lasts until mid May. During the dry season, it hardly ever rains. The wet season starts in mid-May and ends in mid-October. In this season it rains every day. The dry season is called summer and the rainy season is called winter.


title: El Salvador

text: In June 2021, it became the first country in the world to make Bitcoin a legal tender. In September 2021, the country began accepting Bitcoin as an official currency, making it the first country to do so.


title: El Salvador

text: The civilization of El Salvador began around 1500 B.C., leaving an evidence that would be the Tazumal Ruins and Chalchuapa Ruins. The first habitants were Pocomanes, Lencas and Pipiles; they stayed in the middle and east zone of El Salvador until about the eleventh century. The Spaniard Andrés Niño led an expedition from Central America and arrived in Meanguera Island in the Gulf of Fonseca on May 31, 1522. That was the first Salvadoran territory visited by Spaniard men.


title: El Salvador

text: In June 1524, Pedro de Alvarado began a war of conquest against Cuzcatlán (Land of beautiful things) that was populated by native tribes of the country. During 17 days of bloody battles many natives and Spaniard men died, including the native Atlacatl. Pedro de Alvarado, deterred and injured, left the battle and set off to Guatemala, leaving his brother, Gonzalo de Alvarado, to continue the conquest of Cuzcatlan. After this, their cousin, Diego de Alvardo established the San Salvador Ville on April 1525 in a site named La Bermuda, near Suchitoto City. In 1546, Carlos I from Spain named San Salvador a city.


title: El Salvador

text: During the following years, the country grew under Spaniard control. In 1810 a feeling of freedom formed between the countries of Central America. On the morning of November 5th, 1811, the priest José Matías Delgado rang the bells of La Merced Church in San Salvador, calling for an uprising. After many internal conflicts, the Declaration of Independence of Central América was signed in Guatemala on September 15th, 1821. That day is the Independence day all around Central America.


title: El Salvador

text: El Salvador has a total area of . As the smallest country in continental America, El Salvador is sometimes called "Pulgarcito de America" (the "Tom Thumb of the Americas"). The highest point in El Salvador is Cerro El Pital, at , on the border with Honduras.


title: El Salvador

text: El Salvador has a long history of destructive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The capital San Salvador was destroyed in 1756 and 1854, and it suffered heavy damage in the 1919, 1982, and 1986 tremors. El Salvador has over twenty volcanoes. Two of them, San Miguel and Izalco, have been active in recent years.


title: El Salvador

text: El Salvador has over 300 rivers. The most important is the Rio Lempa. Important lakes are Lake Ilopango (70 km²) and Lake Coatepeque (26 km²).


title: El Salvador

text: There are eight species of sea turtles in the world. Of these six nest on the coasts of Central America, and four make their home on the Salvadoran coast: the leatherback turtle, the hawksbill, the Galapagos green turtle and the olive ridley sea turtle.


title: El Salvador

text: It is estimated that there are 500 species of birds, 1,000 species of butterflies, 400 species of orchids, 800 species of trees, and 800 species of marine fish in El Salvador.


title: El Salvador

text: There are 4 national parks in El Salvador: El Imposible, Los Volcanes, Montecristo, and San Diego y San Felipe Las Barras.


title: El Salvador

text: El Salvador is divided into 14 departments ("departamentos"). These are divided into 262 municipalities ("municipios").


title: Concept

text: A concept is an idea that is applied to all objects in a group. It is the way people see and understand something. The name used to identify a concept (the concept's label) is a "term". For example, the word "Dog" is the term to identify the concept of what a dog is. Everything that a person knows about a dog is the concept of the term dog.


title: Concept

text: Different terms can be used to identify the same concept. Car and Automobile are synonyms for the same concept. Different languages have different terms for the same concept. This is what makes translation possible. The terms may be different in each language, but the concept is the same. The concept of jumping is the same to a person from England and a person from Italy, but one person uses the term "Jump" to mean the concept and the other person uses "Salto".


