title: History of syphilis

text: A lack of written evidence for the existence of syphilis in Europe, combined with an explosion of sources attesting to the appearance of a virulent new disease following exploration of the Caribbean islands, led some historians to accept the opinions of contemporary medical writers that Columbus and his men had brought the disease to Spain from America. From there it spread rapidly. In particular, the reliance of Charles VIII, king of France, on mercenary troops (some of them Spanish) at the time of his attack on Naples in the winter of 1495 had led, most historians believed, to the dissemination of the highly contagious “French pox” throughout Europe when those troops returned home to their own countries. This epidemic, perhaps the result of a more transmissible or deadlier variant of treponematosis, although that is not yet known, led to significant confusion beginning in the eighteenth century and exemplified most recently in the work of Kristin N. Harper and colleagues. Yet all this time some scholars believed that evidence from skeletal remains and documentary accounts did point to the existence of syphilis in Afro-Eurasia beginning in ancient times, even if it were rare. Foremost among them was Ellis Herndon Hudson, a clinician who published extensively about the prevalence of treponematosis, including syphilis, in times past.


title: History of syphilis

text: In 2020, a group of leading paleopathologists concluded that enough evidence had been collected from bones and teeth to prove that treponemal disease existed in Europe prior to the voyages of Columbus. At least fifteen cases of acquired treponematosis based on evidence from bones, and six examples of congenital treponematosis based on evidence from teeth, are now widely accepted as ancient or medieval. In several of the twenty-one cases the evidence may also indicate syphilis specifically. Highlights of this important literature include:


title: History of syphilis

text: While the absolute number of cases is still small, they keep turning up, most recently in 2015 in London and St. Pölten, Austria. Yet there is an outstanding issue. Damaged teeth and bones seem to hold proof of pre-Columbian syphilis, but there is a possibility that they point to an endemic form of treponematosis instead.


title: History of syphilis

text: As syphilis, bejel, and yaws vary considerably in mortality rates and the level of human disgust they elicit, it is important to know which one is under discussion in any given case, but it remains difficult for paleopathologists to distinguish among them. (Pinta is a skin disease and therefore unrecoverable through paleopathology.) Ancient DNA (aDNA) holds the answer, because just as only aDNA suffices to distinguish between syphilis and other diseases that produce similar symptoms in the body, it alone can differentiate spirochetes that are 99.8 percent identical with absolute accuracy. Progress on uncovering the historical extent of the various treponemal diseases through their aDNA remains slow, however, because the spirochete responsible for treponematosis, "Treponema pallidum", is rare in skeletal remains and fragile, making it notoriously difficult to recover and analyze.


title: History of syphilis

text: The genetic sequence of "Treponema pallidum" was deciphered by Claire M. Fraser and colleagues in 1998, and success in analyzing a 200-year-old example extracted from bones by Connie J. Kolman et al. came the next year. In 2012, Rafael Montiel and his co-authors were successful in amplifying two "Treponema pallidum" DNA sequences dated to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in southwestern Spain. In 2018 Verena J. Schuenemann and colleagues successfully recovered and reconstructed "Treponema pallidum" genomes from the skeletons of two infants and a neonate in Mexico City, from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. Two are believed to have had congenital syphilis and one congenital yaws. A breakthrough example (2020) from early modern Europe can be found in the work of Karen Giffin and her co-authors, who sequenced a genome of "Treponema pallidum" subspecies "pertenue", the causal agent of yaws, from a Lithuanian tooth radiocarbon-dated to 1447–1616 (95 percent probability). The ability to sequence the entire genome is especially important for distinguishing among syndromes of treponematosis because of their close similarity. In this case, whole genome sequencing has resulted in two startling discoveries: that the subtropical syndrome yaws existed in northern Europe at the turn of the sixteenth century, and that yaws in its modern form is a relatively young disease that emerged only in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Finally, in October 2020 Kerttu Majander and colleagues published research revealing that as early as the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries "Treponema pallidum" existed as syphilis and yaws in Finland, syphilis in Estonia, and a previously unknown basal strain in the Netherlands. Although precise dating to the medieval period is not yet possible, the presence of several different kinds of treponematosis at the beginning of the early modern period argues against its recent introduction from elsewhere. Therefore, they argue, treponematosis—including syphilis—almost certainly existed in medieval Europe.


title: History of syphilis

text: Despite significant progress in tracing the presence of syphilis in past historic periods, definitive findings from paleopathology and aDNA studies are still lacking for the period before Columbus. This makes newly available evidence from art helpful for settling the issue. Research by Marylynn Salmon has provided examples of deformities in medieval subjects that can be usefully compared to those of modern victims of the disease in medical drawings and photographs. One of the most typical deformities of treponematosis is a collapsed nasal bridge called saddle nose, usually accompanied by baldness. Salmon demonstrates that it appears often in medieval illuminations, especially among the men tormenting Christ in scenes of the crucifixion. The association of saddle nose with men perceived to be so evil they would kill the son of God indicates the artists were thinking of syphilis, which is typically transmitted through sexual intercourse with promiscuous partners. Such behavior was considered a mortal sin by Christians in medieval times. One illuminator goes so far as to show a flagellant with an exposed penis, red at the tip as though infected with a syphilitic sore. Others show the deformed teeth associated with congenital syphilis—Hutchinson’s incisors—or the eye deformity ptosis that often appears in victims of the disease.


title: History of syphilis

text: It remains mysterious why the authors of medieval medical treatises so uniformly refrained from describing syphilis or commenting on its existence in the population. Probably many confused it with other diseases. The great variety of symptoms of treponematosis, the different ages at which the various diseases appears, and its widely divergent outcomes depending on climate and culture, would have added greatly to the confusion of medical practitioners, as indeed they did right down to the middle of the twentieth century.


title: History of syphilis

text: Another factor also seems to have been important, obfuscation in the medical literature. In an age that associated illness with sin, the implications of revealing a disease more often fatal to elites than commoners could be incendiary. Significantly, bejel and yaws were endemic in rural, underdeveloped communities such as those of peasants medieval Europe. Children became ill by sharing drinking vessels and bedding holding only small viral loads, and as a result their cases were not usually serious. Syphilis, in contrast, generally was transmitted by venereal sores holding a massive inoculation of "Treponema pallidum." Previously uninfected adults, often elites who had been protected by their more hygienic lifestyles, therefore became much sicker upon infection, and died more often. The importance of viral load was first noted by the physician Ernest Grin in 1952 in his study of syphilis in Bosnia.


title: History of syphilis

text: Such a difference would have been politically dangerous to elites, especially if it became known that they were responsible for spreading syphilis. Historian Jon Arrizabalaga has investigated this question for Castile with startling results revealing an effort to hide its association with the nobility. Still, there are hints of the truth in the historical record. The Spanish physician Gaspare Torrella (1452–1520), who treated several members of the papal court, including Cesare Borgia, wrote that in southern Spain the disease he called “pudendagra” was already known as "morbus curialis" because of its association with the court. Similarly, in eastern Europe it was called “the malady of palaces.” And in France, the association of syphilis with court life was responsible for the term "mal de cour", which usage lasted into modern times. The Rouen physician Jacques de Béthencourt (1477–ca. 1527) similarly observed that syphilis was known there as “the disease of the magnates." The fact that following the epidemic of 1495 countries blamed its rapid transmission on each other (in Naples it was called the French Pox and in France the Neapolitan disease) indicates that syphilis was immediately perceived negatively. Conveniently for the European nobility, documentation is abundant that in Europe people believed syphilis had originated not at court, but in the New World.


title: History of syphilis

text: Historian Alfred Crosby suggested in 2003 that both theories are partly correct in a "combination theory". Crosby says that the bacterium that causes syphilis belongs to the same phylogenetic family as the bacteria that cause yaws and several other diseases. Despite the tradition of assigning the homeland of yaws to sub-Saharan Africa, Crosby notes that there is no unequivocal evidence of any related disease having been present in pre-Columbian Europe, Africa, or Asia. Crosby writes, "It is not impossible that the organisms causing treponematosis arrived from America in the 1490s ... and evolved into both venereal and non-venereal syphilis and yaws." However, Crosby considers it more likely that a highly contagious ancestral species of the bacteria moved with early human ancestors across the land bridge of the Bering Straits many thousands of years ago without dying out in the original source population. He hypothesizes that "the differing ecological conditions produced different types of treponematosis and, in time, closely related but different diseases." A more recent, modified version of the Columbian theory that better fits skeletal evidence from the New World, and also "absolved the New World of being the birthplace of syphilis", proposes that a nonvenereal form of treponemal disease, without the lesions common to congenital syphilis, was brought back to Europe by Columbus and his crew. Upon arrival in the Old World, the bacterium, which was similar to modern day yaws, responded to new selective pressures with the eventual birth of the subspecies of sexually transmitted syphilis. This theory is supported by genetic studies of venereal syphilis and related bacteria, which found a disease intermediate between yaws and syphilis in Guyana, South America. However, the study has been criticized in part because some of its conclusions were based on a tiny number of sequence differences between the Guyana strains and other treponemes whose sequences were examined.


title: History of syphilis

text: The first well-recorded European outbreak of what is now known as syphilis occurred in 1495 among French troops besieging Naples, Italy. It may have been transmitted to the French via Spanish mercenaries serving King Charles of France in that siege. From this centre, the disease swept across Europe. As Jared Diamond describes it, "[W]hen syphilis was first definitely recorded in Europe in 1495, its pustules often covered the body from the head to the knees, caused flesh to fall from people's faces, and led to death within a few months." The disease then was much more lethal than it is today. The epidemiology of this first syphilis epidemic shows that the disease was either new or a mutated form of an earlier disease.


title: History of syphilis

text: Some researchers argue that syphilis was carried from the New World to Europe after Columbus' voyages, while others argue the disease has a much longer history in Europe. Many of the crew members who served on this voyage later joined the army of King Charles VIII in his invasion of Italy in 1495, which some argue may have resulted in the spreading of the disease across Europe and as many as five million deaths. Some findings suggest Europeans could have carried the nonvenereal tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the different conditions and low immunity of the population of Europe. Syphilis was a major killer in Europe during the Renaissance. In his "Serpentine Malady" (Seville, 1539) Ruy Díaz de Isla estimated that over a million people were infected in Europe. He also postulated that the disease was previously unknown, and came from the island of Hispaniola (modern Dominican Republic and Haiti).


