AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ensures the rights of ethnic groups in Article 27 and also gives them the right to use their own language.
Ewe might mean:
Ebola virus
Ebola virus or Ebola virus disease (EVD), often shortened to Ebola is a very dangerous virus. It belongs to the family Filoviridae and is responsible for a severe disease characterized by the sudden onset of hemorrhagic fever accompanied by other non specific signs and symptoms. "Hemorrhagic" means that the victim will bleed a lot, inside and outside their body. The virus attacks almost every organ and tissue of the human body resulting in multi-organ dysfunction. Out of every 100 people who get Ebola, on average 25 to 90 die. There are four kinds of Ebola virus that can cause the disease. The virus was first found in Sudan. It is found in Africa, with very few cases in Europe and the United States.
The Ebola virus that makes people sick lives in the blood and other liquids and wet things in some kinds of non-human animals without killing them. Scientists think the animals it lives in are mainly some kinds of monkeys or fruit bats. When people touch animals that have the virus, or wet things that came out of those animals, they can get sick.
Ebola cannot be caught through the air, or by being near sick people. The virus can only go from liquids into people's bodies. This means Ebola can be caught by touching a sick person's blood, saliva, mucus, semen, diarrhea, vomit, or other fluids that come out of a sick person's body.
If a person does not die from the disease, he can still give other people the infection by having sex for nearly another two months after they stop being sick. This is because the virus can still be in the man's semen after a long time.
1. Once the virus enters the human body via mucosal surfaces, abrasions or injuries in the skin or by direct parental transmission, it fuses with the cells lining the respiratory tract, eyes, or body cavities.
2. It invades the macrophages and dendritic immune cells and releases its genetic content. The cell explosion triggers the secretion of proinflammatory cytokines initiating a ‘cytokine storm’. The genetic material takes over the cell machinery to replicate itself; new copies of the virus are formed and released into the system.
3. The virus then, goes on to attack spleen, kidneys and even the brain. The blood vessels leak blood and fluid into the surrounding tissues. This atypical clotting and bleeding at the same time manifests externally in the form of rashes.
4. The virus causes the shutdown of other vital organs such as liver and lungs too. In fact, it is able to invade almost all human cells through different attachment mechanisms for each cell type (except for lymphocytes). The very cells that are meant to fight infection are used as carriers to spread infection to other body parts
5. It has been found that the ebola-infected cells do not undergo normal apoptosis, but exhibit vacuolization and signs of necrosis.
When people get Ebola the first symptoms look like some other diseases. People get a fever and feel very tired. Their head, stomach, joints, and throat might hurt. Sometimes, people think they have other diseases like malaria or typhoid fever.
Later, people get much sicker. They bleed both inside and outside their bodies. They have blood in their diarrhea and vomit. They bleed from their noses, mouths, and genitals/sex organs. They get shock: low blood pressure, fast pulse (heart rate), and low blood circulation to the body. Their organs might stop working. Ebola also causes stiffness throughout the body which makes it hard for sick people to move.
Five to nine out of every ten people who get sick with Ebola die.
There is no cure for Ebola, but if people get care quickly from doctors and nurses at a hospital, more of them live. People with Ebola need a lot of fluids to replace fluids lost from diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding. The most important care is giving them water with a very small amount of salt and sugar in it. This is called oral rehydration. It helps to replace their fluids and blood. It is also important to give medicines in case they get bad blood pressure and blood circulation.
In December 2016, a study found the VSV-EBOV vaccine to be very effective (in the neighborhood of 70–100%) against the Ebola virus, making it the first vaccine against the disease.
Many Ebola vaccine candidates had been developed in the decade prior to 2014, but as of October 2014, none had yet been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in humans.
World Community Grid is a computing project that is seeking possible drug treatments. People donate the spare time on their computers to the project.
Ecology is the branch of biology that studies the biota (living things), the environment, and their interactions. It comes from the Greek "oikos" = house; "logos" = study.
Ecology is the study of ecosystems. Ecosystems describe the web or network of relations among organisms at different scales of organization. Since ecology refers to any form of biodiversity, ecologists research everything from tiny bacteria in nutrient recycling to the effects of tropical rain forests on the Earth's atmosphere. Scientists who study these interactions are called "ecologists".
Terrestrial ecoregion and climate change research are two areas where ecologists now focus.
There are many practical applications of ecology in conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource management (agriculture, forestry, fisheries), city planning (urban ecology), community health, economics, and applied science. It provides a framework for understanding and researching human social interaction.
