the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
They say people should be employed whatever their race, age, sex or religion.
There should be reasonable care for people with disabilities or accessibility.
Two people in the same position must be paid the same wage if they have exactly the same job.
In some countries, discrimination against somebody on the basis of race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, age, or disability is illegal.
Even in those countries where discrimination is unlawful, it still takes place for reasons not covered by the law.
In some other countries, discrimination against somebody is legal or even official government policy.
This especially takes place in countries in which there is an official religion, and people of other religions are discriminated against.
Homophobia - Transphobia
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson  OM PC FRS (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand-born British scientist.
He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 for his work on nuclear physics, and for his theory of the structure of the atom.
Rutherford was one of the first researchers in nuclear physics, after the discovery of radiation by the French physicist Henri Becquerel in 1896.
Rutherford discovered the radioactive half-life, and the three parts of radiation which he named Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.
He also discovered that alpha particles were the nuclei of Helium.
Rutherford's Geiger–Marsden experiment led to what we know today about the atomic structure, where the atom is a nucleus and electrons orbit around it.
In 1919, Rutherford made the world's first artificial nuclear reaction, where he put alpha particles with nitrogen gas and created particles of oxygen isotopes and protons.
This was nuclear transmutation, changing nitrogen gas into oxygen gas.
Rutherford was the leader of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.
He proved the existence of the nucleus and that is was composed of protons and neutrons.
In 1932 James Chadwick made an experiment at the Cavendish Lab that showed Rutherford was right.
The Rutherford Museum
Rutherford Scientist Supreme
Ernest Rutherford  @ nobel.se
"Ernest Rutherford 1871–1937".
A Science Odyssey, pbs.org.
New Zealand chemists
British nuclear physicists
United Kingdom Barons
New Zealand Nobel Prize winners
New Zealand physicists
Serialism is a way of composing music using a series of notes in a particular order and using this to build up a whole piece of music.
These series and patterns can also be applied to other parts of music (like how loud or soft it is).
To show how serialism works we can take a very simple example.
Let us use just five notes from the white notes of a keyboard.
We can use the notes A, B, C, D and E.  We are going to make a “tune” using all these five notes, but not repeating any until all five have been used (although we are allowed to repeat the note we have just had).
For example: we might have D, C, A, A, A, A, B, E.  This is what we call our “row” or “series”, although usually one would expect a row of twelve different notes.
It is the one we start off with, so we can call it our tone row.
We can change the tone row by playing it backwards.
This is called retrograde.
So we now get E, B, A, A, A, A, C, D.
We can also change it by playing it upside down.
This means that instead of going up one step we go down one step, or instead of going up two steps we go down two steps etc.
If we start on the same note D we now get: D, E, G, G, G, G, F, C.  This is called inversion.
We can make it go backwards and upside down.
So we get: C, F, G, G, G, G, E, D.  This is called retrograde inversion.
Schoenberg’s twelve-tone series
In 1923 the composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) developed what he called the “twelve-tone system”.
Instead of using just five notes as in our example, he used all 12 notes in the octave (5 black and 7 white notes on the piano keyboard).
Most music we listen to is in a particular key (tonality).
This is called “tonal” music.
For example: if we start “Twinkle, twinkle little star” on a C we finish on a C at the end and the piece sounds finished.
It is “tonal” (in a particular key).
In twelve-tone music all 12 notes are equal, there is no “key note” (it is “atonal”).
This makes the music very hard to understand and it took people a long time to get used to the sound of Schoenberg’s new music.
Schoenberg was not the only composer to use this way of composing.
His pupils Alban Berg (1885-1935) and Anton Webern (1883-1945) also wrote twelve-tone music.
Schoenberg, Webern & Berg are sometimes called the "Second Viennese School"-The first was Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven a hundred years before.
The composers Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and Aaron Copland (1900-1990) started to write twelve-tone music when they were quite old.
Composers such as Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) used it occasionally, often putting it together with music which was tonal (listen to Britten’s opera “Midsummer Night’s Dream”).
When contrasted with tonal music in this way it can be very beautiful.
In the 1950s and 1960s some composers like Pierre Boulez (b.1925) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (b.1928) wrote music which was not only twelve-tone, but serial in other ways as well.
For example: they organized levels of dynamics (from very quiet to very loud) in a series, and the lengths of notes (from very short to very long), and even timbre (the sound quality).
By combining all these things their music became very complicated indeed.
When all these things were used for the whole piece of music it was called “total serialism”.
Boulez’s Structures I is an example of a piece which uses “total serialism”.
A lot of people criticized this music, saying that it was too mathematical instead of being expressive.
Such music can be hard to understand.
Musical movements
Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849; pronounced SHOH-pen) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist.
He is considered one of the greatest Romantic piano composers.
Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola, a village in the Duchy of Warsaw.
A famous child prodigy, he grew up in Warsaw where he completed his music education and composed many of his mature works before leaving Poland in 1830 at age 20, shortly before the November 1830 Uprising.
After the Uprising, he lived in Paris as part of Poland's Great Emigration.
During the last 19 years of his life, Chopin performed only about 30 times, usually in a salon.
He supported himself by selling his compositions and teaching piano.
