alibayram/wikipedia-40-langs huggingface dataset:
Dental floss

Dental floss is a special type of thread. It is used for cleaning spaces between teeth which cannot be reached by toothbrushes. It is important to floss before brushing teeth and to floss at least once a day.  Tooth brushing will not clean food that is packed between teeth. This 'food packing' can lead to unhealthy teeth and gums. Bacteria grow in this 'packed food' between teeth. These bacteria cause the surface of teeth (enamel) to break down. Then the teeth and gums and sometimes even the jaw can become seriously diseased. 

These bacteria that come from the food on the teeth and between the teeth are called "plaque" or "bacterial plaque" and also can cause the gums to become less healthy. "Gingivitis" which means gum disease is one type of disease that flossing helps to prevent. Very serious diseases can start on the teeth and move to the bone of the jaw, damaging the jaw badly. Flossing your teeth reduces the danger of these serious diseases of the jaw bone. These hard-to-cure jaw bone diseases are called "periodontal disease". 

Food that is trapped between the teeth can be uncomfortable and even cause pain. Some food is hard, for example meat, apple. Ground meat is soft and so is apple sauce. Chicken and turkey meat are hard and full of fibres and very often get trapped between the teeth. When hard food is trapped between the teeth it can cause discomfort and sometimes pain. When hard food is pressed by the teeth against the gum it can cause pain. Some people use toothpicks to try to remove trapped food from between the teeth and other people use dental floss to do this.

Dental floss can do most things that a toothpick can do but dental floss is much thinner than a toothpick and can thus get to places that most toothpicks cannot reach. So floss presumably does a better job at getting bits of food out from between the teeth, relieving discomfort and pain quicker.

When a person first starts flossing, bleeding can happen. This is normal and happens because teeth and gums that are not flossed are less healthy. It will stop as the teeth and gums get healthier with flossing.

Hygiene
Dentistry
Bile

Bile or gall is an alkaline, green-yellow fluid. It is secreted from the liver of most vertebrate animals, and is often stored in the gall bladder. Bile helps digest fat.

The components of bile are, in descending order of composition, are:
 Water 
 Cholesterol
 Bile pigments
 Bile salts

The name gall comes from the Greek word cholè meaning green or yellow. These colours come from the bile pigments. One of them is green and the other is yellow. When they are mixed together, they make feces brown. The term cholesterol and the illness cholera were named after gall.

Bile is also stored in bile ducts. Often after liver transplants, bile comes out of the body.

Bile increases fats' total surface area to volume ratio so their digestion is easier and faster. Hence, more fats and fat-soluble vitamins like vitamins A, D, E and K can be absorbed. This keeps fat out of feces so they are brown instead of white, grey or greasy. 

Physiology
Dental pulp

The dental pulp is the part in the center of a tooth (pulp cavity). It is made up of living soft tissue and cells. It is surrounded by dentine and contains nerves and blood and lymph vessels.

Teeth
Protoplasm

Protoplasm is an old term, which  means the living substance that makes up a cell. It is no longer much used. Biologists prefer to talk about the cytoplasm and the cell nucleus.

In plant cells, it is surrounded by a cell wall. In animal cells, the whole cell is made of protoplasm, surrounded by a cell membrane. Protoplasm in living beings is made up of about 7580% water. However, this is rather misleading because the cytoplasm is full of structures called organelles, which do various tasks. The endoplasmic reticulum is the largest of these structures; there are many other organelles.  

The word "protoplasm" was first used in 1846 by Hugo von Mohl to describe the substance in plant cells, apart from the cell wall, the cell nucleus and the vacuole. After the invention of the electron microscope it was clear that a living cell is much more complicated than von Mohl knew.

 

Cells
Amylase

Amylase is an enzyme which breaks down starch into sugars which the body can use.

More accurately, it is a family of similar enzymes which work in a wide range of animals, plants and fungi. There are two variants in humans: alpha-amylase, and gamma-amylase.

Alpha-amylase is a major digestive enzyme. Its optimum pH is 6.7–7.0. It is found in saliva and pancreatic juice. It takes starch chains and breaks them into smaller pieces with two or three glucose units. It can break down starch into maltose. It works in the mouth and stomach during digestion.

The gamma-amylase has most acidic optimum pH of all amylases because it is most active around pH 3. Therefore, it works best in the stomach, which does have an acidic pH.

Human evolution
Apparently, early humans did not possess salivary amylase. The closest evolutionary relatives of humans, chimpanzees and bonobos, have either one or no copies of the gene for producing salivary amylase.  A duplication event of the AMY1 gene led to the production of amylase in the saliva. The same event occurred independently in rodents. This shows the importance of salivary amylase in organisms that eat relatively large amounts of starch.

Carbohydrates are a food source rich in energy. After the agricultural revolution, human diet began to rely more on plant and animal domestication in place of hunting and gathering. This shift marked the beginning of a diet composed of 49% carbohydrates as opposed to the previous 35% observed in Paleolithic humans. As such, starch became a staple of human diet. Humans that contained amylase in the saliva would benefit from increased ability to digest starch more efficiently and in higher quantities.