title: History of syphilis

text: According to a 2020 study, more than 20% of individuals in the range of 15–34 years old in late 18th century London were treated for syphilis.


title: History of syphilis

text: The name "syphilis" was coined by the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro in his pastoral noted poem, written in Latin, titled "Syphilis sive morbus gallicus" (Latin for "Syphilis or The French Disease") in 1530. The protagonist of the poem is a shepherd named Syphilus (perhaps a variant spelling of Sipylus, a character in Ovid's "Metamorphoses"). Syphilus is presented as the first man to contract the disease, sent by the god Apollo as punishment for the defiance that Syphilus and his followers had shown him. From this character Fracastoro derived a new name for the disease, which he also used in his medical text "De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis" (1546) ("On Contagion and Contagious Diseases").


title: History of syphilis

text: Until that time, as Fracastoro notes, syphilis had been called the "French disease" () in Italy, Malta, Poland and Germany, and the "Italian disease" in France. In addition, the Dutch called it the "Spanish disease", the Russians called it the "Polish disease", and the Turks called it the "Christian disease" or "Frank (Western European) disease" ("frengi"). These "national" names were generally reflective of contemporary political spite between nations and frequently served as a sort of propaganda; the Protestant Dutch, for example, fought and eventually won a war of independence against their Spanish Habsburg rulers who were Catholic, so referring to Syphilis as the "Spanish" disease reinforced a politically useful perception that the Spanish were immoral or unworthy. However, the attributions are also suggestive of possible routes of the spread of the infection, at least as perceived by "recipient" populations. The inherent xenophobia of the terms also stemmed from the disease's particular epidemiology, often being spread by foreign sailors and soldiers during their frequent sexual contact with local prostitutes.


title: History of syphilis

text: During the 16th century, it was called "great pox" in order to distinguish it from smallpox. In its early stages, the great pox produced a rash similar to smallpox (also known as variola). However, the name is misleading, as smallpox was a far more deadly disease. The terms "lues" (or "Lues venerea", Latin for "venereal plague") and "Cupid's disease" have also been used to refer to syphilis. In Scotland, syphilis was referred to as the "Grandgore" or "Spanyie Pockis". The ulcers suffered by British soldiers in Portugal were termed "The Black Lion".


title: History of syphilis

text: There were originally no effective treatments for syphilis, although a number of remedies were tried. In the infant stages of this disease in Europe, many ineffective and dangerous treatments were used. The aim of treatment was to expel the foreign, disease-causing substance from the body, so methods included blood-letting, laxative use, and baths in wine and herbs or olive oil.


title: History of syphilis

text: Mercury was a common, long-standing treatment for syphilis. "The Canon of Medicine" (1025) by the Persian physician Ibn Sina suggested treating early stages of leprosy with mercury; during an early European outbreak of the disease, Francisco Lopez de Villalobos compared this to syphilis, though he noted major differences between the diseases. Paracelsus likewise noted mercury's positive effects in the Arabic treatment of leprosy, which was thought to be related to syphilis, and used the substance for treating the disease. Giorgio Sommariva of Verona is recorded to have used mercury to treat syphilis in 1496, and is often recognized as the first physician to have done so, although he may not have been a physician. During the sixteenth century, mercury was administered to syphilitic patients in various ways, including by rubbing it on the skin, by applying a plaster, and by mouth. A "Fumigation" method of administering mercury was also used, in which mercury was vaporized over a fire and the patients were exposed to the resulting steam, either by being placed in a bottomless seat over the hot coals, or by having their entire bodies except for the head enclosed in a box (called a "tabernacle") that received the steam. The goal of mercury treatment was to cause the patient to salivate, which was thought to expel the disease. Unpleasant side effects of mercury treatment included gum ulcers and loose teeth. Mercury continued to be used in syphilis treatment for centuries; an 1869 article by Thomas James Walker, M. D., discussed administering mercury by injection for this purpose.


title: History of syphilis

text: Guaiacum was a popular treatment in the sixteenth century and was strongly advocated by Ulrich von Hutten and others. Because guaiacum came from Hispaniola where Columbus had landed, proponents of the Columbian theory contended that God had provided a cure in the same location from which the disease originated. In 1525, the Spanish priest Francisco Delicado, who himself suffered from syphilis, wrote "El modo de adoperare el legno de India occidentale" ("How to Use the Wood from the West Indies") discussing the use of guaiacum for treatment of syphilis. Although guaiacum did not have the unpleasant side effects of mercury, guaiacum was not particularly effective, at least not beyond the short term, and mercury was thought to be more effective. Some physicians continued to use both mercury and guaiacum on patients. After 1522, the Blatterhaus—an Augsburg municipal hospital for the syphilitic poor—would administer guaiacum (as a hot drink, followed by a sweating cure) as the first treatment, and use mercury as the treatment of last resort.


title: History of syphilis

text: Another sixteenth-century treatment advocated by the Italian physician Antonio Musa Brassavola was the oral administration of Root of China, a form of sarsaparilla ("Smilax"). In the seventeenth century, English physician and herbalist Nicholas Culpeper recommended the use of heartsease (wild pansy).


title: History of syphilis

text: Before effective treatments were available, syphilis could sometimes be disfiguring in the long term, leading to defects of the face and nose ("nasal collapse"). Syphilis was a stigmatized disease due to its sexually transmissible nature. Such defects marked the person as a social pariah, and a symbol of sexual deviancy. Artificial noses were sometimes used to improve this appearance. The pioneering work of the facial surgeon Gasparo Tagliacozzi in the 16th century marked one of the earliest attempts to surgically reconstruct nose defects. Before the invention of the free flap, only local tissue adjacent to the defect could be harvested for use, as the blood supply was a vital determining factor in the survival of the flap. Tagliacozzi's technique was to harvest tissue from the arm without removing its pedicle from the blood supply on the arm. The patient would have to stay with their arm strapped to their face until new blood vessels grew at the recipient site, and the flap could finally be separated from the arm during a second procedure.


title: History of syphilis

text: As the disease became better understood, more effective treatments were found. An antimicrobial used for treating disease was the organo-arsenical drug Salvarsan, whose anti-syphility properties were discovered in 1908 by Sahachiro Hata in the laboratory of Nobel prize winner Paul Ehrlich. The same group of researchers later discovered the related organo-arsenical, Neosalvarsan. The side-effect profile of Neosalvarsan is gentler and its storage and preparation were more convenient than those of Salvarsan, which must be stored under nitrogen.


title: History of syphilis

text: It was observed that sometimes patients who developed high fevers were cured of syphilis. Thus, for a brief time malaria was used as treatment for tertiary syphilis because it produced prolonged and high fevers (a form of pyrotherapy). This was considered an acceptable risk because the malaria could later be treated with quinine, which was available at that time. Malaria as a treatment for syphilis was usually reserved for late disease, especially neurosyphilis, and then followed by either Salvarsan or Neosalvarsan as adjuvant therapy. This discovery was championed by Julius Wagner-Jauregg, who won the 1927 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his discovery of the therapeutic value of malaria inoculation in the treatment of neurosyphilis. Later, hyperthermal cabinets (sweat-boxes) were used for the same purpose. These treatments were finally rendered obsolete by the discovery of penicillin, and its widespread manufacture after World War II allowed syphilis to be effectively and reliably cured.


title: History of syphilis

text: In 1905, Schaudinn and Hoffmann discovered "Treponema pallidum" in tissue of patients with syphilis. One year later, the first effective test for syphilis, the Wassermann test, was developed. Although it had some false positive results, it was a major advance in the detection and prevention of syphilis. By allowing testing before the acute symptoms of the disease had developed, this test allowed the prevention of transmission of syphilis to others, even though it did not provide a cure for those infected. In the 1930s the Hinton test, developed by William Augustus Hinton, and based on flocculation, was shown to have fewer false positive reactions than the Wassermann test. Both of these early tests have been superseded by newer analytical methods.


title: History of syphilis

text: While working at the Rockefeller University (then called the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research) in 1913, Hideyo Noguchi, a Japanese scientist, demonstrated the presence of the spirochete "Treponema pallidum" in the brain of a progressive paralysis patient, associating "Treponema pallidum" with neurosyphilis. Prior to Noguchi's discovery, syphilis had been a burden to humanity in many lands. Without its cause being understood, it was sometimes misdiagnosed and often misattributed to damage by political enemies. It is called "the great pretender" for its variety of symptoms. Felix Milgrom developed a test for syphilis. The Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize was named to honor the man who identified the agent in association with the late form of the infectious disease.


title: History of syphilis

text: An excavation of a seventeenth-century cemetery at St Thomas's Hospital in London, England found that 13 per cent of skeletons showed evidence of treponemal lesions. These lesions are only present in a small minority of syphilitic cases, implying that the hospital was treating large numbers of syphilitics. In 1770s London, approximately 1 in 5 people over the age of 35 were infected with syphilis. In 1770s Chester, the figure was about 8.06 per cent. By 1911, the figure for London was 11.4 per cent, about half that of the 1770s.


title: History of syphilis

text: A 2014 study estimated the prevalance of syphilis in the United Kingdom in 1911-1912 as 7.771%. The location with the highest prevalence was London, at 11.373%, and the social class with the highest prevalence was unskilled working-class, at 11.781%.


title: History of syphilis

text: The control of syphilis in the United Kingdom began with the 1916 report of a Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases. Clinics were established offering testing and education. This caused a fall in the prevalence of syphilis, leading to almost a halving of tabes dorsalis between 1914 and 1936. With the mass production of penicillin from 1943, syphilis could be cured. Syphilis screening was introduced for every pregnancy. Contact tracing was also introduced. By 1956, congenital syphilis had been almost eliminated, and female cases of acquired syphilis had been reduced to a hundredth of their level just 10 years previously.


