the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
Dorids are recognised by the branchial (gill) plume, which forms a cluster on the posterior part of the body, around the anus.
Aeolids have cerata on their backs, instead of the branchial plume.
Some are hosts to zooxanthellae, which are endosymbiont brown dinoflagellates of the genus Symbiodinium.
Sea slug is an informal name for a group of gastropods which look similar, but are not monophyletic.
Their similar shape and life styles is an example of convergent evolution.
Nudibranchs: a clade with bilateral symmetry
Sacoglossa, a clade of Heterobranch sea slugs and snails which go in for kleptoplasty ('stealing' plastids).
They eat algae and keep the chloroplasts for their own use.
Opisthobranchs: a long-used term now just an informal label.
Polyphyletic.
Sea angels, or cliones, are opisthobranch gastropod molluscs of the clade Gymnosomata.
Sea hares are medium to large size marine Gastropod molluscs.
They belong to two families of the Opisthobranchia.
Cephalaspidea: a sub-order of Opisthobranch gastropod molluscs.
They usually possess a reduced internal shell.
Onchidiidae: a family of air-breathing sea slugs.
Sea butterflies: a group of pelagic sea snails sometimes called pteropods.
They belong to the clade Thecosomata.
(; born , ; 16 April 1844 – 12 October 1924) was a French poet, critic, and novelist.
He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921.
He was a member of the Académie française.
Anatole France was a son of a bookseller.
He studied at the Collège Stanislas.
He got married in 1877 but he get divorced in 1892.
He was librarian for the French Senate in 1876 - 1890.
Literary career
Anatole France start his career as a parnassianism poet.
Later he became an impressionist and he was an atheist.
From 1867 he was a journalist.
In 1881 he became famous with the novel Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, membre de l'Institut.
It's about an old scholar Sylvester Bonnard, Bonnard wants to make good, but he commits a crime.
This novel won France a prize from the French Academy.
In 1893 he captured the atmosphere of the fin de siècle in Les Opinions de Jérôme Coignard.
France took a part in the Dreyfus Affair.
He signed Émile Zola's manifesto supporting Dreyfus.
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer and he was charged with high treason.
In 1901 France wrote Monsieur Bergeret about this affair.
He stood out against colonialism.
In 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
He died in 1924 and he is buried near Paris in the Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery.
Poèmes dorés (1873)
Les Noces corinthiennes (1876)
Jocaste et Le Chat maigre (1879)
Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, membre de l’Institut (1881)
Les Désirs de Jean Servien (1882)
Abeille, conte (1883)
Balthasar (1889)
Thaïs (1890)
L’Étui de nacre (1892)
La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque (1892)
Les Opinions de Jérôme Coignard (1893)
Le Lys rouge (1894)
Le Jardin d’Épicure (1895)
Le Puits de Sainte Claire (1895)
L’Histoire contemporaine
L’Orme du mail (1897), (L’Histoire contemporaine, I)
Le Mannequin d'osier (1897), (L’Histoire contemporaine, II)
L’Anneau d'améthyste (1899), (L’Histoire contemporaine, III)
Monsieur Bergeret à Paris (1901), (L’Histoire contemporaine, IV)
Clio (1900)
Le Procurateur de Judée (1902)
Histoires comiques (1903)
Sur la pierre blanche (1905)
L'Affaire Crainquebille (1901)
L’Île des Pingouins (1908)
Les Contes de Jacques Tournebroche (1908)
Les Sept Femmes de Barbe bleue et autres contes merveilleux (1909)
Les dieux ont soif (1912)
La Révolte des anges (1914)
Le Livre de mon ami (1885)
Pierre Nozière (1899)
Le Petit Pierre (1918)
La Vie en fleur (1922)
Au petit bonheur, (1898)
Crainquebille, (1903)
La Comédie de celui qui épousa une femme muette, (1908)
Le Mannequin d'osier, (1928)
Historical biography
Vie de Jeanne d'Arc (1908)
Alfred de Vigny, étude (1869)
Le Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte (1888)
Le Génie Latin (1913)
Social criticism
Opinions sociales (1902)
Le Parti noir (1904)
Vers les temps meilleurs (1906)
Sur la voie glorieuse (1915)
Anatole France Biography at LitWeb
Works by Anatole France at Internet Archive
Anatole France, Nobel Prize Winner by Herbert S. Gorman, The New York Times, 20 November 1921
Hurricane David was the strongest and deadliest hurricane of the 1979 Atlantic hurricane season, but not the costliest.
