When he was the emperor of China, Chinese people just called him the "Emperor". If they met him, they used very polite terms like "Bìxià" (, "Your Highness") to speak to him. After he died, the next emperors gave him a new, long, and very polite name and called him "Míng Chéngzǔ" (), the "Most Successful Dead Family Member" of the Ming. After the Xinhai and Communist changes in government of China, people are less polite when they talk about the old emperors. They usually just call him by his everyday name Zhu Di like a common person. In English, it's more common to talk about him as the Yongle Emperor.
Zhu Di was born on May 2, 1360, during the Yuan part of China's history. His father Zhu Yuanzhang was a successful leader of the Red Turbans fighting the Yuan army to change China. People don't agree about who his mother was. In the histories written by the later Chinese governments, his mother was the Empress Ma, his father's most important wife. Other people—especially people who did not like Zhu Di—said that his mother was one of Zhu Yuanzhang's live-in girlfriends and wasn't even Chinese. They said that he changed all the papers about his real mother after he got more power.
Zhu Yuanzhang won his fight with the Yuan and became the Hongwu Emperor of China in 1368. He called his new government the Ming. The Ming had rules about who should be the new emperor when the old emperor died. Zhu Biao () was Zhu Yuanzhang's oldest son and people thought he would be the next emperor. Zhu Di was only the 4th son, so people did not think he would become the next emperor. He was still very important, though. The Hongwu Emperor made him the leader of Beiping (today's Beijing and the area around it).
Zhu Biao died before the Hongwu Emperor. When the emperor died, the Ming's rules said that Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunwen () should be the new leader. He became the Jianwen Emperor in 1398 at the age of 22.
The Jianwen Emperor's many uncles were very powerful, almost like kings. He started to take away their power right away. One was sent away to Yunnan, one killed himself, three were made into common people. Zhu Di was afraid and pretended to be crazy. The Jianwen Emperor was less afraid of him and even let Zhu Di's three sons—whom he held in Yingtian (now Nanjing) to be sure of Zhu Di's good behavior—go to Beiping (now Beijing) to visit their "sick" father before his death.
With his sons free, Zhu Di began to fight the Jianwen Emperor. At first, he said that he really wanted to protect his nephew from the "bad helpers" who were telling the emperor to fight his own family. After he took the capital, though, he rewrote all the government papers to pretend the Jianwen Emperor had never been the emperor. The four years of his nephew's control were dated to the end of the Hongwu Emperor's era. Zhu Di began his new era at the next Chinese New Year and became the Yongle Emperor.
Many people in the government of China said they did not like the Yongle Emperor and that he should not be the country's leader. A body was shown and said to be the Jianwen Emperor's, but it was badly burnt and no one could be sure it was really him. Some people said that the Jianwen Emperor was still alive and that he was hiding as a Buddhist monk. All of this made the Yongle Emperor very worried and angry. He did not stay in Yingtian or make it his capital. He left some of the government there but moved most of it to his home in Beiping. Because China now had a more important northern capital and a secondary southern capital, these two cities came to be known as Beijing and Nanjing. The Yongle Emperor's new, larger home in Beijing grew into the Forbidden City. The Yongle Emperor killed many of the angry government leaders in Nanjing. Sometimes he killed their families. Sometimes he killed their families, friends, and students.
Many of these troublemakers were the people who took power because of their high scores on the imperial examination. The Yongle Emperor gave more power in his government to his eunuchs, men who had been hurt as children to stop them from being able to have children of their own. One of these men was Zheng He, an Islamic leader who led great treasure ships south from Suzhou and Nanjing in 7 big trips between 1405 and 1433. The first trips may have been looking for the Jianwen Emperor, but they also became trips that taught China about the South China Sea and Indian Ocean and opened up more buying and selling between their countries and China.
The Yongle Emperor died on August 12, 1424, and was followed as emperor by his oldest son Zhu Gaochi, who became the Hongxi Emperor.
Sphere Fluidics
Sphere Fluidics is an England-based Life Sciences Research and Development company specializing in developing novel tools for biopharmaceutical discovery and development, cell therapy engineering, analysis and isolation. Sphere Fluidics has been named one of the UK's top 50 disruptive SMEs by Real Business in 2015.
Sphere Fluidics Limited was originally established in 2010, by two chemistry professors of Cambridge University, namely, Professor Chris Abell and Professor Wilhelm Huck along with Dr. Frank F. Craig, an entrepreneur, and Dr. Maher Khaled, a Cambridge University Enterprise.
In 2013, Sphere Fluidics spun out of Cambridge University to a new research facility in Babraham Research Campus. In 2013, Sphere Fluidics won an award for academic spin-outs at the ACES awards.
Sphere Fluidics operates in various markets including biopharmaceutical discovery and development, anti-microbial screening, synthetic biology and genome editing of single cells.
In January 2017, Sphere Fluidics launched an e-commerce platform which had, microfluidic products, research instrument accessories, and microfluidic biochips, in its product line.
In July 2017, Sphere Fluidics won “Best Investment in Life Sciences” Award, in the event held by the UK Business Angels Association.
Sphere Fluidics has raised £11 million as of 2017, from investors namely, 24 Haymarket, Amadeus Capital Partners, Greenwood Way Capital, University of Cambridge Enterprise, University of Cambridge, Parkwalk Advisors, Providence Investment Company, London Business Angels, Envestors, Angels5K, Cambridge Angels, Q-Ventures and a Japanese corporate investor.
Cyto-Mine Technology is one of the patented products of Sphere Fluidics.
Cyto-Mine technology is the integrated device that is able to automatically perform single cell analysis, sorting, imaging and dispensing into individual wells of microtitre plates in a single compact system. Based on the research made by Professors Chris Abell and Wilhelm Huck, this biochip system can automatically process millions to billions of miniaturised tests in tiny picodroplets.
According to the scientists at Sphere Fluidics, Cyto-Mine can perform millions of single-cell assays daily, offering up to a 100-fold improvement over conventional techniques, at lower capital and operational cost.
Mountain weasel
The mountain weasel ("Mustela altaica"), is a type of weasel. It is also called the pale weasel, Altai weasel or solongoi.
Males are about 12.5–17 in (320–630 mm) long. Males can weigh 8–12 oz (230–340 g). Females are a little bit smaller. They are 12–15 in (309–377 mm). Females weigh about 4–8 oz (110–230 g). The summer fur is gray to gray-brown fur with some light yellow. The winter fur is more of a dark yellow with some brown. In both seasons, the underbelly is pale yellow to creamy white.
This weasel lives in high-altitude environments, and also on rocky tundra and grassy woodlands. This weasel rests in rock crevices, tree trunks, and abandoned burrows of other animals or the animals it previously hunted. The home range size of this animal is currently unknown.