title: History of syphilis

text: In 1978 in England and Wales, homosexual men accounted for 58% of syphilis cases in (and 76% of cases in London), but by 1994–6 this figure was 25%, possibly driven by safe-sex practices to avoid HIV. In 1995, only 130 total cases were reported. A substantial proportion of infections are linked to foreign travel. Antenatal testing continues.


title: History of syphilis

text: In the United States in 1917, 6% of World War I servicemen were found to have syphilis. In 1936 a public health campaign began to prescribe arsphenamine to treat syphilis. Between 1945 and 1955 penicillin was used to treat over two million Americans for syphilis, and contact tracing was introduced. Syphilis prevalance dropped to an all time low by 1955. A total of 6993 cases of primary and secondary syphilis were recorded in 1998, the lowest number since 1941. In 2000 and 2001 in the United States, the national rate of reported primary and secondary syphilis cases was 2.1 cases per 100,000 population (6103 cases reported). This was the lowest rate since 1941. As of 2014, the incidence increased to 6.3 cases per 100,000 population (19,999 cases reported). The majority of these new cases were in men who have sex with men. Syphilis in newborns in the United States increased from 8.4 cases per 100,000 live births (334 cases) between 2008 and 2012 to 11.6 cases per 100,000 live births (448 cases) between 2012 and 2014.


title: History of syphilis

text: The earliest known depiction of an individual with syphilis is Albrecht Dürer's "Syphilitic Man", a woodcut believed to represent a Landsknecht, a Northern European mercenary. The myth of the "femme fatale" or "poison women" of the 19th century is believed to be partly derived from the devastation of syphilis, with classic examples in literature including John Keats' "La Belle Dame sans Merci". Poet Sebastian Brandt in 1496 wrote a poem titled "De pestilentiali Scorra sive mala de Franzos" which explains the spread of the disease across the European continent. Brandt also created artistic creations showing religious and political views of syphilis, especially with a work showing Saint Mary and Jesus throwing lightning to punish or cure those afflicted by syphilis, and he also added King Maximilian I in the work, being rewarded by Mary and Jesus for his work against the immoral disease, to show the strong relationship between church and state during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.


title: History of syphilis

text: The Flemish artist Stradanus designed a print of a wealthy man receiving treatment for syphilis with the tropical wood guaiacum sometime around 1580. The title of the work is "Preparation and Use of Guayaco for Treating Syphilis". That the artist chose to include this image in a series of works celebrating the New World indicates how important a treatment, however ineffective, for syphilis was to the European elite at that time. The richly colored and detailed work depicts four servants preparing the concoction while a physician looks on, hiding something behind his back while the hapless patient drinks. Another artistic depiction of syphilis treatment is credited to Jacques Laniet in the seventeenth century as he illustrated a man using the fumigation stove, another popular method of syphilis treatment, with a nearby barrel etched with the saying "For a pleasure, a thousand pains." Remedies to cure syphilis were frequently illustrated to deter those from acts which could lead to the contraction of syphilis because the treatment methods were normally painful and ineffective.


title: History of syphilis

text: One of the most infamous United States cases of questionable medical ethics in the 20th century was the Tuskegee syphilis study. The study took place in Tuskegee, Alabama, and was supported by the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) in partnership with the Tuskegee Institute. The study began in 1932, when syphilis was a widespread problem and there was no safe and effective treatment. The study was designed to measure the progression of untreated syphilis. By 1947, penicillin had been shown to be an effective cure for early syphilis and was becoming widely used to treat the disease. Its use in later syphilis, however, was still unclear. Study directors continued the study and did not offer the participants treatment with penicillin. This is debated, and some have found that penicillin was given to many of the subjects.


title: History of syphilis

text: In the 1960s, Peter Buxtun sent a letter to the CDC, who controlled the study, expressing concern about the ethics of letting hundreds of black men die of a disease that could be cured. The CDC asserted that it needed to continue the study until all of the men had died. In 1972, Buxtun went to the mainstream press, causing a public outcry. As a result, the program was terminated, a lawsuit brought those affected nine million dollars, and Congress created a commission empowered to write regulations to deter such abuses from occurring in the future.


title: History of syphilis

text: On 16 May 1997, thanks to the efforts of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee formed in 1994, survivors of the study were invited to the White House to be present when President Bill Clinton apologized on behalf of the United States government for the study.


title: History of syphilis

text: Syphilis experiments were also carried out in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. They were United States-sponsored human experiments, conducted during the government of Juan José Arévalo with the cooperation of some Guatemalan health ministries and officials. Doctors infected soldiers, prisoners, and mental patients with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases, without the informed consent of the subjects, and then treated them with antibiotics. In October 2010, the U.S. formally apologized to Guatemala for conducting these experiments.


title: History of syphilis

text: In 2015, Cuba became the first country in the world to receive validation from WHO for eliminating mother to child transmission of syphilis.


title: Janet (album)

text: Janet (stylized as janet.) is the fifth studio album by American singer Janet Jackson, released on May 18, 1993, by Virgin Records America. Prior to its release, Jackson was at the center of a high-profile bidding war over her recording contract. In 1991, her original label A&M sought to renew her contract, while others, such as Atlantic, Capitol, and Virgin all vied to sign her. After meeting with Virgin owner Richard Branson, she signed with the label. The contract was worth an estimated $40 million, making her the world's then-highest paid musical act.


title: Janet (album)

text: Criticism that her success in the music industry was attributed to being a member of the Jackson family and a producer-dependent artist led her to write all lyrics for the album, in addition to co-producing every song and co-writing each of their arrangements with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Its title, read "Janet, period.", is meant to disassociate her public image from her family, dropping her surname. An R&B record, "Janet" incorporated pop, hip hop, opera, house and jazz, eliminating the rigid, industrial sound of her previous records. Lyrically, the theme of "Janet" is sexual intimacy—an abrupt departure from her conservative image. Much of her lyrics emphasize a woman's perspective on sexuality and the demand for practicing safe sex.


title: Janet (album)

text: In the United States, "Janet" became the singer's third consecutive album to top the "Billboard" 200 and her first to debut at number one. Selling 350,000 copies in its first week, it set a record for the highest first week sales for a female artist at that time. Certified sixfold platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), it has sold over seven million copies in the US according to Nielsen SoundScan. Internationally, "Janet" topped the record charts in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and the United Kingdom, and has sold an estimated 14 million copies worldwide.


title: Janet (album)

text: "Janet" remains one of only seven albums in history to produce six top-ten hits on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, including the number-one singles "That's the Way Love Goes" and "Again". The MTV-sponsored Janet World Tour supporting the album received critical acclaim for Jackson's elaborate stage performances, reinforcing her reputation as one of the preeminent artists of the MTV generation"." "Janet" cemented her as an international icon and sex symbol, and is listed by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 200 Definitive Albums of All Time. Academics argued the erotic imagery in her music videos have contributed to a higher degree of sexual freedom among women.


title: Janet (album)

text: Rumors of a multimillion-dollar bidding war over Jackson's recording contract began to circulate in spring 1991. "Jet" magazine reported: "A recording company has offered in excess of $50 million to sign superstar Janet Jackson to a recording contract, making the 24-year-old singer/songwriter/dancer/actress the key player in one of the hottest bidding wars among today's major record companies." Reports indicated that Capitol, Virgin and Atlantic were all bidding for Jackson's contract, as her ties to A&M would soon expire; by March, she had signed with Virgin. "The New York Times" declared "Janet Jackson has signed what is believed to be the most lucrative contract in the history of recording. The 24-year-old singer, songwriter and actress signed an exclusive contract with Virgin Records it was announced yesterday." Her new contract guaranteed a twenty-two percent royalty payment, in addition to her then-historic signing bonus. Chuck Philips of the "Los Angeles Times" reported that it had been the largest bidding war in recent memory and that "[o]ne reason the bidding was so heavy, various industry observers have noted, was that Jackson-at just 24-is still a relatively fresh face on the pop scene and that her dance-pop style is ideal for today's pop/video climate." In addition, her potential as an international superstar proved to be the primary motivation for the label's investment. Jeff Ayeroff, co-managing director of Virgin in the US stated: "Janet is a world-class artist and we expect her growth to be enormous." Chairman Richard Branson spoke with Jackson privately to seal the deal. He commented: "A Rembrandt rarely becomes available... When it does, there are many people who are determined to get it. I was determined."


title: Janet (album)

text: Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" criticized the contract amount, considering it a gamble for Virgin. He stated that Jackson "is a producer-dependent artist—i.e., someone who relies on others to make her sound interesting and trendy. She also lacks a sharply defined personality, both as an artist and celebrity. Where singers like Ms. Houston and Mariah Carey have commanding vocal power, Ms. Jackson's is a relatively indistinguishable studio voice." Richard Branson rebutted this argument stating "Ms. Jackson has met with great success working with the production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, just as her brother Michael Jackson has experienced his greatest successes with the producer Quincy Jones. It is interesting that Mr. Holden doesn't mention this similar 'liability' when discussing Michael Jackson. To say that Ms. Jackson is 'dependent' on her producer is a shortsighted observation. She is a formidable talent who stands on her own." Michael Jackson would break his sister's record only days later, when he signed a $60 million contract with Sony Music Entertainment. Both sibling's contracts garnered considerable criticism. "Los Angeles Times" reported that "A&M Records President Al Cafaro, whose company lost the fierce bidding battle over Janet Jackson to Virgin Records, said record companies may be vesting too much importance in individual performers" as the funds used as advances to the Jacksons could have launched recording careers for numerous unknown talents. Cliff Burnstein of Q-Prime management commented that recording artists demands for advances upon signing would begin to escalate from that point forward.