This hurricane caused a lot of damage as it slammed into Dominican Republic as a category 5 hurricane and was it struck Florida as a category 2 hurricane.
Hurricane David killed 2,068 and caused over $1.5 billion in damage.
Because it killed so many people in Dominican Republic, the name David was retired.
This was the first male name retired in the Atlantic Ocean.
Meaning, David will never be used as a name of a storm in the Atlantic Ocean.
The name Danny replaced it in 1985, 1991, 1997, 2003, and 2009.
The name Danny is also on the list in 2015.
Hurricane David was a very strong hurricane killing many.
Tusks is the name for the teeth of elephants
Scaphopoda, which are called tusk shells in English is a class of marine molluscs.
The name of the class can be translated as shovel-footed.
These animals vary in size, most are small though.
These animals usually do not live in the tidal zone, they dig themselves into muddy or sandy ocean floors, up to a depth of about 700m. There are about 500 recent species.
Fossils of over 900 species have been described.
As of 2009, it is unclear how many of these descriptions are valid species.
These species live in an elongated tube, which is open on both ends, but which can be closed on one end.
The animal lives inside the tube, and is attached to it.
Scaphopoda do reproduce sexually.
Michael Polakovs, known in America as Coco the Clown, (born Riga, Latvia 23 February 1923; died USA, 6 December 2009) was a famous clown.
His father was known as Coco the Clown in Britain.
Michael played the part of Coco the Clown in America.
He was also known for being Ronald McDonald, the clown who publicized McDonald’s fast food chain.
Michael Polakovs was born in Riga.
His parents Nikolai and Valentina were both circus artists.
Nikolai was known as Coco the Clown.
He was working in Breslau in Germany when Willy Schumann, the circus director, saw him and persuaded him to go to Britain.
The family moved to Britain where his father found work in Bertram Mills circus.
Michael was the eldest of six children.
By the time he was 17 he was working as a clown called “Coconut”.
Then World War II started and he and his father had to work digging roads and laying gas pipes.
They earned £2 16s 6d a week (just over £2.82 in modern money).
Then he became a driver for the government.
He also managed to do some work as a clown in Blackpool Tower Circus and Tom Arnold’s circus.
When Bertram Mills opened his circus again after the war the Polakovs family were all working for him.
He was particularly good at stilt-walking.
One one occasion he saved the life of a lion tamer who was being attacked by a lion.
In 1951 he went with a brother and a sister to work for Billy Smart’s circus.
The brother married Billy Smart’s daughter.
In 1958 Michael decided to go to the United States.
There he became known as Coco the Clown.
He worked for the Ringling Brother’s Barnum & Bailey Circus, known as “The Greatest Show on Earth”.
Later he worked for other circuses.
He started the popularity of the character Ronald McDonald, advertising for the fast food chain.
He designed Ronald’s  clothes and make-up and appeared in the first eight of his television commercials.
Later he settled with his second wife in Kentucky.
He had four children by his first wife and two children by his second wife.
Obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 16 December 2009, p. 33
Coco the Clown (or Theo de Kovel) is a clown character who is very famous in Britain and later became famous in America.
Coco was not a whiteface clown but an auguste.
This type of clown is supposed to be a bit stupid, so he gets teased by another clown who is supposed to be much cleverer.
Coco always gets buckets of water thrown at him or custard pies in his face.
Theo de Kovel (or Polakovs) (1900–74) made the character of Coco the Clown famous.
Later his son Elwin de Beer (1923-2009) made him famous in the Netherlands
After retiring from the circus, Nicolai Poliakoff toured schools in the UK as Coco promoting road safety.
He had a walking stick in the shape of a Bolesha Beacon.
For this work he was awarded the OBE by the Queen.
118118118118118118118
Pipo de Clown (English: Pipo the Clown) is a clown who became very popular on Dutch television.
The character was created by Wim Meuldijk.
The actor who took the part of Pipo de Clown was Cor Witschge (1925-1991).
The television series started in 1958 and was shown until 1980.
In the television programmes Pipo lives with his wife Mamaloe (pronounce: "Mamaloo") and their daughter Petra in a gypsy-style caravan.
They say that they travel all over the world.
Sapperdeflap! (
Pipo expressing surprise)
Hou 's even vast, Mamaloe! (
Hold this a moment, Mamaloe!)
Dag vogels, dag bloemen, dag kinderen (Hello (or Goodbye) birds, hello flowers, hello children)
Coronel Fabriciano is a Brazilian city in the Vale do Aço metropolitan area, state of Minas Gerais.