After a romantic relationship with Polish women, including an abortive engagement, from 1837 to 1847 he carried on a relationship with the French writer Amandine Dupin, better known as George Sand.
Since he composed many piano pieces, he was called the poet of the piano.
Most of Chopin's works are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces and some songs to Polish lyrics.
His piano works are often technically difficult, especially because deep expression is involved along with the importance of considering each detail in his music.
Chopin also created the instrumental ballade, along with the addition of new ideas to the piano sonata, mazurka, waltz, nocturne, polonaise, étude, impromptu, scherzo and prélude.
All of Chopin's works involve the piano, and for composing them he was using a number of them.
While living in Warsaw, Chopin played on Buchholtz piano.
Later in Paris he preferred an instrument from Pleyel.
Both of these instruments were recreated in XXI century to help listeners to hear Chopin works played on pianos that they were written for.
Chopin biography
Our Chopin
Infectious disease deaths in France
Polish pianists
Polish composers
French composers
Russia is a very large country.
In the 18th century there was a lot of music in Europe, but Russian people had not yet heard it.
A lot of them were very poor and modern transport did not exist.
By the time Glinka was born Russian people in the large towns like Saint Petersburg were becoming very interested in European music.
Mikhail Glinka was born in a little village called Novospasskoye.
His father was a rich landowner.
Glinka was brought up by his grandmother who looked after him very carefully.
She was always afraid he would be cold, so she wrapped him up in a fur coat in a room which was kept at 77 °F.
He was not often allowed to play in the fresh air.
Later in his life Glinka was always worrying about his health.
It was a long way to the big cities from where the child lived.
There was no radio in those days, and no CDs.
The only music he heard was the church bells, and the singing of the peasants (the simple people who worked on the land).
They sang folksongs and made up harmony underneath the tunes.
After his grandmother died he was allowed to travel 6 miles to his uncle’s home.
His uncle had a group of musicians who played music by European composers like Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
He had never heard such music before.
When he was 13 he went to school in St Petersburg.
Now he could hear lots of music and meet some good musicians.
He had piano lessons and spent a lot of time at parties.
He started to compose some songs.
In 1830 he went to Italy.
Italy was famous for its music, especially for opera.
Glinka met famous composers like Mendelssohn and Berlioz as well as Italian composers like Donizetti and Bellini.
He like their music, and decided he wanted to write opera as well, but he wanted to make his music sound very Russian.
Glinka went back to Russia.
He wrote two great operas.
The first one was called Ivan Susanin.
The story of the opera, set in 1612, is about a poor peasant Ivan Susanin who dies to save the life of the Tsar (the Tsar was the ruler of Russia, like a king or emperor).
The Tsar liked the opera and thought that it should be called A Life for the Tsar.
It was a big success when it was first performed in 1836.
He soon wrote his second opera: Ruslan and Lyudmila.
The story comes from a tale by the famous Russian poet Pushkin.
The man who wrote the words for him did it very quickly while he was drunk, so the story is a bit muddled, but the music is wonderful.
It is a fairy tale about a nasty dwarf Chernomor who has taken away a princess called Lyudmila.
In the end Ruslan, the hero, rescues her.
Some of the music sounds quite oriental.
The overture that starts the opera is very famous.
Glinka’s music is important because he was the first Russian composer to write music that sounded Russian.
Later composers like Tchaikovsky were influenced by his music.
David Brown: Mikhail Glinka, a biographical and critical study London OUP1974
1857 deaths
People from Saint Petersburg
Russian musicians
January 23 – Henry VIII of England, then 18 years-old, appears incognito in the lists at Richmond, and is applauded for his jousting before he reveals himself.
Conquest of Pskov by Grand Prince Vasili III of Muscovy.
Formation of the Holy League to defend the Italian States.
Peter Henlein builds the first pocketwatch.
End of the War of the League of Cambrai (started 1508)
Start of the War of the Holy League (ended 1513)
March 30 – Antonio de Cabezón, Spanish composer and organist (died 1566)
April 2 – Ashikaga Yoshiharu, Japanese shogun (died 1550)
July 22 – Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence (died 1537)
October 6 – Rowland Taylor, English pastor (executed 1555)
November 6 – John Caius, English physician (d. 1573)
Mikael Agricola, Finnish scholar (died 1557)
Francis Borgia, General of the Jesuits (died 1572)
Jörg Breu the Younger, German painter (died 1547)
Ferenc Dávid, Hungarian religious reformer (died 1579)
Andrea Gabrieli, Italian composer and organist (died 1586)
Claude Goudimel, French composer and music theorist (died 1572)
Matsunaga Hisahide, Japanese warlord (died 1577)
Aloysius Lilius, Italian inventor of the Gregorian calendar (died 1576)
Solomon Luria, Polish-born Kabbalist (died 1574)
Luis de Morales, Spanish religious painter (died 1586)
Oda Nobuhide, Japanese warlord (died 1551)
Bernard de Palissy, French potter and writer
Ambroise Paré, French surgeon (died 1590)
Guillaume Postel, linguist (died 1581)
Renee of France, daughter of Louis XII of France and Anne of Brittany (died 1575)
Lope de Rueda, Spanish dramatist and writer
Lawrence Sheriff, Elizabethan gentleman and grocer (died 1567)
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Spanish explorer (died 1554)
Claudio Veggio, Italian composer
Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, French naval officer (died 1571)
February 28 – Juan de la Cosa, Spanish mapmaker and explorer (born c. 1460)
March 1 – Francisco de Almeida, Portuguese soldier and explorer (born c. 1450)
March 10 – Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg, German preacher (born 1445)
May 17 – Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter (born 1445)
August 17 – Edmund Dudley, English statesman
December 14 – Friedrich of Saxony (b. 1473)
December 31 – Bianca Maria Sforza, daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan and wife of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1472)
Agueybana, Taino chief
Ambrogio Calepino, Italian lexicographer (born 1450)
Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus (born 1454)
Richard Empson, English statesman
Giorgione, Italian painter (born c. 1477)
Bohuslav Hasištejnský z Lobkovic, Bohemian writer (born 1461)
Florian Zamoyski, Polish nobleman
An ellipsoid is a shape like a sphere, but it may be longer in one or more directions, like an egg, or a rugby ball.