title: Janet (album)

text: Prior to her first release with Virgin, Jackson was asked by Jam and Lewis to record a song for the sound track to the feature film "Mo' Money", released in 1992 by their label Perspective Records. Jon Bream of the "Star Tribune" reported: "For most movie soundtracks, producers negotiate with record companies, managers and lawyers for the services of big-name singers. Like the Hollywood outsiders that they are, Edina-based Jam and Lewis went directly to such stars as Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Luther Vandross, Bell Biv Devoe, Color Me Badd and Johnny Gill." Jackson and Vandross recorded the duet "The Best Things in Life Are Free" featuring Bell Biv Devoe and Ralph Tresvant, which peaked at number 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B Singles chart. Shortly afterward, Jackson began filming for her first feature length role in John Singleton's "Poetic Justice". Although she was encouraged by a major studio executive to take on a film in which she could portray a singer, she insisted on finding a different role. She explained: "About that same time John Singleton asked me to read his new script. John and I became buddies—I loved Boyz n the Hood—so I thought he was just asking my advice. I was shocked and honored to learn the screenplay had been written with me in mind. 'Would you play Justice?' he wanted to know. Yes! I'd finally found a role—a dramatic nonsinging role—that was right." Released in July 1993, "Poetic Justice" debuted at number one at the box office, grossing $11,728,455; it grossed a grand total of $27,515,786.


title: Janet (album)

text: After writing songs with themes of independence for "Control" and social injustice for "Rhythm Nation 1814", Jackson desired to devote her new album to love and relationships, describing the theme of her new album as "intimacy" and that "[s]exual communication is the name of the game." She stated in an interview with David Wild for "Rolling Stone" that "[w]hile I was doing Rhythm Nation, I was thinking about how things were so hard, so regimented and so black and white ... I thought I'd do something on the sexy side—which is hard for me since I grew up as a tomboy and don't really think of myself that way. But I think this album is more on the feminine tip." She also commented on how her experience acting in "Poetic Justice" played a role in taking a new direction with her music. Speaking with biographer David Ritz, she stated that ""Rhythm Nation" was a heavy record, and "Poetic Justice" was a heavy movie. I wanted to do something lighter but also daring ... When I wrote the album, I was still in a poetic frame of mind, inspired by Maya's beautiful language. You can hear that inspiration or the interludes and especially on the song "New Agenda". This time I felt much freer expressing myself."


title: Janet (album)

text: Despite the critical and commercial success of her two previous albums, Jackson continued to receive numerous comparisons to her brother Michael, often with doubts that she held staying power in the music industry. When Edna Gundersen of "USA Today" questioned her about the subject, she responded: "Certain people feel I'm just riding on my last name ... That's why I just put my first name on janet. and why I never asked my brothers to write or produce music for me." Virgin Records expressed the album title "punctuates the declaration of strength the singer, songwriter and producer boldly expresses on this moving collection of songs which explore love, sensuality, the power of sisterhood and her own evolving self-identity." Thomas Harrison, author of "Music of the 1990s" (2011) wrote that "[t]he conscious decision was made, by the company and/or Jackson, to put her into the same league as other one-named artists, such as Madonna, Bono, Beyonce and Prince, or at least to put her on the same standing as others in the industry who are often called by one name, such as Whitney, Mariah, Britney, Diana, Dolly, and Garth among others. Jackson could now, in a sense, stand on her own and not be seen as a product of the family entertainment machine." Sal Cinquemani of "Slant" magazine recounted the title of the album ultimately "announced the singer as completely independent of her male-dominated family [and] it positioned her as the person in charge of her sound."


title: Janet (album)

text: The album was recorded at Flyte Tyme Studios in Edina, Minnesota, from September 1992 to February 1993. Songs on the album, with the exception of "What'll I Do", were written by Janet Jackson, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and mixed by Steve Hodge and Dave Rideau; "What'll I Do" was written and produced by Jackson and Jellybean Johnson. Jackson took a larger role in songwriting and production than she did on her previous albums. She explained that "[a]ll my records are personal, and janet, is the most personal of them all. That's why this time around it was important for me to write all the lyrics and half of the melodies." Jam described the record as being "a more mature album musically." David Ritz noted that Jackson and her producers took risks by experimenting with musical influences that had not appeared in their previous work. He explained: "She asked Kathleen Battle and Public Enemy's Chuck D to contribute—an opera diva and a hardcore rapper, two artists one would not associate with Janet—and somehow pulled if off. Beyond Jam and Lewis, there's now a recognizable Janet Jackson production style that's gutsy and, in some cases, even eccentric."


title: Janet (album)

text: "That's The Way Love Goes" contains a sample loop of "Papa Don't Take No Mess" written by James Brown, Fred Wesley, Charles Bobbit, and John Starks. The song "Again", was originally just an experimental sound the production duo was considering. While Jackson found its melody compelling, the trio did not give the song serious contemplation until the film producers from "Poetic Justice" requested a ballad for the film's soundtrack. Jackson subsequently wrote the lyrics for "Again" and adapted them to Jam's melody. The song was arranged by Lee Blaskey and accompanied by members of the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.


title: Janet (album)

text: "janet." features eclectic production choices. The record incorporates R&B ("That's the Way Love Goes", "Where Are You Now", "The Body That Loves You", "Any Time, Any Place"), new jack swing ("You Want This", "Because of Love"), rock ("If", "What'll I Do"), opera ("This Time"), house ("Throb"), jazz ("Funky Big Band"), hip hop ("New Agenda"), and pop ("Again", "Whoops Now"). The album expanded Jackson's musical endeavors from the more electronic-based soundscapes of her prior albums. Like its immediate predecessor, "janet." also features a number of interludes between songs that vary from short conversations, instrumentals, and ambient-based tracks.


title: Janet (album)

text: In September 1993, Jackson appeared topless on the cover of "Rolling Stone" magazine with the hands of her then-husband René Elizondo, Jr. covering her breasts. The photograph is the original full-length version of the cropped image used on the cover of the "Janet" album, shot by Patrick Demarchelier. In the cover story, "Sexual Healing" by David Ritz, Jackson explained, "sex has been an important part of me for several years. But it just hasn't blossomed publicly until now. I've had to go through some changes and shed some old attitudes before feeling completely comfortable with my body. Listening to my new record, people intuitively understand the change in me". Ritz likened Jackson's transformation to Marvin Gaye as he stated, "just as Gaye moved from "What's Going On" to "Let's Get It On", from the austere to the ecstatic, Janet, every bit as serious-minded as Marvin, moved from "Rhythm Nation" to "Janet", her statement of sexual liberation".


title: Janet (album)

text: The image was cropped to show only Jackson's face on the album cover, and midriff in the interior booklet. The full version appears as the cover of the limited edition double-disc edition of the album, as well as the video compilation "Janet" released later that year. Sonia Murray of "The Vancouver Sun" later reported, "Jackson, 27, remains clearly established as both role model and sex symbol; the Rolling Stone photo of Jackson ... became one of the most recognizable, and most lampooned, magazine covers of the year".


title: Janet (album)

text: "That's the Way Love Goes", the album's lead single entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 at number fourteen and peaked at number one. The single was certified gold by the RIAA on November 12, 1993. Virgin records intended for "If" to be the lead single for the album, but Jackson, Jam and Lewis disagreed. "That's the Way Love Goes" remained at number one for eight weeks—the most successful chart performance of any member of the Jackson family. The single earned a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. "If" was released as the album's second single and peaked at number four on the Hot 100, receiving gold certification on September 28, 1993. To promote the album, Jackson performed a medley of the first two singles at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. "Again", peaked at number one on the Hot 100 on December 11, 1993, and topped the chart for two weeks. The single was certified gold and then doubled to platinum by the RIAA on December 17, 1993. The single earned a nomination at the 66th Academy Awards for Best Original Song, and she also performed the track at the ceremony. "Because of Love" reached number ten, but was not certified by the RIAA. "Any Time, Any Place" peaked at number two on the Hot 100 and was certified gold on July 11, 1994. "You Want This", the album's final commercial single for the United States, peaked at number eight on the Hot 100 and was awarded gold certification on December 6, 1994. The album's hidden track "Whoops Now" was released as a single in selected territories in 1995.


title: Janet (album)

text: The album's massive popularity at the time of its release made it one of the first instances in which an album's songs would chart prior to them being released as proper singles. "Throb," which would eventually be released as a B-side to "Any Time, Any Place" in June 1994, charted an entire year before due to unsolicited radio airplay, reaching number 66 on the Radio Songs Chart. Similarly, the album cut "Where Are You Now' reached number 30 on the same chart, being present on the chart for 37 weeks.


title: Janet (album)

text: Jackson's music video for "If" was staged as a futuristic Asian nightclub, with spy cameras monitoring the intimate interactions of patrons within their private boudoirs. The video is an elaborate metaphor for the single's message of sexual fantasy, desire and voyeurism. The video was directed by Dominic Sena, who previously worked with Jackson on music videos for "Rhythm Nation 1814". René Elizondo, Jr. directed the videos for "That's The Way Love Goes", and "Again". Videos for "Any Time, Any Place" and "You Want This" were directed by Keir McFarlane.


title: Janet (album)

text: Jackson embarked on her second world tour in support of her debut album with the Virgin Records label. Costumes and wardrobe for the tour were designed by stylist Tanya Gill, with outfits "rang[ing] from pipebone vests with high-heeled moccasin boots to zoot suits top-hats to circus-ringmaster bustiers." With a show encompassing over 100 costumes, a team of over 50 costume makers was led by wardrobe supervisor, Helen Hiatt. The tour's debut concert was held on November 24, 1993, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Jackson held a four show engagement at Madison Square Garden which began on December 17, 1993, with the final performance held on New Year's Eve. Michael Snyder of the "San Francisco Chronicle" described Jackson's stage performance at the San Jose Arena in February 1994, as what erased the line between "stadium-size pop music concerts and full-scale theatrical extravaganzas".


title: Janet (album)

text: Her performances also garnered criticism. Renee Graham of "The Boston Globe" commented that her stage show at Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts on June 20, 1994, proved her limited vocal range as "[t]he numerous costume changes, pyrotechnics and the dancing all but overshadowed her razor-sharp seven-piece band and three back-up singers", asserting Jackson was a better performer and entertainer than she was a vocalist. However, the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch"s Steve Pick observed Jackson's stage show at the Riverport Amphitheatre on July 12, 1994, made the "Janet" album's numerous hit singles more effective with her "larger-than-life stage persona".