Not all humans have the same number of copies of the AMY1 gene. Populations which rely on carbohydrates have a higher number of AMY1 copies than populations that eat little starch. The number of AMY1 gene copies in humans can range from six copies in agricultural groups such as European-American and Japanese (two high starch populations) to only 2-3 copies in hunter-gatherer societies such as the Biaka, Datog, and Yakuts.

The correlation between starch consumption and number of AMY1 copies suggests that more AMY1 copies in high starch populations is caused by natural selection. It is a favorable phenotype for those individuals. Therefore, it is likely that having more copies of AMY1 in a high starch population increases fitness and produces healthier, fitter offspring. Geographically close populations with different eating habits possess a different number of copies of the AMY1 gene. This offers strong evidence that natural selection has acted on this gene.

References 

Enzymes
Evolution
Variegated leaf

A variegated leaf is a type of leaf.

Uses 
A variegated leaf is useful in conducting experiments to show that chlorophyll is needed for photosynthesis to happen. They are also popular in horticulture.

Experiments 
The easiest of these experiments is to stain the places where starch is produced (starch is a more compact form of glucose).

Place the leaves in boiling water for six minutes to soften the cells, and then in ethanol (alcohol). When the leaves are drained of colour, spread them out on a flat surface. Soak the leaves in iodine and the green parts will turn blue/black and the non green parts will stay the yellowish brown colour of iodine liquid. The green parts contain starch, which makes iodine turn blue/black. The blue/black stain is what shows starch is present. You could take "before & after" photos to prove the black areas were green at the start.

Plant anatomy
Experiments
Seam ripper

A seam ripper is a cutting tool. It is used for removing stitches in sewing and cutting open buttonholes made on a sewing machine. Sometimes it is also called a thread ripper.

The tool usually has a handle, shaft, and head. The head has two points: one flattened to form a pointed blade and the other  forming a small point. 

To use a seam ripper to remove sewn threads, the blade is placed underneath the thread to be cut. The thread slips down between the two points, and the tool is then lifted upwards allowing the blade to cut through the thread. Then the loose thread ends can be removed.

Cutting tools
Needlework
Pin cushion

A pin cushion is small cushion used for holding pins and needles. It is used so that the pins and needles are stored safely and can be taken out by pulling the head.

Tools
Evidence

Evidence is something that is used to support an argument.  It gives examples of why something is true. 

Evidence is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as: 
1a : an outward sign : INDICATION
1b : something that furnishes proof : TESTIMONY
specifically: something legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a matter
2 : one who bears witness
especially: one who voluntarily confesses a crime and testifies for the prosecution against one's accomplices

Choo states “Evidence is the information with which the matters requiring proof in a trial are proved.” The study of evidence, therefore, is the study of the process by which such matters are proved in court.” (Choo, 42). 

Peter Achinstein defines evidence as “information that increases probability of a hypothesis” or “information on the basis of which a hypothesis has high probability.” (Achinstein, 44).

The Division of Extension Research and Training at the University of Arkansas defines evidence as “the outward sign, the indication, the proof” (University of Arkansas, 1).

For example, if someone come across a cup of spilled milk, that person could look for evidence as to how the milk was spilled. If hairs of a cat and paw prints were found on the ground, they could be evidence that a cat was the cause of the spilled milk. If a witness saw the cat spilling the milk, her testimony would also be evidence.

References 
Law
Criminal investigation
Epistemology
Choo, Andrew. Evidence. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006, https://archive.org/details/evidence0000choo/page/n9/mode/2up.

Webster, Merriam. “Evidence.” Merriam Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evidence.

Miller, Colin. Evidence: Best Evidence Rule. 1st ed., CALI, eLangdell Press, 2012,https://www.cali.org/sites/default/files/BestEvidenceRule_Miller_Dec2014.pdf.

Achinstein, Peter. The Book of Evidence. Oxford University, 2001, https://books.google.com/books?id=cZHflkcvCEUC&q=evidence.&pg=PP9

Forsyth, Stewart. “What Is Opinion and What Is Evidence?” InfoKat, 2019, https://saalck-uky.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01SAA_UKY/ija67f/cdi_webofscience_primary_000486649800003.

What Is Evidence? University of Arkansas, June 1955, https://archive.org/details/CAT10680953/mode/2up.
Hill

A hill is a landform that is higher than the surrounding terrain and that is smaller than a mountain. Hill is a  highland  of much lower elevation than a mountain. Normally it is not as steep as a mountain. By definition, a hill is often described as being lower than 600 meters (about 2,000 feet). However, some definitions say a hill is lower than 300 meters (about 1,000 feet). The surface of a hill is much more stable than that of a dune. Hill have long been used for hill forts

Pictures

Other websites 

 

nds:Kommun Ås
Area

Area is the amount of space a two dimensional (flat) surface takes up. It is useful because it is how much of a material is needed to make a hollow container.  Area is the amount of surface covered by a close object or shape. 