It is the 3 dimensional analogue of an ellipse.
The Earth is shaped slightly like an ellipsoid.
Its shape is called an oblate spheroid.
An ellipsoid shaped like the Earth, called a reference ellipsoid, is often preferred to the geoid because it makes calculations simpler.
Liancourt Rocks (Takeshima　竹島 in Japanese, Dokdo 독도 in Korean) are a group of small islands in the Sea of Japan.
The islands are currently occupied under the South Korean armed police.
The name Liancourt Rocks comes from the French whaling ship Liancourt.
The people on the Liancourt made a map of the islands in 1849.
The islands have been in dispute for some time by both Korea and Japan.
Japan has been suggesting to sort the dispute in International Court of Justice but South Korean government keeps refusing it.
Liancourt Rocks consists of two islets, that are 150 metres apart.
These small islands are called West Islet and East Islet.
The western islet is the larger of the two islets.
Altogether, there are about 90 islets and reefs.
The islands and rocks have a volcanic nature.
A total of 37 of these islets are recognized as permanent land.
The eastern islet formed 4.5 million years ago.
Ulleungdo formed 2 million years later.
Both are quickly eroding and weathering.
The total area of the islets is about 187,450 square meters.
Their highest point is 169 meters on the western islet.
The western islet is about 88,640 square meters in area; the eastern islet about 73,300 square meters.
Liancourt Rocks is at about 131°52′ East longitude and about 37°14′ North latitude.
The western islet is at  and the eastern islet is at .
The main islands coast lines are 217 km apart from mainland Korea and 212 km apart from main island's of Japan (Honshu).
The nearest Korean territory (Ulleung-do) is 87 km away and can be visible on fair days; the nearest Japanese territory (Oki islands) is 157 km away.
The western islet is made of a single peak.
It has many caves along the coastline.
The cliffs of the eastern islet are about 10 to 20 meters high.
There are two caves giving access to the sea, as well as a crater.
40 Korean people are staying on the islets, several Korean telecom service providers (namely SK Telecom, KT, and LG U+) have also installed stations on Liancourt Rocks to cover the islets in the South Korean wireless telephone network.
There is also regular ferry service from Ulleung-do.
Although the islets themselves are barely habitable, the Exclusive Economic Zone surrounding them has rich fishing grounds and possible reserves of natural gas.
As of 2006, the expected reserves have not been found.
A wide variety of fish as well as seaweed, kelp, sea slugs, and clams live around the islets.
Major fishery catches in the area are squid, Alaskan pollock, codfish, and octopus.
There are 102 species of seaweed, although many of these have no economic value.
This area used to be one of the largest breeding grounds of sea lions (Zalophus californianus japonicus) and a good spot for hunting them and also a spot for obtaining abalone at the end of the Meiji period (1868-1912).
Until the 1950s, sea lions were observed on the islets by the voluntary guards.
Over 900 Korean citizens say that they live on the islands.
Over 2,000 Japanese do the same.
However, only two people, a married Korean couple, are living there permanently.
Because they are classified as a nature reserve, special permits are required for tourists to land on the islets rather than just circling them.
There were 1,507 and 1,597 recorded tourists in 2003 and 2004 respectively.
Visitors generally come by boat from Ulleung-do.
In 2005, the first wedding ceremony was held on the islets.
The South Korean couple chose the location to protest against Japanese territorial claims.
Liancourt Rocks can have harsh weather conditions.
This is because of its location, and small size.
Sometimes, ships are unable to dock because of strong northwestern winds in winter.
The climate is warm and humid.
It is heavily influenced by warm sea currents.
There is a lot of rain throughout the year (annual average - 1324 mm), with occasional snowfall.
Fog is a common sight.
In the summer, southerly winds dominate.
The water around the islets is about 10 degrees Celsius in spring, when the water is coolest.
It warms to about 25 degrees Celsius in August.
Like Ulleung-do, the islets are volcanic rocks, with only a thin layer of soil and moss.
About 80 species of plants, over 22 species of birds, and 37 species of insects have been recorded on the islets, in addition to the local maritime life.
Since the early 1970s, trees and some types of flowers were planted along with the indigenous flora and fauna. (
Trees are required under international law for the islets to be recognized as natural islands rather than reefs.)