title: Sex toy

text: A sex toy is a device that helps humans get more pleasure when they have sex or when they masturbate. Sometimes these devices are also called Adult toy, or Marital aid. "Marital aid" can also apply to certain herbs or drugs that have such an effect. Herbs with such an effect are called aphrodisiac.


title: Natural selection

text: Natural selection is the process where organisms with favorable traits are more likely to reproduce. In doing so, they pass on these traits to the next generation. Over time this process allows organisms to adapt to their environment. This is because the frequency of genes for favourable traits increases in the population.


title: Natural selection

text: Some animals have traits (features) which help them survive. If animals with some traits live longer, it means they can reproduce more. The offspring of the animal has the same traits as them (heredity).


title: Natural selection

text: The theory was proposed independently by the English biologists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the middle of the 19th century (1858). It is sometimes called the "survival of the fittest". Darwin chose the name as an analogy with artificial selection (selective breeding).


title: Natural selection

text: Members of a species are not all alike, often because of differences in heredity (genetics). This is true even with children of the same parents. Some of these differences might make one organism better at surviving and reproducing than others in a particular habitat. When this organism reproduces, its offspring may get the genes which gave it the advantage. Some adaptations are extremely long-lasting, useful in many habitats.


title: Natural selection

text: "Natural selection" explains why living organisms change over time to have the anatomy, the functions and behaviour that they have. It works like this:


title: Natural selection

text: A well-known example of natural selection in action is the development of antibiotic resistance in microorganisms. Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, antibiotics have been used to fight bacterial diseases. Natural populations of bacteria contain, among their vast numbers of individual members, considerable variation in their genetic material, as the result of mutations. When exposed to antibiotics, most bacteria die quickly, but some have mutations that make them slightly less susceptible. If the exposure to antibiotics is short, these individuals will survive the treatment. The elimination of individuals which have no resistance is an example of natural selection.


title: Natural selection

text: Given enough time, and repeated exposure to the antibiotic, a population of antibiotic-resistant bacteria will emerge. This leads to what is known as an evolutionary arms race, or co-evolution, in which bacteria continue to develop strains that are less susceptible to antibiotics, while medical researchers continue to develop new antibiotics that can kill them. Response strategies typically include the use of different, stronger antibiotics; however, new strains of MRSA have recently emerged that are resistant even to these drugs. A similar situation occurs with pesticide resistance in plants and insects, and with malarial resistance to quinine.


title: Natural selection

text: One famous case study is the study of peppered moth evolution, and there are many other examples. Most of these day-flying moths were light in colour, but just a few of the moths were dark. At first, the light coloured moths survived better because they were camouflaged against the light colour of the nearby trees. This made it hard for birds to see them.


title: Natural selection

text: When factories were built, the pollution made all the trees look black. Now the light coloured moths were obvious against the dark bark. The dark coloured moths had the advantage after the environment changed. The genes controlling dark colour spread through the population of moths. After the second world war, controls against pollution worked to make the environment cleaner. Then the lighter moths once again had the advantage, and are now much more common.


title: Natural selection

text: Mimicry is another example: Some harmless insects mimic other insects which are dangerous, or which taste foul. Mimicry evolves because "the better mimics survive better". They live to produce more offspring than the less good mimics. The genes of the better mimics become more common in the species. Over time, mimic species get closer to their models.


title: Natural selection

text: Sexual selection is a special kind of natural selection. It is a theory of Charles Darwin that certain evolutionary traits can be explained by competition "within" a species. Darwin defined sexual selection as the effects of the "struggle between the individuals of one sex, generally the males, for the possession of the other sex". It is usually males who fight each other. Traits selected by male combat are called secondary sexual characteristics (including horns, antlers, etc.) and sometimes referred to as 'weapons'. Traits selected by mate choice are called 'ornaments'.