Some units used to measure area are square foot, square mile, square metre and square kilometre. The area of a planar figure is often written as . Areas of regular shapes such as square, rectangle, triangle and circle can be calculated through formulas. The area of an irregular shape can be approximated through grid or graph paper.

One can use different formulas to find the area of different shapes. For example:

 Area of a rectangle is the length of any two touching sides multiplied together. In other words, length times width.
 Area of a triangle is half of the base multiplied by the perpendicular height. In other words, .
 Area of a circle: 

The area of a flat object is related to the surface area and volume of a three-dimensional object.

The area under a curve can be found using integration, a concept from calculus.

Related pages 

 Mu (unit of area)

References 

Geometry
Air space

Air space is the area of the air that is controlled by a country or organisation. You have to have the permission of the controller to enter their air space in an airplane.  The air traffic controllers make sure the planes go in the right place and do not hit each other or something else. Some countries are very protective of their air space.

References

Aviation safety
Geography
Swamp cooler

Swamp coolers are simple type of air conditioning device that can cool a room of a house or a car by using the cooling effect of the evaporation of water. This is known as evaporative cooling. Swamp coolers can cool the air temperature in a small space by drawing the air through wet pads (some are made of aspen wood) using an electric fan. Swamp coolers work best in dry climates such as the American Southwest and the American South. They are usually much cheaper to buy and operate than refrigerated air-conditioning devices. This type of air conditioner was first used thousands of years ago in ancient Iran. 

Home appliances
HVAC
Saskatoon

Saskatoon is a city in Saskatchewan, Canada.  Saskatoon is the biggest city in Saskatchewan. Saskatoon, though, is not the capital of Saskatchewan. Regina is the capital of Saskatchewan.   The South Saskatchewan River flows through the centre of the city and many people enjoy boating, biking and walking in this area.  The University of Saskatchewan is also in Saskatoon.

The name Saskatoon [in Cree: sâskwatôn, "Saskatoon"] comes from the Cree inanimate noun misâskwatômina "saskatoon berries", which refers to the sweet, violet-coloured berry that grows in the area.

Media 
CKOM 650

CJWW 600

Other websites 
Saskatoon City Information

References
Glass rod

Glass rods are sometimes used as stirrers in laboratory environments.

Glass rods are often used to spread liquids evenly onto something. An example would be to coat glass surfaces with liquids to look at them under a microscope.

Glass rods rubbed with silk or fur were used in early demonstrations of electrical energy. 

Glass rods are commonly manufactured in diameters of 3 mm, 6 mm, and 10 mm.

Glass is used for these rods because it does not react with most laboratory chemicals.

laboratory equipment
Week

A week is 7 days in connecting order. There are usually 52 weeks in a year.

In the English language, the days of the week are named after gods in Norse mythology, except for Saturday, which is named after a Roman god.

Depending on the law of a country, the week either starts on Monday and ends on Sunday, or starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. In most countries, Saturday and Sunday are the weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is a religious day for Muslims, Jews, and Christians, respectively.

Other websites 
 The Mysterious 7-Day Cycle (history with Christian editorial) 
 The Week (part of Claus Tøndering's Calendar FAQ)

Units of time
Basic English 850 words
Suffix

A suffix is a few letters put at the end of a word to change its meaning.  It is a type of affix mostly used to show inflection.

Verb examples:
 -ed
 -or
 -ing
 -s
 es
 -ing
 walk
 walked
 walker
 walking
 walks
 wishes

Adjective examples:
 -er
 -est
 -ful
 -ness
 -less

 easy
 easier
 easiest
 handful
 kindness
 baseless 

Compare to prefix. Prefixes are letters put at the beginning of a word to change its meaning.

References 

Grammar
Spice

Spice is an ingredient that adds flavor to food. It is usually used to enrich or alter the quality of something. Spices can be used to give food an interesting and exciting taste.

Examples of a spice would be cinnamon, fenugreek and nutmeg.

Spices can also be used to hide or cover up bad tastes in the food, because it is rotten or affected by fungi, e.g. marzipan.

Indians and Pakistanis use a lot of spices like turmeric

Related pages 
 Spice trade
Flavor

Flavour or flavor (US English) is the main quality of anything which affects the taste. When someone remarks on the flavor of something they are trying to describe the specific way something tastes.

Flavor can also be used to describe the act of adding a taste alteration (to change the taste) to something. This is usually done by adding spices or sugars, though in processed food there are oftentimes artificial (fake) flavors. A person who develops natural and/or artificial food additives is called a flavourist or flavorist (US English).

Food and drink
Characteristics

hu:Aroma
Halley's Comet

Halley's Comet (Comet Halley) is a comet which comes round every 75 or 76 years. When it is near, it can be seen with the naked eye. It will return in 2061.

The comet is named after Edmond Halley (1656–1742), an English astronomer, who predicted the comet's return. Halley's Comet was the first comet to be recognized as periodic. (Periodic means that it comes by Earth regularly.)

When the comet came close to the Earth in 1986, it was visited by several space-probes. The probe Giotto from the European Space Agency managed the closest approach to the comet.

The number of years that the comet finishes its full cycle can vary depending on the effect of another planet's gravitational pull.