Liancourt Rocks was declared "Natural Monument #336" by South Korea in the 1990s.
Some birds actually live on the islands, but most are just using them as a stopover to fly elsewhere.
The fork-tailed petrel, streaked shearwater, and black-tailed gulls live on the islands.
The population of breeding birds counted on the rocks, however, has been declining in recent years.
In 1999, the islets were designated a special environmental protected area by the South Korean government.
They are older than any other Korean volcanic islands, including Ulleung-do.
It was announced in 2005 that three new genera and five new species of bacteria had been identified by ROK scientists in the waters off the islets.
The genera are Dokdonella koreensis, Dokdonia donghaenensis, and Donghae dokdoensis.
The newly identified species are Virgilbacillus dokdoensis, Maribacter dokdoensis, Marimonas dokdoensis, Polaribacter dokdoensis, and Porphyrobacter dokdoensis.
The islets are of importance not only for economic reasons, but also for military ones.
They have occasionally served as a military base, most notably during the Russo-Japanese War.
The South Korean government has built a radar station and helicopter landing pad on the islets, enabling it to track foreign naval forces.
Additional note of the dispute
South Korean armed force captured 3929 and killed 44 Japanese people between 1952 and 1965 until Syngman Rhee Line was set.
The dispute between South Korea and Japan over the islands has gained heat in 2008 with new Japanese school books mentioning the islands, and a visit by the South Korean Prime Minister in July.
Ten years ago, no people lived on the islands.
But South Korea started to populate the island to make its claim stronger.
South Korea insists that the islet was called Usan-do or Sokdo in a past and later changed its name, but there is no historical proof which shows when the name was changed.
Rusk documents in 1951 states that "As regards the island of Dokdo, otherwise known as Takeshima or Liancourt Rocks, this normally uninhabited rock formation was according to our information never treated as part of Korea and, since about 1905, has been under the jurisdiction of the Oki Islands Branch Office of Shimane Prefecture of Japan.
The island does not appear ever before to have been claimed by Korea."
An Yong-bok, fisherman : and 1693 shogunate mourning, Japan forcibly removed and to find why in the ocean near Ulleungdo to Dokdo and Ulleung Island is Korean territory Seogye for getting (the Annals of the reign.
History).
Banpo Uldo Ulleung Island to King Gojong, an Imperial decree No.
41 : 1900, logistics and the guide and as the Dokdo uldogun to will result in a jurisdiction
State-designated cultural property : 1982, and was designated as Natural Monument No.
336 (Dokdo marine algae a breeding ground).
State-designated cultural property : in 1999 and management organizations and Natural Monument No.
336, Dokdo a name change management guidelines, the Cultural Heritage (→ Dokdo a Dokdo algae reproduce natural resource conservation area).
Dodong-ri bought 42 : a lot number to 76 / Administrative divisions : name and number (Dodong-ri → the Eastern Island and Dokdo, (the opening. -
Class 1 - 2 class : Regions), 2000 → Dokdo, a mountain, at 37 to 1.
Korea Times Dokdo Hosts First Civilians in a Decade.
Retrieved 22 February, 2006.
South Korean government's perspective on Dokdo via Korea.net
Pro-Korea
dodkdonews.net: News updates on the disputed islets
The Territorial Dispute Over Dokdo, compiled by Mark S. Lovmo Pro-Korea view by an English speaker
The historical facts of the Dokdo - Takeshima Island dispute between Japan and Korea Pro-Korea view by an English speaker
Tokdo Dispute History by Kalani O'Sullivan Third party analysis of dispute in an academic journal
Tokdo or Takeshima?
The International Law of Territorial Acquisition in the Japan-Korea Island Dispute, Sean Fern, Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, Volume 5 Number 1 (Winter 2005), pp.78-89  Pro-Korea view by an English speaker
"North Korea Denounces Japanese Territorial Claims on Dokdo"  Yonhap via Yahoo news
Dokdo is Korean territory : a web page by the Cyber Dokdo History Hall, English
Islands of South Korea
A pentagram is a five-pointed star, with all lines the same length and all angles the same.
A 'pentangle', 'star pentagon', or 'pentalpha' means the same thing.
It is a type of pentagon.
The word pentacle originally meant 'any symbol that protects against evil spirits'.
There are many of such symbols, only a few of which include a pentagram.
During the modern age of Wicca, the word 'pentacle' acquired a second definition, due to sounding similar to the word 'pentagram', and the fact that wiccan pentacles use a pentagram.
That second definition of 'pentacle' is 'a circumscribed pentagram', which means 'a pentagram drawn inside a circle so that the points of the pentagram touch the circle'.
The pentagram means different things to different people.
These meanings have changed over time.
Religious meanings
In ancient times, the pentagram was used as a Christian symbol.
It stood for the five wounds that Jesus Christ received during his crucifixion (the nails in each hand and foot, and the spear wound in his side).
Today, the pentacle, commonly mistaken as a pentagram, is the most commonly used symbol of Wicca.
Some post-Gardnerian wiccans, imitating Taoism, associate the five points of the pentagram with the four classical Greek elements (fire, water, earth, and air) and spirit.
Some Satanists, especially members of the Church of Satan, use an upside-down pentacle as a symbol for their religion.
