The Black Eyed Peas are an American hip hop group from Los Angeles, California. Over the years their music has included R&B and dance music. The group has three members: Will.i.am, Apl.de.ap, Taboo.
Before they became popular, the group's members were will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo and backing vocalist Kim Hill. She left the group in 2000 and was replaced in 2003 by Fergie. They first became popular with the single "Where Is the Love" and the album "Elephunk" and their next album, "Monkey Business" was also successful. They have more recently released "The E.N.D.", an album that has had the successful singles "Boom Boom Pow", "I Gotta Feeling" and "Meet Me Halfway".
PlayStation Portable
The PlayStation Portable, or PSP, is Sony's first video game console to be a handheld. It was made in Japan and came out there first on December 12, 2004. After that, it came out in North America on March 24, 2005 and came out in Europe on September 1, 2005. It was first announced in 2003 at E3 and then next year its first design was shown off. It can play PSP video games, as well as music, video, and pictures. To transfer music, videos, or pictures to a PSP, you must use a USB cable to send the files from a computer to it. The games and movies come on a disc called the "Universal Media Disc" which holds 1.8 GB (this is a lot more than a normal CD, but less than a DVD). A Memory Stick Pro Duo can also be used for memory storage. The PlayStation Portable is the first handheld game console to use a disc as its media storage instead of a cartridge.
In January 2014, shipments of the PlayStation Portable ended in North America. They also ended in June 2014 in Japan and ended shipments to Europe by the end of 2014.
There are over 700 games for the PSP. The movies look like the DVD. The reason the PSP can have movies is because the disc (Universal Media Disc) has a lot of memory space. In many countries, "Spider-Man 2" (the movie) was included for free with the console.
The PSP is wireless, meaning it can connect to the Internet (and other PlayStation Portables) without any cables. This is called Wi-Fi. This allows players who are traveling to download items, surf the web and play online. The PlayStation Portable can also connect with the PlayStation 3 as a sort of remote control for movie playback and for downloading content.
There are five versions of the PlayStation Portable, the PSP-1000 (also known as "PSP fat"), PSP-2000 ("slim and light" edition, a lighter version of the original PSP), PSP-3000 ("bright and light" edition, that includes a built in microphone and improved LCD), PSP-N1000 (or PSP Go, with a sliding screen design, bluetooth and internal storage of 16GB replacing the UMD drive.) and PSP-E1000 (similar to PSP-3000, but without stereo sound, Wi-Fi and microphone).
Sony subsequently released the successor to the PSP, the PlayStation Vita, in Japan on December 17, 2011 and starting worldwide on February 22, 2012.
The PlayStation Portable is similar to the Nintendo DS, because they are both for games you can take with you. However, Nintendo and Sony said they were made for different people. The DS has sold more units than the PSP.
Abortion
An abortion is when a pregnancy is ended early, without the natural birth of the child and before it is ready to survive outside of the uterus.
A developing human usually takes about thirty-nine weeks to grow and be born. Normally, this occurs about forty weeks after the mother's last menstrual period. This developing human is called an "embryo" for the first eight weeks of the pregnancy, and "fetus" for the rest of the pregnancy. Abortion causes the embryo or fetus to die.
When an abortion occurs naturally, it is often called a miscarriage. Humans can also choose to end the pregnancy before birth takes place. This is called an "induced abortion". Often, the term "abortion" often refers only to an induced abortion.
In both types of abortion, the embryo or fetus usually comes out of the womb. This is called a "complete" abortion. In some cases, the embryo or fetus remains inside the womb. This is called a "missed" abortion. Surgery is needed to remove the embryo or fetus from the womb so the woman does not get an infection.
Different countries have different laws regarding induced abortion. While abortion is illegal in many countries, there are often exceptions that permit it in cases such as family incest, rape, the fetus having severe disabilities or the mother's health being at risk.
People speak of "spontaneous abortion" or "miscarriage" when the embryo or fetus is lost due to natural causes before the 20th week of pregnancy. A pregnancy that ends this way, but that is between 20 and 37 weeks old is known as "premature birth" if the baby is born alive. If the fetus dies in the womb after 20 weeks, or while it is born, this is known as "stillbirth". Premature births and stillbirths are generally not considered to be miscarriages.
Spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) are common. About fifteen percent of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion. In many cases, the woman is not even aware she was pregnant. The pregnancy is only a few days or weeks old and the woman believes the miscarriage is just her menses. About twenty-five percent of all women will have a spontaneous abortion during their lives.
Most miscarriages occur very early. Between ten and fifty percent of pregnancies end with a miscarriage,
where the mother or the doctors are aware of it. These figures depend on the age and health of the pregnant woman. Most spontaneous abortions occur so early in the pregnancy that the woman is not even aware that she was pregnant. One particular study showed that 61.9% of pregnancies end in miscarriage before 12 weeks. In 91.7% of these miscarriages, the woman did not know she was pregnant.
The risk of spontaneous abortion decreases sharply after the 10th week of pregnancy, with a loss rate between 8.5 weeks LMP and birth of about two percent; pregnancy loss is “virtually complete by the end of the embryonic period."
Those people who have already had several spontaneous or induced abortions run a greater risk of having a spontaneous one. Those with certain diseases, and those over the age 35 also run a greater risk. Other causes for abortions can be the infection of either the woman or embryo/fetus, or their immune response. Certain diseases or an accidental trauma can also cause a spontaneous abortion. Putting the woman under trauma or stress to cause miscarriage is considered induced abortion. Some countries call this feticide.
Most miscarriages are due to problems with the copying of chromosomes, but some are caused by environmental factors. When a human is conceived, it gets 23 chromosomes from its mother and 23 from its father. If it does not get the right number its development happens wrong (it does not grow right.) It may have many bad birth defects.
Most embryos and fetuses with chromosome problems will not live for a long time. They die very early. There are a few chromosome problems that babies can sometimes be born with. For example, Down syndrome happens when there are three copies of chromosome #21. (Usually people have 2 of every chromosome.) This is called "trisomy 21" (tri- means 3.)
The most common symptom is bleeding from the vagina. This can be very little blood (less blood than a normal menses.) It can be very much blood (much more than a normal menses.)
Some women have bad pains in their low abdomen when they have a miscarriage. This is sometimes like the pain of menses. It can be much worse. Or a woman may have no pain at all. If the pregnancy is many weeks old, the woman may see the embryo or fetus when it comes out. But if it is less than 12 weeks old a woman may not see anything but blood.