title: Natural selection

text: Females often prefer to mate with males with external ornaments—exaggerated features of morphology. Genes that enable males to develop impressive ornaments or fighting ability may simply show off greater disease resistance or a more efficient metabolism—features that also benefit females. This idea is known as the 'good genes' hypothesis. Sexual selection is still being researched and discussed today.


title: Hage Geingob

text: Hage Gottfried Geingob (born 3 August 1941) is a Namibian politician. He is the third and the current President of Namibia since 21 March 2015. Geingob was the first Prime Minister of Namibia from 21 March 1990 to 28 August 2002 and again from 4 December 2012 to 21 March 2015.


title: Hage Geingob

text: Again candidate in the presidential election of November 2019, Geingob is reelected with 56.3% of the votes cast, down from 86% he had obtained five years ago. Panduleni Itula, dissident candidate of Swapo, head of the Landless Movement (LPM) of Bernadus Swartbooi gets 30% of the vote. Opposition leader McHenry Venaani of the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), formerly close to South Africa's apartheid, won 5.3 percent of the vote. The Swapo thus obtains 65% of the seats in the National Assembly, failing to obtain a two-thirds majority as in the previous legislature. Geingob is considered a populist in Namibia.


title: W and Z bosons

text: W and Z bosons are a group of elementary particles. They are bosons, which means that they have a spin of 0 or 1. Both had been found in experiments by the year 1983. Together, they are responsible for a force known as "weak force." Weak force is called weak because it is not as strong as the strong force. There are two W bosons with different charges, the normal W, and its antiparticle, the W . Z bosons are their own antiparticle.


title: W and Z bosons

text: W bosons are named after the weak force that they are responsible for. Weak force is what physicists believe is responsible for the breaking down of some radioactive elements, in the form of Beta decay. In the late '70s, scientists managed to combine early versions of the weak force with electromagnetism, and called it the electroweak force.


title: W and Z bosons

text: Beta decay occurs when there are a lot of neutrons in an atom. Simplified diagram hints that neutron corresponds to one proton and one electron. When there are too many neutrons in one atom nucleus, one neutron will split and form a proton and an electron. The proton stays where it is, and the electron will be launched out of the atom. Resulting Beta radiation is harmful to humans.


title: W and Z bosons

text: Weak force is believed to be able to change the flavour of a quark. For example, when it changes a down quark in a neutron into an up quark, the charge of the neutron becomes +1, since it would have the same arrangement of quarks as a proton. The three-quark neutron with a charge of +1 is no longer a neutron after this, as it fulfills all of the requirements to be a proton. Therefore, Beta decay will cause a neutron to become a proton (along with some other end-products).


title: W and Z bosons

text: When a quark changes flavour, as it does in Beta decay, it releases a W boson. On average, W bosons only last for 3x10 seconds before themselves decaying into other particles, which is why we had not discovered them until less than half a century ago. Surprisingly, W bosons have a mass of about 80 times that of a proton. Keep in mind that the neutron that it came from has almost the same weight as the proton. In the quantum world, it is not uncommon for a more massive particle to come from a less massive particle; the extra mass comes from stored energy via Einstein's famous formula, formula_1. After the 3x10 seconds has passed, a W boson decays into one electron and one neutrino. Since neutrinos rarely interact with matter, we can ignore them from now on. The electron is propelled out of the atom at a high speed. The proton that was produced by the Beta decay stays in the atom nucleus, and raises the atomic number by one.


title: W and Z bosons

text: Z bosons are also predicted in the Standard Model of physics, which successfully predicted the existence of W bosons. Z Bosons decay into a fermion and its antiparticle, which are particles such as electrons and quarks which have spin in units of half of the reduced planks constant.


title: Buffer solution

text: It is a solution in water of a mixture of a weak acid or base and its salt. The pH of the solution changes very little when a small amount of strong acid or base is added to it. Buffer solutions are used as a means of keeping pH at a nearly constant value in a wide variety of chemical applications. Many life forms have a relatively small pH range; an example of a buffer solution is blood.


