cyanic-selkie/wikianc huggingface dataset:
Crianlarich
Crianlarich (A' Chrìon Làraich in Gaelic) is a village in Stirling district, Scotland, about six miles north-east of the head of Loch Lomond. Until 1975, it was in the historic county of Perthshire. The village's name derives from the Gaelic for "low pass", relating to its geographical location.
Earthsea
Earthsea is a fictional place made by Ursula K. Le Guin for her short story "The Word of Unbinding" in 1964, but that became more famous in her book A Wizard of Earthsea, first written in 1968. The books that follow A Wizard of Earthsea are The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind. These are all set in the world of Earthsea
Girls5eva
One of Girls5eva's hit songs is sampled by a rapper named Lil Stinker.
Inversnaid
Inversnaid is a village on the east bank of Loch Lomond in Scotland, near the north end of the loch. It has a pier and a hotel, and the West Highland Way passes through the village. A small passenger ferry runs from Inversnaid to Inveruglas on the opposite shore of the loch. To reach Inversnaid by road involves a lengthy overland route from Aberfoyle. It is also the title of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Benny Mardones
Mardones died on June 29, 2020 at his home in Menifee, California from Parkinson's disease-related problems, aged 73.
OpenZaurus
OpenZaurus is a Debian-based embedded Linux distribution for the Sharp Zaurus personal mobile tool PDA.
Status
On April 26, 2007, it was announced that the OpenZaurus project was over. Future development efforts are to focus on the Ångström distribution for embedded systems.
Wayne Walker
Wayne Harrison Walker (September 30, 1936 – May 19, 2017) was an American professional football player and sports broadcaster. He was born in Boise, Idaho.
Walker played fifteen seasons with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League, as a linebacker and placekicker from 1958 through 1972. Walker played in 200 regular season games, the second most for a defensive player at the time. He played in three Pro Bowls and was thrice selected as a first-team All-NFL player.
In December 1999, Walker was ninth on the Sports Illustrated list of greatest sports figures from Idaho.
Walker was diagnosed with throat cancer in June 2007 and lost 60 lb after chemotherapy and radiation treatment. In 2015, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He died on May 19, 2017, from complications from the disease in Boise at the age of 80.
Hyperion
Hyperion is a Titan in Greek mythology.
Hyperion may also mean:
In science:
In fiction:
Croftamie
Croftamie is a small village near Drymen in Scotland. The village was traditionally part of Dunbartonshire, but a minor change in boundaries means that it is now under Stirling Council.
Biberwier
Biberwier is a municipality of the district of Reutte in the Austrian state of Tyrol. In 2020, 622 people lived there.
2011 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A
The 2011 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A (officially the Brasileirão Petrobras 2011 for sponsorship reasons) was the 55th edition of the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the top-level of professional football in Brazil. It began on May 21 and was scheduled to end on December 4. Fluminense comes in as the defending champion having won the 2010 season.
Ms. Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man is an arcade video game made by Midway Manufacturing (now Midway Games). It was released one year after Pac-Man, on January 13, 1982. It became one of the most popular video games of all-time after its release. This led Namco to make the game an official title in the Pac-Man series. It has a female character, new mazes, and changes in gameplay from Pac-Man. It is most successful American-made arcade game, selling 115,000 arcade cabinets.
Gameplay
Ms. Pac-Man plays similarly to Pac-Man. The player has to move Ms. Pac-Man, a yellow disc, around a maze. The goal is to eat all of the yellow pellets (circles) while not getting caught by the ghosts. The player can get more points by eating fruits that appear. When Ms. Pac-Man eats a white pellet, the ghosts turn blue. The player can eat them for points. The game has 256 stages. Like Pac-Man, the 256th level cannot be finished because of a problem with the creation of the game.
The game has gameplay changes from the original Pac-Man. They include:
Deng Mingzhu
Deng Mingzhu (born 10 November 1987) is a Chinese wheelchair basketball player. She is a member of the China women's national wheelchair basketball team and the Guangdong Province team. She finished 5th at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and 6th at the 2016 Summer Paralympics. She won the silver medal at the 2020 Summer Paralympics.
She is born on 10 November 1987. Due to infantile paralysis she has a spinal cord injury. She started playing wheelchair basketball in 2007 when she was 20 years old in Guangzhou at the Guangdong Province wheelchair basketball team.
She studied computing at the Guangdong Peiying Vocational School in Guangzhou. She is married to Feng Liangzhu.
She competed at the 2010 Asian Para Games, and 2014 Asian Para Games.
Dan Simmons
Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American writer. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning series called the Hyperion Cantos, and for his Locus Award-winning Ilium/Olympos cycle. He writes in genres such as science fiction, horror and fantasy.
Travelling salesman problem
The Traveling Salesman Problem (often called TSP) is a classic algorithmic problem in the field of computer science and operations research. It is focused on optimization. In this context, better solution often means a solution that is cheaper, shorter, or faster. TSP is a mathematical problem. It is most easily expressed as a graph describing the locations of a set of nodes.