In 1986, Halley's Comet was the first to be observed in detail by spacecraft. It gave the first data on the structure of a comet nucleus and how the coma (nebulous envelope around the core or nucleus) and the tail formed. These observations supported Fred Whipple's "dirty snowball" model. This correctly predicted that Halley would be composed of a mixture of volatile ices – such as water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, – and dust. The missions also adjusted these ideas. For example, it is now known that the surface of Halley is mostly dusty, non-volatile materials, and that only a small portion of it is icy.

Related pages 
 List of comets

References 

Comets
Motion sensor

A motion sensor is a sensor device. It is used for studying motions. It is connected to a data-logger. The data-logger is connected to a computer. The computer runs a data-logging program. The computer is connected to power, and a security system. Motion sensors have many uses including security.

Applications for movement sensor technology include clinical, workplace safety & athletic sports.

References

Machines
Sensors
Arm

An arm is a limb. Most humans have two arms each, coming out of their body at the shoulder, just below the neck. On the end of each arm is a hand. Humans use arms and hands to do things to other objects, this is called manipulation. The main purpose of the hand is to grasp objects. Some other primates have arms which they use to move around by holding onto trees or supporting themselves as they walk along the ground. Fingers and hand, wrist, forearm, elbow, upper arm and shoulder are parts of the arm.

Related pages
Leg
Trapezius muscle

Limbs and extremities
Basic English 850 words
Arrow

An arrow is a projectile fired with a bow. A bow and arrow is a weapon used before medieval times and later.  For thousands of years, people all over the world have used bows and arrows for hunting and for defense.  Arrows have a sharp point at one end and usually a flight at the other end. The flight is usually made of feathers and helps the arrow go through the air straight. Someone who makes arrows is a fletcher.

A picture of an arrow is often used to point to something. Arrows look may like this: -->. "Double-headed" arrows look like this: <—>.

More reading
 

Archery
Weapons
Spirituality

Spirituality is a name given to matters of the spirit. These can be any kind of meaningful personal activity or peaceful experience. There is not one agreed upon way to explain what happens. It is a concept so people can see and understand it in different ways. Some people believe spirituality is a part of religion. Others who are not religious, still seek and have spiritual experiences.

Matters of the spirit 

"Matters of the spirit" may include the meaning in a person's life (or in all life), and how to find and improve on it. They may also include someone's search for God, the supernatural, a divine influence in their lives, or information about the afterlife, and how to best deal with each. "Matters of the spirit" may also include how to live among others as a group, or in a certain environment.

"Spiritual, but not religious" 
Some who do not believe in an organized religion may still be interested in the "spirits" of humanity or of nature and live a certain way, or worship ancestors or creation because it gives them a sense of happiness to do so. This is referred to as spiritual but not religious.

Another common usage refers to people who ascribe to ideals "greater than themselves." For many, this leads to a pursuit of some form of enlightenment, often through meditation, yoga, philosophy or, in some cases, a study of Metaphysics.

Many philosophers work to find answers to spiritual questions, although some may deny the existence of a 'god' or any supernatural influences. Throughout the world however, philosophers have often had ideas about spirituality. The following are a few 20th century examples:

Arne Naess - the founder of deep ecology
Gregory Bateson - philosopher
Jiddu Krishnamurti - renowned Indian thinker
Osho/Shri Rashneesh - Indian scholar who, while a critic of religion, worked to create a new spiritual movement
Felicitas Goodman - researched the subject of trance

Related pages
 List of religions and spiritual traditions
 Mysticism
 Piety

References

Other websites

Spirituality
Common year

A common year is a calendar year with 365 days.  It is a year that is not a leap year. This means a common year has 52 weeks and one day.  So if a certain year started on a Monday, the following year will start on a Tuesday.  Stated differently, a common year always begins and ends on the same day of the week. (For example, in 2023, both January 1 and December 31 falls on a Sunday.) 

In the Gregorian calendar, 303 out of every 400 years are common years. In the Julian calendar, 300 out of every 400 years were common years. All the other years are special and known as leap years. In common years, February has exactly four weeks, so March begins on the same day of the week. November also begins on this day. For example, February 2023 began on a Wednesday, so March began on a Wednesday as well. November follows the same characteristic.

Years 
2000, a century leap year, began on a Saturday.
2001 began on a Monday.
2002 began on a Tuesday.
2003 began on a Wednesday.
2004, a leap year, began on a Thursday.
2005 began on a Saturday.
2006 began on a Sunday.
2007 began on a Monday.
2008, a leap year, began on a Tuesday.
2009 began on a Thursday.
2010 began on a Friday.
2011 began on a Saturday.
2012, a leap year, began on a Sunday.
2013 began on a Tuesday.
2014 began on a Wednesday.
2015 began on a Thursday.
2016, a leap year, began on a Friday.
2017 began on a Sunday.
2018 began on a Monday.
2019 began on a Tuesday.
2020, a leap year, began on a Wednesday.
2021 began on a Friday.
2022 began on a Saturday.
2023, the current year, began on a Sunday.
2024, a leap year, will begin on a Monday.