Population ecology measures the size of a population: all the living things from one species that live in an place. A population gets bigger because of birth and movement into a place, and it gets smaller because of death and movement out of a place. Growth rate is the change in population size divided by the current population size. When a population is small, growth rate does not change, so the population shows exponential growth. Rate of exponential growth depends on how a living thing reproduces. If it has only a few offspring (children) which grow slowly, like a human, the rate will be low. If it has a lot of offspring which grow quickly, like a fruit fly, the rate will be high. Any environment only has enough resources, such as food, water, or space, for a certain size of population. This size is called the carrying capacity. When population size is near the carrying capacity, growth rate will become less. The graph of population growth will be an S-shape, called logistic growth.
A community is all populations of different species that live in the same place. An ecosystem is a community and its environment. Ecosystem ecology studies how energy and nutrients move through an ecosystem. All living things need energy to survive, move, grow, and reproduce. A trophic level is the number of times energy moves from one living thing to another, before reaching a particular living thing. The first trophic level, called producers or autotrophs, gets energy from the environment. They use the energy to make organic compounds. Most producers, such as plants, take in energy from sunlight, but some take it from inorganic compounds. Other trophic levels, called consumers or heterotrophs, get their energy by eating other living things. All animals are consumers, and there are three kinds: herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Herbivores eat only plants, carnivores eat only other animals, and omnivores eat both. Decomposers are living things which break down dead things. A food web shows the movement of energy in an ecosystem.
Ecology starts many powerful philosophical and political movements - including the conservation movement, wellness movement, environmental movement, and ecology movement we know today. When these are combined with peace movements and the Six Principles, they are called green movements. In general, these put ecosystem health first on a list of human moral and political priorities, as the way to achieve better human health and social harmony, and better economics.
People with these beliefs are called political ecologists. Some have organized into the Green Parties, but there are actually political ecologists in most political parties. They very often use arguments from ecology to advance policy, especially forest policy and energy policy.
Also, ecology means that it is the branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms.
Many ecologists also deal with human economics:
Ecological economics and human development theory try to separate the economic questions from others, but it is difficult. Many people think economics is just part of ecology now, and that economics that ignores it is wrong. "Natural capital" is an example of one theory combining both.
Sometimes ecology is compared to anthropology. Anthropology includes how our bodies and minds are affected by our environment, while ecology includes how our environment is affected by our bodies and minds. There is even a type of anthropology called ecological anthropology, which studies how people interact with the environment.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery stated: "The earth teaches us more about ourselves than all the books. Because it resists us. Man discovers himself when he measures himself against the obstacle".
Economics is the social science which studies economic activity: how people make choices to get what they want. It has been defined as "the study of scarcity and choice" and is basically about the choices people make. It also studies what affects the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in an economy.
Investment and income relate to economics. The word comes from Ancient Greek, and relates to οἶκος oíkos "house" and νόμος nomos "custom" or "law". The models used in economics today were mostly started in the 19th century. People took ideas from political economy and added to them because they wanted to use an empirical approach similar to the one used in the natural sciences.
The subjects (actors) in economic study are households, business companies, the government (the state), and foreign countries. Households offer their "factors of production" to companies. This includes work, land, capital (things like machines and buildings) and information. In exchange for their factors of production, households get income which they use to consume (buy) goods from other subjects.
Business companies produce and sell goods and services and buy factors of production from households and from other companies.
The state or public sector includes institutions and organisations. The state takes some of the earnings from the business companies and households, and uses it to pay for "public goods" like streets or education, to be available for everyone. The last subject is foreign countries. This includes all households, business companies and state institutions, which are not based in one's own country. They demand and supply goods from abroad.
The objects (things acted upon) in economic study are consumer goods, capital goods, and factors of production. Consumer goods are classified as "usage goods" (for example, gasoline or toilet paper), as "purpose goods" (for example, a house or bicycle), and as "services" (for example, the work of a doctor or cleaning lady). Capital goods are goods which are necessary for producing other goods. Examples of these are buildings, equipment, and machines. Factors of production are work, ground, capital, information, and environment.
The ideas that economists have depend a lot on the times they live in. For example, Karl Marx lived in a time when workers' conditions were very poor, and John Maynard Keynes lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s. Today's economists can look back and understand why they made their judgments, and try to make better ones.
The two main branches of economics are microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Macroeconomics is about the economy in general. For example, macroeconomists study things that make a country's wealth go up and things that make millions of people lose their jobs. Microeconomics is about smaller and more specific things such as how families and households spend their money and how businesses operate.
There are a number of other branches of economics:
Famous economists in history include:
Famous economists of the 19th and 20th century include Friedrich August von Hayek, Wassily Leontief, Carl Menger, and Léon Walras.
Chemical element
A chemical element is a substance that is made up of only one type of atom, which is the smallest particle of an element. Atoms are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons.