The traveling salesman problem was defined in the 1800s by the Irish mathematician W. R. Hamilton and by the British mathematician Thomas Kirkman. Hamilton’s Icosian Game was a recreational puzzle based on finding a Hamiltonian cycle. The general form of the TSP appears to have been first studied by mathematicians during the 1930s in Vienna and at Harvard, notably by Karl Menger. Menger defines the problem, considers the obvious brute-force algorithm, and observes the non-optimality of the nearest neighbour heuristic:"We denote by messenger problem (since in practice this question should be solved by each postman, anyway also by many travelers) the task to find, for ﬁnitely many points whose pairwise distances are known, the shortest route connecting the points. Of course, this problem is solvable by finitely many trials. Rules which would push the number of trials below the number of permutations of the given points, are not known. The rule that one first should go from the starting point to the closest point, then to the point closest to this, etc., in general does not yield the shortest route."Hassler Whitney at Princeton University introduced the name traveling salesman problem soon after.
Stating the problem
The Traveling Salesman Problem is typical of a large class of "hard" optimization problems that have intrigued mathematicians and computer scientists for years. Most important, it has applications in science and engineering. For example, in the manufacture of a circuit board, it is important to determine the best order in which a laser will drill thousands of holes. An efficient solution to this problem reduces production costs for the manufacturer.
Difficulty
In general, the traveling salesman problem is hard to solve. If there is a way to break this problem into smaller component problems, the components will be at least as complex as the original one. This is what computer scientists call NP-hard problems.
Many people have studied this problem. The easiest (and most expensive solution) is to simply try all possibilities. The problem with this is that for N cities you have (N-1) factorial possibilities. This means that for only 10 cities there are over 180 thousand combinations to try (since the start city is defined, there can be permutations on the remaining nine). We only count half since each route has an equal route in reverse with the same length or cost. 9! / 2 = 181 440
Capri
Capri is an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is on the north side of the Gulf of Naples, Italy. The main town on the island shares the name. It has been a resort since the time of the Roman Republic. The Emperor Tiberius lived here from 26–31 AD.
Features of the island are the Belvedere of Tragara (a high panoramic promenade lined with villas), the limestone crags called sea stacks that project above the sea (the Faraglioni), the town of Anacapri, the Blue Grotto (Grotta Azzurra), and the ruins of the Imperial Roman villas.
Capri is part of the region of Campania, Province of Naples. Most people on the island live in the town of Capri. The island has two harbours, Marina Piccola and Marina Grande (the main port of the island). The separate comune of Anacapri is high on the hills to the west.
The etymology of the name 'Capri' is unclear.
Rockford, Minnesota
Rockford is a city in Wright and Hennepin counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 4,316 at the 2010 census.
Paedophryne
Paedophryne is a genus of microhylid frogs from Papua New Guinea. All six species known so far are amongst the smallest frog and vertebrate species.
Hydrolysis
Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction or process where a chemical compound reacts with water. This is the type of reaction that is used to break down polymers into many smaller units. In this reaction, water is always added to the chemical compound.
Doom (2016 video game)
Doom, known during development as Doom 4, is a first-person shooter game in the Doom series from 2016. The game is the second reboot of the Doom series and features gameplay similar to the original Doom from 1993. The way Doom (2016) was designed was very different from Doom 3, which was more survival-horror-based and slower paced rather than the usual action-based, faster pace games of Doom (1993) and Doom II. It was released on May 13, 2016. The game can be played on the PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Hydrolysis
Hydrolysis of metal salts
Hydrolysis of metal salts is more commonly known as hydration. Many metal ions are strong Lewis acids, and in water they may undergo hydrolysis to form basic salts. Such salts contain a hydroxyl group that is directly bound to the metal ion in place of a water ligand. The positive charge on metal ions creates an attraction to water, a Lewis base with a non-binding electron pair on the oxygen atom, and alters the water molecule's electron density. This in turn increases the polarity of the O-H bond, which now acts as a proton donor under Brønsted-Lowry acid-base theory to release the hydrogen as a H+ ion, increasing the acidity of the solution. For example, aluminium chloride undergoes extensive hydrolysis in water with the solution being very acidic.
Paedophryne
Paedophryne amauensis
Paedophryne amauensis is a recently discovered species of frog from Papua New Guinea. Only 7.7 mm long, it is the world's smallest known vertebrate.
Hydrolysis
Hydrolysis of metal salts
This implies that hydrogen chloride is lost in the evaporation of AlCl3 solutions and the residue is a basic salt (in this case an oxychloride) in place of AlCl3. This type of reaction is also seen with other metal chlorides such as ZnCl2, SnCl2, FeCl3 and lanthanide halides such as DyCl3. With some compounds such as TiCl4, the hydrolysis may go to completion and form the pure hydroxide or oxide, in this case TiO2.