title: Janet (album)

text: "Rolling Stone" magazine declared "[a]s princess of America's black royal family, everything Janet Jackson does is important. Whether proclaiming herself in charge of her life, as she did on "Control" (1986), or commander in chief of a rhythm army dancing to fight society's problems ("Rhythm Nation 1814", from 1989), she's influential. And when she announces her sexual maturity, as she does on her new album, "Janet", it's a cultural moment." Claiming the album should bring her critical praise, the magazine concludes its review with the statement "[t]he princess of America's black royal family has announced herself sexually mature and surrendered none of her crown's luster in the process. Black women and their friends, lovers and children have a victory in Janet." Robert Christgau originally gave the album an "honorable mention" in his consumer guide for "The Village Voice", wherein he complimented its erotic songs and cited "Funky Big Band", "Throb", and "Be a Good Boy" as highlights. "Billboard" magazine gave a positive review, stating "[d]estined to be an instant smash, Ms. Jackson's latest is a glamorous assortment of styles—pop, dance, R&B, rock, jazz, rap—each delivered with consummate skill and passion. "Janet" is described as "a career-defining record earning Janet the right to operate on a first-name basis."


title: Janet (album)

text: Michael Snyder of the "San Francisco Chronicle" lauded the album's content, stating "[t]his 75-minute opus, her first effort under a megabuck contract with the Virgin label, could be the make-out album of the '90s ... a silken soul odyssey, charting one woman's journey to emotional and sexual fulfillment through 10 songs and a series of spoken-word and ambient snippets." Caroline Sullivan of "The Guardian" declared the album's "luxuriant collection of house, soul and pop is her best yet. Cod-Madonna throwaways like "Throb" aside, there are surprises all over the place. Public Enemy's Chuck D counterweights Jackson's sugared vocal to stunning effect on a black-pride anthem, "New Agenda"; soprano Kathleen Battle turns the heavyweight funk of "This Time" into something eerie and beautiful."


title: Janet (album)

text: Robert Johnson of "San Antonio Express-News" praised Jackson and her producers for taking a chance on a new sound. He wrote: "Under the enormous pressure of her $40 million deal with Virgin Records, Jackson had to deliver something big enough to put her on a first-name basis with the world ... 'janet.' isn't perfect, but it should be enough to make her the Queen of Pop." "Dammit, Janet!," marveled "Melody Maker". "The last Jackson hero(ine) has carried peacock feathers to the dance. Holier than Mahalia." ""Janet" will please most people," remarked "The Daily Telegraph", "because it is crammed with the sort of tender, joyous pop music that lingers long after smarter records have been forgotten."


title: Janet (album)

text: Steve Pick of "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" stated that although Jackson may not be the greatest singer or songwriter, but she has nonetheless "created and projected a persona that is irresistible. Part of it is a sexual allure, but more of it is the way she demands and receives attention." John Mackie with "The Vancouver Sun" reported the album gives Jackson an "incredible style", proclaiming "Janet" as "the best commercial album so far this year, an album that could well vault her past the stumbling Madonna as Queen of the charts. Heck, she might even outsell Michael with this one." "While her brother loops the loop on Planet Pepsi, it's hard to imagine the spotlight ever shifting to his sassy sis," remarked NME, "but this modern hunk of an album should redress some of the balance."


title: Janet (album)

text: Jay Cocks of "TIME" magazine offered a mixed review, stating "[f]or all its sass, there is something a little too careful about this album: the rhythms are too studied and studiobound, the sexiness slightly forced. It's as if Jackson, aware that this was her premier effort under a new, $40 million record deal, felt weighed down by the burden of proving herself. When, however, she kicks loose on What'll I Do, a nifty, '60s-style soul stirrer, it's clear that Jackson's got nothing to prove to anyone, including herself." Jon Pareles of "The New York Times" compares Jackson to her brother Michael and Madonna, stating "Jackson's real strength, abetted by Jam and Lewis, is the way she tops dance-club rhythms with pop melodies. Less up-to-the-second than Madonna but still effective, the Jackson team has obviously been listening to the competition. Madonna's 'Justify My Love' echoes in 'That's the Way Love Goes,' and 'If' resembles Michael Jackson's 'Why You Wanna Trip on Me,' starting with screaming guitar and a chanted verse, rising to a sweet melody." He also comments that despite its shortcomings, "[t]he album's not about being real; it's about seamlessness and ingenuity, about giving the public something it can use. For a superstar, Jackson is downright selfless, but she gets the job done."


title: Janet (album)

text: Chris Willman of the "Los Angeles Times" gave an unfavorable review. Although sex in popular music is considered a standard concept, Willman states the only reason the album would cause a reaction is because of Jackson's well-known conservative nature. He comments: "So be it. Jackson's first album in four years is destined for a long ride at No. 1, not because it's any great piece of work, but largely for its aphrodisiacal aspirations." David Browne of "Entertainment Weekly" stated that "[i]f musical variety and daring lyrics were all that mattered, "Janet" would make the grade. But the album has a lot to prove. It is the first delivery under her $40 million contract with Virgin, and its title—which translates as 'Janet, period'—is meant as a declaration of independence from her oddball siblings ... She still sounds like a young woman from a male-dominated family who is searching for her identity and voice. Mostly, though, "Janet" sounds like a mess—period." David Sinclair of "The Times" wrote: "In the steamy, post-Madonna climate of the 1990s, Jackson is not about to let thoughts of love get in the way of the mechanics of lust, and like many of her superstar contemporaries she tends to confuse sex with soul."


title: Janet (album)

text: Jackson received five nominations for the 1994 American Music Awards: Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist, Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist, Favorite Pop/Rock Album and Favorite Soul/R&B Album for "Janet", and Favorite Soul/R&B Single for "That's the Way Love Goes" but lost all the awards to Whitney Houston for "The Bodyguard (soundtrack)". The same year she received two Grammy Award nominations—Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female and Best R&B Song for "That's The Way Love Goes"—winning Best R&B Song. Several critics asserted she was unjustly overlooked in the Grammy's three major categories: Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year. Greg Kot of the "Chicago Tribune" stated, "Jackson again was denied a nomination for album of the year, even though 'janet' (Virgin) has remained in the Top 10 since its release last summer and has been critically acclaimed." He adds that "the oversight is doubly vexing, because [Jackson]—in a songwriting and production partnership with Jimmy Jam (aka James Harris III) and Terry Lewis—is not just a multiplatinum pop act but an artist who has reshaped the sound and image of rhythm and blues over the last decade." Kot laid blame to the oversight on the fact that many believed her to be a producer-dependent artist—an opinion he found to be in error. Similarly, producer Jimmy Jam stated: "It's easy to say that the two albums she did before she met us weren't successful and when she got with us she became successful ... 'Control' was the first album she actually had input. I think that's just as significant as the fact we (Jam and Lewis) did the record."


title: Janet (album)

text: Later reviews were generally positive. In a retrospective review, Christgau gave "Janet" an "A−" and said that although the costly production by Jam & Lewis makes the music sound "more pornographic than obscene", "this achievement is Janet's, period ... Better nose than Michael, better navel than Madonna, better sex than either." Laura Sinagra wrote in "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004) that with "janet", Jackson "took more risks" lyrically than on her previous albums. Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" notes that the album "was at the forefront of the increasingly popular sampling trend in the '90s, with one song even employing three different samples as its foundation. Some make perfect sense on a thematic as well as sonic level, like Kool & the Gang's "Kool It (Here Comes the Fuzz)" and Stevie Wonder's "Superwoman, Where Were You When I Needed You" on "New Agenda," or the orchestral flourish from Diana Ross & the Supremes' "Someday We'll Be Together" on "If," which seems to exist for the sole purpose of providing the impetus behind one of the greatest dance-break routines in music video history." Commenting on the album's broad range, he states: "The mother of eclectic, genre-hopping records by Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, and Fergie, janet. incorporates new jack swing, house, pop, rock, hip-hop, jazz, and even opera, but the album's range of styles isn't jarring in the least ... Janet has never been one thing and janet. is a feminist statement, to be sure." Alex Henderson of AllMusic offered a positive review, saying "[a]nyone who expected Jackson to top Rhythm Nation—her crowning achievement and an incredibly tough act to follow—was being unrealistic. But with janet., she delivered a respectable offering that, although not as strong as either Control or Nation, has many strong points."


title: Janet (album)

text: "Janet" debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. It was the first time in history a female artist debuted at number one in the SoundScan era; with the largest first week sales in history for a female artist at the time with 350,000 units sold in its first week. The album also earned worldwide success, debuting at number one in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. It also debuted in the top 10 in Sweden, The Netherlands, Canada (with 65,000 copies sold at the first week) and Switzerland. In Germany the album peaked at number five and charted for 49 total weeks, becoming Jackson's longest charting album.


title: Janet (album)

text: "Janet" was first certified gold by the RIAA on August 8, 1993, denoting 500,000 units shipped within the United States. The same day, the album's certification was raised to 3× platinum, denoting 3,000,000 units shipped. On November 17, 1993, "Janet" received 4× platinum certification and was later awarded 5× platinum on December 17, 1993. The following year on April 12, 1994, the album was certified 6× platinum. It was the second best selling album of 1993 in United States with 4.3 million copies sold, behind "The Bodyguard" soundtrack and was the biggest selling album by a solo artist. Within seven months of release the album had sold over ten million copies worldwide. Other certifications include a Double Gold certification in France, a 2× Platinum certification in the UK And Australia, a Platinum in New Zealand and a Gold certification in Norway.


title: Janet (album)

text: According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album has sold 7,035,000 million copies in the United States since its release, and also sold an additional 860,000 copies through BMG Music Club. With estimated worldwide sales of over 14 million copies, it is Jackson's best selling album.