It is in the region of Vale do Rio Doce and is 200 km from the state capital.
The municipal population was estimated in 2020 by IBGE in 110,290 inhabitants, with an area of 221.252 km².
The city was founded in December 27, 1948.
The devolviment of the municipality is due to the large companies in the region, such as Aperam South America (old Acesita) and Usiminas, whose industries were in Coronel Fabriciano at they time they were constructed.
But in 1964, Fabriciano lost the industrial areas, due to the emancipation of Timóteo and Ipatinga.
Official site of Coronel Fabriciano
Cities in Minas Gerais
1948 establishments in South America
An axillary bud is an embryonic shoot which is between the stem and petiole of a plant.
This article is about the Czech hockey player.
For the American paperfolder, see Robert J. Lang.
Robert Lang (born December 19, 1970 in Teplice, CS) is a Czech retired ice hockey centre.
He played for the Los Angeles Kings, Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, Montreal Canadiens, and the Phoenix Coyotes.
In 2004, Lang won a Golden Hockey Stick for being the best Czech hockey player.
Joel Norman Quenneville (born September 15, 1958 in Windsor, Ontario) is a retired Canadian ice hockey player.
He is the current head coach for the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League (NHL).
He won the Stanley Cup when he was an assistant coach for the Colorado Avalanche in 1996.
He became head coach of the Blackhawks in 2008.
He replaced Denis Savard.
Colorado Rockies (NHL) players
Three Cups of Tea is a book co-written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
It follows Mr. Mortenson's journey to founding his organisation, the Central Asia Institute (CAI), which builds schools and other facilities for children, especially girls, in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Anything related to Aragon, an autonomous community of Spain
Aragonese language, a language spoken in that community
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Teplyakov () (November 6, 1925- December 10, 2009) was a Russian physicist who is best known for his work with particle accelerators.
He, working with his friend I.M. Kapchinsky, created the Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) principle, which was very important dealing with the speed of low energy ion beams.
Teplyakov was born in the USSR on November 6, 1925.
He was made to join the Red Army in January 1943 and fought in the Second World War on the Ukrainian front.
After the war ended, he went to and graduated from the All-Union Correspondence Polytechnic Institute in Moscow.
After leaving school, he began work at the Institute of Chemical Physics.
From 1959-1966, he worked at Chelyabinsk-70, where he kept up his study of high-current proton .
In 1966, he and several of the people that he worked with were moved to the Institute of High Energy Physics in Protvino, Russia.
Civilian honours
Lenin Prize in 1998 for his work on creating the RFQ.
Order of Lenin and the Order of the October Revolution.
Military honours
Order of Glory, 3rd class the
Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd Class
medal for the Capture of Vienna.
"Vladimir Alexsandrovich Teplyakov" Translation from Atomnaya Energiya, Vol.
99, pp.
396-397, November 2005.
"The Linear Accelerator Structures With Space-Uniform Quadrupole Focusing" June 1979
"RFQ pioneer celebrates 80th birthday"  November 2, 2005
"Teplyakov’s Proposal for the IFMIF Accelerator RFQ" Retriever on December 11, 2009
"Циклы научных работ, выполненные в ГНЦ ИФВЭ и удостоенные высших государственных премий"  Retrieved on December 11, 2009
"Vladimir Teplyakov" Retrieved on December 12, 2009
"Wapedia: Lenin Prize" Retriever on December 13, 2009
"Accelerator Application To Medicine And Technology" Retrieved on December 13, 2009
"Победа в Великой Отечественной войне" Retriever on December 12, 2009
"Путь к УРАЛу.
История ускорителя и человека."
Retrieved on December 11, 2009
Donovan McNabb (born November 25, 1976 in Chicago, Illinois) is a retired American football player.
He played as a quarterback in the National Football League.
He played college football for Syracuse.
McNabb was picked by the Philadelphia Eagles with the second pick in the first round of the 1999 NFL Draft.
With the Eagles, McNabb played fairly well.
There was some controversy about his work ethic and wide receiver Terrell Owens.
The Eagles made the NFC Championship game six times and the Super Bowl once.
However, McNabb struggled very badly after leaving the Eagles.
He later played for the Washington Redskins and the Minnesota Vikings.
McNabb wore #5 throughout his career.
"Fall to Pieces" is a song by Canadian singer Avril Lavigne, and was the fifth and last single from her second album, Under My Skin; it was the fourth single in the United States.
The song was produced and written by Avril Lavigne and Raine Maida.