Paedophryne
Discovery
The frog species was discovered in August of 2009 by Christopher Austin when exploring Papua New Guinea. The National Science Foundation sponsored the exploration.
Doom (2016 video game)
The sequel is Doom Eternal and was released in 2020.
Paedophryne
Characteristics
The frog is a millimeter smaller than the previous record holder for being the world's smallest vertebrate – a species of carp (Paedocypris progenetica) from Indonesia. The frog mainly lives on land. According to its discoverers, the life cycle of the frog does not include a tadpole stage.
Doom (2016 video game)
Game design
To make both fans of the first game and modern gamers happy, the game developers kept many of the old gameplay features and added some new ones as well. Older gameplay features include never reloading your weapon, having all weapons on you at all times rather than just two weapons, having a traditional health bar rather than health regeneration, running at full speed at all times, rewarding offensive gameplay rather than defensive gameplay, and defense being based on strafing (moving out of the way) rather than taking cover. Gameplay features that are new to the series include melee-based finishing moves called Glory Kills, most weapons having two different secondary firing modes that can be bought and switched out at any time, platforming similar to the Metroid Prime games, weapon challenges to upgrade your weapons, and arcade-style challenges to upgrade your suit. The art style is also a mix of Doom and Doom 3.
1954 FIFA World Cup
The 1954 FIFA World Cup was a football sporting event that was held in Switzerland in 1954. Germany won the trophy after beating Hungary in the final.
Doom (2016 video game)
Weapons
The game has all the weapons from Doom and Doom 2. It also has the Heavy Assault Rifle, which was based on the Assault Rifle in Doom 3. There is also a completely new weapon, the Gauss Cannon. The Chainsaw now has fuel limits, unlike the other Doom games, but it can kill most enemies in one hit, and it also gives the player more ammo pick-ups when he or she is low on ammo. The BFG-9000 also has its own ammo, which can kill every non-boss enemy you can see on-screen. Six weapons have two different mods that can be switched in battle. For example, the Shotgun has both Burst Shot and Grenade Launcher mods.
Tommy Lasorda
Thomas Charles Lasorda (September 22, 1927 – January 7, 2021) was a Major League Baseball player. He had a long career in sports management.
1954 FIFA World Cup
References
FIFA
Tommy Lasorda
Lasorda came out of retirement to manage the United States team at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. He led the Americans to the gold medal, beating heavily favored Cuba, which had won the gold medals at the two previous Olympics.
Doom (2016 video game)
Weapons
Like in earlier Doom games, certain weapons share ammo. The Chaingun and Heavy Assault Rifle share bullets, the Combat Shotgun and Super Shotgun share shotgun shells, and the Plasma Rifle and Gauss Cannon share energy cells.
Tommy Lasorda
With the death of Red Schoendienst on June 6, 2018, Lasorda was the oldest living Hall-of-Famer.
In November 2020, Lasorda was hospitalized for having a heart attack and was discharged the next month. On January 7, 2021, Lasorda went to cardiac arrest at his home in Fullerton, California and died a few hours later, aged 93.
Doom (2016 video game)
Plot
The game begins with the player, the Doom Slayer, wakes up chained to a coffin after hundreds of years being trapped in Hell. A zombie comes to kill the Doom Slayer, but he breaks free from his chains, kills the approaching zombie, and kills the rest of them with the Pistol. In the next room, the Doom Slayer finds his suit of armor, the Praetor Suit, and puts it on. Right after that, the Doom Slayer learns that the UAC lab on Mars has been overrun with demons, and that almost everyone on the base is either dead or they turned into zombies or demons. This is the result of leading scientist Olivia Pierce and her followers performing rituals to unleash Hell on Mars.
The CEO of UAC, Samuel Hayden, tells the Doom Slayer that the UAC was sending workers to Hell to get Argent Energy, an extremely powerful and efficient source of energy, and to do research on captured demons. He says it is absolutely needed to solve Earth's energy shortage. However, it was not his plan to unleash Hell. He tells the Doom Slayer that Pierce went insane and went too far. While the Doom Slayer agrees to help Hayden stop the demons coming on Mars, he also tries to destroy the Argent Energy production as well, which makes Hayden unhappy.
Despite the Doom Slayer's best efforts, Pierce was able to open up the Well, a very large portal of Hell on the UAC base, so that Hell will be unleashed on Mars forever. Even though the Doom Slayer gets sent to Hell, Hayden created a tether system that allows the Doom Slayer to be teleported out of Hell at anytime. Hayden tells the Doom Slayer that there is only one way to shut down the Well, go back to Hell to get a key called the Crucible.