title: Buffer solution

text: If you add acid to the solution, the concentration of H+ ions will increase; to keep equilibrium a small number of ions will be combined (forming salt and reducing the concentration of H+ ion in the solution). If you add base the concentration of H+ ion will reduce (by consumption or combining) and so a small amount of salt will break into ions and maintain the pH.


title: Buffer solution

text: Buffer index is the number of moles of acid or base added to 1 litre of buffer solution to change its ph by 1 unit


title: News

text: News is when people talk about current events (things that are happening right now). News Media is a portrayal of current affairs, perspectives and social influence. The news can be given in newspapers, television, magazines, or radio. There are several news channels on cable television that give news all day long, such as Fox News and CNN. There are several news magazines, such as "Time", "The Economist", and "Newsweek". A newsman is a person who helps out with the news. For example, Brian Gotter is a newsman. News Media can be viewed in many forms, such as newspaper, television, and radio.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine of Aragon (Spanish: Catalina) (16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was the daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. Catherine was the wife of Arthur, Prince of Wales and later married his brother, Henry VIII.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: When Catherine was three years old, it was decided that she would marry Arthur, Prince of Wales. Catherine and Arthur were married on 14 November 1501. They were sent to Ludlow Castle in Shropshire, to take control of the Council of Wales. Months later, Catherine and Arthur became ill, possibly from a sickness which was sweeping the area at the time. Prince Arthur died on 2 April 1502, leaving after Catherine a widow at the age of 16.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Henry VIII married Catherine in 1509, shortly after he became king. She was extremely popular with the people of England. In 1513, when Henry VIII invaded France, she ruled as his regent.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Despite Catherine's popularity, she did not produce a surviving son. Her only surviving child was a daughter, Mary I of England. Henry's need for a son caused him to try and divorce his wife.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: At first, Henry tried to convince Anne Boleyn to be his mistress in 1527. Anne refused, so Henry decided to marry her. Divorce was not allowed in the Catholic faith. Henry claimed that, as Catherine had been married to his elder brother Arthur, his was an invalid marriage. He quoted a verse in Leviticus which states that "a man may not marry his brother's wife and such a union would be without the blessing of God and fruitless", and used this as his case. It became referred to as the kings "Great Matter" and a special court was held with Cardinal Wolsey leading it.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: An official from Rome was brought over and a trial was held. The official stated that he could not come to a conclusion and the case would have to be referred to Rome for the Pope to make a decision. The matter dragged on for quite some time, as the Pope would not agree to an annulment.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In 1532, Anne Boleyn became pregnant with the king's child. She was married to Henry on 25 January 1533 so that the baby could be a legitimate heir. Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon was finally annulled in the following May by Archbishop Cranmer, thus ending the first of Henry's 6 marriages. The divorce went against the Roman Catholic belief system, so Henry created his own church, the Church of England. This was the beginnings of protestantism in England, with the King as the head of the church instead of the Pope.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Until the end of Catherine's life, Catherine believed that she was the true wife of Henry VIII. Her servants called her their queen, but Henry called her the "Dowager Princess of Wales".


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In 1535, Catherine was transferred to Kimbolton Castle and was not allowed to see her daughter Mary. Henry VIII told her that until they declared Anne their queen, they would be able to see each other. They never did.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine died, most likely of heart cancer, in January of 1536, just five months before the execution of Anne Boleyn.


title: Derek Jeter

text: Derek Jeter (born June 26, 1974 in Pequannock Township, New Jersey) is a retired American Major League Baseball player. He played as the captain for the New York Yankees and is an eleven-time All-Star shortstop for the New York Yankees.


title: Derek Jeter

text: Jeter made his major league debut on May 29, 1995 with the New York Yankees against the Seattle Mariners when he was 20 years old. He had been playing with the New York Yankees for 20 years ever since he made it to the majors. He has won many awards such as the American League Rookie of the Year Award, a Silver Slugger Award, and three Gold Glove Awards. In the year 2000, Jeter became the only player to win both the All-Star Game MVP Award and the World Series MVP Award in the same year.