The Church of Satan's official symbol is an upside-down pentacle with a goat head inside, called the Sigil of Baphomet. (
A 'sigil' is a symbol of a supernatural being).
It was originally the influential 1800s French occultist Eliphas Levi who associated the pentagram with the goat-headed baphomet, by drawing a pentagram on the baphomet's forehead.
Anton LaVey, who created the Church of Satan in 1966, took the idea from Levi.
The pentagram in literature
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a 14th century romance story, the pentagram is mentioned as a symbol for Gawain's good character and truth.
More recently, the meaning of the pentagram was discussed in The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
According to the book, the pentagram actually belonged to the ancient religion of Pagan Sun Worship, and was tied to the female planet Venus: every 8 years Venus traces a perfect pentagram across the sky.
The book says that the pentagram was a symbol for the sacred female, but was later taken by Christianity and said to mean the devil in order to destroy beliefs that females were sacred.
A pentacle is on the flag of Morocco, as well as  Ethiopia's.
Religious symbols
Benzene, also known as  benzol, is an organic chemical compound with the formula C6H6.
It is a colorless and flammable liquid with a sweet smell.
Benzene molecules are a ring of six carbon atoms that are each bonded to one hydrogen atom.
It is an aromatic compound, meaning the ring has alternating double bonds.
Benzene is carcinogenic, which means it can cause cancer.
It has many real-world uses.
It is used as an additive in gasoline, plastics, synthetic rubber, dyes and it is an industrial solvent, which means it can dissolve many other chemical molecules.
Benzene is also a natural part of crude oil and is therefore present in gasoline.
Many medicines contain parts made from benzene.
Benzene has special properties called aromaticity.
All six carbon atoms in the ring are on the same flat plane.
To account for all the bonds on a six carbon ring, there must be alternating double carbon bonds (Conjugated system):
If benzene had three double bonds, three sides of its ring would be shorter than the other three sides.
X-ray diffraction shows that all of six carbon-carbon bonds in benzene are of the same length of 140 picometres (pm).
The C–C bond lengths are greater than a double bond (135 pm) but shorter than a single bond (147 pm).
This intermediate distance is consistent with electron delocalization: the electrons for C–C bonding are distributed equally between each of the six carbon atoms.
The molecule is planar.
One representation is that the structure exists as a superposition of so-called resonance structures, rather than either form individually. (
In other words, the molecule's double bonds switch quickly between pairs of carbon atoms.)
The delocalization of electrons is one explanation for the thermodynamic stability of benzene and related aromatic compounds.
It is likely that this stability contributes to the peculiar molecular and chemical properties known as aromaticity.
To indicate the delocalized nature of the bonding, benzene is often depicted with a circle inside a hexagonal arrangement of carbon atoms.
As is common in organic chemistry, the carbon atoms in the diagram above have been left unlabeled.
Realizing each carbon has 2p electrons, each carbon donates an electron into the delocalized ring above and below the benzene ring.
It is the overlap of p-orbitals both above and below the ring that produces the pi clouds.
In 1986, some chemists disputed the delocalized view of benzene in an article published in the journal Nature.
They showed that the electrons in benzene are almost certainly localized to particular carbon atoms.
They showed the aromatic properties of benzene come from spin coupling rather than electron delocalization.
Other scientists wrote articles to support this view in Nature in 1987.
But, chemists are slow to switch from the delocalized electrons view.
The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is a meat eating mammal.
It is a marsupial, which means it has a small pouch to carry its babies.
It is the largest meat eating marsupial in the world.
It is nocturnal, which means it sleeps during the day and is awake during the night.
Tasmanian devils now live only in Tasmania, an island state of Australia.
The devil is the same size as a small dog with a wide head and a short tail.
Male devils can weigh 12 kg and be 30 cm tall.
It has black fur and makes a loud and very scary screeching noise.
It will hunt other animals and also feed on dead animals.
The devil has strong teeth and jaws and will eat all its prey, even bones and fur.
The Tasmanian devil became extinct on the Australian mainland about 3,000 years ago - before European settlement in 1788.
They were hunted in Tasmania.
In the 1930s the Van Dieman's Land Company offered 25 cents for each male and 35 cents for each female killed.
In 1941 they became officially protected.
In 1996 the devils began to get very sick and then die with large tumours on their faces.
Devil facial tumour disease has greatly reduced the number of devils and now threatens their survival.
In some areas 85% of devils have been found with the disease.
In the places where the tumours were seen first, devil numbers have dropped by 95%.
The tumour is spread by biting.
Because the devils are all closely related (not enough genetic diversity), the tumour cells are not seen as new; so the devil's immune system does not fight it.
In May 2008 the Tasmanian devil was listed as endangered.
Programs are being tried by the Tasmanian government to reduce the impact of the disease.
About 60 devils without the disease have been captured and are to be kept as a tumour free group for rebreeding.
Scientists have been looking at ways to give the devils immunity but so far this has not worked.
New research is showing the devils are having babies earlier, they use to breed at two years, but now are breeding at one year old.
Devils used to have babies every year for three years, but they are now dying before they can produce a second litter (family).
The devils have a low genetic diversity which is consistent with a 'founder effect'.
