The Porta della Carta, was the grand entrance to the building. The gateway was built and decorated by Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon from 1438–1442. The name Porta della Carta could be because this was the area where public scribes set up their desks, or from the "cartabum", where all the important government documents were kept. On either side of the gateway are two gothic towers, with sculptures of the "Cardinal Virtues". On the top is a bust of Saint Mark, and over him is a statue of "Justice" with her symbols of sword and scales. In the space above the cornice, there is a sculpture of the Doge Francesco Foscari kneeling before the St. Mark's Lion. This was made in the 19th century by Luigi Ferrrari, to replace the original destroyed in 1797.
The public entrance to the Doge's Palace is now through the Porta del Frumento, in the waterfront side of the building.
The north side of the courtyard is made by the palace and St. Mark’s Basilica, which used to be the Doge’s chapel. At the center of the courtyard are two well-heads built in the mid-16th century.
In 1485 a grand staircase was built within the courtyard. Linked to the Porta della Carta, it created a monumental approach from the Piazza into the heart of the building. Since 1567, the Giants’ Staircase has been guarded by Sansovino’s two huge statues of "Mars" and "Neptune". These show Venice’s power by land and by sea, and therefore the reason for its name. Members of the Senate gathered before government meetings in the Senator’s Courtyard, to the right of the Giants’ Staircase.
Craig Venter
John Craig Venter (born October 14, 1946) is an American biotechnologist and entrepreneur. He was one of the first to sequence the human genome, and led the team which made the first cell with a synthetic genome (2010).
Venter founded Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research and the J. Craig Venter Institute. He now works at his Institute to create synthetic (artificial) biological organisms, and to record genetic diversity in the world's oceans. He was listed on "Time" magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2010, the British magazine "New Statesman" listed Craig Venter at 14th in the list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".
Venter himself recognized his own ADHD behavior in his adolescence, and later found ADHD-linked genes in his own DNA. In media interviews, Venter has several times said he is an atheist.
Leslie Orgel
Leslie Eleazer Orgel FRS (12 January 1927 – 27 October 2007) was a British chemist.
Born in London, Orgel received his B.A. and Ph.D in chemistry at Magdalen College, Oxford University.
He was one of the first people to see, in April 1953, Crick and Watson's model of DNA: at the time he worked at Oxford University's Chemistry Department.
In 1964 Orgel was appointed Senior Fellow and Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he directed the Chemical Evolution Laboratory. He was also an adjunct professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, and he was one of five principal investigators in the NASA-sponsored NSCORT program in exobiology. Orgel also participated in NASA's Viking Mars Lander Program as a member of the Molecular Analysis Team that designed the gas chromatography mass spectrometer instrument that robots took to the planet Mars.
Orgel’s lab came across an economical way to make cytarabine, a compound that is one of today’s most commonly used anti-cancer agents.
During the 1970s, Orgel suggested reconsidering the panspermia hypothesis, according to which the earliest forms of life on earth did not originate here, but arrived from outer space with meteorites.
Together with Stanley Miller, Orgel also suggested that peptide nucleic acids – rather than ribonucleic acids – constituted the first pre-biotic systems capable of self-replication on early Earth.
His name is popularly known because of Orgel's rules, credited to him, particularly Orgel's Second Rule: "Evolution is cleverer than you are".
In his book "The Origins of Life", Orgel coined the concept of specified complexity, to describe the criterion by which living organisms are distinguished from non-living matter. He published over three hundred articles in his research areas.
Orgel died of cancer on 27 October 2007 at the San Diego Hospice & Palliative Care in San Diego, California.
LGBT rights in Azerbaijan
2000 saw the abolishment of the Azerbaijani law forbidding homosexual interactions (gay sex). A special edition of "Azerbaijan", the official newspaper of the Parliament, published on 28 May, reported that the Parliament had approved a new Criminal Code, and that the President had signed a decree bringing it into force in September. The text of the new Criminal Code was also published. From this it is clear that the old Article 113 (inherited from the Soviet era, and which punished anal sex between men with three years imprisonment) has been replaced with a new Article 150, which bans only forcible sexual acts.
When Azerbaijan became part of USSR, despite in Lenin-era of Soviet Russia homosexuality was not banned, it remained as crime in Azerbaijan. As the homosexuality was most widespread in Azerbaijan, Turkmenia, Uzbekistan and Georgia, the legislation on persecution of homosexuals remained in force in 1920's.
After the independence of Azerbaijan in 1991, homosexual acts were legalized in 2000. The official newspaper of the Parliament, published on 28 May 2000, reported that the Parliament had approved a new criminal code, and that the President had signed a decree bringing it into force in September. The old Article 113 (inherited from the Soviet era, and which punished anal sex between men with three years imprisonment) has been replaced with a new Article 150, which bans only forcible sexual acts.
Although homosexual acts between consenting male adults were officially decriminalized, reports about police abuses against gays, mainly male prostitutes, persisted during the last year. While complaining of the violence against them, the victims preferred to remain anonymous fearing retaliation on the part of police." (2001 Report of the International Helsinki Federation).
State-controlled media outlets use homosexuality as a tool to harass and discredit critics of the government and opposition journalist.
LGBT rights in the Maldives
Homosexuality is illegal in the Maldives. In addition, the Maldives was one of the 67 signatory nations opposing the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity, which failed to pass.
In 2009 the Maldives enacted a new Constitution that included a chapter on rights and freedoms, demonstrating the desire to embrace a new culture of human rights. However, this did not include any resolutions regarding LGBT human rights issues.
The Maldives does not recognize same-sex marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships.
There is no legal protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Chrissie Maher
Chrissie Maher, OBE (born 1938) is a British advocate for the use of plain English. She is a co-founder of the Plain English Campaign. This organisation promotes the clear use of English, especially by businesses and official bodies. Her campaign began in 1971 when she founded the United Kingdom's first community newspaper, the "Tuebrook Bugle". That gave her the chance to write articles saying that organisations should start using plain English. In 1974, Maher went on to start "The Liverpool News". It was the UK's first newspaper for adults with reading difficulties. She was also a member of the UK's National Consumer Council. Later, she founded the Plain English Campaign at a demonstration in London in 1979.
As an example of the language issues Maher found objectionable: in 1994, she pointed out that Britain's National Health Service published a definition of the term "bed" that used 229 words.