title: Derek Jeter

text: Derek Jeter was born in Pequannock Township, New Jersey, to an African-American father, Dr. Sanderson Charles Jeter; his mother Dorothy is of Irish and German descent. The family lived in North Arlington, New Jersey with his family, before moving to Kalamazoo, Michigan, when he was 4.


title: Derek Jeter

text: Jeter was inspired to play baseball by Hall of Famer Dave Winfield. In high school Derek's Parents wanted him to go to a small Catholic high school but Jeter went to Kalamazoo Central High School.


title: Derek Jeter

text: Jeter was a star player at Kalamazoo Central High School. Jeter earned an All-State honorable mention while he was playing basketball also.


title: Derek Jeter

text: Jeter collected many awards at season's end, including the Kalamazoo Area B'nai B'rith Award for Scholar Athlete, the 1992 High School Player of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association, the 1992 Gatorade High School Player of the year award, and USA Today's High School Player of the Year.


title: Derek Jeter

text: Although Jeter received a baseball scholarship to attend the University of Michigan, he was drafted by the New York Yankees with the 6th overall pick in the 1992 amateur draft and he chose to try to make it to the majors. Jeter has said that he will eventually go back to college and earn a degree.


title: Derek Jeter

text: Jeter has played a role for the Yankees since 1996. Jeter is one of three current veterans (the others are Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera) who came up through the Yankees organization, and has played his entire professional career with the Yankees. As the Yankees Shortstop, he is currently the longest-serving position player on the team. As of his current contract, Derek earns $22 million a year in salary, and is the second highest paid endorser in baseball having earned $7 million in endorsements in 2006. Also, he was ranked as the most marketable player in baseball according to an 2005 Sports Business Survey.


title: Derek Jeter

text: On May 29, 1995, Jeter made major league debut against the Seattle Mariners in the Kingdome. He made his first major league hit the following day off veteran pitcher Tim Belcher, and started 13 games before being sent back down to the minors.


title: Derek Jeter

text: He returned on Opening Day of the 1996 season as the starting shortstop (the first Yankee rookie since Tom Tresh in 1962 to do so) and hit his first major-league home run on that day. Coincidentally, his home run was called by another former Yankee shortstop, the late Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto, with whom Jeter would get guidance from whenever the two met. Jeter played his way to a successful rookie season, hitting for a .314 batting average, 10 home runs, and 78 runs batted in and subsequently earning Rookie of the Year honors.


title: Putin's Palace

text: It is a palace on the Black Sea coast near Gelendzhik, Krasnodar Krai, Russia. Sergei Kolesnikov and the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), led by Alexei Navalny, said the palace was built for President Vladimir Putin.


title: Putin's Palace

text: On 30 January 2021, Arkady Rotenberg said he owned the palace. Rotenberg said that he wanted the residence to be an apartment hotel.


title: Juneteenth

text: Juneteenth (full name Juneteenth National Independence Day, also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Liberation Day) is a holiday in the United States on June 19. It is a memory of June 19, 1865, when the slaves in Texas got their freedom and commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. The name "Juneteenth" is a short form of "June nineteenth". It became a recognized federal holiday in June 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.


title: Juneteenth

text: The first celebration of Juneteenth was in 1866. Over the years, it was sometimes more popular, and sometimes less popular. Texas was the first state to make it an official holiday in 1979. After George Floyd was killed in 2020, many people wanted to show their support for black rights.


title: Phonograph

text: The phonograph is a device for the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound. It was the most common device for playing recorded music from the 1870s through the 1980s. It was invented by Thomas Edison, after other inventors had studied the idea. Early phonographs both recorded and played sound on cylinders. In its later forms, it is also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or, since the 1940s, a record player.