It was Lavigne's least liked song in the U.S., but was very well liked in Canada.
There is no music video for this single, because the shoot for the video was cancelled.
USA promo
"Fall to Pieces (Album Version)" - 3:28
"Suggested Call Out Hook" - 0:10
"Fall to Pieces (MP3 Track)" - 3:28
EU promo
"Fall to Pieces" was not put out in the United Kingdom, but it made it all the way to number seven on the Canadian BDS Airplay Chart, her third successful single in Canada after "Nobody's Home" and "Don't Tell Me".
It made it all the way to number sixteen in South Africa.
Lavigne did not advertise the single, and because of this it failed to chart on U.S. Billboard Hot 100; it made it all the way to number six on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, and at number fifty-five on the Billboard Pop 100; However without video the single played a lot in radios all over US, Canada and Latin America .
1 The same as number 106 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
Wagner devoted three years (1836–1839) to the exploration of Algiers.
It was there that he made an important discovery in natural history, which he later developed.
His idea, first based on a study of flightless beetles, was that geographical isolation could play a key role in speciation.
Although at first rejected, this idea turned out to be important in the theory of evolution.
From 1852–1855, together with a companion, Wagner travelled through North and Central America and the Caribbean.
In May 1843, Wagner toured the Lake Sevan region of Armenia.
In his old age he committed suicide in Munich, aged 73.
His brother Rudolf was a physiologist and anatomist.
Wagner's significance
He was also a keen naturalist and collector, and it is for this work he is best known among biologists.
Ernst Mayr, the evolutionist and historian of biology, has given an account of Wagner's significance.
During his three years in Algeria, Wagner studied (amongst other activities) the flightless beetles Pimelia and Melasoma.
Each genus is split into a number of species, each of which is confined to a stretch of the north coast between rivers which descend from the Atlas mountains to the Mediterranean.
Wagner was able to make similar observations in the Caucasus and in the Andean valleys, leading him to conclude, after the Origin of Species had been published:
"... an incipient species will only [arise] when a few individuals transgress the limiting borders of their range... the formation of a new race will never succeed... without a long continued separation of the colonists from the other members of their species."
This was an early description of a process of geographical speciation.
Another formulation of this idea came later: "Organisms which never leave their ancient area of distribution will never change".
This cannot be literally true, and is an overstatement of his idea.
The fate of this idea was unhappy. "
Unfortunately, Wagner combined [his idea] with some peculiar ideas on variation and selection" (Mayr).
The leading evolutionists (Darwin, Wallace, Weismann) attacked Wagner's idea of geographic speciation, and it suffered a long decline.
However, in 1942 it was reintroduced by Mayr, and the importance of geographic speciation became one of the core ideas of the evolutionary synthesis.
Modern experts such as Ernst Mayr, Jerry Coyne & Allen Orr, agree that Wagner first identified geographical speciation.
However, his "migration theory" was based on a rather simple, Lamarckian idea of evolution.
Wagner argued in letters to Darwin that he had missed a vital geographic component in understanding the evolution of new species.
Darwin at first responded in a friendly way to these letters, and agreed that geographic isolation was important (although not the only mode of speciation).
Later, he found Wagner's increasingly hysterical tone and one-sided argument upsetting, and wrote across his copy of Wagner's 1875 paper "most wretched rubbish," partly because Wagner ignored the importance of natural selection, and lifted parts of Darwin's theory that he liked without attribution, all the while claiming that Darwin's views were incorrect.
As well as Darwin, the Reverend J.T. Gulick also found Wagner's theories overstated.,
but in a later paper Gulick says that "Moritz Wagner, in his Law of the Migration of Organisms, was the first to insist on the importance of geographical isolation as a factor in evolution, but when he asserted that, without geographical isolation, natural selection could have no effect in producing new species, he went beyond what could be sustained by facts".
Ernst Mayr's formulation cleared up the issues which Wagner had left unresoved: "A new species develops if a population which has become isolated from its parental species acquires during this period of isolation characters which promote or guarantee isolation when the external barriers break down".
The zoological taxonomist Bernhard Rensch was also significant in keeping geographical speciation on the evolutionary menu.
He identified geographical separation as the most frequent initial step towards kladogenesis (species splitting).
The importance of Wagner's insight is undeniable today.
It was obscured for many years by his other, mistaken, ideas, but it was a genuine natural history insight gained by observation of insects in their natural habitats.
"It took more than 60 years after 1859 until the leading specialists... [agreed] that this geographical approach was the way to solve the problem of speciation... a new species may evolve when a population acquires isolating mechanisms while isolated from its parent population."