Doom Slayer goes back to Hell by fighting the Cyberdemon, who teleports himself and the Doom Slayer there in the middle of the boss fight. When the Doom Slayer finds the Crucible, it was being guarded by demons called the Argent Guards. The Doom Slayer kills them and gets the Crucible. The Doom Slayer then uses the Crucible to close the portal. After that, he fights Pierce, who has turned into the Spider Mastermind. After he kills Pierce, Hayden teleports him right back to Mars and takes the Crucible from him. With the Crucible, Hayden can restart Argent Energy production. Hayden then teleports the Doom Slayer to an unknown place, and right afterwards, the game's credits are shown.
Frans Hals
Frans Hals the Elder (c. 1582 – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch painter. He is known for his loose brushwork. He helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portrait painting.
Cambuskenneth
Cambuskenneth (Gaelic: Camas Sgeanail) is a village in the city of Stirling, in central Scotland. It has a population of 250 and is the site of the historic Cambuskenneth Abbey. It is by the River Forth and the only road access to the village is along Ladysneuk Road from Alloa Road in Causewayhead.
Chemical biology
Chemical biology is a science that combines the fields of chemistry and biology. It involves the application of chemical techniques and tools, often compounds produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and manipulation of biological systems.
It is different from biochemistry. Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry of biological molecules. For example, a biochemist studies the three-dimensional structure of a protein and how that structure relates to the chemistry of the protein. Also, biochemistry studies the way enzymes work. Chemical biologists use chemical principles to modulate systems. They do this to either investigate biology relationships or create new functions. In this way, the research done by chemical biologists is often closer to that of cell biology than biochemistry. Biochemists work in the chemistry of biology, but chemical biologists work in chemistry applied to biology.
Confederation
A confederation is a group of countries that, by treaty, have given some of their powers to a central government. They do this in order to coordinate their actions in a number of areas. This is like a federation, but without the association being a new country.
Zablon Simintov
Zablon Simintov (born 1959) is thought to be the last Jew in Afghanistan. He was born in Herat. Simintov had lived with the second last remaining Jewish man in Afghanistan, Ishaq Levin, who died on January 26, 2005, aged around 80.
Greenfield, Minnesota
Greenfield is a city in northwestern Hennepin County, Minnesota. It has a population of 2,777 residents, according to the 2010 census, and is located 26.5 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
Zablon Simintov
Simintov says it is not easy to practice his religion alone. However, he has obtained special permission from the nearest rabbi, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to slaughter his own meat in line with kosher dietary laws. That can normally only be done by a specially trained and qualified Jewish ritual slaughterer. He says that he receives special kosher packages for Passover from Afghan Jews living in New York.
His wife and two daughters live in Israel. When asked during an interview whether he would emigrate to Israel, Simintov retorted, "Go to Israel? What business do I have there? Why should I leave?"
Crow River (Minnesota)
The Crow River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in south-central Minnesota in the United States. It drains a watershed of 2756 sqmi.
The North Fork of the Crow River was named by the Ojibwe Indians for the bird they called the "marauder of newly planted corn."
The north and south forks converge at Rockford to form the Crow River, which flows for 39.9 km northeastward to the Mississippi River.
The Crow flows through Greenfield, Hanover, St. Michael, Otsego and Dayton; it enters the Mississippi River from the south at the common boundary between Otsego and Dayton.
Marikana massacre
The Marikana massacre took place on the 16 August 2012.The incident took place on the 25th anniversary of a nationwide miners' strike. The events happened in Marikana, a place in South Africa. South African police forces shot at miners, who were protesting. They injured 78 and killed 34 of them. Most of those killed were killed by rifles used by police forces. The event was the most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since 1976. The massacre has been compared to the 1960 Sharpeville massacre.
Georges Sarre
Georges Sarre (26 November 1935 – 31 January 2019) was a French politician. He was born in Chénérailles, Creuse. He was the leader of the Citizen and Republican Movement. He was elected MEP in the 1979 European elections and was elected to the French National Assembly for Paris in 1981.
Sarre died on 31 January 2019 in Paris from coronary artery disease, aged 83.
Marikana massacre
The strike was considered a important event in modern South African history; similar strikes at took place at other mines across South Africa. These events made 2012 the most protest-filled year in the country since the end of apartheid.
The Marikana massacre occurred during a wildcat strike at a mine owned by Lonmin in the Marikana area, close to Rustenburg, in 2012. The event garnered international attention after a series of violent incidents between the police, Lonmin security, and members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on one side, and strikers on the other. The first incidents of violence were on 11 August, when NUM leaders opened fire on NUM members who were on strike. Two strikers were seriously wounded, but not killed, in the shooting by NUM members.
During the period from Sunday 12 August to Tuesday 14 August, 10 people were killed, including six mine workers, two Lonmin security guards, and two SAPS members. Three of the mine workers, and the two SAPS members, were killed in a clash between strikers and SAPS members on the afternoon of 13 August. The remaining five people are known to or believed to have been killed by strikers.
Confederation
A confederation is not the same as a federation, but they have a similarity. A confederation is a group of countries, a federation is a country.
The only example today is the European Union. Switzerland has the Latin name Confœderatio Helvetica, although it is not a confederation in this sense, but a federation.
Hyperion (Simmons novel)
Hyperion is a science fiction book that was written by Dan Simmons in 1989. It is the first book of his Hyperion Cantos series. The book won the Hugo Award award in 1989 for best novel.
Mersin Province
Name
In 2002, the province's name was changed from İçel to Mersin. The province retained the license plate number of 33, İçel having been the 33rd in the alphabetical order of Turkish province names.
Districts
Mersin Province is divided into thirteen districts. Four of them are actually included within the municipality of Mersin city (shown in boldface letters).
Population of the province
In the table below, the four second-level municipalities are merged within Mersin proper.
Jan Swammerdam
Research on insects
Knowledge of insects in the 17th century was to a great extent inherited from Aristotle. Swammerdam dissected insects and studied them under microscopes.
Swammerdam showed that insects develop in the same gradual manner as do other animals. He wanted to dispel the seventeenth-century idea that different life stages of an insect (e.g. caterpillar and butterfly) were different individuals.
He got evidence from his dissections. By examining larvae, he identified adult features in pre-adult animals. For example, he noticed that the wings of dragonflies and mayflies exist before their final molt. Swammerdam used these observations in his 1669 publication, Historia Insectorum Generalis (The Natural History of Insects). This work included many descriptions of insect anatomy. It was here that Swammerdam revealed that the "king" bee has ovaries. Biblia natura published posthumously in 1737, carried the first confirmation that the queen bee is the sole mother of the colony. Despite five intense years of beekeeping, the mode of honey bee reproduction escaped him as he wrote, "I do not believe the male bees actually copulate with the females."
Martine Tabeaud
Martine Tabeaud (born 1951) is a French geographer, and climatologist. She teaches at the University of Paris Panthéon Sorbonne, since 1977. She studied at Institut national de l’information géographique et forestière. In 2019, she was appointed co-director of the International Geography Festival (FIG). Her work appeared in Liberation.
Anno Domini
Anno Domini (Medieval Latin : "in the year of the Lord"), shortened as AD or A.D., is used to refer to the years after the birth of Jesus. AD is also a shortening for Christian Era. Similarly, Before Christ, shortened as BC or B.C., is used in the English language to refer to all years before the start of the time period Anno Domini. In past centuries, AD came before the year but comes after a century or millennium. For example, a person would write AD 2014 but 21st century AD or 3rd millennium AD. There is no zero year in this system. This means that the year A.D. 1 follows the year 1 B.C.
Hyperion Cantos
The Hyperion Cantos is a series of science fiction books that were written by Dan Simmons.
Anno Domini
Some people mistakenly interpret “A.D.” as standing for “after death.” The abbreviation “A.D.” was originally placed before the year number (e.g. A.D. 145); then “B.C.” often placed after the year number (e.g. 145 B.C.). Nowadays it is more usual to put both abbreviations after the numbers (e.g. 145 AD; e.g. 145 BC).
Hyperion Cantos
Hyperion received the Hugo Award for best novel in 1990 and The Fall of Hyperion was nominated for the Nebula Award for best novel in 1990. Three of the novels received the Locus Award for best science fiction novel: Hyperion (1990), The Fall of Hyperion (1991) and The Rise of Endymion (1998). The author recently said that a movie might be made about the series.
Anno Domini
This dating system was meant to signal the year of Christ's birth, but modern scholars have decided Jesus was actually born a few years earlier.
Pre History term
The system for working out the years was invented by Dionysius Exiguus in about AD 525. He fixed the point Anno Domini, which is used to number the years of both the Gregorian calendar and the Julian calendar. He used it to identify the several Easters in his Easter table. He did not use it to date any historical event. When he devised his table, Julian calendar years were identified by naming the consuls who held office that year — he himself stated that the "present year" was "the consulship of Probus Junior [Flavius Probus]", which he also stated was 525 years "since the incarnation [conception] of our Lord Jesus Christ". How he arrived at that number is unknown. He invented a new system of numbering years to replace the Diocletian years that had been used in an old Easter table because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians.
The Anno Domini calendar era became dominant in Western Europe only after it was used by the Venerable Bede to date the events in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. The French emperor Charlemagne made it popular in mainland Europe. Some parts of Europe did not use the Anno Domini system until the 15th century. For example, Portugal used a different system called the Spanish era until 1422.
2011 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A - Results of first round
This is the Results of the first round of 2011 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A.
Dreamboat (movie)
Dreamboat is a 1952 American comedy movie directed by Claude Binyon and starring Clifton Webb, Ginger Rogers, Anne Francis, Jeffrey Hunter. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (c. 63 BC – 12 BC) was a general of the Roman Empire and a statesman. He was a close friend and brother-in-law of Augustus.
Agrippa's place of birth is not known for sure. It may have been the city of Arpinum. His father was callled Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa (we know this from an inscription on the Pantheon). He had an elder brother, and a sister named Vipsania Polla. The family had not been prominent in Roman public life.
Wives and children
Agrippa first married Caecilia Attica, the daughter of Cicero's friend T. Pomponius Atticus. They a daughter – Vipsania Agrippina, and perhaps another: 'Vipsania Minor'. Vipsania Agrippina became the wife of Tiberius.
By his second marriage to Claudia Marcella (oldest daughter of Octavia) he probably had a single surviving daughter.
His third wife, Julia (daughter of Augustus) bore him three sons and two daughters: Gaius (born 20 BC), Julia the Younger, Lucius (born 17 BC), Agrippina the Elder (born ca. 15 BC), and Postumus Agrippa. The last child was born in 12 BC after the death of Agrippa. Agrippa died in March 12 BC. Agrippa's more famous descendents stem from his daughter Agrippina: they include his grandson Caligula and great-grandson Nero.
Career
Agrippa fought in Caesar's Civil War (49–45 BC), giving help to Octavian against Lucius Antonius. Later services include his defeat of Sextus Pompey at Naolochus, Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, and the fall of Egypt. Later he completed of the conquest of Spain and fought in the North and East. For his valuable services he held three consulships (37, 28, 27 BC). He became Tribune of the plebs in 18 BC and renewed in 13, making him Augustus' unofficial co-emperor. He died at the height of his power in March 12 BC.
Short-beaked echidna
The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is the only member of its genus, and one of four living species of echidna.
The short-beaked echidna, Tachyglossus, is the spiny anteater because they eat ants and termites. It is covered in fur and spines. It has a special nose (snout) and a special tongue that lets the echidna catch its prey at a great speed. It lays eggs, like the other monotremes.
The echidna lives throughout Australia, and in coastal and highland regions of southwestern New Guinea. In Australia, it is the most widespread native mammal. It is not threatened with extinction, but human activities, such as hunting, habitat destruction, and the introduction of foreign predators and parasites, have reduced its range.
Distribution
The animal was first described in 1792. Tachyglossus means "fast tongue". This is about the speed with which the echidna uses its tongue to catch ants and termites. The word aculeatus means "spiny" or "having spines".
The long-beaked echidna are all bigger than T. aculeatus. They eat mostly worms and grubs, rather than ants and termites.
There are five subspecies of the short-beaked echidna. Each live in a different area from the others. The subspecies are also different from each other as to hairiness, spine length and width, and the size of the claws on their back feet.
Description
Short-beaked echidnas are usually 30 to 45 centimetres in length. They have a 75-millimetre beak, and weigh between two and five kilograms. The Tasmanian subspecies, T. a. setosus, is larger than the Australian mainland species.
Because the neck cannot be seen, the head and body appear to join together. The earholes are on either side of the head, with no external pinnae. The eyes are small and at the base of the wedge-shaped beak. The nostrils and the mouth are at the far end of the beak.
The legs of this echidna are adapted for rapid digging. Their legs are short and have strong claws. The claws on the back feet are longer and curve backwards to help cleaning and grooming between the spines. Like the platypus it has a low body temperature—between 30 and 32 °C. Unlike the platypus, which shows no evidence of torpor or hibernation, the body temperature of the echidna may fall as low as 5 °C. The echidna does not pant or sweat and normally seeks shelter in hot conditions. In autumn and winter the echidna shows periods of torpor or deep hibernation. Because of its low body temperature, the animal becomes sluggish in very hot and very cold weather.
The muscles of this echidna have a number of unusual features. There is an enormous muscle that is just beneath the skin and covers the entire body. By contraction of various parts of this muscle the Short-beaked Echidna can change shape. The most common shape change is achieved by rolling itself into a ball when threatened, protecting its belly and presenting a defensive array of sharp spines. It has one of the shortest spinal cords of any mammal, extending only as far as the thorax.
General physiology
Many physiological adaptations fit the animal to its lifestyle. It burrows, and can tolerate high levels of carbon dioxide. Its ear is sensitive to low-frequency sound, which may be ideal for detecting sounds emitted by termites and ants underground. The leathery snout is covered in mechano- and thermoreceptors. These receptors provide information about the surrounding environment. The echidna has a well-developed olfactory system, which may be used to detect mates and prey, and its other senses perform well. Its brain and central nervous system have been extensively studied for comparison with placental mammals.
The short-beaked echidna has the largest prefrontal cortex, relative to body size, of any mammal. It takes up 50% of the volume of the cortex, compared to 29% for humans. This suggests good decision-making in its constant search for insect nests, and for a mate when reproducing.
Basal traits
Like all monotremes, the echidna has only one orifice for the passage of faeces, urine and reproductive products, which is known as the cloaca. The male has internal testes, no external scrotum and a highly unusual penis with four knobs on the tip. The gestating female has a pouch on its underside, where it raises its young.
The laying of eggs and the cloaca are basal traits which are present in all early amniotes, including reptiles, birds and early mammals.
Reproduction
The solitary Short-beaked Echidna looks for a mate between May and September; the precise timing of the mating season varies with geographic location. Both males and females give off a strong odour during the mating season. During courtship—observed for the first time in 1989—males locate and pursue females. Trains of up to ten males may follow a single female in a courtship ritual that may last for up to four weeks; the duration of the courtship period varies with location. In cooler parts of their range, such as Tasmania, females may mate within a few hours of arousal from hibernation.
Before mating, the male smells the female, paying particular attention to the cloaca. The male is often observed to roll the female onto her side and then assumes a similar position so that the two animals are abdomen to abdomen. Each mating results in the production of a single egg, and females are known to mate only once during the breeding season; each mating is successful.
Fertilisation occurs in the oviduct. Gestation takes between 21 and 28 days, during which time the female constructs a nursery burrow. Following the gestation period, a single rubbery-skinned egg between 13 and 17 millimetres in diameter is laid directly into a small, backward-facing pouch that has developed on her abdomen. Ten days after it is laid, the egg hatches within the pouch. The embryo develops an "egg tooth" during incubation, which it uses to tear open the egg; the tooth disappears soon after hatching.
Hatchlings are about 1.5 cm long and weigh between 0.3 and 0.4 grams. After hatching, young Echidnas are known as puggles. Hatchlings attach themselves to their mothers' milk areolae, a specialised patch on the skin that secretes milk (monotremes have no nipples). The way in which puggles drink the milk is not yet known, but they have been observed drinking large amounts during each feeding period, since mothers may leave them unattended in the burrow for between five and ten days. The principal components of the milk are types of lactose. The milk has a high iron content, which gives it a pink colour.
Juveniles are eventually ejected from the pouch at around two to three months of age, because of the continuing growth in the length of their spines. Suckling gradually decreases until juveniles are weaned at about six months of age. The duration of lactation is about 200 days, and the young leave the burrow between 180 and 240 days.
The age of sexual maturity is uncertain, but may be four to five years. A twelve-year field study, published in 2003, found that the Short-beaked Echidna reached sexual maturity between five and 12 years of age, and that the frequency of reproduction varies from once every two years to once every six years. The Short-beaked Echidna can live as long as 45 years in the wild.
Ecology and behaviour
No systematic study of the ecology of the Short-beak Echidna has been published. There have been studies of several aspects of their ecological behaviour. Short-beaked Echidnas live alone and apart from the burrow created for rearing young; they have no fixed shelter or nest site. They do not have a home territory, but range over a wide area. Short-beaked Echidnas are usually active in the daytime; however, they have problems in hot weather, because they have no sweat glands and do not pant. Therefore, in warm weather they change their pattern of activity, becoming crepuscular (active at dawn or dusk) or nocturnal (active in the night). They can tolerate cold temperatures, and hibernate during the winter in very cold regions.
Short-beaked Echidnas can live anywhere where there is a good supply of food. Short-beaked Echidnas find food by smell, using sensors in the tip of their beak, and regularly feast on ants and termites. They are powerful diggers, using their clawed front paws to dig out prey and dig burrows for shelter. They may rapidly dig themselves into the ground if they cannot find cover when in danger.
In Australia they are most common in forested areas where there are many termite-filled fallen logs. In agricultural areas, they are most likely to be in uncleared scrub; they may be in grassland, arid areas, and in the outer suburbs of the capital cities. Little is known about their distribution in New Guinea. They have been found in southern New Guinea between Merauke in the west, to the Kelp Welsh River, east of Port Moresby, where they may be in open woodland.
Conservation status
The Short-beaked Echidna is common in most of temperate Australia and lowland New Guinea, and is not listed as endangered. In Australia, the number of Short-beaked Echidnas has been less affected by land clearing than have some other species, since Short-beaked Echidnas do not require a specialised habitat beyond a good supply of ants and termites. Despite their spines, they are eaten by birds, the Tasmanian Devil, cats, foxes and dogs. They were also eaten by indigenous Australians and the early Europen settlers of Australia. The most common threats to the animal in Australia are cars and habitat destruction. These have led to localised extinction. Infection with the introduced parasite Spirometra erinaceieuropaei is fatal for the Echidna. The Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland runs an Australia-wide survey called Echidna Watch to monitor the species in Australia.
Captive breeding is difficult, partly because of the relatively infrequent breeding cycle. Only five zoos have managed to breed a captive Short-beaked Echidna, but no captive-bred young have survived to be adults. This has conservation implications for the endangered species of echidna from the genus Zaglossus, and to a lesser extent for the Short-beaked Echidna.
Cultural references
Short-beaked Echidnas feature in the animistic culture of Indigenous Australians, including their visual arts and stories. The species was a totem for some groups, including the Noongar people from Western Australia, who called the animal the Nyingarn. Many groups have myths about the animal; one myth explains that it was created when a group of hungry, young men went hunting at night and stumbled across a wombat. They threw spears at the wombat, but lost sight of it in the darkness. The wombat adapted the spears as its own defense and turned into an Echidna. Another story tells of a greedy man that kept food from his tribe; warriors speared him and he crawled away into the bushes, where he was turned into an Echidna, the spears becoming his spines.
The Short-beaked Echidna is an iconic animal in modern Australia. It appears on the Australian five-cent piece (the smallest denomination) and on a $200 commemorative coin released in 1992. The Short-beaked Echidna has been included in several postal issues: it was one of four native species to appear on Australian postage stamps in 1974, where it was the 25 cent stamp; it appeared on a 37 cent stamp in 1987, and again in 1992 when it was on the 35 cent stamp. The anthropomorphic Echidna Millie was a mascot for the 2000 Summer Olympics. Knuckles the Echidna is a popular character from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game franchise, debuting in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Hyperacusis
Hyperacusis is a hearing health problem where people become more sensitive to some sounds for certain frequencies and volumes. This can make everyday sounds such as a car, dishwasher or refrigerator sound very loud. It is usually very difficult to tolerate and can be uncomfortable or even painful for people experiencing it.
Symptoms
The increasing sensitivity of the ears caused by hyperacusis is usually painful for many people. Not only can it negatively effect the everyday lives of people experiencing it, it can for some make it very difficult and even not possible to do their everyday jobs and take care of their responsibilities. There are many symptoms experienced by those with hyperacusis.
Causes
Similarly to other hearing problems, hyperacusis can occur suddenly or gradually over time and is a problem that can affect people of all different ages in one or both ears. Again, like other forms of hearing problems, there are a variety of possible causes ranging from exposure to noise and other diseases.
Although these are the main causes of hyeracusis and can be seen as causes related to most hearing problems, there are other less common, possible causes such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Treatment
Hyperacusis cannot always be fully cured, but for most patients the symptoms get better with time and treatment. Patients will need to learn to use hearing protection against sounds which are very loud, but to not use these in everyday situations. Protecting the ears too much will make the symptoms worse instead of better.
John McEwen
Sir John McEwen (29 March 1900 – 20 November 1980) was the 18th Prime Minister of Australia. He was leader of the Country Party when Harold Holt disappeared in 1967, and so was appointed Prime Minister until the Liberal Party elected a new leader. The Party elected John Gorton as the leader, and Gorton took over as Prime Minister on 10 January 1968. McEwen then served as Deputy Prime Minister until 1971.
Anne of Austria
Anne of Austria, Infanta of Spain, Infanta of Portugal, Archduchess of Austria (Ana María Mauricia; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666), Anne d’Autriche in French, was Queen consort of France and Navarre. She also acted as a regent for her son, Louis XIV of France. During her regency (1643–1651) Cardinal Mazarin served as France's chief minister.
Early life
The birth of Anne of Austria was at Benavente Palace in Valladolid, Spain. She came into the world just five days before her future husband, Louis XIII. She was baptized Ana María Mauricia. She was the oldest daughter of Habsburg parents, Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. She was called the Infanta of Spain and of Portugal, Archduchess of Austria, Princess of Burgundy and of the Low Countries. Anne's mother died early at the Valladolid. She died after giving birth to a third daughter, Marguerite. Anne was 11 years old when she was betrothed to Louis XIII. Her father, Philip, gave her a dowry of 500,000 crowns. He also gave her a great number of beautiful jewels. They had some fears that Louis XIII would die early. Anne's father said that if this happened, Anne must return to Spain with her dowry, jewels, and wardrobe. Shortly after, on November 1615, Anne and Louis were married separately, but to one another. This is called a proxy marriage. They were both 14 years old.
Marriage life
Louis's mother, Marie de' Medici, continued to be the Queen of France. She did not discuss things with her daughter-in-law. Anne, with her Spanish ladies-in-waiting, continued to live according to Spanish custom. She failed to improve her French.
The duc de Luynes tried to make the queen and king closer. He sent away the Spanish ladies and hired French ones instead. Some of the more famous ones are the princesse de Conti and Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, the duchesse de Chevreuse. She was his wife. He also organised court events that would bring the queen and king together more happily. Anne began to dress in the French manner.
However, a number of 'wretched miscarriages' again made their relations cold. On 14 March 1622, while playing with her ladies, Anne fell on the stairs. She suffered her second miscarriage. Louis angrily blamed her. He was also upset with Mme de Luynes for not being careful enough. After this, the King grew to dislike the influence the duchesse de Luynes had over Anne. He disliked the duchesse even more when Luynes died (December 1621). Anne remained without a child for 16 more years.
Through his life Louis had a cool behaviour towards Anne. He was always fearful that his wife "had a great passion for the interests of Spain". In 1625 the English George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, shocked the French court by admitting his passion for Anne. Madame de Motteville said that, "if a respectable woman could love a man other than her husband, it would have been Buckingham".