$ sign in javascript is trying to kill me, who can get me out of it
<p>I am new to nodejs, I known $ is used in jQuery, but the tutorial I'm learning shows me the following piece of code, which confused me by it's '$', </p>

<pre><code>var $ = cheerio.load(res.text);
    $('#topic_list .topic_title').each(function (idx, element) {
      var $element = $(element);
      var href = url.resolve(cnodeUrl, $element.attr('href'));
      topicUrls.push(href);
    });
</code></pre>

<p>can anyone try to explain the 5 $s here? Thank you in advance.</p>