What this means is: a small number colonised Tasmania from Australia at some stage.
So their genetic variety was much less than the parent population.
Disease like the present may have happened before, and reduced the population to a small number.
These events are called 'population bottlenecks'.
A small population which carries less variation is always vulnerable to extinction, because none of the animals may be resistant to the infection.
Its genome was sequenced in 2010 by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
There is some hope for their survival because, since 2005, three females have been found that are partially resistant to the disease.
The Aussie Devil Ark Conservation Project
Joseph Haydn (also known as Franz Joseph Haydn) was an Austrian composer.
He was born on March 31 or April 1, 1732, and died on May 31, 1809.
He was one of the most famous composers in the Classical music period.
He is often called the "Father of the Symphony."
Haydn's father made wheels for a living, and had the skills of a blacksmith, stonemason, and carpenter.
He used that skill in his spare time to make musical instruments for his family to play.
The Haydn family would give informal weekend concerts.
One of Joseph's relatives thought that Joseph had a great singing voice and should go with him to a boarding school where he would start studying to become a priest.
Haydn did not like it very much at the boarding school, but his voice developed to a point where he was selected to be a part of the Boy's Choir of the Vienna Cathedral.
He stayed there until his voice changed.
Eventually Haydn got a job working for Nicholas Esterhazy.
He worked for the Esterhazys for over 30 years.
He wrote symphonies, string quartets, operas, piano sonatas, and other pieces.
After he was released from his duties with the Esterhazys, Haydn travelled to London.
Even at the age of 60 he was still active and wrote some of his most famous symphonies there.
While working on these oratorios in Vienna, Haydn gave lessons to Ludwig van Beethoven.
Beethoven had first wanted to study with Mozart, but by the time Beethoven was ready to study in Vienna, Mozart had died.
The house in Vienna where Haydn wrote his oratorios has been turned into a museum called 'Haydnhaus'.
There visitors can see the piano by Anton Walter that composer was using for writing music.
1809 deaths
In music, a scale is a set of notes in order of their pitch (that is, their frequency).
If the scale starts with the note which has the lowest pitch and goes up to the note with the highest pitch, the scale is called ascending.
If the scale starts with the note which has the highest pitch and goes down to the note with the lowest pitch, the scale is called descending.
Scales are often the same both ascending and descending, but this is not always true.
Very often, a scale is defined over an interval (such as an octave).
The most common scales use intervals of five, six or seven different notes.
Major and minor scales
Major scales
On a piano, there are white keys and black keys.
If we start on the note C and play each white key going up until we come to the next C, we have played the C Major scale.
It has eight notes because there are eight notes from each C to the next one: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
The note played by each black key has two names: it can be named by the note after it, or the note before it.
For example, the black key after C can be called C♯ (C-sharp).
Sharp means higher in pitch.
That same note can also be called D♭ (D-flat) because it is the note before D. Flat means lower in pitch.
There are half steps (or semitones) between two keys next to each other on the piano.
The key to the right plays a note half a step higher (sharp) and the key to the left plays a note half a step lower (flat).
So between the third and the fourth note, and between the seventh and eighth note, there is only half a step.
Starting the scale at the next white key (D), two black keys will need to be touched to get the same scale, the first one for the third note, the second for the seventh note: D, E, F♯, G, A, B, C♯, D. The pattern for an ascending major scale is up a whole step, up another whole step and then a half step, then a whole step, a whole step and another whole step, then half a step to complete the octave.
This is often shown as: WWHWWWH or TTSTTTS (where T stands for tone and S stands for semitone).
Scales use either just sharps or just flats when choosing between the two names for the same note, when this is possible.
In a scale of seven different notes, each letter is used only once.
This means that some scales have one or two notes named with a sharp or a flat even though they are played by white keys.
In the C♯ Major scale, for example, all the notes have names with a sharp: C♯, D♯, E♯, F♯, G♯, A♯, B♯, C♯. In this scale, E♯ is the name for the note played by the key that plays F and the B♯ is the name for the note played by the key that plays C. The same notes are used in the D♭ Major scale, but they all have different names: D♭, E♭, F, G♭, A♭, B♭, C, D♭.
Sometimes the major scale is sung to the words "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do" (solfège).
In the musical The Sound of Music, Maria teaches the children to sing by teaching them a song called "Doe, a deer, a female deer".
Each line starts on the next note of the scale and uses a different English word for each note ("doe", "ray", "me", "far", "sew", "la" and "tea").
Minor scales
There are also minor scales.
These work the same way as major scales, but use different patterns of intervals:
natural minor uses half a step between the second and the third note, and between the fifth and the sixth note.
Starting at A, and using only white keys gives A minor (natural minor): A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A.
harmonic minor is the same as natural minor, except that there is only half a step between the seventh and eighth note.
Taking the example from before, but using the black key between G and A instead of the G (raising it by half a step) gives A, B, C, D, E, F, G♯, A.
melodic minor: The step from F to G♯ is three half steps and difficult to sing.
For this reason, F♯ is used instead of F, but only going up the scale.
Except for some forms of Jazz music, the natural minor is used going down the scale: A, B, C, D, E, F♯, G♯, A, G, F, E, D, C, B, A.
Different periods use different scales
During the Middle Ages, and the Renaisssance, the diatonic scale (the white keys of the piano) was used most often.
Black keys (called accidentals) were less common.
The classical period (1600 to 1900) generally used major and minor scales, as outlined above.
Natural minor was used less.
From about 1900, there are other scales, for example the chromatic scale (12 half tones).
For the use in evolutionary biology, see Orthology (biology)
Orthology is the study of the right use of words in language.
The word comes from Greek ortho- ("correct") and -logy ("science of").
This science is a place where psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and many other fields of learning come together.
The most noted use of Orthology is for the selection of words
The book, The Meaning of Meaning, by C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards, is an important book dealing with orthology.
The term Orthology comes from the book The Grammar of Science by Karl Pearson.
January 26 – Tuscarora War: More than half of the Native Americans in Colonel John Barnwell's Carolina militia desert during the crossing of the Cape Fear River.
January 29 – Tuscarora War: Colonel John Barnwell's Carolina militia attack the sprawling Tuscarora farming community of Torhunta by focusing on Fort Narhantes.
Many Tuscarora captives are enslaved.
Toei Company, Ltd. (東映株式会社 Tōei Kabushiki-gaisha (pronounced toe ay) is a Japanese film, television production, and  distribution corporation.
Based in Tokyo, Toei owns and operates thirty-four movie theaters across Japan, studios at Tokyo and Kyoto; and is a shareholder in several television companies.
It is notable for anime, live action dramas known as tokusatsu, and jidaigeki historical dramas.
Tokyo-Yokohama Films (東横映画 Tō-Yoko Eiga, incorporated in 1938, had previously erected its facilities immediately east of the Tōkyū Tōyoko Line, they managed the Tōkyū Shibuya Yokohama studio system prior to V-J Day.
From 1945 through the Toei merger, Tokyo-Yokohama Films leased from the Daiei Motion Picture Company a second studio in Kyoto.
Through the merger, they gained the combined talents and experience of different actors.
On October 1, 1950, the Tokyo Film Distribution Company was incorporated; in 1951 the company purchased Ōizumi Films.
Toei was a pioneer in the use of transformation in live-action martial-arts dramas, a technique developed for the Kamen Rider, Metal Heroes and Super Sentai series; The genre currently continues with Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.
toei.co.jp - Company webpage
Animation studios in Asia
Naoko Takeuchi (武内直子 Takeuchi Naoko), born March 15, 1967, is a manga artist from Japan.
She lives in Tokyo.
She wrote the manga Sailor Moon, which was so popular it was made into an anime, musicals, video games and more.
Her husband, Yoshihiro Togashi, is the creator of YuYu Hakusho and Hunter × Hunter.
Kimigayo (きみ が よ; Kanji: 君が代) is the national anthem of Japan.
The name of the song roughly means 'Imperial Reign' in English.
The anthem is based on a poem written by an unknown poet from Japan about one thousand years ago.
The music was written more recently (about two hundred years ago) and was then rewritten shortly afterwards because the original tune was unpopular.
Although popular for a long period and sung in situations where people from other countries would usually sing their country's national anthem, Kimi Ga Yo was only considered as Japan's official national anthem in 1999.
The law that stated this also defined the Flag of Japan in a similar way.
Kimigayo is one of the shortest known national anthems of any country.
It is only 56 seconds long.
Listen to Kimi ga yo (.ra format)
April Fools' Day (also known as April Fool's Day) is celebrated in many countries on April 1 every year.
On this day, practical jokes (or April Fools) are played on friends and family.
The jokes are done to embarrass them.
In some countries, April Fools only last until noon, and if someone plays a joke after, they are an April Fool.
People have set aside a special day for playing jokes for centuries.
The ancient Romans had a holiday called Hilaria.
In the Middle Ages, New Year's Day was celebrated on March 25 in most European towns.
In some areas of France, New Year's was a week-long holiday ending on April 1.
Some people think that April Fools' started because those who celebrated on January 1 made fun of those who celebrated on other dates.
Long standing customs
In the U.K., a person playing a joke would yell "April Fool!"
at the recipient.
According to tradition, the joking was supposed to stop at midday.
In France, an April fools joke is called a "Poisson d'Avril'.
One tradition there is to try and stick a paper fish on one's friends back, and shout "Poisson d'Avril!'
when it is discovered.
Media outlets
Sometimes a large media corporation would broadcast or publish a fake news story on April 1.
For example, in 1957 the BBC broadcast a story about spaghetti trees.
According to the story, people in Switzerland grew spaghetti on trees.
Later, many people called the BBC asking how they could get a spaghetti tree.
Baroque music is a set of styles of European classical music which were in use between about 1600 and 1750 during the Baroque period.
The word "Baroque" is used in other art forms besides music: we talk about Baroque architecture, painting, sculpture, dance and literature.
The Baroque period comes between the Renaissance and the period of Classicism.
Musicians think of the Baroque period as starting around 1600.
The famous Renaissance composers Palestrina and Lassus had died a few years earlier.
Claudio Monteverdi wrote some music in Renaissance style, and other music in Baroque style.
Opera was being invented.
It was a time of musical change.
The change from writing music in the Baroque style to the Classical style was much more gradual.
1750 is the year that Bach died, so it is an easy date to choose for the end of the Baroque period.
The Baroque was a time when people liked large spaces and a lot of ornamentation.
This can be seen in the architecture of famous buildings such as St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, or St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.
They were built at this time.
In Venice there were churches with galleries on either side of the church.
Composers liked to write music for two groups of musicians placed in opposite galleries.
Giovanni Gabrieli wrote a lot of music like this.
Styles and instruments
The idea of two contrasting groups was used a lot in Baroque music.
Composers wrote concertos.
These were pieces for orchestra and a solo instrument.
Sometimes a concerto contrasted a group of soloists with the rest of the orchestra.
These are called by the Italian name "Concerti Grossi.
Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are good examples.
Organs, and some harpsichords, had at least two manuals (keyboards).
The player could change from one manual to the other, contrasting two different sounds.
Baroque music was often a melody with a bass line at the bottom.
This could be, for example, a singer and a cello.
There was also a harpsichord or organ that played the bass line as well, and made up chords in between.
Often the composer did not bother to write out all the chords (harmonies) but just showed some of the chords by figures, leaving it to the performer to decide exactly which notes to play.
This is called “figured bass” or “basso continuo”.
The soloist, who played or sang the melody on top, often put in lots of ornamental notes.
Again: the composer did not write this all down but left it to the performer to improvise something nice around the notes he had written.
Because composers were now writing opera it was important for the audience to hear the words clearly.
In the Renaissance the groups of a choir were often singing several different words using different melodies all at once.
This was called “polyphony”.
Polyphony was widely used in instrumental music, but was not used in opera, which needed to tell a story without being confusing.
When a soloist in an opera sings a song (an aria) the aria is in a particular mood.
They called this “affection”.
There were several “affections” or moods: there were arias about revenge, jealousy, anger, love, despair, peaceful happiness etc.
Each movement in a concerto also had one particular mood.
Music from later periods is different.
For example: Haydn in the Classical Period would often change its mood during a piece.
The Baroque suite is a collection of dance movements written in the style of Baroque music.
There is an accepted standard order in which the dances are performed.
The five primary dances are the Overture, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue.
Many times a composer would add a Prelude before all the dances.
Sometimes a composer would add another piece in between the Sarabande and the Gigue.
There are many exceptions to the standard order, but the order of Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Other, and Gigue is most common.
This can be easily remembered by the acronym PACSOG.
Giovanni Gabrieli (about 1553/6-1612)
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) (German born)
François Couperin (1668-1733)
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)
Music in the Baroque Era, Manfred Bukofzer; J.M.Dent 1948
Periods in music history
A canyon (or gorge) is a big crack in the ground, or a  very deep valley.
Most canyons are made by rivers.
A few are made by earthquakes.
They can be big, like the Grand Canyon, or small.
The most obvious form of sight-based pattern language comes in the form of writing.
Nearly every language has a unique written form, which grammatically follows the spoken form.
The first National Maritime Day was May 22, 1933, based on a joint resolution passed by the United States Congress on May 20, 1933.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first President to issue a proclamation about the day.
The biggest National Maritime Day celebration was in 1946, the first National Maritime Day after the Allied Powers won World War II.
That year, governors of many U.S. states also officially named the day National Maritime Day or Maritime Day for their state.
The first National Maritime Day after the end of the Korean War, in 1954, was also more widely celebrated than most.
Joint Resolution of Congress text
List of 1946 state and city proclamations
Text of Bush proclamation
Nuclear fusion is the process of making a single heavy nucleus (part of an atom) from two lighter nuclei.
This process is called a nuclear reaction.
It releases a large amount of energy.
The nucleus made by fusion is heavier than either of the starting nuclei.
However, it is not as heavy as the combination of the original mass of the starting nuclei (atoms).
This lost mass is changed into lots of energy.
This is shown in Einstein's famous E=mc2 equation.
Fusion happens in the middle of stars, like the Sun.
Hydrogen atoms are fused together to make helium.
This releases lots of energy.
This energy powers the heat and light of the star.
Not all elements can be joined.
Heavier elements are less easily joined than lighter ones.
Iron (a metal) cannot fuse with other atoms.
This is what causes stars to die.
Stars join all of their atoms together to make heavier atoms of different types, until they start to make iron.
The iron nucleus cannot fuse with other nuclei.
The reactions stop.
The star eventually will cool down and die.
On Earth it is very difficult to start nuclear fusion reactions that release more energy than is needed to start the reaction.
The reason is that fusion reactions only happen at high temperature and pressure, like in the Sun, because both nuclei have a positive charge, and positive repels positive.
The only way to stop the repulsion is to make the nuclei hit each other at very high speeds.
They only do that at high pressure and temperature.
The only successful approach so far has been in nuclear weapons.
The hydrogen bomb uses an atomic (fission) bomb to start fusion reactions.
Scientists and engineers have been trying for decades to find a safe and working way of controlling and containing fusion reactions to generate electricity.
They still have many challenges to overcome before fusion power can be used as a clean source of energy.
The Concertmaster (American English) or leader (British English) is the most important violinist in an orchestra.
He or she will sit in the front seat, by the conductor's left.
The word concertmaster comes from the German Konzertmeister.