Wagner's publications
Reisen in der Regentschaft Algier in den Jahren 1836, 1837 und 1838.
Leipzig 1841.
Der kaukasus und das Land der Kosaken.
Reise nach Kolchis.
Leipzig 1850.
Reise nach dem Ararat und dem Hochlande Armeniens.
Stuttgart 1848.
Reise nach Persien und dem Lande der Kurden.
Leipzig 1851.
Die Republik Costa-Rica.
Leipzig 1856.
Über die hydrogaphischen Verhältnisse und das Vorkommen der Süßwasserfische in den Staaten Panama und Ecuador.
Abhandlungen der königlich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, II Classe 11 (I Abt.)
Reisen in Nordamerika in den Jahren 1852 und 1853. (
with Carl Scherzer) 3 vols, Gotha 1861.
Die Darwinsche Theorie und das Migrationsgesetz der Organismen.
Leipzig 1868.
English edition: Wagner M. 1873.
The Darwinian theory and the law of the migration of organisms.
Translated by I.L. Laird, London.
Naturwissenschaftliche Reisen im tropischen Amerika.
Stuttgart 1870.
Über den Einfluß der geographischen Isolierung und Kolonienbildung auf die morphologischen Veränderungen der Organismen.
München 1871.
Die Entstehung der Arten durch räumliche Sonderung. [
The origin of species by spacial separation] Gesammelte Aufsätze.
Benno Schwalbe, Basel 1889.
Short biography (in German)
Africanized honeybees are an artificial man-made hybrid of the European honeybee and African bees.
They are more dangerous and defensive than regular honeybees.
Because of this, some people call them 'killer bees'.
Africanized honeybees are much more protective of their beehive and more likely to sting.
When one of them is surprised or scared, they all attack together and sting the same animal or person with hundreds of stings.
Actually, their sting is the same as a regular honeybee's, but because they sting all together, they are much more dangerous.
They usually chase their target much farther than regular honeybees, and they stay angry and ready to fight for a longer time.
They have many more "guard" bees than regular honeybees.
In 1956, scientists brought African and European bees to Brazil, to see if they could mate them.
They wanted to do this to make a bee that would make more honey in a hotter place.
Scientists called these new bees "Africanized honeybees".
These bees, however, were very different from regular honeybees.
They would suddenly leave the colony and build a hive somewhere else.
Scientists found out that the queen would decide to leave after a few months, usually taking half the colony with her.
They could even take over European hives by killing the European queen bee and making their own queen bee the "queen".
Where they travel
Because of the queen's strange behavior of leaving the hive and starting new colonies, Africanized honeybees spread out quickly from Brazil.
They have moved towards the north so that they have spread through most of South America, Mexico, and the south parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
Scientists are not sure how far they will spread.
Some think they cannot go much more towards the north, because they do not survive well in really cold winters or extremely dry summers.
Those Africanized bees which have travelled southwards have become much tamer and are well suitable for beekeeping and making honey.
The re-domesticated Africanized honeybee is usually the choice of South American beekeepers because it will produce much more honey than the ordinary honeybees.
The honey production from a single hive of Africanized honey bees can be 100 kg annually and far exceeds the much smaller 3–5 kg of the various Melipona stingless bee species.
Thus economic pressures are forcing beekeepers to switch from the traditional stingless bees of their ancestors to the new reality of the Africanized honey bee.
U.S. Department of the Interior, Biological Resources Discipline
Barry Sergeant, keeper of "killer bees"
AFRICANIZED BEES: They are here to stay.
See how these bees spread to Florida.
Africanized honey bee on the UF / IFAS  Featured Creatures Web site
Texas A&M University Africanized Honey Bee Information Site
CISR: Center for Invasive Species Research Fact Sheet on Africanized Honey Bees
Ipatinga is a Brazilian city in the Vale do Aço metropolitan area, state of Minas Gerais.
Its population in 2009 was 244.508 inhabitants.
Its area is 165.509 km².
The city was founded in April 29, 1964.
Official site of Ipatinga
Timóteo is a city in Brazil.
It is in the Vale do Aço metropolitan area in the state of Minas Gerais.
In 2009, 79,813 people lived there.
Official site of Timóteo
The term is both outmoded and a mistake, because mammals did not descend from reptiles.
Both groups descended from early amniotes (egg-laying tetrapods), probably in the Lower or Middle Carboniferous.
The precursors of reptiles are called sauropsids, and the precursors of mammals are called synapsids.