Months 
These are the 12 months in a year.

 January has 31 days.
 February has 28 days.
 March has 31 days.
 April has 30 days.
 May has 31 days.
 June has 30 days.
 July has 31 days.
 August has 31 days.
 September has 30 days.
 October has 31 days.
 November has 30 days.
 December has 31 days.

There are 7 months with 31 days. There are 4 months with 30 days. There is 1 month with 28 days. In the Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, every 4 years there are 29 days in February, which is called a leap year. This happens because every year is 365 and 1/4 days but instead of us having a spare quarter of a day in each year we add them all up every 4 years and make an extra day to avoid confusion and make things easier for everyone.
In the Gregorian Calendar, which was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, because the Julian calendar added slightly too many years, three leap years were removed for every 400 years. These are those that are multiples of 100, but not multiples of 400. Thus, in the Gregorian calendar, 2020 is a leap year, but not 2019 and 2021, 1900 is not a leap year even though 1904 and 1896 are, and 2000 is a leap year even though 1900 and 2100 are not.  

Years
Decade

A decade (pronunciation: DEK-aid) is a period of 10 years. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word for ten: "deka". 10 decades make a century, while 100 decades make a millennium. A decade is any 10-year period: There are different ways to refer to different groupings of ten years. For example, the period from 2001 to 2010 can be described as the 1st decade of the 21st century, the period from 2011 to 2020 is the 2nd decade of the 21st century, and the 3rd decade of the 21st century is the period from 2021 to 2030. An individual who has been alive two full decades is referred to as being in their 20s for the next decade of their life, from age 20 to 29. Decades are also considered specific groups of ten years sharing the same tens digit, identified by name, as in the nineteen-eighties (1980s) referring to the period from 1980 to 1989 and the nineteen-nineties (1990s) referring to the period from 1990 to 1999. Sometimes this is shortened to just the decade, where the context is clear, as in the eighties (80s) or the nineties (90s). No apostrophe is used before the s in the names of these decades.

Some decades also have nicknames, such as the Roaring Twenties (1920s), the Naughty Nineties (1890s) (UK), and the Swinging Sixties (1960s).

Units of time
21st century

The 21st century began on January 1, 2001 and will end on December 31, 2100.

Years 
Note: movie years before or after the twenty-first century are in italics.

Related pages 

 11th century (1001-1100)
Ijtihad

Ijtihad is the process of reaching a legal decision on the basis of one's own interpretation of Islamic law. The word is related to the better-known jihad. 

Ijtihad appeared  among the Muhammad's companions. 

Islamic law
Standard temperature and pressure

In order to be able to reproduce experiments, standard conditions for temperature and pressure have been defined in different fields of science. Very often these are also called standard temperature and pressure. The table below gives some examples:

References 

Measurement
Engineering
Chemistry
Standards
Thermodynamics
STP

STP usually refers to:
 Stone Temple Pilots, an American rock band
 Standard Temperature and Pressure, definition

STP may also refer to:

Commercial 
 Straight Through Processing, banking term where a financial transaction  is automatically completed without manual intervention
 Segment, Target and Position, a marketing acronym
 STP (motor oil company), a brand name and trade name for the automotive additives and performance division of Armored AutoGroup
 STP, New York Stock Exchange symbol for Suntech Power Holdings, a Chinese manufacturer of photovoltaic cells

Geographical 
 STP, IATA airport code for St. Paul Downtown Airport in Saint Paul, Minnesota
 STP, ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, IOC country code, and FIFA country code for São Tomé and Príncipe
 STP, National Rail code for London St Pancras (Domestic) railway station

Medicine 
 Status post, sometimes abbreviated as st.p., used to discuss sequelae with reference to their cause
 Sternal puncture, a form of bone marrow examination
 Scientist Training Programme, the postgraduate training for Healthcare scientists in the UK introduced under Modernising Scientific Careers

Music 
 The Rolling Stones American Tour 1972, popularly referred to as the "STP Tour" for "Stones Touring Party"
 "S.T.P.", a song on the album Robbin' the Hood by ska punk/reggae band Sublime

Science, math and technology 
 Standard conditions for temperature and pressure, a scientific convention of designating standard conditions
 Scalar triple product
 Sewage treatment plant
 Shielded twisted pair, a type of cable
 Shovel test pit, method for archaeological survey
 Signal Transfer Point, an SS7 packet switch
 Sodium tripolyphosphate, a preservative
 South Texas Nuclear Generating Station, aka South Texas Project, nuclear power station located southwest of Bay City, Texas
 Space Test Program, a program conducted by the USAF Space Development and Test Wing at Kirtland Air Force Base
 Spanning tree protocol, a network protocol providing a loop free topology for a LAN or bridged network
 Steiner tree problem in graphs
 Strategic Technology Plan
 ISO 10303-21, the STEP CAD exchange format, uses the file extension .stp

Sports and recreation 
 25 metre standard pistol, a shooting sport
 STP, a brand of bicycles marketed by Giant Bicycles
 Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic, an annual one- and two-day supported bicycle ride from Seattle, Washington to Portland, Oregon

Other uses 
 Sacrae Theologiae Professor, or Professor of Sacred Theology (possibly archaic)
 Society for Threatened Peoples a human rights group based in Göttingen, Germany
 STP, slang name for the psychedelic 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine, also known as DOM
Jungle

The jungle is a place in a rainforest where the forest floor is covered with plants. Like other rainy places, they have many rivers or streams. Scientists think that more types of animals and plants live in the jungles than everywhere else. When people talk about jungles, they sometimes mean the whole rainforest.

The crowding in a jungle leaves little room to walk.  This may make it dangerous to people.  However, it also has benefits.  The many plants and animals can provide food for foraging. 

The Amazon rainforest is thick and dark jungle in many places in nine countries.  However, most of this forest is in Brazil, South America.

Forests
Biomes
Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital city of Sweden. It is also the biggest city in Sweden. It is on the east coast of the country. The city is built on islands, with canals and open water in the inner city. Stockholm is found between Sweden's third largest lake, Mälaren, and the Baltic Sea.

Tyresta National Park is near Stockholm.

Geography 
Central Stockholm has four different parts - Kungsholmen, Södermalm, Norrmalm and Östermalm. Kungsholmen and Södermalm are islands, while Norrmalm and Östermalm are parts of the mainland. Also, there are several smaller islands in the inner city - Gamla Stan, Riddarholmen, Djurgården and Skeppsholmen. Since Stockholm has so many islands, it is sometimes referred to as the "Venice of the North".

Gamla Stan is the oldest part of the city - the name means "Old Town", and is usually called that in English. Djurgården is mostly a large park, but there are buildings on the island. Most of these are museums that commemorate Sweden's and Stockholm's past - like Skansen, a zoo with a Swedish theme. Skeppsholmen is an island that used to be a training ground and military school, but most of the buildings are now used for museums and art galleries, such as the Modern Museum, or the East Asian museum. Riddarholmen is a part of Gamla Stan, but actually a different island.

All of the islands in Stockholm are connected by several bridges. The biggest one is Västerbron, going from Kungsholmen to Södermalm.

History 

Birger Jarl is considered the founder of Stockholm. It is believed that he rebuilt a defense building in the 13th century on what is today the island of the Old town. Around the fortification, a town grew. The town grew mainly because of its sea and land trading.

Wikimania 

The last Wikimania conference is hosted in this city in 2019.

References

 
Olympic cities
13th-century establishments in Europe
Establishments in Sweden
Rain

Rain is a kind of precipitation. Precipitation is any kind of water that falls from clouds in the sky, like rain, hail, sleet and snow. It is measured by a rain gauge. Rain is part of the water cycle.

Clouds will often absorb smoke to create rain, commonly referred to as "nature's laundry" due to this process.

Some places have frequent rain. This makes rainforests. Some have little rain. This makes deserts.

A rainstorm is a sudden heavy fall of rain. It may cause flash floods in valleys. Heavy rain for a long time may make floods that destroy houses and drown people. Also, landslides may happen.

Convectional rain 
When the Sun heats the Earth's surface, the ground heats the air above it. Convection makes the air rise and  cool. When it cools to the dew point, clouds form and rain follows.This usually occurs on flat land. This type of rainfall often causes summer showers and thunderstorms.

Relief rain 
Relief rain usually occurs along coastal areas where a line of hills runs along the coast. When wet onshore wind from the sea meets a mountain, hill or any other sort of barrier, it is forced to rise along the slope and cools. When the air temperature falls to its dew point, water vapour condenses to form clouds. When the clouds can no longer hold the water droplets, relief rain begins to fall on the windward slope of the mountain.  On the leeward slope, air sinks, it is warmed and further dried by compression. Therefore, the leeward slope is known as rain shadow. Moist winds blow in from the sea and are forced to rise over the land. The air cools and the water vapour condenses, forming rain drops. The rainiest places in the world are places that have relief rainfall.

Frontal rain/Cyclonic rain 

Frontal rain happens when cooler air and warmer, humid air meet in a weather front.  The less dense warm air rises and condenses forming clouds. These clouds grow and eventually create rain. In some places on the northern temperate zone the cold air front tends to come from the north west and the warm air front comes from the south west.

Collection 
Some people collect rain in a rainwater tank. People use rainwater for watering plants, cleaning the house, bathing, or drinking. It is not always safe to drink rainwater. It can have bacteria, parasites, viruses, and chemicals that could make people sick.

Related pages 
 Water cycle

References

Other websites 
rain water drink
BBC article on rain-making.

Basic English 850 words
Precipitation
Gambling

Gambling is a contest where a player bets on the result of an event. The bet is generally in the form of money. The rules and the amount of money bet have to be decided on before the event happens.

History
Playing cards appeared in the 9th century AD in China. Records trace gambling in Japan back at least as far as the 14th century.

Poker, the most popular U.S. card game associated with gambling, derives from the Persian game As-Nas, dating back to the 17th century.

The first known casino, the Ridotto, started operating in 1638 in Venice, Italy.

Types
There are three variables common to all gambling.
 The amount of the bet.
 The predictability, or probability, of something that would happen in the event.
 The odds agreed upon by the players.

There are many types of gambling. Casino games, sports betting (especially horse racing), and state lotteries are some of the most common forms of gambling. Investments, such as stocks, bonds and real estate, are also sometimes considered forms of gambling. Generally, the odds are not in favor of the gambler.

Issues
Many people gamble for fun and entertainment. For others it becomes an addiction and a financial burden. 

Gambling addiction is a serious mental health issue which can become life-threatening. People with a gambling problem should seek help. Many organizations are trying to combat gambling addiction. One promising project to combat gambling addiction is the Global Self-Exclusion Initiative. This helps players get off gambling.

Rules
Gambling regulation differs in different countries. Some have established specific legal institutions. However, some countries have only overseeing laws. A well-known executive institution is The Gambling Commission in the UK. Its main function is controlling commercial gambling in partnership with people in charge of licensing. An example of strict ruling is the Gambling Law in the USA. The law decides gaming rules for local, state, and federal businesses. In the United States, gambling is restricted almost everywhere, except in Las Vegas and in Atlantic City, New Jersey. New Jersey, legalised online gambling and poker in November 2013. In 2018, Swiss citizens voted that gambling should also be allowed on the Internet in the future. A convincing 73% voted in the referendum, in which 1.8 million Swiss people took part. The new Gaming Act was put into effect by the Federal Gaming Board on January 1, 2019. Since then, it has been completely legal for Swiss citizens to play games of chance on the Internet.

In some places, such as mainland China, gambling is illegal. Chinese people cannot do so inside their country, so they go outside of it, such as to Macau, which is known as the "gambling capital of the world" because of its many big casinos. Other countries and local governments, such as Hong Kong, have some kind of gambling control board to make sure people don't gamble too much while allowing them to gamble.

Gambling has been banned in Brazil since 1946.

References

Other websites
 Gambling legislation and regulations
Market

A market is a place where people go to buy or sell things. When people have products to sell, they set up a market place. There may be a special building for the market place, or the market may be held in an open space where the sellers can put up a stall (like a kind of tent) and then take the stall down at the end of the day.

The word "market" can also have a more general meaning in the economy. It can mean the way things are bought or sold. "There is a big market for dishwashers" means that lots of people want to buy dishwashers. Therefore, a business that makes dishwashers is likely to be able to make a lot of money. When things are sold, people buy the product, and this "stimulates the economy" (helps people to spend and earn money). The market needs to balance supply and demand. There is no reason to make a supply of dishwashers if people do not want dishwashers. In the market, prices may change quickly if supply or demand changes.

Competition 
If a seller of a good cannot supply what customers want or asks for a very high price, other sellers may try to supply that good. If other sellers enter the market for that good, in competition, that will tend to fulfill demands and lower prices. Sellers who do not like competition may try to kill their competition. When there is no competition, a monopoly is formed. Many countries have laws to protect the free market from monopolies.

Related pages 
 Market forms
 Shop

Basic English 850 words
Ambassador

An ambassador is a person sent by the government of a country to a different country. The ambassador is the official representative of their country.  The ambassador speaks to officials of the other country about any problems and issues between the two countries.

In past years, communication between countries could take days or weeks. It was necessary to have a person in each foreign capital to have meetings and make negotiations between countries. Nowadays, communication is much faster, and often governments can be in direct contact with each other.  However, it is still true that many problems need person-to-person meetings, so ambassadors are still needed.

Often an ambassador will live in the foreign country for a number of years. An embassy is where the ambassador lives. Embassies are most often in the capital of the foreign country. An ambassador may bring people with him to help him and work at the embassy. Some of the high ranking people may be called embassy officials.

It is both tradition and law that the ambassador and many embassy officials have diplomatic immunity. They cannot be arrested or prosecuted in the foreign country. The only possibility is to send a person back to their own country.

Government occupations
Nuclear war

A nuclear war is a war in which countries fight with nuclear weapons. Because nuclear weapons are extremely powerful and could cause destruction throughout the world, the possibility of nuclear war has had a great effect on international politics.

So far, two nuclear weapons have been used during warfare. They were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and resulted in the deaths of approximately 120,000 people. Thousands of much more powerful bombs were made in later years.  They have not yet been used in war.

History 
Nuclear bombs were invented by the United States with Canadian and British help during World War II to help make that war stop.  The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria caused Japan to surrender.  They are still the only nuclear weapons that have ever been used in fighting a war.  At that time only the United States had the technology needed to make the bomb, but within a few years the Soviet Union had developed it too. In the new Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were enemies and each had many nuclear weapons, but they did not dare to use them against each other, either directly or by attacking the other country's allies. Since either country could be completely destroyed by the other's weapons, nuclear war could no longer be limited to the use of only one or two bombs; if they were used anywhere by one side, the other would attack with its own nuclear weapons, and the fighting would almost certainly become greater. This situation came to be known as the "balance of terror," or Mutually Assured Destruction, and stopped conflicts between the two superpowers from leading to a third world war.

Since the end of Communist rule in Russia and Eastern Europe, tensions between America and Russia have eased and war has become less likely. However, today there is more worry about nuclear proliferation. Countries around the world who already have their own bombs include Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea; as all kinds of technology tend to become cheaper and easier to get and use, there is a fear that nuclear weapons could become available to countries with unstable governments. There is also the possibility that terrorists might be able to capture or build nuclear weapons and use them.

Nuclear war in fiction 

Ever since the end of World War II, writers, film-makers, and artists have created works of fiction imagining how a nuclear war might happen and what life would be like afterwards. Most have pictured widespread death and destruction, and a grim post-armageddon world where a few survivors struggle to live without power, medicine, or food. Some have pictured civilization breaking down completely, and primitive societies developing; with the past world becoming forgotten.

Related pages 
World War III

War
Nuclear weapons
Tax

Tax is money that people have to pay to the government.

The government uses the money it gets from taxes to pay for things. For example, taxes are used to pay for people who work for the government, such as the military and police, provide services such as education and health care, and to maintain or build things like roads, bridges and sewers. The earliest known taxes were those of the Egyptian Old Kingdom.

Types of taxes 

There are many different kinds of taxes. They may be direct tax or indirect  tax.
 Taxes that are based on how much money a company earns are called corporate taxes 
 Taxes that are based on how much money a person earns are called income taxes. 

 Taxes that are based on how much a person buys are called sales taxes. 
 Taxes that are based on how much a person owns are called property taxes. Things like houses have a property tax on them.
 Taxes that are paid when official documents are approved are called stamp duties (because in the past the document would have a stamp put on it). Changing who owns a house will often need a document approving. 
 Taxes that are paid when somebody dies are called inheritance or estate taxes.

Taxes can also be split into 3 groups:
 Flat taxes: Everybody pays the same percentage. Russia has a flat income tax and everybody in Russia has to pay 13% of the income.
 Progressive taxes: The more money a person makes, the higher percentage of their income they have to pay. Most countries have progressive income taxes.
 Regressive taxes: The less money a person makes, the higher percentage of their income they have to pay. Sales taxes are usually called regressive as poor people spend a higher percentage of their money than rich people.

Paying lots of different taxes 
Often because different parts of governments use taxes for different things, people end up paying lots of taxes.

In the United States, for example, the national government has an income tax; most states have an income tax or a sales tax, or both; and cities and towns may have a sales tax or a property tax. In some states such as Ohio, the sales tax is different in each county.

Before Taxes 
In ancient times, people from one city or area would attack another place, and make the people there pay tribute. Tribute meant that the attacked people would pay money (or other things), and the attacker would stop attacking them. A famous tribute was the Danegeld, when people from Denmark conquered part of England and made the English pay thousands of silver coins.

Groups who are against taxes 
Anarchists and Libertarians are against all taxes or against high taxes. As people are paying them unwillingly and under the threat of sanctions, they say that taxation is the same as robbery. (Taxation as theft)

References

Related pages 
Income tax in the United States
Tithe

Basic English 850 words
Oboe

An oboe is a woodwind instrument with a double reed. It looks very similar to the clarinet, and may be confused with it. While the clarinet's shape remains cylindrical, the oboe's body is conical. The sounds produced by clarinets and oboes are very different. An oboe's sound is produced by blowing air through the double reed at the upper end of the instrument which forces the two reeds to vibrate together which produces the sound. The oboe has four parts: the bell, lower joint, upper joint, and the reed. A person that plays the oboe is called an oboist. A typical orchestra may have two oboes but sometimes three. Sometimes there is also a cor anglais which sounds a fifth lower than the oboe. Very occasionally there is also a bass oboe, which sounds an octave below the oboe. Gustav Holst used one in his Suite "The Planets".

The oboe came from the shawm which was a medieval and Renaissance instrument. It became popular in the Baroque period. Bach and Handel both used it in most of their orchestral music. Many Italian composers such as Antonio Vivaldi wrote concertos for the instrument, and it is used in a lot of chamber music. At this time it hardly had any keys, but over time more keys were added which made it easier to play the sharps and flats.

Later composers to write for the oboe as a solo instrument include Mozart, Weber, Richard Strauss, Vaughan Williams and Francis Poulenc.

It is normal for the principal oboist in an orchestra to play the note A for the rest of the orchestra to tune their instruments to.

The name oboe comes from French language hautbois, meaning "high wood", a high-pitched woodwind instrument.

Double reed instruments
GURPS

The Generic Universal RolePlaying System, or GURPS, is a role-playing game system created by Steve Jackson Games. It emphasizes a set of rules that can be used in any time or world.  Characters are created using a point-based system.  There have been four releases of the GURPS core rules and dozens of game supplements that extend the core rules with genre or setting-specific information. 

In 1990, GURPS became the focus of a Secret Service investigation when an as yet unreleased GURPS Cyberpunk game supplement was misconstrued by the Secret service as being a handbook for computer crime.

Role-playing games