title: Phonograph

text: Thomas Edison made his first phonograph with the mouth piece of the early telephone and some tinfoil. He thought he could talk into the mouth piece to make a disk vibrate, as the disk vibrated a needle would put grooves in the tinfoil. When Edison adjusted the machine to play and cranked the lever, he was surprised to hear his voice play back to him. He said his ideas rarely worked the first time. These cylinders could record sound, but due to their cylindrical shape, they could not be copied cheaply with a mold.


title: Phonograph

text: The phonograph was soon replaced by the graphophone by Alexander Graham Bell in his Volta Laboratory. Later it was replaced with the disc phonograph, cassette tapes, compact discs, audio files and other devices. These later inventions made stereo sound.


title: Phonograph

text: The gramophone, invented by Emile Berliner, plays sounds from a flat disk record. The record is placed onto the turntable. The turntable spins the record while a lever with a small needle on the bottom lies between the little grooves in the disk. When the grooves make the needle vibrate, music is played. These machines do not record, but the disks could be copied quickly onto vinyl disks in a factory with a mold, called a master.


title: Slave trade

text: During the history of slavery, there were many different forms of human exploitation across many cultures. Slavery is a condition in which people are owned or completely controlled by other people. Buying and selling slaves is a trade as old as many of the oldest civilizations. A modern form of the slave trade is called human trafficking.


title: Slave trade

text: In one form or another slavery has been practiced since the earliest civilizations. Early hunter-gatherers had no use for slaves They did everything for themselves. Having another pair of hands to help them meant another mouth to feed. Slavery or owning another person made no sense to these people. Once men gathered in cities and towns and there was more than enough food, having a cheap supply of labour made sense. This is when the earliest forms of slavery appeared. The main source of slaves was war. When a town was captured, the men were killed and the women were enslaved to work in the fields or as concubines. Slaves made up only a small percentage of the earliest civilizations. These included China's Yangtze River valley, India's Indus Valley, Egypt's Nile valley and the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in Mesopotamia.


title: Slave trade

text: Once slavery became a major part of the workforce, slave trading became a business. Ancient Greece was the first civilization where slaves made up a large part of the population. Between the 4th and 6th centuries (BC) it is estimated that from one-third to one-half of the population were slaves. There were many sources of slaves. Prisoners captured in war, kidnapping, people selling their children and criminals were some of the more common sources. The market price for slaves would go down after a battle in which many slaves were taken. Slavery was a large part of the Greek economy. A slave could earn money and could earn enough to purchase their freedom. Ancient Rome was even more dependent on slaves.


title: Slave trade

text: Slavery was also a part of medieval Europe. Societies that did not depend on slaves were often the source of slaves. In the Viking world, slavery was an important part of the economy. Not only the taking of slaves in raids and battles, but also selling slaves in other markets. The Vikings were slave traders. They captured, used, and sold slaves. Most forms of slavery declined in Northern Europe but was practiced elsewhere in Europe. In Sicily, Italy, Spain, France, Russia and North Africa slavery lasted through much of the middle ages. Most of these slaves were "white" and came from other parts of Europe and Eastern Europe. As the New World was colonized, slavery was a well-established source of cheap labour. By the time Columbus came to the Americas, Europeans had already been using African slaves in their colonies in West Africa.


title: Slave trade

text: Historians estimate that between 650 AD and the 1960s, 10 to 18 million people were enslaved by the Arab world. They were taken from Europe, Asia and Africa across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and the Sahara desert. For four centuries, beginning in the late 15th century, millions of Africans were taken as slaves by Europeans. They got this idea from the Arab empires which had been taking black slaves from Africa since the 7th century. Europeans began exporting Africans to the New World as a source of cheap labor on colonial plantations. This was called the Atlantic slave trade. Early attempts to enslave Native Americans failed which gave rise to the African slave trade. Africans were a relatively easy source of slaves as European traders did not have to capture them, but relied on Arabs and other Africans to do it for them. Even before outside slave traders took advantage of Africans, the Africans themselves had established slave trading. Theirs was not an economy based on money, but on trading. Slaves were a commodity (a substitute for money).