title: Janet (album)

text: Although Jackson had reached superstar status in the United States, she had yet to achieve the same level of response internationally. According to Nacy Berry, vice chairman of Virgin Records, "Janet" marked the first time the label "had centrally coordinated and strategized a campaign on a worldwide basis" which ultimately brought her to a plateau of global recognition. Her historic multimillion-dollar contract made her the highest-paid artist in history, until brother Michael renegotiated his contract with Sony Music Entertainment only days later. Sonia Murry noted that she remained "the highest-paid female in pop ... a whirlwind of fashion, personality and slick musical packaging rivaled only by Madonna and Whitney Houston in today's pop pantheon." James Robert Parish, author of "Today's Black Hollywood" (1995) wrote: "She confirmed her status as today's Queen of Pop when, not long ago, she signed a $35-$40 million recording contract with Virgin Records." Music critic Nelson George noted that while surpassing Michael would be next to impossible, Janet had assuredly reached iconic status. He explained: "What worked for Michael 10 years ago is working for her now ... Michael was clearly the voice of the '80s, those that grew up with him since Motown. And with the themes (independence, social consciousness and up-front yet responsible sexuality) that she's addressing in her albums and the popularity she's enjoying, she could very well be the voice of the '90s."


title: Janet (album)

text: "Rolling Stone's" "The '90s: The Inside Stories from the Decade That Rocked" (2010) documented that she had achieved some level of growth with each of her records, and that with "Janet", "[u]sing soul, rock and dance elements, as well as opera diva Kathleen Battle, [she] unleashed her most musically ambitious record, guided as always, by producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis." Richard J. Ripani author of "The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950–1999" (2006) noted that she had led the incorporation of rap into mainstream R&B with a select group of artists, in that "rap music no longer sounded so musically distant to many R&B listeners because many of its traits were commonly heard in songs by mainstream artists such as Janet Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Keith Sweat, and others." "Vibe" magazine observed that "R&B was omnipresent in 1993. It was a year in which Janet Jackson, at 27, topped the "Billboard" pop album charts for six straight summer weeks, with her critically lauded, six-times-platinum "Janet"" It became one of only five albums in the history of the "Billboard" 200—along with Whitney Houston's "Whitney" (1987), Norah Jones's "Feels Like Home" (2004), Taylor Swift's "Fearless" (2008), and Susan Boyle's "I Dreamed a Dream" (2009)—to debut at number one and remain at the top of the chart for a minimum of six consecutive weeks. It is also only one of seven albums—including Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (1982) and "Bad" (1987), Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the U.S.A." (1984), George Michael's, "Faith" (1987), "Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814" (1989) and Katy Perry's, "Teenage Dream" (2010) to yield a minimum of six top ten hit singles on the Hot 100.


title: Janet (album)

text: The release of "Janet" signaled the singer's transformation from conservative teen role model to adult sex symbol. In "You've Come A Long Way, Baby: Women, Politics, and Popular Culture" (1996), Lilly J. Goren observed that "[Her] 1993 album "Janet" moved away from politically driven lyrics to songs about love and sex-lyrics that could capitalize on her new sexy, more scantily clad image in MTV music videos. Jackson's evolution from politically aware musician to sexy diva marked the direction that society and the music industry were encouraging the dance-rock divas to pursue." Reporter Edna Gunderson commented: "The woman whose hourglass torso and sensual gyrating have made her MTV's reigning sex kitten is today a vision of wholesome beauty." Professor and social critic Camille Paglia expressed: "Janet's unique persona combines bold, brash power with quiet sensitively and womanly mystery. Her latest music is lightning and moonglow."


title: Janet (album)

text: Her music videos contributed to a higher degree of sexual freedom among young women, as Jean M. Twenge, author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before" (2007) wrote: "In Alfred Kinsey's studies in the 1950s, only 3% of the young women had received oral sex from a man. By the mid-1990s, however, 75% of women aged 18-24 had experienced cunnilingus. Music videos by female artists have contributed to the trend, with both Mary J. Blige and Janet Jackson heavily implying male-on-female oral sex in music videos by pushing down on a man's head until he's in exactly the right position." Similarly, Paula Kamen in "Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution" (2000) states that "[i]n the early to mid-1990s, oral sex even reached mainstream music as politically charged demand of truly liberated women," citing TLC, Mary J. Blige and Janet Jackson as examples of female artists simulating cunnilingus in their videos. "Rolling Stone" wrote that "she celebrated becoming an erotic being ... [showing] young women a way to have their sexual freedom and their dignity, to have their cake and eat it too." She was named Best Female Singer and Female Sex Symbol by "Rolling Stone" for the year 1993 in pop music. Goren adds that later pop stars such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Pink would rely on image, sex appeal and choreography as much as musical talent.


title: Janet (album)

text: All tracks written and produced by Janet Jackson, James Harris III and Terry Lewis, except where noted.


title: Got the Beat

text: Got the Beat (; stylized as GOT the beat) is a South Korean supergroup formed by SM Entertainment in 2022. It is the first sub-unit of project group Girls On Top, and consists of seven members: soloist BoA, Taeyeon and Hyoyeon from Girls' Generation, Seulgi and Wendy from Red Velvet, and Karina and Winter from Aespa.


title: Got the Beat

text: All members of Got the Beat are part of SM Entertainment's recording artists lineup. BoA had been an active artist since the age of 13, when she debuted as a soloist in 2000. Taeyeon and Hyoyeon debuted as members of Girls' Generation in 2007, and as members of Girls' Generation's second sub-unit Oh!GG in 2018. Taeyeon is also a member of Girls' Generation's first sub-unit Girls' Generation-TTS since 2012. Taeyeon and Hyoyeon have been soloists since 2015 and 2016, respectively. Seulgi and Wendy debuted as members of Red Velvet in 2014. Seulgi is a member of Red Velvet's sub-unit Red Velvet – Irene & Seulgi since 2020, while Wendy debuted as a soloist in 2021. Karina and Winter debuted as members of Aespa in 2020.


title: Got the Beat

text: SM Entertainment announced the launch of the project group Girls On Top and its first sub-unit Got the Beat on December 27, 2021, with Got the Beat focusing on intense dance songs and performances. On December 28, 2021, it was announced that the group's debut single "Step Back" would be released on January 3, 2022. The song peaked at number 11 on the Gaon Digital Chart and at number 5 on the "Billboard" World Digital Songs Chart. The group unveiled their first "Step Back" performance stage at the on January 1, before making their official broadcast debut on music program M Countdown almost a month later. Got the Beat won their first music show award on SBS's Inkigayo on January 30.


title: Eunice aphroditois

text: Eunice aphroditois is a benthic bristle worm of warm marine waters. It lives mainly in the Atlantic Ocean, but can also be found in the Indo-Pacific. It ranges in length from less than to . Its iridescent cuticle produces a wide range of colors, from black to purple. This species is an ambush-predator; it hunts by burrowing its whole body in soft sediment on the ocean floor and waiting until its antennae detect prey. It then strikes with its sharp mouthparts. It may also be found among coral reefs.


title: Eunice aphroditois

text: "E. aphroditois" is commonly known as the "sand-striker" or "bobbit-worm"; the latter name is from the John and Lorena Bobbitt case.


title: Eunice aphroditois

text: These ambush predators have no eyes and five antennae on their head that are used to sense prey. The body is covered by a hard exoskeleton. The mandibles can be retracted inside the body and are responsible for striking and stunning prey; they are capable of snapping some prey in half. Typically, "E. aphroditois" ranges from deep purple to black, along with metallic colors. The largest known specimen on record reached 299 centimeters (9.81 ft) in length, making it the longest known member of the polychaete class. Despite these great lengths, the worms are slim, with the body only about 25.5 millimeters (1.00 in) wide.


title: Eunice aphroditois

text: This species may be found prowling among the prey-rich environment of coral reefs, where its coloration allows it to blend in and its slim body enables it to hunt in tight places. It inhabits a wide range of other habitats, particularly sandy and muddy sediments, as well as around rocks and sponges. It has been recorded at depths of up to 95 meters.


title: Eunice aphroditois

text: "E. aphroditois" senses passing prey with its antennae, seizes the prey with its mouth, and drags it into its burrow. To reduce predation risk, some fish engage in mobbing behavior, during which a group of fish will direct jets of water into the worm's burrow to disorient it. This species is not only considered to be a carnivore, feeding on a plethora of species of fish, but it can also be considered an herbivore/omnivore, feeding on algae, as well as a decomposer, feeding on dead and decaying matter.


title: Eunice aphroditois

text: Ancestral species may have exhibited the same hunting-behavior twenty million years ago, according to fossil-records.


title: Eunice aphroditois

text: Like most of the class Polychaete, "E. aphroditois" is a sexually-reproducing organism that lacks external reproductive organs. During spawning, female polychaetes produce a pheromone that attracts males and causes them to release sperm; this in turn triggers the female to release eggs into the water, where fertilization occurs. Few offspring survive to adulthood because often, the eggs are eaten by other animals or destroyed.


title: Eunice aphroditois

text: While not commonly kept in aquaculture, individuals of "E. aphroditois" are occasionally found in home aquaria, where smaller specimens can evade detection by being transported into the tank in live rocks, where they then grow in size. As "E. aphroditois" hunts fish, it cannot be kept as part of a community tank and should be removed when found, as it will deplete the aquarium's stock by direct predation.


title: Paula Cole

text: Paula Cole (born April 5, 1968) is an American singer-songwriter. After gaining attention for her performances as a vocalist on Peter Gabriel's 1993–1994 Secret World Tour, she released her first album, "Harbinger", which suffered from a lack of promotion when the label, Imago Records, folded shortly after its release. Her second album, "This Fire" (1996), brought her worldwide acclaim, peaking at number 20 on the "Billboard" 200 album chart and producing two hit singles, the triple-Grammy nominated "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?", which reached the top ten of the "Billboard" Hot 100 in 1997, and "I Don't Want to Wait", which was used as the theme song of the television show "Dawson's Creek". She won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1998.


title: Paula Cole

text: Her third album, 1999's "Amen", marked a major stylistic departure for Cole, and this alienated many of her former fans; the album sales were disappointing compared to the multi-Platinum sales of her prior effort. She has since released several more albums, including the jazz-influenced "Courage" (2007) and "Ithaca" (2010), which marked a return to her 1990s folk-rock sound. Her most recent release was titled "American Quilt", and came out in May 2021. Besides recording and performing, Cole has also served on the faculty at Berklee College of Music since 2013.


