Bahia is said to have the greatest and most African influence, in terms of culture and customs, in Brazil. Some of these are the martial art of capoeira and African-derived music such as samba, afoxé, and axé.
Acarajé is a popular street food. It is one of the symbols of the culture of Bahia.
Body modification
Body modification (or body alteration) is when a person changes their body in a way that lasts forever or for a long time. There are many different kinds of body modification, like piercing, circumcision, or tattoos. Almost all cultures do some kind of body modification.
People who do not like body modification sometimes call it "disfigurement" or "mutilation." They believe that if someone changes their body, it is wrong and they are doing something dangerous or unethical.
Body modification is done for different reasons. Religions might tell people that they should change their bodies to look a certain way. Other people with body modifications might just like the way the body modifications look, or how they feel good during sex.
Serial killer
A serial killer is someone who murders several people at different times (similar killers of more than one person are mass murderers and spree killers). The victims are usually people the serial killer does not know, and the killer commits his crimes to get a certain kind of excitement or other feeling. They usually have no practical motive such as robbery or revenge.
"Serial killer" first became a commonly used phrase for this kind of killer in the 1970s. This was the result of the crimes of people like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. Jack the Ripper is thought by many to be one of the first serial killers that many people knew about, even though his victims were killed long before the phrase was invented.
A serial killer's crimes are nearly always alike in some way. The killer may only attack a certain type of person, for instance women of a certain age or appearance (young or old, blonde or dark-haired). He may always use the same kind of weapon to kill his victims, or may treat them in a certain manner, such as tying them up with the same kind of rope or adhesive tape. Some serial killers have had very strange habits which leave evidence of their work at each crime; for instance Albert de Salvo, the Boston Strangler, would tie the cord with which he had strangled a woman around her neck in a special bow. To law enforcement officers a serial killer's habits are known as his signature, and they are always valuable leads in detecting who he is and capturing him.
Some of the worst serial killers have been doctors. Harold Shipman, a British general practitioner, is thought to have killed up to 250 of his patients. John Bodkin Adams, also British, is thought to have killed 163 patients. Burke and Hare, the 'resurrectionists', killed to sell bodies to a doctor, Robert Knox.
World Wide Fund for Nature
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international environmental organization. It was founded as the World Wildlife Fund, which is still its official name in Canada and the United States.
Most of its offices are in Switzerland. Their mascot, or logo, is the Giant Panda. It is the world's largest independent wildlife management organization. It has over 5 million supporters worldwide, working in more than 90 countries. WWF supports 15,000 conservation and environmental projects around the world. It is a charity. About 90% of its fundraising money is from donations by private individuals and businesses.
The group says its mission is "to halt and reverse the destruction of our natural environment". Much of its work focuses on the conservation of three biomes that contain most of the world's biodiversity: forests, freshwater ecosystems, and oceans and coasts. Among other issues, it is also concerned with endangered species, pollution and climate change. The organization runs more than 1,200 field projects worldwide each year.
Deforestation
Deforestation is when forests are destroyed by cutting trees (logging) and not replanting them. The most common reason is to clear the land to make farms and ranches. They also cut trees for firewood and lumber and to make room for cities. Deforestation destroys the habitat of many animals, leading to their death. The loss is more severe in so called primary forests, which are forests that have yet been untouched by humans. Deforestation also releases sequestered carbon.
Restoring trees in deforested places is called reforesting.
Land has other uses besides growing trees. The biggest uses of land that was once forested are for farming and ranching. Some land is also used for roads and buildings, especially in urban areas. As the population grows, people need to remove more trees. They also use the wood from the trees as lumber to make buildings and other things, or they burn the trees as firewood.
Forests have the following functions:
Forests are often planted to protect against natural disasters. When forests are lost, very often the soil they protected is also lost. This loss of soil is called erosion.
Trees are also important for carbon sequestration. When the trees burn or rot, the carbon in them returns to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. Since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, deforestation causes global warming. Tropical deforestation is responsible for about 20% of world greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2020, a team of scientists studied worldwide deforestation efforts and found they were not working. They said the idea of everyone working toward the same goal had to change because different groups of people had different reasons for cutting down forests.
Scuba diving
Scuba diving is an activity where people (called "scuba divers", or simply "divers") can swim underwater for a long time, using a tank filled with compressed air. The tank is a large metal cylinder made of steel or aluminum.
The word scuba is an acronym from Underwater Breathing Apparatus.
In the 1600s, a diving bell would be lowered that had trapped air in it. A diving bell is like a large heavy upside-down bucket that holds air inside when lowered into the water. A diver would breathe that air and swim in an and out of the bell to work until the air became bad. Later fresh air was pumped to the diving bell through a hose, so the diver could stay longer.
The first diving suits used a heavy copper diving helmet with windows and a hose from an air pump. The helmet was clamped to a waterptoof diving suit. Divers would wear heavy weghts and walk on the seafloor as it was not safe to swim. The air hose would send air to the helmet from a pump on land or on a boat above the diver. The air would pass trough the helmet and out into the water through a valve, and the diver would breathe from the air in the helmet. This wasted a lot of air, but there was no way to only supply air when the diver needed it. This is called a free-flow system.
Jacques Cousteau was a Frenchman who developed several important parts of the scuba system and made it useful. One part was a better regulator that only sent air when the diver breathed in. This let the divers go farther on one tank. It was made with a mouthpiece on a rubber hose, so a heavy helmet was not needed. It was light enough to use with fins and easily swim. He also took many underwater movies and showed people what was under the water and why it needed to be protected.
There have been improvements to scuba equipment since Cousteau to make it safer and easier to use.