The number of protons in an atom is called the atomic number. For example, all atoms with 6 protons are atoms of the chemical element carbon, and all atoms with 92 protons are atoms of the element uranium. The number of neutrons in the nucleus does not have to be the same in every atom of an element. Atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes. Saying that a substance "contains only one type of atom" really means that it contains only atoms that all have the same number of protons.
The number of protons in the nucleus causes its electric charge. This fixes the number of electrons in its normal (un-ionized) state. The electrons in their atomic orbitals determine the element's various chemical properties.
Elements are the basic building blocks for all types of substances. If a substance contains more than one type of atom, it is a compound or a mixture. The smallest particle of a compound is a molecule.
118 different chemical elements are known to modern chemistry. 92 of these elements can be found in nature, and the others can only be made in laboratories. The human body is made up of 26 elements. The last natural element discovered was uranium, in 1789. The first man-made element was technetium, in 1937.
Chemical elements are commonly arranged in the periodic table. Where the elements are in the table tells us about their properties relative to the other elements.
Chemical elements are given a unique "chemical symbol". Chemical symbols are used all over the world. This means that, no matter which language is spoken, there is no confusion about what the symbol means. Chemical symbols of elements almost always come from their English or Latin names. For example, carbon has the chemical symbol 'C', and sodium has chemical symbol 'Na', after the Latin "natrium". Tungsten is called 'W' after its German name, "wolfram". 'Au' is the symbol for gold and it comes from the Latin word for gold, "aurum". Another symbol which comes from Latin is 'Ag'. This is the element silver and it comes from the Latin "argentum". Lead's symbol, 'Pb', comes from the Latin "plumbum" and the English word plumber derives from this as pipes used to be made out of lead. Some more recently discovered elements were named after famous people, like einsteinium, which was named after Albert Einstein.
Elements can join (react) to form pure compounds (such as water, salts, oxides, and organic compounds). In many cases, these compounds have a fixed composition and their own structure and properties. The properties of the compound may be very different from the elements it is made from. Sodium is a metal that burns when put into water and chlorine is a poisonous gas. When they react together they make "sodium chloride" (salt) which is generally harmless in small quantities and edible.
Some elements mix together in any proportion to form new structures. Such new structures are not compounds. They are called mixtures or, when the elements are metals, alloys.
Most elements in nature consist of atoms with different numbers of neutrons. An isotope is a form of an element with a certain number of neutrons. For example, carbon has two stable, naturally occurring isotopes: carbon-12 (6 neutrons) and carbon-13 (7 neutrons). Carbon-14 (8 neutrons) is a naturally occurring radioactive isotope of carbon. At least two isotopes of each element are known (except for Oganesson, of which only a few atoms have been made).
Elements can be classified based on physical states. At room temperature and pressure, most elements are solids, only 11 are gases and 2 are liquids.
Elements can also be classified into metals and non-metals. There are many more metals than non-metals.
However, a few elements have properties in between those of metals and non-metals. These elements are called semimetals (or metalloids).
Egypt is a country in northeast Africa. Its capital city is Cairo. Egypt is famous for its ancient monuments, such as the Pyramids and the Sphinx.
Ancient Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country in the world as it used to be ruled by pharaohs. As a province of the Roman Empire, it became Christian and some Coptic Church people are there after more than a thousand years of Muslim rule. The Fatimid Caliphate ruled Egypt in the tenth through twelfth centuries. Mamlukes ruled it until 1798 when Napoleon defeated them. Muhammad Ali Pasha soon took over and started a dynasty of Khedives under the Ottoman Empire. The Empire fell apart after World War I. Egypt became an independent country in 1922 and the khedive became a king. Egypt is a member of the United Nations and the Arab League. It became a republic after the Army's revolution of 1952.
Egypt is a large country, but a large portion of it is desert. Most people (95% of Egypt's total people) live in areas around the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Nile River. This includes the cities of Cairo, Alexandria, Aswan, and Port Said. Not many people live in the desert. Today, Egypt has about 90 million people.
Egypt is divided into 29 areas, called Governorates of Egypt.
Egypt is a country which has had many different rulers and many political systems. After World War II, Egypt was still ruled by a king, Farouk of Egypt (11 February 1920 – 18 March 1965). He was the last ruler of the Muhammad Ali dynasty.
Farouk was overthrown on 23 July 1952 by a military coup. The coup was led by Muhammad Naguib, and Gamal Abdel Nasser. From then on, Egypt had military rulers or rulers who had the backing of the army and many citizens.
Nasser became President, from 1956 to 1970. Later rulers were Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak.
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi became President in 2014.
In January 2011, thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo. They wanted Hosni Mubarak to leave office. He had been the President for almost 30 years. On February 11, 2011, Vice President Omar Suleiman made an announcement. He said that Mubarak agreed to leave office. In 2012, Egypt had a democratic election for the post of President. The winner was the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsi.
The events which followed are still controversial, but one aspect stands out. Morsi issued a declaration that in effect gave him unlimited powers. He had the power to legislate (make laws) without legal overview by the courts. This caused widespread protests. On 3 July 2013, he was unseated by a military coup council (a coup d'état). After an election in June 2014, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi became President of Egypt. Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, rejected the change of regime as a military coup, and not democratic.
Today, the people of Egypt are mostly Sunni Muslims. There are many Christians in Egypt today. Many of these belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
The official language in Egypt is Arabic. The majority speak Egyptian Arabic but many speak other dialects. Some Egyptians still speak Coptic and English. They also speak French and German in Egypt. These are taught in Egypt as additional languages.
Many famous people are from Egypt. Some of these include Omar Sharif, who was an international actor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was the first person from Africa to lead the United Nations, and four Nobel Prize winners: Anwar Sadat, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978, Naguib Mahfouz, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, Ahmed Zewail, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999, and Mohamed ElBaradei, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. Mohamed Salah is a famous footballer who plays for Liverpool in England. A famous Egyptian singer is called Amr Diab.
Egypt is divided into 27 governorates. The governorates are divided into regions. The regions have towns and villages. Each governorate has a capital. Sometimes capital has the same name as the governorate.
Egypt is a country with an immense cultural mix. Life in the countryside differs from life in the large cities. There are differences between the families which are Muslim, and the smaller number which are Coptic Christians. There are noticeable differences in the standards of education.
Tourism is one of the most important national incomes in Egypt. In 2008, about 12 million tourists visited Egypt providing nearly $12 billion of national income to Egypt. Tourism affects the economy of the country as a whole.
Giza Necropolis is one of Egypt's iconic sites. It is a popular destination for tourists to visit. It includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
There are methods of transport in Egypt. The Suez Canal carries ships of many countries.
Cairo Metro is one of the most important projects in Egypt. It consists of 3 lines. Metro is the most preferable transport in Egypt due to persistent major traffic jams in the streets of Cairo. Metro line 4 is being developed to reach the New Cairo District.
Egypt established EgyptAir in 1932. The airline is based in Cairo International Airport and is owned by the government.
Everything2 or E2 is a website. It lets people make pages about many different things, and some people use it as a diary.
E2 users create pages called "nodes" and add stuff in "writeups". Only logged-in users can create writeups. Only the person who created the writeup or someone who the website owners (called "gods") choose can edit the writeup. On the other hand, on Wikipedia, anyone can edit pages, but on Everything2 only those who can edit the writeup can edit pages.
Everything2 does not require a like Wikipedia does. So, it is possible to have more than one article (writeups) under the same title (node), each by different authors, and presenting different points of view.
An editor is a person who makes changes to documents.
More specifically the word "editor" can mean:
Ecological yield
Ecological yield is the harvestable growth of an ecosystem. It is most commonly measured in forestry - in fact sustainable forestry is defined as that which does not harvest more wood in a year than has grown in that year, within a given patch of forest.
However, the concept is also applicable to water, and soil, and any other aspect of an ecosystem which can be both harvested and renewed - the so-called renewable resources. The carrying capacity of an ecosystem is reduced over time if more than the amount which is "renewed" (refreshed or regrown or rebuilt).
Experience economy
Execution is where state authorities kill someone for having committed an extremely serious crime, usually treason or especially terrible murders. In most countries where the death penalty is still provided for by law, using it is an option available to the sentencing judge: even if the jury or judicial panel recommends the death penalty, the presiding judge still has the option to lock the convicted person in a prison for the rest of their life. A person whose job is to execute others is an executioner.
Beheading means cutting the convict's head off. It is one of the oldest execution methods and already mentioned in the Bible. Beheading used to be the standard method of execution in Scandinavia and Germany. Commoners were usually beheaded with an axe and noblemen with a sword. A special device, like guillotine, can also be used, as in France. Nazi Germany used guillotine to execute criminal convicts, such as murderers.
Centuries ago many countries used beheading as an execution for important people, including England. In England, many noblemen and even some kings and queens have been beheaded. There, the prisoner would be led up the scaffold and usually say a speech. Then, he/she would be blindfolded and put his/her neck onto a block. Then, the executioner would lift up his axe and swing it down onto the victim's neck. If the executioner was skilled and the axe was sharp, then the axe would usually cut through the bone and organs of the victim in one stroke. But if the executioner was inexperienced, then it may take many strokes before the head would be cut off.
Many countries do not allow executions as punishment any more, because it is too violent or immoral. However, many states of the United States and some other countries use it. In the United States, less violent ways of execution are used than in the past. Here are some ways of executing people:
Flesch Reading Ease
The Flesch Reading Ease (FRES) score says how easy something is to read. J. Peter Kincaid and others made this formula for the U.S. Navy in 1975.
The FRES test works by counting the number of words, syllables, and sentences in the text. It then calculates the average number of words per sentence and the average number of syllables per word. The idea is that shorter words and shorter sentences are easier to read. The higher the score, the easier the text is to understand. The formula is:
Some points of reference for the score are:
The highest score possible is 121.22. It is gained if every sentence only has a one-syllable word.
"The cat sat on the mat" scores 116. There is no lower limit to this score. Some very complicated
sentences can have negative scores.
The Flesch score is usually lower for technical documentation because the topic itself is complicated.
Someone who uses the test regularly will develop a sense of a reasonable score for this type of writing.
They can then aim to align with this score.
The Flesch score for this subsection is 69.
Tools to calculate the Flesch Reading Ease include:
February (Feb.) is the second month of the year, coming between January and March, with 28 days in common years, and 29 days in leap years. In Sweden in 1732 the month had 30 days. This was to make the calendar match to the rest of the world. In 1930 and 1931, February had 30 days in the Soviet Union because the government changed all the months to be 30 days long. In 2020, February had 29 days in it because 2020 was a leap year. The name comes either from the Roman god Februus or else from "februa", the festivals of purification celebrated in Rome every fifteenth of this month.
February begins on the same day of the week as March and November in common years, and August in leap years. February always ends on the same day of the week as October, and additionally, January in common years.
February is one of the last two months to be added to the calendar at the beginning of the year (the other is January). This is because in the original Roman calendar, the two months of winter, when not much would happen in agriculture, did not have names.
February is the second month of the year, coming between January and March, and is also the shortest month, with 28 days in a common year, and 29 days in a leap year. February begins on the same day of the week as March and November in common years and on the same day of the week as August in leap years. February ends on the same day of the week as January in common years and October every year, as each other's last days are exactly 4 weeks (28 days) and 35 weeks (245 days) apart respectively. In a leap year, February is the only month to begin and end on the same day of the week.
Every year, February starts on the same day of the week as June of the previous year, as each other's first days are exactly 35 weeks (245 days) apart. In common years, February finishes on the same day of the week as May of the previous year, and in leap years, August and November of the previous year.
In common years immediately before other common years, February starts on the same day of the week as August of the following year, and in leap years and years immediately before that, May of the following year. In years immediately before common years, February finishes on the same day of the week as July of the following year, and in years immediately before leap years, April and December of the following year.
February is also the only month of the calendar that, once every six years and twice every 11 years consecutively, either back into the past or forward into the future, will have four full 7-day weeks. In countries that start their week on a Monday, it occurs as part of a common year starting on Friday, in which February 1st is a Monday and the 28th is a Sunday, this was observed in 2010 and can be traced back 11 years to 1999, 6 years back to 1993, 11 years back to 1982, 11 years back to 1971 and 6 years back to 1965, and will be observed in 2021. In countries that start their week on a Sunday, it occurs in a common year starting on Thursday, with the next occurrence in 2026, and previous occurrences in 2015 (11 years earlier than 2026), 2009 (6 years earlier than 2015), 1998 (11 years earlier than 2009) and 1987 (11 years earlier than 1998). This works unless the pattern is broken by a skipped leap year, but no leap year has been skipped since 1900 and no others will be skipped until 2100.
From circa 700 BC, when Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, added it to the calendar, February had 23 days and 24 days on some of every second year, until 46 BC when Julius Caesar assigned it 29 days on every fourth year and 28 days otherwise. Leap year Day, February 29, is added in every year that can be divided equally by four, such as 2012 and 2016, but this does not apply when the year ending in "00" at the turn of the century does not divide equally into 400. This means that 1600 and 2000 were leap years in the Gregorian calendar, but 1700, 1800, and 1900 were rather common years. This is where the Julian calendar calculated dates differently, as it always repeated February 29 every four years.
February is a winter month in the Northern Hemisphere and a summer month in the Southern Hemisphere. In each hemisphere, it is the seasonal equivalent of August in the other. In weather lore, Groundhog Day, in the United States, is set to decide what the weather will be like for the rest of the winter.
February's flower is the violet and its birthstone is the amethyst. The meaning of the amethyst is sincerity. The zodiac signs for February are Aquarius (January 21 to February 19), and Pisces (February 20 to March 20).
FAQ is an abbreviation for "Frequently Asked Question(s)". The term is used for a list questions and answers. All of the questions are supposed to be asked often and they all are about the same thing. Since the acronym was first used in written form, there are different ways it is said; both "fak" and "F.A.Q." are commonly used.
Flame (disambiguation)
A flame is the part of a fire that can be seen. Flame might also mean:
Financial capital
Financial capital is a form of capital. It is things that have value, but do not do anything by themselves. They are only valuable because people value (want) them. For example, money is a form of financial capital. You cannot do anything with money but it still has value.
Financial capital is used to pay for things, this is because there is always more of it and people always want it. This means that financial capital has a stable value and can be traded in most places and with most people.
Some forms of financial capital, such as stocks, gold or bonds are not wanted by everybody. However they can be traded with people for money or another type of financial capital. Because of this, these forms of financial capital do not have a stable price. This means that some people try to make a profit by buying and selling these types of financial capital in a market.
Some things are treated as financial capital, even though they do have a use. For example, some people buy and sell land but are not interested in doing anything with it. Some people think this sort of trade is bad because the land should be used and not just treated like money. Other types of capital, such as social capital and human capital are rarely treated like financial capital. This may be because they involve people. Treating useful capital like financial capital is called comodification.
In politics, a common question is how often the government should use financial capital. In particular, should the government use financial capital to make a profit? Traditionally, liberal politicians do not mind this kind of trading for profit, but socialist or conservative politicians are against it.
Fecund universes
Fecund universes is a multiverse theory of Lee Smolin. It relies on models of our universe and statistics from astrophysics but is more correctly a theory of cosmology.
In this theory, collapsing stars, or black holes, are always creating new universes with slightly different laws of physics. Because these laws are only slightly different, each is assumed to be like a mutation of the original universe, as if each universe was a kind of single-celled organism. It would reproduce by "splitting" in some sense.
This theory relies on many models of our universe to model these "mutated" alternative universes, the ones that Smolin supposes are generated or "spun off" by black holes.
No human can ever be part of any of these "other" universes. Observations from astrophysics can only say if the black holes exist or are common, and give some idea of how much the laws of physics can vary and still let the new universes produce new black holes.
Smolin predicts that there would be many black holes in the universe humans can see, since they are likely in a very late born universe, by simple probability. If there are many black holes, that is evidence for his theory,
As this shows, cosmology has a very different standard of evidence and burden of proof than is required for models of our universe only, which humans (using mathematics) can observe and exchange knowledge on.
It is hard to separate science from religion on such questions. It may be a simple matter of preference whether one wants to see one's universe as part of a system like biology or like mechanics - clockwork. Smolin's theory is important mostly because it challenges the mechanistic paradigm.
Even if it is wrong, it raises the idea that living beings might have to see their universe as also living to be able to understand or care about it at all. Some compare Smolin's theory to Gaia philosophy which combines biology, geology and ecology to explain the Earth, our planet, as a living thing. If both are right, humans are on a living planet in a living universe. This idea is very appealing - which does not mean it is really "right".
Food is what people and animals eat to live. Food usually comes from animals and plants. It is eaten by living things to provide energy and nutrition. Food contains the nutrition that people and animals need to be healthy. The consumption of food is normally enjoyable to humans. It contains protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, water and minerals. Liquids used for energy and nutrition are often called "drinks". If someone cannot afford food they go hungry.
Food for humans is mostly made through farming or gardening. It includes animal and vegetable sources. Some people refuse to eat food from animal origin, like meat, eggs, and products with milk in them. Not eating meat is called vegetarianism. Not eating or using any animal products is called veganism.
Food produced by farmers or gardeners can be changed by industrial processes (the food industry). Processed food usually contains several natural ingredients and food additives (such as preservatives, antioxidants, emulsifiers, flavor enhancers). For example, bread is processed food.
Food processing at home is done in the kitchen, by the cook. The cook sometimes uses a cookbook. Examples of cooking utensils are pressure cookers, pots, and frying pans.
Food can also be prepared and served in restaurants or refectory (in particular for children in school).
The utensils used may be a plate, knife, fork, chopsticks, spoon, bowl, or spork.
Many people do not grow their own food. They have to buy food that was grown by someone else. People buy most of their food in shops or markets. But some people still grow most or all of their own food.
People may buy food and take it home to cook it. They may buy food that is ready to eat from a street vendor or a restaurant.
Originally, people got food as hunter-gatherers. The agricultural revolution changed that. Farmers grew crops including those invented and improved by selective breeding. These improvements, for example the invention of maize, allowed feeding more people, and further improvements gave it a better taste.
Food shortage has been a big problem throughout history. Many people do not have enough money to buy the food that they need. Bad weather or other problems sometimes destroy the growing food in one part of the world. When people do not have enough food, we say that they are hungry. If they do not eat enough food for a long time, they will become sick and die from starvation. In areas where many people do not have enough food, we say that there is famine there.
Food and water can make people sick if it is contaminated by microorganisms, bad metals, or chemicals.
If people do not eat the right foods, they can become sick.
People may often have a variety of eating disorders that cause them to either eat too much, or not be able to eat certain things or amounts. Common diseases like Coeliac disease or food allergies cause people to experience ill effects from consuming certain foods that are normally safe. If people eat too much food, they can become overweight or obese. This causes numerous health problems. On the other hand, eating too little food, from lack of access or anorexia could cause malnutrition. Therefore, people have to balance the amount, the nutrition, and the type of food to be healthy.
Many cultures or religions have food taboos. That means they have rules what people should not eat, or how the food has to be prepared. Examples of religious food rules are the "Kashrut" of Judaism and the "Halal" of Islam, that say that pig meat cannot be eaten. In Hinduism, eating beef is not allowed. Some Christians are "vegetarian" (someone who does not eat meat) because of their religious beliefs. For example, Seventh-day Adventist Church recommends vegetarianism.
In addition, sometime beliefs do not relate to the religion but belong to the culture. For example, some people pay respect to "Guān Yīn" mothergod and those followers will not consume "beef" as they believe that her father has a shape of the cow.
If someone is found guilty of a crime, their punishment may be to pay a fine, a certain amount of money. In many countries, fines can be ordered by police, court judges and some government officers.
When agreeing to a contract with a business, a customer may agree to certain rules. If the customer breaks the rules, then they agree to pay a fine for doing so. For example, when somebody hires a car and agrees to return it by Friday, they agree that if they do not return the car by Friday, they must pay a $50 fine to the business.
Frying
To fry food is to cook it in hot butter or vegetable oil or other fat. We can fry food in a small amount of fat in a pan or in a lot of oil in a pot. Some restaurants use deep frying to fry a large amount of food.
Fish (plural: fish) are an aquatic group of vertebrates which live in water and respire (get oxygen) with gills. They do not have limbs, like arms or legs, and they do have digits (fingers & toes). This is a definition which does not quite work: some amphibia also live in water and have external gills, but they are not fish.
Fish used to be a class of vertebrates. Now the term covers five classes of aquatic vertebrates:
There are more fish than tetrapods (land vertebrates): there are over 33,000 described species of fish. Fish are usually covered with scales. They have two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins. Most fish are cold-blooded (poikilotherm). A fish takes in the oxygen from the water using gills. There are many different kinds of fish. They live in fresh water in lakes and rivers, and in salt water in the ocean. Some fish are less than one centimeter long. The largest fish is the whale shark, which can be almost 15 meters long and weigh 15 tons. Most fish live in the water. A group of fish called the lungfish have developed lungs because they live in rivers and pools which dry up in certain parts of the year. They burrow into mud and aestivate until the water returns.
'Fish' is a paraphyletic term in cladistics because it lacks a monophyletic group of descendants. It does not include the land vertebrates or tetrapods, which descended from fish.
Though often used interchangeably, these words have different meanings. Fish is used either as singular noun or to describe a group of specimens from a single species. Fishes describes a group of different species.
Fish, the oldest vertebrate group, includes a huge range of types, from the Middle Ordovician, about 490 million years ago, to the present day. These are the main groups:
Certain animals that have the word "fish" in their name are not really fish: Crayfish are crustaceans, and jellyfish are Cnidarians. Some animals look like fish, but are not. Whales and dolphins are mammals, for example.
Most kinds of fish have bones. Some kinds of fish, such as sharks and rays, do not have real bones. Their skeletons are made of cartilage, and so they are known as cartilaginous fish.
All fish are covered with overlapping scales, and each major group of fish has its own special type of scale. Teleosts ('modern' fish) have what are called "leptoid" scales. These grow in concentric circles and overlap in a head to tail direction like roof tiles. Sharks and other chondrichthyes have "placoid" scales made of denticles, like small versions of their teeth. These also overlap in a head to tail direction, producing a tough outer layer. Shark skin is available for purchase as shagreen, a leather which as original is smooth in one direction, and rough in the other direction. It may be polished for use, but is always rough in texture and resistant to slipping.
The scales are usually covered with a layer of slime which improves passage through the water, and makes the fish more slippery to a predator.
41% of all fish live in freshwater. There are also some important fish which breed in rivers, and spend the rest of their life in the seas. Examples are salmon, trout, the sea lamprey, and three-spined stickleback. Some other fish are born in salt water, but live most of their adult lives in fresh water: for example the eels.
Species like these change their physiology to cope with the amount of salt in the water.
Fish swim by exerting force against the surrounding water. There are exceptions, but this is usually done by the fish contracting muscles on either side of its body in order to generate waves of flexion that travel the length of the body from nose to tail, generally getting larger as they go along. Most fishes generate thrust using lateral movements of their body & tail fin (caudal fin). However, there are also species which move mainly using their median and paired fins. The latter group profits from the gained manoeuvrability that is needed when living in coral reefs for example. But they can not swim as fast as fish using their bodies & caudal fins.
Fish can swim slowly for many hours using red muscle fibres. They also make short, fast bursts using white muscle. The two types of muscle have a fundamentally different physiology. The red fibres are usually alongside a much greater number of white fibres.
The white fibres get their energy by converting the carbohydrate glycogen to lactate (lactic acid). This is anaerobic metabolism, that is, it does not need oxygen. They are used for fast, short bursts. Once the lactic acid builds up in the muscles, they stop working, and it takes time for the lactate to be removed, and the glycogen replaced. Using their white fibres, fish can reach speeds of 10 lengths per second for short bursts.
Swimming for long periods needs oxygen for the red fibres. The oxygen supply has to be constant because these fibres only operate aerobically. They are red because they have a rich blood supply, and they contain myoglobin. Myoglobin transports the oxygen to the oxidising systems. Red muscle gets its energy by oxidising fat, which weight for weight has twice as much energy as carbohydrate or protein. Using their red fibres, fish can keep up a speed of 35 lengths per second for long periods.
Many fish swim in groups. Schools of fish can swim together for long distances, and may be chased by predators which also swim in schools. Casual groups are called 'shoals'.
The shape of the body of a fish is important to its swimming. This is because streamlined body shapes makes the water drag less. Here are some common fish shapes:-
The picture on the right shows a shark. This shark's shape is called "fusiform", and it is an ovoid shape where both ends of the fish are pointy. This is the best shape for going through water quickly. Fishes with fusiform shapes can chase prey and escape predators quickly. Many live in the open ocean and swim constantly, like marlins, swordfish, and tuna. Ichthyosaurs, porpoises, dolphins, killer whales all have similar shapes. This is an example of convergent evolution.
The long, ribbon-like shape of an eel's body shows another shape. This enables them to hide in cracks, springing out quickly to capture prey, then returning quickly to their hiding spot.
Flatfish live on the bottom of the ocean or lake. Most use camouflage: they change colors to match the ocean floor.
Fish with compressed shapes have flat, vertical bodies, with one eye on each side. They swim upright and can be very thin. They usually live in reefs where their flat bodies can slip in and out among the corals, sponges, and rocks, keeping hidden from predators. Angelfish, surgeonfish, and butterflyfish are all compressed fish.
Some people eat many different kinds of fish. These include carp, cod, herring, perch, sardines, sturgeon, tilapia, trout, tuna, and many others. A person who buys and sells fish for eating is called a fishmonger.
The word "to fish" is also used for the activity of catching fishes. People catch fish with small nets from the side of the water or from small boats, or with big nets from big boats. People can also catch fish with fishing poles and fishhooks with bait. This is often called angling. Anglers also different types of fishing lures.
Because people are catching too many fish for food or other uses, there are less and less fish in the sea. This is a problem known as Overfishing.
Selective breeding of carp made them into the domesticated koi in Japan, and goldfish in China. This breeding began over 2,000 years ago. The Chinese brought their goldfish indoors during the Song Dynasty. They kept them in large ceramic vessels. That we now do in glass fish tanks.
A foot (one "foot", two or more feet) is a body part on the end of a leg. It is used when walking. It is also important for balance: it helps people stand straight. People also use it to kick, in both fighting and sports, football being an example.
People's hands and feet have the same shape: they both have five "digits" (the fingers and toes). Many other animals with backbones also have five digits. The part of the foot which joins it to the leg is called the "heel". The bottom of the foot is called the "sole".
Most land vertebrates have feet, and there are many different sorts of foot. The feet of monkeys are much like the hands. The hard foot of an ungulate is a hoof. When an animal has soft feet, or feet with soft parts on the underside, we often call it a "paw". Many invertebrates also have feet.
Many people like to use footwear, especially outside. It has special names, for example "sandals", "shoes", and "boots". When people always wear footwear, especially in hot places or when they are very active, their feet can smell badly ("foot odour)". Wearing footwear that is too big or small can be bad for the feet. People who have foot, leg, and back problems can also get help from special shoes.