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole was raised in Rockport, Massachusetts, United States; her mother, Stephanie Cole, a mixed media artist, was an elementary school art teacher, and her father, Jim Cole, was a professor of biology and ecology at Salem State College, and he played bass in the polka band "Johnny Prytko and the Connecticut Hi-Tones". Her older sister Irene played piano.


title: Paula Cole

text: She attended Rockport High School where she was president of her senior class and performed in school theatrical productions such as "South Pacific". Cole then attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she studied jazz singing and improvisation with Bob Stoloff. She sang jazz standards at lounges and nightclubs. She was offered a record deal by the jazz label GRP Records, but decided to turn it down.


title: Paula Cole

text: After graduating Berklee, she moved to San Francisco and began working on song ideas. She lived with three roommates and ate meagerly, building up her home studio and writing down song ideas including one that later became "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" Impressing label president Terry Ellis with her demo performances, she signed with his Imago Records in 1992, and was coached by veteran artist's manager John Carter on the album project that would become "Harbinger".


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole got her first big professional break when she was invited to perform on Peter Gabriel's 1993–94 Secret World Tour. To replace Sinéad O'Connor who left the tour, Gabriel sought Cole on the recommendation of his studio engineer Kevin Killen. He left an answering machine message for her at her apartment in San Francisco, and she immediately flew to Mannheim, Germany, for her only rehearsal with Gabriel, shortly before performing in front of 16,000 people.


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole joined the two last legs of Peter Gabriel's 1993–94 Secret World tour. A video of the concert was shot just days after Cole joined the tour. The video was released as "Secret World Live", with Cole covering all the primary female vocals and featured in duets with Gabriel, especially the songs "Don't Give Up" on which she sang the part that Kate Bush recorded with Gabriel in 1986, and "Blood of Eden" recorded by Gabriel and Sinéad O'Connor in 1992. The film received the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. Cole was also the main female vocalist on "Secret World Live", the audio album documenting the tour. The tour gave Cole international exposure as well as experience performing on a large stage. Her performance earned high praise: in a retrospective review, PopMatters wrote that Cole was "one of the real stars" on the tour, that she easily handled Kate Bush's parts, and that she was "maybe a superior vocalist" to Sinéad O'Connor.


title: Paula Cole

text: Shortly after the tour, Cole released her first album "Harbinger" in 1994. She appeared with Melissa Etheridge to sing a duet on VH1. Imago Records went out of business a few months after the album came out. In 1995, Cole signed on to Warner Bros. Records. Warner reissued "Harbinger" in the autumn of 1995.


title: Paula Cole

text: "Harbinger" featured songs dwelling on Cole's personal thoughts on discrimination and unhappiness. The songs were musically lush but driven and bleak. The accompanying artwork featured photographs of Cole with a boyishly short haircut, wearing loose fitting black sweatclothes, combat boots and nose ring. The Imago label folded and promotion of "Harbinger" was limited, affecting its sales. A single, "I Am So Ordinary", was released with a black-and-white video that reflected the album's artwork.


title: Paula Cole

text: In late 1996, Cole released her second album on Warner, "This Fire", which was entirely self-produced. The album's debut single, "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?", went to No. 8 on "Billboard" magazine's pop chart. The follow-up single "I Don't Want to Wait" reached No. 11, its popularity bolstered by its use as the theme song for the hit teen drama series "Dawson's Creek" which debuted over a year after the album. The single "Me" (No. 35 Airplay chart) was also released as a radio-only single. The title "Hush, Hush, Hush", a duet with Peter Gabriel, talks about AIDS and about a young man dying in his father's comforting arms. "Feelin' Love" was a single that was included on the soundtrack to "".


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole was a featured artist on Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair during its prototype year, 1996, and for the major tours of 1997 and 1998. She was nominated for several Grammy Awards in 1997. Among them was "Producer of the Year" (Cole was the third woman to ever be nominated in this category after Janet Jackson in 1990 and Mariah Carey in 1992); she did not win, but she did go on to win "Best New Artist" that same year.


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole took a hiatus to raise her daughter, Sky. In 1999 Cole released "Amen" with the newly formed Paula Cole Band. The album's debut single "I Believe In Love" was initially not a success but was remixed by producer Jonathan Peters into a successful dance song. The song "Be Somebody" was featured and performed by Paula and the band at P3 on the hit TV show "Charmed" in 2000. The album which had guest appearances by DJ Premier and long-time Cole fan Tionne Watkins featured some R&B and hip-hop influences but failed to match the success of "This Fire". A fourth album was recorded with Hugh Padgham but the label refused to release it; in 2005 Cole uploaded one of the tracks, "Singing Out My Life", to her own website to get her sound heard. She also recorded a song called "It's My Life" during these sessions, which can be heard in Mercury automobile commercials. Cole also made a home recording of a song protesting President Bush and the Iraq War titled "My Hero, Mr. President!", which she posted on her website.


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole returned in June 2007 with her fourth studio album "Courage", which was released on Decca Records and produced by Bobby Colomby at the Capitol Studios in Hollywood.


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole's fifth studio album, "Ithaca", was released September 21, 2010. She wrote and co-produced all of the songs on the album. Cole says it "represents that inner fortitude and the journey I've been on."


title: Paula Cole

text: "Raven" is Cole's sixth studio album. It was funded by a Kickstarter campaign which ran from September 22 to October 29, 2012, and raised $75,258. The album was released on April 23, 2013, on her 675 label. Cole wrote the 11 songs on the album including two from early in her career, "Imaginary Man" and "Manitoba". Her mother had saved these songs on cassette tapes. Most of the album was recorded in one week at a barn in Massachusetts. The musicians included co-producer/drummer Ben Wittman, guitarist Kevin Barry and bassist Tony Levin. She has worked with Wittman and Barry since she was 19.


title: Paula Cole

text: "7" is Cole's seventh studio album released on March 23, 2015, via Cole's website and to other digital music outlets on April 10, 2015. In Cole's words, it is "a collection of songs that came suddenly and urgently. The songs demanded to be written and released, as if my subconscious needed to reach out to me; to tell me what it thought about all I was going through. I recorded this album live, as an acoustic quartet. It sounds like a soft, soulful album made in the 1960s and the songs speak for themselves."


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole announced that she was selling her new live album "This Bright Red Feeling" exclusively on CD at live shows and at her website, with intentions to put it online for digital sale soon. The album is a recording of her live New York City show on May 1, 2016, but also includes re-recordings of two of her biggest commercial hits. The album's title comes from a lyric from her song "Tiger".


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole announced a new Kickstarter project on June 16, 2016, for a covers studio album, "Ballads". It raised $76,899. The album was released on August 11, 2017. The first single, a cover of Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child", was released on June 1.


title: Paula Cole

text: An article from The Independent has stated that Paula is due to release a new studio album, in 2021, titled "American Quilt". The same article detailed streaming issues with "Dawson's Creek", and the initial omission of "I Don't Want To Wait" as the original theme. Ostensibly the entire issue boils down to money, and attempted cost-saving at Warner Bros Television. Paula announced in January 2021 that a "verbal agreement" has been reached for the use of Cole's re-recorded version of the theme, taken from "This Bright Red Feeling".


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole performed a two-hour set at Berklee Performance Center in Boston, Massachusetts on February 16, 2007, during which she debuted several songs from her upcoming fourth studio album, "Courage". The set began with a solo piano version of "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?", which was replayed by the full band toward the end of the concert. Her performance was reviewed favorably in "The Boston Globe" on February 19, 2007. In March 2007, her official MySpace page previewed three new songs from "Courage": "Comin' Down", "El Greco", and the album's first single, entitled "14".


title: Paula Cole

text: Cole is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism, and worked with them on a radio public service announcement.


title: Paula Cole

text: On July 10, 2007, Cole sang "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch of the 2007 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. In August 2007, Cole toured with Mandy Moore, playing mid-size venues in the western United States.


title: Paula Cole

text: On June 17, 2008, she sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Game 6 of the NBA Finals in Boston. In August 2008 and 2009, Cole continued to tour and promote her CD "Courage".


title: Paula Cole

text: Since 2013, Cole has been on the voice faculty at Berklee College of Music while continuing an active performing career.


title: Paula Cole

text: In June 2002, Cole married Moroccan musician Hassan Hakmoun, whom she had met on the Secret World Tour in 1994. The couple divorced in 2007. They have one daughter, Sky, born in 2001.


title: Coywolf

text: Coywolf is an informal term for a canid hybrid descended from coyotes, eastern wolves, gray wolves and dogs. All members of the genus "Canis" are closely genetically related with 78 chromosomes and therefore can interbreed. One genetic study indicates that these two species genetically diverged relatively recently (around 55,000–117,000 years ago). Genomic studies indicate that nearly all North American gray wolf populations possess some degree of admixture with coyotes following a geographic cline, with the lowest levels occurring in Alaska, and the highest in Ontario and Quebec, as well as Atlantic Canada.


title: Coywolf

text: Hybrids of any combination tend to be larger than coyotes but smaller than wolves; they show behaviors intermediate between coyotes and the other parent's species. In one captive hybrid experiment, six F hybrid pups from a male northwestern gray wolf and a female coyote were measured shortly after birth with an average on their weights, total lengths, head lengths, body lengths, hind foot lengths, shoulder circumferences, and head circumferences compared with those on pure coyote pups at birth. Despite being delivered by a female coyote, the hybrid pups at birth were much larger and heavier than regular coyote pups born and measured around the same time. At six months of age, these hybrids were closely monitored at the Wildlife Science Center. Executive Director Peggy Callahan at the facility states that the howls of these hybrids are said to start off much like regular gray wolves with a deep strong vocalization, but changes partway into a coyote-like high pitched yipping.


title: Coywolf

text: Compared with pure coyotes, eastern wolf × coyote hybrids form more cooperative social groups and are generally less aggressive with each other while playing. Hybrids also reach sexual maturity when they are two years old, which is much later than occurs in pure coyotes.


title: Coywolf

text: Eastern coyotes range from New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. Their range also occurs in the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. Coyotes and wolves hybridized in the Great Lakes region, followed by an eastern coyote expansion, creating the largest mammalian hybrid zone known. Extensive hunting of gray wolves over a period of 400 years caused a population decline that reduced the number of suitable mates, thus facilitating coyote genes swamping into the eastern wolf population. This has caused concern over the purity of remaining wolves in the area, and the resulting eastern coyotes are too small to substitute for pure wolves as apex predators of moose and deer.


title: Coywolf

text: The main nucleus of pure eastern wolves is currently concentrated within Algonquin Provincial Park. This susceptibility to hybridization led to the eastern wolf being listed as Special Concern under the Canadian Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife and with the Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario. By 2001, protection was extended to eastern wolves occurring on the outskirts of the park, thus no longer depriving Park eastern wolves of future pure-blooded mates. By 2012, the genetic composition of the park's eastern wolves was roughly restored to what it was in the mid-1960s, rather than in the 1980s–1990s, when the majority of wolves had large amounts of coyote DNA.


title: Coywolf

text: Aside from the combinations of coyotes and eastern wolves making up most of the modern day eastern coyote's gene pools, some of the coyotes in the northeastern United States have mild domestic dog ("C. lupus familiaris") and western Great Plains gray wolf ("C. l. nubilus") influences in their gene pool, suggesting that the eastern coyote is actually a four-in-one hybrid of coyotes, eastern wolves, western gray wolves, and dogs. The hybrids living in areas with higher white-tailed deer density often have higher degrees of wolf genes than those living in urban environments. The addition of domestic dog genes may have played a minor role in facilitating the eastern hybrids' adaptability to survive in human-developed areas.


title: Coywolf

text: The four-in-one hybrid theory was further explored in 2014, when Monzón and his team reanalyzed the tissue and SNP samples taken from 425 eastern coyotes to determine the degree of wolf and dog introgressions involved in each geographic range. The domestic dog allele averages 10% of the eastern coyote's genepool, while 26% is contributed by a cluster of both eastern wolves and western gray wolves. The remaining 64% matched mostly with coyotes. This analysis suggested that prior to the uniformity of its modern-day genetic makeup, multiple swarms of genetic exchanges between the coyotes, feral dogs, and the two distinct wolf populations present in the Great Lakes region may have occurred. Urban environments often favor coyote genes, while the ones in the rural and deep forest areas maintain higher levels of wolf content. A 2016 meta-analysis of 25 genetics studies from 1995 to 2013 found that the northeastern coywolf is 60% western coyote, 30% eastern wolf, and 10% domestic dog. However, this hybrid canid is only now coming into contact with the southern wave of coyote migration into the southern United States.


title: Coywolf

text: The taxonomy of the red and eastern wolf of the Southeastern United States and the Great Lakes regions, respectively, has been long debated, with various schools of thought advocating that they represent either unique species or results of varying degrees of gray wolf × coyote admixture.


title: Coywolf

text: In May 2011, an examination of 48,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms in red wolves, eastern wolves, gray wolves, and dogs indicated that the red and eastern wolves were hybrid species, with the red wolf being 76% coyote and 20% gray wolf, and the eastern wolf being 58% gray wolf and 42% coyote, finding no evidence of being distinct species in either. The study was criticized for having used red wolves with recent coyote ancestry, and a reanalysis in 2012 indicated that it suffered from insufficient sampling.


title: Coywolf

text: A comprehensive review in 2012 further argued that the study's dog samples were unrepresentative of the species' global diversity, having been limited to boxers and poodles, and that the red wolf samples came from modern rather than historical specimens. The review was itself criticized by a panel of scientists selected for an independent peer review of its findings by the USFWS, which noted that the study's conclusion that the eastern wolf's two unique nonrecombining markers were insufficient to justify full-species status for the animal.


title: Coywolf

text: In 2016, a whole-genome DNA study suggested that all of the North American canids, both wolves and coyotes, diverged from a common ancestor 6,000–117,000 years ago. The whole-genome sequence analysis shows that two endemic species of North American wolf, the red wolf and eastern wolf, are admixtures of the coyote and gray wolf.


title: Coywolf

text: In a study that analyzed the molecular genetics of coyotes, as well as samples of historical red wolves and Mexican wolves from Texas, a few coyote genetic markers have been found in the historical samples of some isolated Mexican wolf individuals. Likewise, gray wolf Y chromosomes have also been found in a few individual male Texan coyotes. This study suggested that although the Mexican wolf is generally less prone to hybridizations with coyotes, exceptional genetic exchanges with the Texan coyotes may have occurred among individual gray wolves from historical remnants before the population was completely extirpated in Texas. The resulting hybrids would later on melt back into the coyote populations as the wolves disappeared.


title: Coywolf

text: The same study discussed an alternative possibility that the red wolves, which also once overlapped with both species in central Texas, were involved in circuiting the gene flows between the coyotes and gray wolves, much like how the eastern wolf is suspected to have bridged gene flows between gray wolves and coyotes in the Great Lakes region, since direct hybridizations between coyotes and gray wolves is considered rare.


title: Coywolf

text: In tests performed on a stuffed carcass of what was initially labelled a chupacabra, mitochondrial DNA analysis conducted by Texas State University showed that it was a coyote, though subsequent tests revealed that it was a coyote × gray wolf hybrid sired by a male Mexican wolf.


title: Coywolf

text: In 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services conducted a captive-breeding experiment at their National Wildlife Research Center Predator Research Facility in Logan, Utah. Using gray wolves from British Columbia and western coyotes, they produced six hybrids, making this the first hybridization case between pure coyotes and northwestern wolves. The experiment, which used artificial insemination, was intended to determine whether or not the sperm of the larger gray wolves in the west was capable of fertilizing the egg cells of western coyotes. Aside from the historical hybridizations between coyotes and the smaller Mexican wolves in the south, as well as with eastern wolves and red wolves, gray wolves from the northwestern US and western provinces of Canada were not known to interbreed with coyotes in the wild, thus prompting the experiment.


title: Coywolf

text: The six resulting hybrids included four males and two females. At six months of age, the hybrids were closely monitored and were shown to display both physical and behavioral characteristics from both species, as well as some physical similarities to the eastern wolves, whose status as a distinct wolf species or as a genetically distinct subspecies of the gray wolf is controversial. Regardless, the result of this experiment concluded that northwestern wolves, much like the eastern wolves, red wolves, Mexican wolves, and domestic dogs, are capable of hybridizing with coyotes.


title: Coywolf

text: In 2015, a research team from the cell and microbiology department of Anoka-Ramsey Community College revealed that an F litter of two pups had been produced from two of the original hybrids. At the same time, despite the six F's successful delivery from the same coyote, they were not all full siblings because multiple sperm from eight different northwestern wolves were used in their production. The successful production of the F litter, nonetheless, confirmed that hybrids of coyotes and northwestern wolves are just as fertile as hybrids of coyotes to eastern and red wolves. Both the F and F hybrids were found to be phenotypically intermediate between the western gray wolves and coyotes. Unlike the F hybrids, which were produced via artificial insemination, the F litter was produced from a natural breeding.


title: Coywolf

text: The study also discovered through sequencing 16S ribosomal RNA encoding genes that the F hybrids all have an intestinal microbiome distinct from both parent species, but which was once reported to be present in some gray wolves. Moreover, analysis of their complementary DNA and ribosomal RNA revealed that the hybrids have very differential gene expressions compared to those in gray wolf controls.


title: Coywolf

text: Hybrids between coyotes and domestic dogs have been bred in captivity, dating to pre-Columbian Mexico. Other specimens were later produced by mammal biologists mostly for research purposes. Domestic dogs are included in the gray wolf species. Hence, coydogs are another biological sub-variation of hybrids between coyotes and gray wolves - the dog being considered a domesticated subspecies of "Canis lupus".


title: Ran Takahashi

text: Ran has one brother, Rui, who is one and a half year older, and one younger sister, Riri. He started playing volleyball following the footsteps of his brother. His sister also plays volleyball.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: He owns a YouTube Channel with his brother called RanRui which is a combination of their given names.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: "Ran Takahashi the first photobook - the portraits of 20 years old" is his first photobook released on August 22, 2022.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: Ran played for Kyoto Municipal Hachigaoka Junior High School. Because of his height, in the first grade, he was mainly used as a Libero.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: Afterward, he attended Higashiyama High School, and he was in the starting line up in high school since his first year and served as an ace and captain of his team by the third year. He led his team to the top 4 of the "Inter-High School Sports Festival." Furthermore, his team won the "National Sports Festival" of Japan as well as the winter 2020 All Japan High School Volleyball Championships, also known as ""Haruko."" In addition, he received the "Most Valuable Player" award at the end of the competition.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: He has no under category experience at all, but he was immediately elected as a senior representative in February 2020 while he was still in the 3rd grade of high school.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: After graduating from high school, Ran entered Nippon Sport Science University. He led the team, receiving the runner-up place in the 2020 All Japan Intercollegiate Volleyball Championship, and got the "Best Scorer" award from the competition. In 2021, he was one of the Outside Hitter for the Japan men's national volleyball team in 2020 Summer Olympics.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: After winning 2nd place at the Asian Men's Volleyball Championship with the Japan men's national volleyball team, he returned to play for his college team in the 2021 Kanto University Men's Division 1 League, winning 1st place by defeating Waseda University in straight sets. He also played for his college team in the 2021 All Japan Intercollegiate Volleyball Championship. Regrettably, they lost in the quarterfinals against Jutendo University in 5 sets.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: On November 29, it was reported that Ran would play in the Italian Volleyball League Division 1 with Pallavolo Padova. He flew to Italy on December 10 and his jersey number is 14, the same as Yūki Ishikawa's when he played with Padova.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: On December 19, he debuted in the highest Italian league as a substitute in the third set against Modena Volley.


title: Ran Takahashi

text: Pallavolo Padova announced that Ran has renewed his contract with the club for Season 2022-2023. He was nominated MVP of the match against Valsa Group Modena for the first time in Italian league.