The immediate ancestors of the mammals came from a group of therapsids called the cynodonts.
Therapsids
The cleidoic egg (from Greek kleistos = closed) is the type of egg which reptiles and birds lay.
Mammalian reproduction has evolved from laying cleidoic eggs to live birth.
The cleidoic egg is sometimes called the amniotic egg, because it is characteristic of amniotes.
These eggs have a protective shell, and are laid out of water.
The shell is porous to air, and may be flexible or calcareous (hard).The calcareous shell prevents the egg from desiccation.
The eggs contain all the food the embryo needs to develop into a hatchling.
As a result, the amphibian's larval stage, the tadpole, is not needed by reptiles or birds.
The special membranes that support these eggs are typical traits of all amniotes, including mammals.
The significance of the cleidoic egg is that it enables reproduction out of, and often away from, water.
The cleidoic egg has been called "a private little pond", from the way it gives water and nutrition to the embryo.
Cleidoic eggs must have evolved in the early or middle Carboniferous, after the early tetrapods evolved, but before the amniotes split into sauropsids (reptile ancestors) and synapsids (mammal ancestors).
Reproductive strategy
The basic reproduction strategy of amphibia (frogs, for example), is to lay a huge number of eggs, which are left to their own fate.
The strategy of amniotes is to invest more in the production of eggs, lay fewer eggs and take some care of them.
Because the eggs are laid on land, internal fertilisation is needed.
Thus, from the initial step of a cleidoic egg comes a number of changes in behaviour.
With the changes in behaviour comes better and more flexible brains.
Some reptiles, for example, crocodiles and birds, look after and protect their young.
Mammals are an extreme case: they carry the protection and nursing of the young much further.
All mammals provide milk for their young, and many smaller mammals raise their young in burrows, providing a meaasure of security.
Humans go even further still, with the long period of learning before their young are independent.
Also, in human evolution, there is a reduction in instinctive behaviour, which is inherited.
Instead, there is a great increase in learned behaviours and social life.
These later adaptations were made possible by the earlier evolution of the cleidoic egg.
Live birth is a comparatively recent adaptation.
Monotreme mammals do still lay eggs.
It is the marsupial and eutherian mammals which developed live birth.
Actually,the embryo developing in the womb has the same membranes round it as does the embryo inside a bird egg.
Mammals give birth to live young because the development takes place internally.
Live birth has evolved independently a number of times in reptiles, for example Ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young.
So do some snakes.
The cleidoic egg is a good example of an evolutionary innovation which permitted the invasion of a vast range of new habitats, and led to one of the greatest adaptive radiations in the history of the vertebrates.
In comparison, the amphibia, whose reproduction is tied to water, are represented today by just a few highly specialised groups.
Closed eggs in other animal groups
Some authors make a distinction between amniotic eggs (of reptiles, birds and mammals) and closed eggs of invertebrate groups such as insects and spiders.
In that case:
Cleidoic egg = any closed egg of a land animal
Amniotic egg = eggs of amniotes, namely reptiles, birds and mammals
A terrapin is a turtle that lives in brackish water.
They are named for the diamond pattern on their shells.
They eat mollusks, crabs, and fish.
Terrapins are sexually dimorphic.
Females are much larger than males.
Males range between 4 and 5 inches.
Females average nearly 7 inches.
The largest terrapin on record was a female measuring 9 inches.
A terrapin is one of several small species of turtle living in fresh or brackish water.
Terrapins do not form a taxonomic unit, and may not be related.
Many belong to the families Geoemydidae and Emydidae.
The name "terrapin" is derived from torope, a word in the Native American Algonquian language that refers to the species, Malaclemys terrapin.
It appears that it became part of common usage during the colonial era of North America and was carried back to Great Britain.
Since then, it has been used in common names for turtles in the English language.
In the UK, red-eared sliders are known as red-eared terrapins.
Brazil is currently divided into five regions (also called macroregions) by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE).
These divisions are composed of states with similar cultural, economical, historical and social aspects, and, although information given by this type of division is not very accurate from the scientific point of view, this division is the most widely used in Brazil because official information given by the IBGE uses this system.
Area: 3,869,637.,9 km² (45.27%)
Population: 12,833,383 (3.31 people/km²; 6.2%)
GDP: ~$9.6 billion (2%)
HDI: ~0.764
Climate: Equatorial (high temperatures and high annual precipitation)
States: Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, Tocantins
Largest Cities: Manaus (1,403,796); Belém (1,279,861); Ananindeua (392,947); