Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Basal traits 
Like all monotremes, the echidna has only one orifice for the passage of faeces, urine and reproductive products, which is known as the cloaca. The male has internal testes, no external scrotum and a highly unusual penis with four knobs on the tip. The gestating female has a pouch on its underside, where it raises its young.

The laying of eggs and the cloaca are basal traits which are present in all early amniotes, including reptiles, birds and early mammals.
Reproduction 
The solitary Short-beaked Echidna looks for a mate between May and September; the precise timing of the mating season varies with geographic location. Both males and females give off a strong odour during the mating season. During courtship—observed for the first time in 1989—males locate and pursue females. Trains of up to ten males may follow a single female in a courtship ritual that may last for up to four weeks; the duration of the courtship period varies with location. In cooler parts of their range, such as Tasmania, females may mate within a few hours of arousal from hibernation.

Before mating, the male smells the female, paying particular attention to the cloaca. The male is often observed to roll the female onto her side and then assumes a similar position so that the two animals are abdomen to abdomen. Each mating results in the production of a single egg, and females are known to mate only once during the breeding season; each mating is successful.
Hatchlings are about 1.5 cm long and weigh between 0.3 and 0.4 grams. After hatching, young Echidnas are known as puggles. Hatchlings attach themselves to their mothers' milk areolae, a specialised patch on the skin that secretes milk (monotremes have no nipples). The way in which puggles drink the milk is not yet known, but they have been observed drinking large amounts during each feeding period, since mothers may leave them unattended in the burrow for between five and ten days. The principal components of the milk are types of lactose. The milk has a high iron content, which gives it a pink colour.

Juveniles are eventually ejected from the pouch at around two to three months of age, because of the continuing growth in the length of their spines. Suckling gradually decreases until juveniles are weaned at about six months of age. The duration of lactation is about 200 days, and the young leave the burrow between 180 and 240 days.
The age of sexual maturity is uncertain, but may be four to five years. A twelve-year field study, published in 2003, found that the Short-beaked Echidna reached sexual maturity between five and 12 years of age, and that the frequency of reproduction varies from once every two years to once every six years. The Short-beaked Echidna can live as long as 45 years in the wild.

Ecology and behaviour
Short-beaked Echidnas can live anywhere where there is a good supply of food. Short-beaked Echidnas find food by smell, using sensors in the tip of their beak, and regularly feast on ants and termites. They are powerful diggers, using their clawed front paws to dig out prey and dig burrows for shelter. They may rapidly dig themselves into the ground if they cannot find cover when in danger.

In Australia they are most common in forested areas where there are many termite-filled fallen logs. In agricultural areas, they are most likely to be in uncleared scrub; they may be in grassland, arid areas, and in the outer suburbs of the capital cities. Little is known about their distribution in New Guinea. They have been found in southern New Guinea between Merauke in the west, to the Kelp Welsh River, east of Port Moresby, where they may be in open woodland.
Conservation status 
The Short-beaked Echidna is common in most of temperate Australia and lowland New Guinea, and is not listed as endangered. In Australia, the number of Short-beaked Echidnas has been less affected by land clearing than have some other species, since Short-beaked Echidnas do not require a specialised habitat beyond a good supply of ants and termites. Despite their spines, they are eaten by birds, the Tasmanian Devil, cats, foxes and dogs. They were also eaten by indigenous Australians and the early Europen settlers of Australia. The most common threats to the animal in Australia are cars and habitat destruction. These have led to localised extinction. Infection with the introduced parasite Spirometra erinaceieuropaei is fatal for the Echidna. The Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland runs an Australia-wide survey called Echidna Watch to monitor the species in Australia.
Captive breeding is difficult, partly because of the relatively infrequent breeding cycle. Only five zoos have managed to breed a captive Short-beaked Echidna, but no captive-bred young have survived to be adults. This has conservation implications for the endangered species of echidna from the genus Zaglossus, and to a lesser extent for the Short-beaked Echidna.

Cultural references
Short-beaked Echidnas feature in the animistic culture of Indigenous Australians, including their visual arts and stories. The species was a totem for some groups, including the Noongar people from Western Australia, who called the animal the Nyingarn. Many groups have myths about the animal; one myth explains that it was created when a group of hungry, young men went hunting at night and stumbled across a wombat. They threw spears at the wombat, but lost sight of it in the darkness. The wombat adapted the spears as its own defense and turned into an Echidna. Another story tells of a greedy man that kept food from his tribe; warriors speared him and he crawled away into the bushes, where he was turned into an Echidna, the spears becoming his spines.
The Short-beaked Echidna is an iconic animal in modern Australia. It appears on the Australian five-cent piece (the smallest denomination) and on a $200 commemorative coin released in 1992. The Short-beaked Echidna has been included in several postal issues: it was one of four native species to appear on Australian postage stamps in 1974, where it was the 25 cent stamp; it appeared on a 37 cent stamp in 1987, and again in 1992 when it was on the 35 cent stamp. The anthropomorphic Echidna Millie was a mascot for the 2000 Summer Olympics. Knuckles the Echidna is a popular character from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game franchise, debuting in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

References

Citations in the article
Books 
 Augee, M and Gooden, B. 1993. Echidnas of Australia and New Guinea. Australian National History Press, Sydney 
 Augee, M.L. 1983. R. Strahan Ed. The Australian Museum Complete Book of Australian Mammals. p. 8-9. Angus & Robertson 
 Griffiths, M. 1989. Tachyglossidae . Pp. 407–435 in Fauna of Australia (D. W. Walton and B. J. Richardson, eds.). Mammalia, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 1B:1–1227.

Other websites 

 Tasmanian Department of Water, Primary Industries and Environment - Short-beaked Echidna
 Echidna Love Trains, article with sound clips and images of puggles
 Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland - Echidna Watch 
 Australian Mammal Species Files 

Monotremes
Mammals of Australia
Mammals of Oceania
For the country in South America, see Colombia.

Columbia is the original name for the United States and inspired the names of many things.  For the original Columbia, see Historical Columbia.

Places in North America
 Columbia River
 Upper Columbia United Tribes, certain Native American peoples near the Columbia River
 British Columbia
 District of Columbia
 Mount Columbia (Colorado)
 Mount Columbia (Alberta)
 Columbia Glacier (Alaska)
 Columbia Glacier (Washington)
 Columbia Peak in the state of Washington
 Columbia Icefield in Alberta and British Columbia

U.S. cities or towns:
Columbia, South Carolina, the state capital
Columbia, Alabama 
Columbia, Connecticut
Columbia, California
Columbia, Illinois
Columbia, Louisiana
Columbia, Maryland
Columbia, Mississippi
Columbia, Missouri, home of the University of Missouri
Columbia, New Hampshire
Columbia, New Jersey
Columbia, New York
Columbia, North Carolina
Columbia, Pennsylvania
Columbia, Tennessee
Columbia, Virginia
Columbia, Texas
Other places in the U.S.
Columbia Beach, Washington
Columbia Center, New York
Columbia Center, Ohio
Columbia City, Indiana
Columbia City, Oregon
Columbia County, Arkansas
Columbia County, Florida
Columbia County, Georgia
Columbia County, New York
Columbia County, Oregon
Columbia County, Pennsylvania
Columbia County, Washington
Columbia Cross Roads, Pennsylvania
Columbia Heights, Minnesota
Columbia Heights, Oregon
Columbia Heights, Washington, DC
Columbia Station, Ohio
Columbia Township, Jackson County, Michigan
Columbia Township, Tuscola County, Michigan
Columbia Township, Van Buren County, Michigan
Columbia Valley Gardens, Washington

Well-known companies
Columbia Aircraft
 Columbia Automobile Company
 Columbia Bicycles
 CBS, Columbia Broadcasting System
 Columbia Graphophone Company
 Columbia Management Group
 Columbia Masterworks Records
 Columbia Music Entertainment
 Columbia Pictures
 Columbia Records
 Columbia Sussex
 Columbia Sportswear
 Columbia University Press, publisher of the Columbia Encyclopedia

Education
 Columbia University
 any of several Columbia Colleges
 Columbia Theological Seminary
 Columbia School of Broadcasting
 Columbia Union College
 University of the District of Columbia

Technology
 Columbia Nuclear Generating Station in Washington
 Columbia (supercomputer), a NASA supercomputer
Vehicles
 Space shuttle Columbia, which fell apart during reentry in 2003
 the Apollo 11 Command/Service Module
 USS Columbia, several ships of the US Navy
 Airplane piloted by Clarence Duncan Chamberlin when he was the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
 HMS Columbia, the name of many ships of the Royal Navy
 Columbia, the type 2-4-2 railroad locomotive in the Whyte notation
 Columbia automobile, Hartford, Connecticut, United States (1893-1917)
 Lightship Columbia, WLV-604, the first lightship on the Pacific Coast of the United States

Railroad passenger trains
 Columbian (B&O), a former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad train between Jersey City, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois
 Columbian (passenger train), a former Milwaukee Road train between Chicago and Tacoma
Fictional uses
 Columbia, a spaceship in Wally Wood's comic story Dark Side of the Moon, published in 1950
 Columbia (NX-02), a fictional starship on the television series Star Trek: Enterprise
 Columbia, a character in The Rocky Horror Picture Show
 "Columbia", a song by Paul van Dyk on Out There And Back
 Columbia Airlines, fictional airline from Airport 1975
 a Battlestar from both the original and the re-imagined versions of the Battlestar Galactica T.V show

Songs
"Columbia, Gem of the Ocean", a historical patriotic song still occasionally sung in the U.S.
Columbia (song), a song on the 1994 Oasis album Definitely Maybe
"Hail, Columbia", currently the official anthem of the Vice President and an early anthem of the United States
"Roll on Columbia", a 1941 popular song by Woody Guthrie about the Columbia River

Other
 Columbia Station, a station on the Vancouver SkyTrain
 Columbia (supercontinent)
Related pages
 Columbiad, a type of cannon from the 19th century
 Columba (constellation)
 Niobium, an element formerly named Columbium
 Saint Columba
 Saint Columbanus
 The Columbian Orator
The eastern long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus bartoni), also known as Barton's long-beaked echidna, is one of three species from the genus Zaglossus. All of them occur in New Guinea. It is found mainly in Papua New Guinea between 2000 and 3000 meters above sea level.

It can be distinguished from other members of the genus by the number of claws on the fore and hind feet. It has five claws on its fore feet and four on its hind feet. The adult animal weights between 5 kg (11 lb) and 10 kg (22 lb). Its body length ranges from 60 to 100 cm (23.5-39 inches). It has no tail. It has dense black fur. The species is the largest monotreme and is slow moving. It rolls into a spiny ball for defense.

There are four recognised subspecies:
 Z. bartoni bartoni
 Z. bartoni clunius
 Z. bartoni smeenki
 Z. bartoni diamondi
The population of each subspecies is geographically isolated and they can be distinguished primarily by differences in body size.

References
References 

 Flannery, T.F. and Groves, C.P. 1998 A revision of the genus Zaglossus (Monotremata, Tachyglossidae), with description of new species and subspecies. Mammalia, 62(3): 367-396

Monotremes
Mammals of Oceania
The long-beaked echidnas make up one of the two genera (Genus Zaglossus) of echidna. Echidna is a spiny monotreme that lives in New Guinea. There are three living species, and two extinct ones.

Echidnas are one of the two types of mammals that lay eggs.

Species

Zaglossus attenboroughi

Habitat: regions of New Guinea at higher elevation than highland forests
Era: the present
Status: Endangered

Remarks: Species described from one sample only. May be endangered, or locally extinct. See Sir David's Long-beaked Echidna

Zaglossus bartoni

Habitat:on the central cordillera between the Paniai Lakes and the Nanneau Range, as well as the Huon Peninsula
Era: the present
Status: Endangered

Remarks: see Eastern Long-beaked Echidna

Zaglossus bruijni

Habitat: highland forests of New Guinea
Era: the present
Status: Endangered

Remarks: see Western Long-beaked Echidna

Zaglossus hacketti

Habitat: Western Australia
Era: Upper Pleistocene
Remarks: This species is known only from a few bones. At a metre long, it was huge for an echidna and for monotremes in general.

Zaglossus robustus

Habitat: Tasmania
Era: Pleistocene

Remarks: This species is known from a fossil skull about 65 cm long.

References

Flannery, T.F. and Groves, C.P. 1998 A revision of the genus Zaglossus (Monotremata, Tachyglossidae), with description of new species and subspecies. Mammalia, 62(3): 367-396

Other websites 
 EDGE of Existence (Zaglossus spp.)  - Saving the World's most Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species
 
 A pretty good summary, including references on animalinfo.org

Monotremes
Mammals of Oceania
Sir David's long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus  attenboroughi), also known as the cyclops long-beaked echidna, is one of three species of the genus Zaglossus. All of them are found in New Guinea. It is named after Sir David Attenborough. It lives in the Cyclops mountains in Papua province of Indonesia near the cities of Sentani, Jayapura. 

The species was described from a single damaged animal, which was collected in the Dutch colonial era (c. 1961). It has not been collected since that time. The Cyclops mountain forest habitat has been disturbed recently. This has raised concern that Z. attenboroughi populations may already be endangered or even locally extinct. However, many parts of the mountains are covered in thick jungle and have not been searched since 1961. It is possible that the animal still exists there or in nearby mountain ranges. In 2007 scientists found holes which they believe were made by the echidna poking its nose into the dirt while looking for earthworms.
It is the smallest member of the genus. It is closer in size to the short-beaked echidna than other members of the genus. It has five claws on its fore and hind feet. It has dense short fur.

References 

Monotremes
Mammals of Oceania
Bioluminescence is how living things produce light. Often this is done by symbiosis. The larger organism contains, often in a special organ, microorganisms which make the light. Eukaryote protists have special organelles, and some bacteria also produce light. 
Bioluminescence is the result of chemical processes, where the energy produced is released as visible light. 

Bioluminescence has appeared many times during evolution. The capacity to produce light is an extension of normal metabolism: all chemical reactions produce a few photons. Visible light is produced when the photon production increases. In the case of bacteria, the original function of the reaction was probably to detoxify excessive oxygen.

ATP (adenosine tri-phosphate), the biological energy source, reacts with luciferin with the aid of the enzyme luciferase to yield an intermediate complex. This complex combines with oxygen to produce a highly chemiluminescent (brightly shining) compound.
The oceans 
Bioluminescence is mainly a marine phenomenon.
"It is the predominant source of light in the largest fraction of the habitable volume of the earth, the deep ocean. In contrast, bioluminescence is essentially absent (with a few exceptions) in fresh water, even in Lake Baikal".

Bioluminescence is found in the sea at all levels.: planktonic, pelagic and benthic organisms. Some planktonic groups, such as dinoflagellates and ctenophores (comb jellies) use it in most species. Most deep-sea marine life use bioluminescence in one form or another. Usually, marine light-emission belongs in the blue and green light spectrum, the wavelengths that can transmit through seawater most easily.

Functions of bioluminescence
Counterillumination camouflage 
In some squid species bacterial bioluminescence is used for counterillumination so  the animal matches the overhead environmental light seen from below. In these animals, light organs control the contrast of this illumination to create optiminal matching.  Usually these light organs are separate from the tissue containing the bioluminescent bacteria.

Attraction 

Bioluminescence is used as a lure to attract prey by several deep sea fish such as the anglerfish. A dangling lure on the head of the fish attracts small animals to it within striking distance. Some fish, however, use a non-bioluminescent lure.

The cookiecutter shark uses bioluminescence for camouflage, but a small patch on its underbelly remains dark and appears as a small fish to large predatory fish like tuna and mackerel swimming beneath it. When these fish try to consume the "small fish", they are bitten by the shark, which gouges out small circular "cookie cutter" shaped chunks of flesh from its hosts.
Dinoflagellates have an interesting twist on this mechanism. When a predator of plankton is sensed through motion in the water, the dinoflagellate luminesces. This in turn attracts even larger predators which will consume the would-be predator of the dinoflagellate.

Attracting mates is an important function of bioluminescence. This is seen in fireflies, which use periodic flashing in their abdomens to attract mates in the mating season. In the marine environment this has only been well-documented in certain small ostracod crustaceans, but may be quite common.

Repulsion
Certain squid and small crustaceans use bioluminescence as many squid use ink. A cloud of luminescence is expelled, confusing or repelling a potential predator while the squid or crustacean escapes to safety. Every species of firefly has larvae that glow to repel predators.

Biotechnology
Biotechnology

Bioluminescent organisms are a target for many areas of research. Luciferase systems are widely used in the field of genetic engineering. They have also been used in biomedical research, to give some cells visible labels. Luciferin can be added to molecules and cells to make them visible under the microscope. "This market is now worth about £20bn. If you go into a hospital and have a blood test which measures viral proteins, cancer proteins, hormones, vitamins, bacterial proteins, drugs, it will almost certainly use this technique".

The structure of photophores, the light producing organs in bioluminescent organisms, are being investigated by industrial designers.

Bioluminescent organisms 
This is a list of organisms that have visible bioluminescence:
Terrestrial organisms 
Animals:
 Arthropods
 fireflies
 click beetles
 glow worms
 railroad worms
 certain mycetophilid flies
 certain centipedes, such as Geophilus carpophagus.
 certain millipedes such as Motyxia.
 a terrestrial mollusc (a tropical land snail)
 Quantula striata
 Annelids
 Fungi – A total of 71 species are bioluminescent, including species of Armillaria, Omphalotus, Mycena, Gerronema, Pleurotus.
 Mushrooms (see Foxfire)
 Jack O'Lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olearius)
 ghost fungus (Omphalotus nidiformis)
 Honey mushroom
 Panellus stipticus

Fish
 Anglerfish
 Cookie-cutter shark
 Flashlight fish
 Gulper eel
 Lanternfish
 Marine hatchetfish
 Midshipman fish
 Pineconefish
 Viperfish
Fireflies 
Despite their name, fireflies are actually beetles which use an enzymatic reaction involving a chemical compound called luciferin to produce their typical greenish flashing light. As well as possibly warning predators about their toxicity, it is thought the main purpose of their flashing abdomen is to attract mates.

Marine invertebrates 
 many Cnidaria
 Sea pens
 corals
 Aequorea victoria, a jellyfish
 certain Ctenophores or "comb jellies"
 certain echinoderms (e.g. Ophiurida)
 certain crustacea
 ostracods
 copepods
 krill
 two species of chaetognaths
 certain molluscs
 certain clams and other bivalves
 certain nudibranchs, sea slugs
 Octopods
 Bolitaenidae
 order Teuthida
 Colossal squid
 Mastigoteuthidae
 Sepiolidae
 Sparkling Enope squid
 Vampire squid
Microorganisms
 Dinoflagellates (e.g. Noctiluca scintillans, Pyrodimium bahamense).
 Vibrionaceae (e.g. Vibrio fischeri, Vibrio harveyi, Vibrio phosphoreum)
 Members of the marine bacterial family Shewanellaceae, Shewanella hanedai and Shewanella woodyi are bioluminescent.

References

Other websites 
 Bioluminescence web page
 Lights Alive! at San Diego Natural History Museum

Physiology
Biochemistry
Light sources
Whittier is a small town in Alaska on the Kenai Peninsula. Whittier has 272 people always living in it. The Whittier Glacier near Whittier was named for the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier in the year 1915.

During World War II the United States Army built a port and railroad near the glacier and named the port Whittier. The two big buildings that are very easy to notice in Whittier were built after World War II. The Hodge Building (now called Begich Towers) was built for housing soldiers and the Buckner Building, finish being built in 1953, was called the "city under one roof". It was once the biggest building in Alaska. The Begich Building is now a condominium (or houst that has many rooms that people live in), and almost all of the people that live in Whittier's live here.

The town was badly damaged by tsunamis (or very big waves) started by the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake; thirteen people died because of the waves that were 13 m (43 ft) tall.
Whittier is a popular port for cruise ships, because people can go to Anchorage and the inside of Alaska by both car and train. Whittier is also popular with visitors and fishermen.

Whittier is the wettest city in Alaska and the United States. The city receives at least  of rain a year.

References

Other websites 

 City of Whittier
 Whittier Chamber of Commerce

Cities in Alaska
Kate Elizabeth Winslet,  (born 5 October 1975) is an English actress. She is best known for her starring role in the American movie, Titanic.

She made her movie debut as Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994). Winslet is the second of four children, her sisters are the actresses Anna and Beth Winslet and her brother is Joss Winslet, her mother Sally Anne is a barmaid and her father Roger John Winslet is a swimming pool contractor. Her maternal grandparents Linda and Oliver Bridges founded the Reading Repertory Theatre and her uncle is the actor Robert Bridges, Her maternal great-grandmother Florence Theodelinda Lidman, was the daughter of a Swedish immigrant.

Kate Winslet was married to director Jim Threapleton; they had a daughter, Mia. She married director Sam Mendes; they had a son, Joe. In 2012, she married Ned Rocknroll, nephew of billionaire Richard Branson. She had his first son in December 2013.
Films 
 Heavenly Creatures (1994) Juliet Hulme
 A Kid in King Arthur's Court (1995) Princess Sarah
 Sense and Sensibility (1995) Marianne Dashwood
 Jude (1996) Sue Bridehead
 Hamlet (1996) Ophelia
 Titanic (1997) Rose DeWitt Bukater
 Hideous Kinky (1998) Julie
 Faeries (1999) Brigid
 Holy Smoke! (1999) Ruth Barron
 Quills (2000) Madeleine LeClerc
 Enigma (2001) Hester Wallace
 Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001) Belle
 Iris (2001) Young Iris Murdoch
 The Life of David Gale (2003) Bitsey Bloom
 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Clementine Kruczynski
 Finding Neverland (2004) Sylvia Llewelyn Davies
 Romance & Cigarettes (2005) Tula
 All the King's Men (2006) Anne Station
 Little Children (2006) Sarah Pierce
 Flushed Away (2006) Rita Malone
 The Holiday (2006) Iris Simpkins
 The Reader (2008) Hanna Schmitz
 Revolutionary Road (2008) April Wheeler
 Carnage (2011) Nancy Cowan
 Contagion (2011) Dr. Erin Mears
 Movie 43 (2013) Beth
 Labor Day (2013) Adele Wheeler
 A Little Chaos (2014) Sabine De Barra
Divergent (2014) Jeanine Matthews
 The Dressmaker (2014) Myrtle 'Tilly' Dunnage
References

Other websites 

 

1975 births
Living people
Academy Award winning actors
Actors from Berkshire
BAFTA Award winning actors
Emmy Award winning actors
English movie actors
English singers
English television actors
Golden Globe Award winning actors
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Berkshire
People from Reading, Berkshire
Screen Actors Guild Award winners
Joseph Paul DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 - March 8, 1999) was an American Major League Baseball center fielder who played his whole career for the New York Yankees.  His nicknames were Joltin' Joe and The Yankee Clipper.  He played from 1936 to 1942 and then joined the army in 1943 because of World War II. He came back and began playing again in 1946 until his retirement in 1951 at the age of 36. By the time he retired he had hit 361 home runs.  He hit almost one home run for every strikeout.  DiMaggio died on the 8th of March, 1999, of lung cancer. He is widely regarded as one of the best baseball players of all time.  DiMaggio was also well known for his marriage and lifelong devotion to Marilyn Monroe.

Notes

Other websites 

1914 births
1999 deaths
American baseball players
Deaths from lung cancer
New York Yankees players
National Baseball Hall of Fame members
Sportspeople from Los Angeles
The Mongol Empire, an area ruled by the great Mongol Khans in the 13th and 14th centuries, was one of the largest land empires in history. 
The original homeland of the Mongols, was bounded by the Khingan Mountains on the east, the Altai and Tian mountains on the west, the Shilka River and the mountain ranges by Lake Baikal on the north, and the Great Wall of China on the south.

It was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206 AD when he brought together the Mongol and Turkic tribes. When he died in 1227 AD, he had conquered Central Asia, North China and parts of eastern Persia. Later his grandson Kublai Khan would go on to expand the empire and found the Mongol-ruled Yuan Dynasty, ruling whole China. The Mongol Empire stretched from Eastern Europe to East Asia, including Central Asia and the Middle East. Its power did not last long, though. By the 1360s it had broken into several empires, all of which were later destroyed.
One of Shi Tianze's sons married a daughter of the Mongol official Menggu Baer (Meng-ku Pa-erh) on an epitaph that Hu Zhiyu wrote. The son is mentioned as having served as Minister of the Right. Shi Jiang (Shih Chiang) and Shi Ge (Shih Ko) among the 8 sons of Shi Tianze were minister of the right and it could be either one of them. Shi Tianze who was Han himself had 2 Jurchen wives, 1 Korean wife and a Han wife. The National history project of the Mongol empire under Kublai was supervised and directed by Shi Tianze who was the left chancellor recommended by Wang E (Wang O) in August 1261 after a National History Academy and Hanlin were recreatd.

Menggu Baer served as an official in China and was known for his leniency and kindness towards commoners.

References

Other websites 

 Genghis Khan and the Mongols
 The Mongol Empire
 Mongols 
 Genghis Khan Biography 
 The Mongols in World History
 The Mongol Empire for students
History of Mongolia
1206 establishments
1360s disestablishments
1200s establishments in Asia
14th-century disestablishments in Asia
Parthia was an ancient Parthian empire in Asia. It included what is now Iran, part of Armenia, Iraq, Georgia, eastern Turkey, eastern Syria, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Parthians were excellent horsemen and archers. In battle, mounted Parthians often discharged their arrows back towards the enemy and pretended to flee.

In 250 BC, the Parthians succeeded in founding an independent kingdom, which in the 1st century BC grew into an empire extending from the Euphrates to the Indus and from the Amu Darya to the Indian Ocean. They expanded by successfully expelling the Seleucids from Persia and establishing the second freat Persian Empire.

See Crassus for an account of their defeat of a Roman army.

Other websites 

 Parthia.com - with an extensive bibliography
History of Parthia
The Establishment and Development of Christianity in the Parthian Empire in Transoxiana 6.
Parthia (Old Persian Parthava) 

Ancient Rome
Ancient history by country
History of Iran
History of Pakistan
History of Persia
Ancient history of Azerbaijan
Former countries in Asia
Former countries in the Middle East
Former empires
Events 
 In the Battle of Utica, the loyal Carthaginian troops of Hamilcar Barca defeat rebels.
 Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus attacks Carthaginian rebels on the island of Sardinia, and he makes it into a Roman province.
 The Parthian kingdom breaks away to become independent of the Seleucid Empire.

230s BC
1312 CE (or A.D.) is a common year in the 14th century.

Births 
November 13 – Edward III of England
1422 (MCDXXII) was .

Deaths 
 August 31 – Henry V of England
Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction or process where a chemical compound reacts with water. This is the type of reaction that is used to break down polymers into many smaller units. In this reaction, water is always added to the chemical compound.

Hydrolysis of metal salts
Hydrolysis of metal salts is more commonly known as hydration.  Many metal ions are strong Lewis acids, and in water they may undergo hydrolysis to form basic salts.  Such salts contain a hydroxyl group that is directly bound to the metal ion in place of a water ligand. The positive charge on metal ions creates an attraction to water, a Lewis base with a non-binding electron pair on the oxygen atom, and alters the water molecule's electron density. This in turn increases the polarity of the O-H bond, which now acts as a proton donor under Brønsted-Lowry acid-base theory to release the hydrogen as a H+ ion, increasing the acidity of the solution. For example, aluminium chloride undergoes extensive hydrolysis in water with the solution being very acidic.
[Al(H2O)6]^3+ + H2O <=> [Al(OH)(H2O)5]^2+ + H3O+
This implies that hydrogen chloride is lost in the evaporation of AlCl3 solutions and the residue is a basic salt (in this case an oxychloride) in place of AlCl3. This type of reaction is also seen with other metal chlorides such as ZnCl2, SnCl2, FeCl3 and lanthanide halides such as DyCl3. With some compounds such as TiCl4, the hydrolysis may go to completion and form the pure hydroxide or oxide, in this case TiO2.

References

Chemical reactions
Water (H2O, HOH) covers 70-75% of the Earth's surface in its liquid and solid (ice) states, and is present in the atmosphere as a vapor. It is the most abundant molecule on the Earth's surface.

At room temperature, it is a nearly colorless, flavorless, and odorless liquid. Many substances dissolve in water and it is commonly seen as the universal solvent; because of this, water in nature and in use is rarely clean, and may have some properties different than those in the laboratory. But there are many compounds that are essentially, if not completely, insoluble in water. Water is the only common, pure substance found naturally in all three states of matter—for other substances, see Chemical properties.

Pure water is tasteless. It is the other chemicals in the water which may give water a flavour.
Anomalous properties of water
Generally, the volume of a liquid increases when heated, however the volume of water decreases when heated within the temperature range of 0°C to 4°C. Its volume increases only when heated above 4°C. Such behavior is one of a number of water's anomalous properties.
This property of volume decrease allows fish and other aquatic animals to survive in a body of water when ice has frozen on the surface. In cold climates, when the temperature of a body of water reaches at 4°C, the layers of water near the top in contact with cold air continue to lose heat energy and their temperature falls below 4°C. On cooling below 4°C, these layers rise rather than sink, as water has maximum density at 4°C. Thus the layer of water with a temperature of 4°C remains at the bottom, while layers of water 3°C, 2°C, 1°C and 0°C are formed above. Because ice is poor conductor of heat, it does not allow heat energy transfer from the liquid water beneath the layers of ice, which prevents the liquid water from freezing. Hence, aquatic creatures survive in such places.

References
References

Other websites 
Water Structure and Behaviour A comprehensive and up-to-date NPOV resource maintained by Prof Martin Chaplin of South Bank University, UK
A spoof site on the "dangers" of dihydrogen monoxide
Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)
Explanation of the anomalous properties of water
Computational Chemistry Wiki
In mammals, the lymphatic system is a network of thin vessels that branch, like blood vessels, into tissues throughout the body. It is part of the immune system. It is a one-way system which carries cells and fluid back to the blood system.
 
Lymphatic vessels carry lymph, a colorless, watery fluid, and white blood cells. It comes from interstitial fluid in the tissues which is squeezed out of the blood vessels. The lymphatic system transports infection-fighting cells called lymphocytes, and is involved in the removal of foreign matter and cell debris by phagocytes. A second function is to transport fats from the small intestine to the blood.
Lymphatic fluid gathers from the tissues and enters the valved lymphatic ducts. These valves make sure the lymph flows the right way. On its way back to the blood system, the lymph passes through glands called lymph nodes, in places like the back of the neck, the armpits and the groin. Lymph nodes swell in the region of an infected body part. This acts to keep the infection from spreading. It prevents or reduces the pathogens getting into the general blood circulation and reaching other parts of the body.

Lymph ends up back in the blood system. In mammals under normal conditions, most of the lymph is returned to the blood stream through lymph-vein communications at the base of the neck. Some vertebrates have more complex lymphatic systems. Amphibians for example have multiple "lymph hearts" to control the flow of lymph.

References 

Physiology
Immunology
Chastity is the sexual behavior of a man or woman which is right and proper according to the moral rules of a culture or religion. It has recently begun to mean sexual abstinence (not having sex at all), especially before marriage. However, it can also be used for all kinds of people (even married people) with more meaning than simply not having sex. The word chastity came from the Latin word castitatem, meaning "purity".

Related pages 
Sexual abstinence
Virginity

References

Other websites 
Catechism of the Catholic Church (III.2.I)
Early Shaker Writings Relating to Sexual Abstinence

Human sexuality
Religious ethics
A metallic bond is the sharing of many detached electrons between many positive ions, where the electrons act as a "glue" giving the substance a definite structure. It is unlike covalent or ionic bonding. 
Metals have low ionization energy.  Therefore, the valence electrons can be delocalized throughout the metals. Delocalized electrons are not associated with a particular nucleus of metal, instead, they are free to move throughout the whole crystalline structure forming a "sea" of electrons.

The electrons and the positive ions in the metal have a strong attractive force between them.  Therefore, metals often have high melting or boiling points. The principle is similar to that of ionic bonds.

Metallic bonds causes many of the traits of metals, such as strength, malleability, ductility, luster, conduction of heat and electricity.
Because the electrons move freely, the metal has some electrical conductivity. It allows the energy to pass quickly through the electrons, generating an electric current. Metals conduct heat for the same reason: the free electrons can transfer the energy at a faster rate than other substances with electrons that are fixed into position. There also are few non-metals that conduct electricity: graphite (because, like metals, it has free electrons), and ionic compounds that are molten or dissolved in water, which have free moving ions.

Metal atoms have at least one valence electron which they do not share with neighboring atoms, and they do not lose electrons to form ions. Instead, the outer energy levels (atomic orbitals) of the metal atoms overlap. They are similar to covalent bonds. Not all metals exhibit metallic bonding. For example, mercury ions () form covalent metal-metal bonds.

An alloy is a solution of metals. Most alloys are shiny like pure metals are.
Related pages
 Chemical bond
 Covalent bond
 Ionic bond
 Coordination complex
 Alloy

References 

Chemical bonding
Metals
Heat conduction (or thermal conduction) is the movement of heat from one object to another one that has different temperature when they are touching each other.  For example, we can warm our hands by touching hot-water bottles. When the cold hands touch the hot-water bottle, heat flows from the hotter object (hot-water bottle) to the colder one (hand). People make things with different thermal conductivity, for example cookware to heat things or insulated containers to keep hot things hot or cold things cold.

Other ways to transfer heat are by thermal radiation and/or convection. Usually more than one of these processes happen at the same time.

Microscopic explanation 
In the atomic theory solids, liquids and gases are made of tiny particles called "atoms". The temperature of the material measures how fast the atoms are moving and the heat measures the total amount of energy due to the vibration of the atoms.
Conduction can happen when one part of a material is heated. The atoms in this part vibrate faster and are more likely to hit  their neighbors. The collisions cause those atoms also to move faster, passing the heat energy to them. In this way the energy travels through the solid. (Rather like the way energy passes along a set of tumbling dominos).

The atomic picture also helps explain why conduction is more important in solids: in solids the atoms are close together and unable to move around. In liquids and gases the particles can move past each other, so the collisions are less common.

Law of heat conduction 
The law of heat conduction, also known as Fourier's law, means that the rate, in time, of heat transfer through a material is proportional to the negative gradient in the temperature and to the area at right angles, to that gradient, through which the heat is flowing:
where:
Q is the amount of heat transferred, and 
t is the time taken, and 
k is the material's thermal conductivity' and 
S is the area through which the heat is flowing, and 
T is the temperature.

Thermal conductivity usually varies with temperature, but the variation can be small, over a significant range of temperatures, for some common materials.

Related pages
 Heat transfer
 Convection
 Thermal radiation

Basic physics ideas
Heat transfer
Judith Weir CBE (born 11 May 1954) is a British composer. She is well known for her theatre works, choral music, orchestral music and chamber music.

Early life 
Weir was born in Cambridge, England to Scottish parents. While she was still at school she trained with the composer John Tavener. She played the oboe in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. She then studied at the University of Cambridge where her teacher was Robin Holloway.

Career 
Judith Weir’s music has harmonies which are very exciting and original. Her Christmas carol Illuminare has become very popular, but it is quite difficult and needs a good choir to pitch the notes of the dissonant chords. She often uses medieval history as inspiration for her music, as well as music from her native Scotland, e.g. piobaireachd, which is a kind of variation form using small intervals. Her music often tells stories. Her operas include A Night at the Chinese Opera, The Vanishing Bridegroom, Blond Eckbert, and Armida, an opera for television.
From 1995 to 2000, she was the artistic director of the Spitalfields Festival in London. She has composed works for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She has received many honours, including the CBE in 1995.

Other websites 
 Judith Weir's homepage at Chester Music (music publishers)
 Judith Weir (b 1954) (BBC)

1954 births
Living people
20th-century English composers
21st-century British composers
People from Cambridge
Chorus can mean several things:

 Greek chorus, a feature of ancient Greek theatre
 Choir, a group of singers
 Refrain, the part of a song that is repeated
 Bridge (music), The verse before the refrain
A vassal during the feudalism of medieval Europe, was someone who had shared duties  with a lord. Usually the vassal provided soldiers to the lord. The lord used his army of soldiers from all of his vassals to protect those vassals. The lord also gave him the piece of land that he held as a fief. By analogy the term vassal is used also for similar systems in other feudal societies.

Western vassalage
The development of the vassal, in a society that was increasingly organised around the concept of "lordship"– in French the seigneur– is one sign that Antiquity ended and the Early Middle Ages began. Lordship is the basic social institution as Tacitus described them in his book Germania. The Roman West experienced them for the first time in the Migration Period.
As the system developed in the seventh century, the vassals were gangs of freemen who subjected themselves, in some degree of formality, to the authority of a leader, from whom they could expect to be fed, clothed and armed. The quality of a vassal was only in his fighting ability and the strength of his loyalty. The etymology (where the word came from) of "vassal" is from a Celtic word gwas "boy" that meant a young male slave, with a Latinised form, vassus that appeared in Salic Law (Rouche 1987 p 429), like the way  "knight" came from the from  Old English word cniht and similar words in Frisian and Dutch, all meaning "lad" .

Related pages
Gokenin, vassals of the shogunate in Japan

References
Cantor, Norman, The Civilization of the Middle Ages 1993
Ganshof, François Louis, Feudalism translated 1964
Rouche, Michel, "Private life conquers state and society," in A History of Private Life vol I, Paul Veyne, editor, Harvard University Press 1987 

History of Europe
The migration period, or barbarian invasions or Völkerwanderung happened in AD 300–700 in Europe, at the end of ancient history and during the Early Middle Ages.

The migrations included the Goths, Vandals, Franks, and other Germanic; Bulgar; and Slavic tribes. They may have been influenced by attacks of the Huns in the East and may also be connected to the Turkic migrations in Central Asia, overpopulation, or climate changes. The migration period also included groups of Angles, Saxons, Frisians, and some Jutes to Britain.

Migrations would continue well into the Middle Ages, beyond 1000 AD, with successive waves of Slavs, Roma, Avars, Bulgars, Hungarians, Pechenegs, Cumans, and Tatars, which changed the ethnic makeup of Eastern Europe. Historians in Western Europe, however, tend to stress the migrations that were most relevant to that area.

Related pages
 Human migration

References

Other websites 
 J.B. Bury (1923). History of the Later Roman Empire

Periods and ages in history
The San Francisco Bay Area, also known as the Bay Area, is a metropolitan area that goes around the San Francisco Bay in Northern California. It includes the cities of San Francisco, San José, and Oakland, and their many suburbs. It also includes the smaller urban and rural areas of the North Bay. Over seven million people live in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The San Francisco Bay Area is the 43rd largest metropolitan area in the world in population.

The Bay Area includes cities, towns, military bases, airports, and related regional, state, and national parks.

San José is the largest city in the Bay Area since 1990 and the tenth largest city in America. But for most of its history, San Francisco was the city with the most people. San Francisco is still the city people pay the most attention to, and it is the major cultural center in the region.

Bay Area Rapid Transit connects the different parts of the Bay Area.

Subregions

North Bay
North Bay

The region north of the Golden Gate Bridge is known locally as the North Bay. This area includes Marin County and continues north into Sonoma and Napa counties and east to Solano County. With some exceptions, this region is quite rich: Marin County is listed as the richest in the nation.

San Francisco

The City and County of San Francisco is generally placed in a category by itself in terms of geography and culture. It is separated by water from the north, west and east, and by a county line from its neighbors to the South. San Francisco has been the cultural, financial and urban center of the region for a long time.  For most of the Bay Area's history, it has also been the main population center. But because the size of the county is limited, the growth of the city was limited as well. The resulting urban sprawl has given other cities and counties more population growth.

Peninsula
Peninsula

The area between the South Bay and the City and County of San Francisco is the San Francisco Peninsula, known locally as The Peninsula. This area includes many small cities and suburban communities in San Mateo County and the northwestern part of Santa Clara County, as well as several towns along the Pacific coast, such as Pacifica and Half Moon Bay.

East Bay 

The eastern side of the bay, consisting of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, is known locally as the East Bay.  The East Bay is split into two regions, the inner East Bay, which is on the coast of the Bay, and the outer East Bay, including the inland valleys separated from the inner East Bay by hills and mountains.
South Bay
The communities along the southern edge of the Bay are known as the South Bay, Santa Clara Valley, and Silicon Valley. 
This region is home to a large number of major technology companies. Some tech companies in the South Bay are Intel, AMD,  Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Google, and Yahoo!, Microsoft and much much more.

The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the richest regions in the United States.

Related pages 

Berkeley, California
Oakland, California
San Francisco
San Jose, California

References

Other websites 

 sfbaywildlife.info Guide to wildlife-watching in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Housing and Real Estate Guide  Aggregates the collective knowledge of the San Francisco real estate community. 
San Francisco Bay Area Boat Launch map  A collaboratively edited index of public boat launches helping to develop a water trail network.
San Francisco Bay is a shallow bay in northern California, along the Pacific Ocean. It is an estuary because salt water from the ocean mixes with fresh water from rivers, especially the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. These rivers carry water from the Sierra Nevada mountains through the Central Valley. Water from about forty percent of California enters the bay.

The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers enter the Suisun Bay. There water flows through the Carquinez Strait to meet with the Napa River at the entrance to San Pablo Bay. This connects at its south end to the San Francisco Bay. The San Francisco Bay is connected to the Pacific by a strait called the Golden Gate. However, this entire group of interconnected bays is often called "the San Francisco Bay".

San Francisco Bay lies in the US state of California and is surrounded by a region known as the San Francisco Bay Area, that includes the big cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose.