ejaasaari/simplewiki-2025-04-01 huggingface dataset:
Friedensreich Hundertwasser (born 15 December 1928, died 20 February 2000) was an Austrian artist. He often called himself "Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser" ("Land-of-Peace Rainy-Day Dark-Colourful Hundred-Water") . Hundertwasser became known for designing buildings, but he also created stamps, painted, designed posters, and other works. He even designed a new flag for New Zealand, based on a local fern frond, called the Koru.  Biography. Hundertwasser was born in Vienna as Friedrich Stowasser. His mother, Elsa, was Jewish, so the Second World War was a difficult time for them. They pretended to be Catholic during the war, and to escape notice, Friedrich even joined the Hitler Youth. After the war ended, he changed his name from Friedrich Stowasser to Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Part of the meaning of "Friedensreich" is "peaceful realm (country)". He studied briefly at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but when his money ran out, he started to travel a lot. He began to develop his own style, and in 1952, he exhibited his paintings for the first time.  Hundertwasser married twice - in 1957 and 1962 - but both marriages ended in divorce. He had one daughter, Heidi Trimmel, who was born in 1982.  In 1975, Hundertwasser left Europe and went to live in a small town called Kawakawa in New Zealand, where he could live mostly self-sufficiently. The artist bought several properties, joined them together to give himself enough access to nature, built solar panels and a water purification plant, and grew his own food. He lived there until he died of a heart attack in 2000.  He was buried at home in New Zealand. On top of his grave, a tree was planted. Hundertwasser said in 1989, A dead person is entitled to reincarnation in the form of... a tree that grows on top of him and through him.
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French artist. He is famous for his paintings and sculptures: he was one of those who started Impressionism, although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist.p31 A superb draughtsman, he is identified with the subject of the dance, and over half of his works depict dancers. These display his mastery in the depiction of movement, as do his racecourse subjects and female nudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and the way they show human isolation.p11 His life. He was born in Paris, France. He began to paint early in his life. Because his father wanted it, he went to university to become a lawyer in 1853. Edgar did not like this, and he went to study at the "École des Beaux-Arts", an important art-school in Paris in 1855. In 1856 he traveled to Naples in Italy, he stayed there for 3 years. He studied famous painters like Michelangelo and Raphael and learnt by copying their work. In 1859 he came back to Paris. He started his first important painting "The Bellelli Family", and also started on a few paintings on historical myths, like "Alexander and Bucephalus" and "The Daughter of Jephthah". In 1861 he visited Normandy and made his first drawings of horses which were an important subject for his paintings. After the start of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Degas worked for the National Guard. He did not have time to paint.p29 After the war he went to stay with his brother Rene in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1873 he went back to Paris and in 1874 his father died. He then found out his brother had large business debts. Edgar had to sell the house and a collection of art he had inherited. He now had to depend on his paintings for his income. He created a lot of great paintings in next 10 years.p33 With the money he earned, he bought paintings
Bacterial conjugation is the transfer of genetic material between bacterial cells by direct cell-to-cell contact or by a bridge-like connection between two cells. Conjugation is a mechanism of horizontal gene transfer, as are transformation and transduction, though these two other mechanisms do not involve cell-to-cell contact. Bacterial conjugation was discovered by Nobel Prize winners Joshua Lederberg and Edward Tatum. They showed that the bacterium "Escherichia coli" entered a sexual phase during which it could share genetic information. Bacterial conjugation is often incorrectly regarded as the equivalent of sexual reproduction, since it involves the exchange of genetic material. During conjugation the "donor" cell provides a conjugative or mobilizable genetic element that is most often a plasmid or transposon. Most conjugative plasmids have systems ensuring that the "recipient" cell does not already contain a similar element. The genetic information transferred is often beneficial to the recipient. Benefits may include antibiotic resistance, xenobiotic tolerance or the ability to use new metabolites. Such beneficial plasmids may be considered bacterial endosymbionts. Other elements, however, may be viewed as bacterial parasites and conjugation as a mechanism evolved by them to allow for their spread. Mechanism. The basic conjugative plasmid is the F-plasmid, or F-factor. The F-plasmid is an episome (a plasmid that can integrate itself into the bacterial chromosome) with a length of about 100,000 base pairs. There can only be one copy of the F-plasmid in a given bacterium, either free or integrated, and bacteria that possess a copy are called "F-positive" or "F-plus" (denoted F+). Cells that lack F plasmids are called "F-negative" or "F-minus" (F-) and can function as recipient cells. Inter-kingdom transfer. The nitrogen fixing "Rhizobia" are an interesting case of inter-kingdom conjugation. For example, the tumor-inducing (Ti) plasmid of "Agrobacterium" and the root-tumor inducing (Ri) plasmid of "A. rhiz
A plasmid is a DNA molecule that is separate from the chromosomal DNA and that can replicate (copy itself) independently. The term "plasmid" was first introduced by the American molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg in 1952. Plasmids are double stranded and, in many cases, circular. Plasmids usually occur naturally in bacteria, but are sometimes found in eukaryotic organisms (e.g., the "2-micrometre-ring" in "Saccharomyces cerevisiae"). Plasmid size varies from 1 to over 1,000 kilobase pairs (kbp). The number of identical plasmids within a single cell can range from one to thousands. Plasmids are often associated with conjugation, a mechanism of horizontal gene transfer. Plasmids are transferable genetic elements, or "replicons", capable of independent self copying in a suitable host. Plasmids can be found in all three major domains, Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya. Similar to viruses, plasmids are not considered a form of "life" as it is currently defined. Unlike viruses, plasmids are "naked" DNA and do not encode genes necessary to encase the genetic material for transfer to a new host. Plasmid host-to-host transfer requires direct, mechanical transfer by conjugation or changes in host gene expression allowing the intentional uptake of the genetic element by transformation. Microbial transformation with plasmid DNA is neither parasitic nor symbiotic in nature, since each implies the presence of an independent species living in a commensal or detrimental state with the host organism. Rather, plasmids provide a mechanism for horizontal gene transfer within a population of microbes and may provide a selective advantage under a given environmental state. Plasmids may carry genes that provide resistance to naturally occurring antibiotics in a competitive environmental niche, or alternatively the proteins produced may act as toxins under similar circumstances. Plasmids also can provide bacteria with an ability to fix elemental nitrogen or to degrade difficult organic compounds. This may provide an advantage under conditions of nutrient deprivation. The construction of first recombinant DNA emerged from linking of a gene encoding antibiotic resistance with a native plasmid.
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) (or "Lateral gene transfer") is how an organism gets genetic material from another organism without being the offspring of that organism.  By contrast, "vertical transfer" occurs when an organism gets genetic material from its ancestor, e.g., its parent or a species from which it has evolved. Most thinking in genetics has focused on vertical transfer, but horizontal gene transfer is also important. Amongst single-celled organisms it may be the dominant form of genetic transfer. Artificial horizontal gene transfer may be used as a type of genetic engineering. Mechanism. There are several mechanisms for horizontal gene transfer: History. Horizontal gene transfer was first described in Japan in a 1959 publication that demonstrated the transfer of antibiotic resistance between different species of bacteria.  In the mid-1980s, Syvanen suggested that lateral gene transfer not only had biological significance, but was involved in shaping evolutionary history from the beginning of life on Earth.  "Increasingly, studies of genes and genomes are indicating that considerable horizontal transfer has occurred between prokaryotes". The phenomenon appears to have had some significance for unicellular eukaryotes as well. As Bapteste et al. observe, "additional evidence suggests that gene transfer might also be an important evolutionary mechanism in protist evolution". There is some evidence that even higher plants and animals have been affected. Richardson and Palmer (2007) state: "Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) has played a major role in bacterial evolution and is fairly common in certain unicellular eukaryotes. However, the prevalence and importance of HGT in the evolution of multicellular eukaryotes remains unclear".
Transduction how a virus moves DNA from one bacterium to another.  Joshua Lederberg and his graduate student Norton Zinder showed in 1952 that bacteriophages could transfer genetic information between bacteria in "Salmonella". This explained how bacteria of different species could gain resistance to the same antibiotic very quickly.  Transduction also refers to the process whereby foreign DNA is introduced into another cell via a viral vector. This is a common tool used by molecular biologists to introduce a foreign gene into a host cell's genome. When bacteriophages infect a bacterial cell, they usually reproduce by using the replicational, transcriptional, and translation machinery of the host bacterial cell to make many complete viral particles, including the viral DNA or RNA and the protein coat. Errors in this process can result in the virus carrying over DNA from one bacterium to another.
Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte () de Lesseps, GCSI (19 November 1805 – 7 December 1894) was the French developer of the Suez Canal, which joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas in 1869. He also tried to build a Panama Canal during the 1880s, but malaria and yellow fever was so bad that he gave up and the Panama Canal Company went bankrupt. A different canal was later built by the United States and completed in 1914. Early life. Ferdinand de Lesseps was born at Versailles, Yvelines, in 1805. His first years were spent in Italy, where his father was a diplomat. Career. Diplomatic. In 1828 de Lesseps was sent as an assistant vice-consul to Tunis, where his father was consul-general. He aided the escape of Youssouff, pursued by the soldiers of the Bey, of whom he was one of the officers, for violation of the seraglio law. In 1832 de Lesseps was appointed vice-consul at Alexandria, and in 1833 he became consul in Cairo, and soon afterwards given the management of the consulate general at Alexandria, until 1837. Near the end of 1837 he returned to France, and on 21 December married Agathe Delamalle (Garches, Hauts-de-Seine, 15 October 1819 – Paris, 13 July 1853), daughter of the prosecuting attorney at the court of Angers. They had five sons. In 1839 he was appointed consul at Rotterdam, and in the following year transferred to Málaga, the ancestral home of his mother's family. In 1842 he was sent to Barcelona, and soon afterwards promoted to the grade of consul general. From 1848 to 1849 he was minister of France at Madrid. In 1849 the government of the French Republic sent him to Rome to negotiate the return of Pope Pius IX to the Vatican. He tried to negotiate an agreement whereby Pope Pius could return peacefully to the Vatican but also ensuring the continued independence of Rome. But during negotiations, the elections in
In molecular biology, transformation is the genetic alteration of a cell by the direct uptake and expression of DNA from its surroundings. Transformation occurs naturally in some species of bacteria, and can also be done artificially. Bacteria that are capable of being transformed, whether naturally or artificially, are called "competent". Transformation is one of three processes by which outside genetic material may be brought into bacterial cells. The other two are conjugation (transfer of genetic material between two bacterial cells in direct contact), and transduction (injection of foreign DNA by a bacteriophage into the host). Transformation may also used to describe the insertion of new genetic material into nonbacterial cells, such as animal and plant cells. Introduction of foreign DNA into eukaryote cells is usually called "transfection". History. Transformation was first demonstrated in 1928 by British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith. Griffith discovered that a harmless strain of "Streptococcus pneumoniae" could be made virulent after being exposed to heat-killed virulent strains. Griffith thought some "transforming principle" from the heat-killed strain was responsible for making the harmless strain virulent. In 1944 this transforming principle was identified as being genetic by Oswald Avery, , and Maclyn McCarty. They isolated DNA from a virulent strain of "S. pneumoniae" and using just this DNA were able to make a harmless strain virulent. They called this uptake and incorporation of DNA by bacteria 'transformation'. See Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment. The results of these experiments were at first sceptically received by the scientific community. Not until the discovery of other methods of genetic transfer (conjugation in 1947 and transduction in 1953) by Joshua Lederberg were Avery's experiments accepted. Transformation did not become routine procedure in laboratories until 1972 when Cohen successfully transformed "Escherichia coli" by treating the bacteria with calcium chloride. This created an efficient and convenient procedure for transforming bacteria and opened the way for biotechnology and research. Transformation of animal and plant cells was also investigated with the first transgenic mouse being created by injecting a gene for a rat growth hormone into a mouse embryo in 1982. In
Charles Ranhofer (November 7, 1836, Saint-Denis, France — October 9, 1899, New York) was the chef at the famous Delmonico's Restaurant in New York from 1862 to 1876 and 1879 to 1896. Ranhofer wrote "The Epicurean", (1894), a cookbook of over 1,000 pages, similar in scope to Escoffier's "Le Guide Culinaire". Career. Ranhofer was sent to Paris at the age of 12 to begin his training by studying pastry-making, and at 16 became the private chef for the prince d'Hénin, comte d'Alsace. In 1856 he moved to New York to become the chef for the Russian consul, and later worked in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans. He returned to France in 1860 for a short time, where he arranged balls for the court of Napoleon III at the Tuileries Palace, but then came back to New York to work at what was then a fashionable location, "Maison Dorée". In 1862, Lorenzo Delmonico hired him for Delmonico's Restaurant, and it was there that Ranhofer made his real fame, though others say that he made the fame of the restaurant as well. At that time, Delmonico's was considered the finest restaurant in the United States. He was the chef at Delmonico's until his retirement in 1896, except for a short break from 1876 and 1879 when he owned the "Hotel American" at Enghien-les-Bains. Recipes. Ranhofer invented or made famous a number of dishes that Delmonico's was known for, such as Lobster Newberg, and had a talent for naming dishes after famous or prominent people—particularly those who dined at Delmonico's--as well as his friends, and events of the day. Examples include: "Many others may be found under "List of foods named after people."" Ranhofer did not invent baked Alaska, but he popularized it in 1876 when he named it in honor of the newly acquired Alaskan territory. Death. Ranhofer and his wife Rose had five children: three sons and two daughters. He died at home of Bright's Disease in 1899. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.
Joshua Lederberg (May 23, 1925 – February 2, 2008) was an American geneticist. He was known for his work on bacterial transduction, artificial intelligence, and space exploration. He was just 33 years old when he won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that bacteria can mate and exchange genes. He shared the prize with Edward Tatum and George Beadle who won for their work on the genetics of the fungus "Neurospora". In addition to his contributions to biology, Lederberg did extensive research in artificial intelligence. This included work in the NASA experimental programs seeking life on Mars and the chemistry expert system Dendral. Lederberg was of Jewish descent. Bacterial genetics. In 1946 and 1947, Lederberg took a leave of absence to study under Edward Tatum at Yale University. Lederberg and Tatum showed that the bacterium "Escherichia coli" entered a sexual phase during which it could share genetic information through bacterial conjugation. With this discovery and some mapping of the "E. coli" chromosome, Lederberg got his PhD. from Yale University in 1947.  Lederberg and his graduate student Norton Zinder went on to show in 1952 that bacteriophages could transfer genetic information between bacteria in "Salmonella". This process, called transduction, explained how bacteria of different species could gain resistance to the same antibiotic quickly. This was followed in 1952 by papers written by Zinder and Lederberg dealing with bacteriophage lambda.  In 1957, Lederberg founded the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Post Nobel Prize research. In 1958, Joshua Lederberg received the Nobel Prize and moved to Stanford University where he was the founder and chairman of the Department of Genetics. He collaborated with Frank Macfarlane Burnet to study viral antibodies.  With the launching of "Sputnik" in 1957, Lederberg became concerned about the biological impact of space exploration. In a letter to the National Academies of Sciences, he outlined his concerns that extr
Spirochaetes (or Spirochetes) are the phylum Spirochaetae. These are double-membrane bacteria with long, helically coiled (spiral-shaped) cells.  Spirochaetes are bacteria. They have flagella, which run lengthwise between the cell wall and outer membrane. The flagella cause a twisting motion which moves the spirochaete about.  Most spirochaetes are free-living and anaerobic, but there are many parasitic species. Classification. The spirochaetes are divided into three families (Brachyspiraceae, Leptospiraceae, and Spirochaetaceae). They are all put in a single order, the Spirochaetales. Disease-causing members of this phylum include:
The Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment was reported in 1944 by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty, that DNA is the substance that causes bacterial transformation. This was the culmination of research in the 1930s and early 1940s at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research to purify and characterize the "transforming principle" responsible for the phenomenon first described in Griffith's experiment of 1928. In this early experiment dead "Streptococcus pneumoniae" of the virulent strain type III-S, when injected along with living but non-virulent type II-R pneumococci, resulted in a deadly infection of type III-S pneumococci. At that time it was thought protein might be the hereditary material. In their paper in 1944, Avery and his colleagues suggest that DNA, rather than protein was the hereditary material of bacteria, and could be analogous to genes and/or viruses in higher organisms. This was an epoch-making experiment, but the three men did not get the Nobel Prize. The Nobel laureate Arne Tiselius said that Avery was the most deserving scientist not to receive the Nobel Prize for his work.
Sprint Nextel Corporation () was a telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. It operated under the name Sprint, and was once the fourth largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States behind Verizon, AT&amp;T and T-Mobile, with 56.3 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&amp;T Mobility. On April 1, 2020, T-Mobile and Sprint merged, with T-Mobile now being the whole owner of Sprint, making Sprint an effective subsidiary of T-Mobile until the Sprint brand was officially phased out. Leadership, background, and stock changes happened immediately, with customer side changes happening over time. Sprint was officially discontinued on August 2, 2020. Billing was already showing the T-Mobile brand, and on this date all retail, customer service, and all other company branding was replaced by T-Mobile. New rate plans were also introduced as well for all new and existing customers from both companies, though they will all will remain with their current plan, if they choose not to switch to a new T-Mobile plan for at least 3 years.
Montgomery County (county code MG) is a county found in the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2020 census, 31,486 people lived there. Its county seat is Independence, and its most populous city is Coffeyville. History. Montgomery County was created on February 26, 1867. Geography. The U.S. Census Bureau says that the county has a total area of . Of that is land and (1.2%) is water. The lowest point in the state of Kansas is on the Verdigris River in Cherokee Township in Montgomery County (just southeast of Coffeyville), where it flows out of Kansas and into Oklahoma. Western portions of the county contain parts of the northern Cross Timbers eco-region, which separates the forested eastern portion of the United States with the Plains. People. The Coffeyville Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Montgomery County. Communities. Townships. Montgomery County is divided into twelve townships. The cities of Caney, Cherryvale, Coffeyville, and Independence are considered "governmentally independent" and are excluded from the census figures for the townships. In the following table, the population center is the largest city (or cities) included in that township's population total, if it is of a significant size.
Rajon Pierre Rondo (born February 22, 1986 in Louisville, Kentucky) is an American former professional basketball point guard. He played parts of 16 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played for the Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks, Sacramento Kings, Chicago Bulls, New Orleans Pelicans, Los Angeles Lakers, Atlanta Hawks, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Cleveland Cavaliers. Rondo won an NBA Championship with the Boston Celtics in 2008. Rondo was selected with the 21st overall pick in the first round of the 2006 NBA Draft by the Phoenix Suns. Rondo played college basketball for the University of Kentucky. On April 2, 2024, Rondo announced that he was retiring from playing professional basketball.
Bette Midler (born December 1, 1945) is an American actress, singer and comedian. She starred in movies including "Ruthless People", "Beaches" and "Hocus Pocus". Midler has won many awards in the entertainment industry. She was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Career. Midler released her first album, "The Divine Miss M", in December 1972. Midler won the 1973 Grammy Award for Best New Artist because of it. In 1979, Midler appeared in her first movie, "The Rose", as the main character. In 1988, she played Cecilia Bloom in "Beaches". The movie's soundtrack featured a cover version of "Wind Beneath My Wings" sung by Midler. It reached No.1. In 2000, she had her own sitcom called "Bette". It ended after one season.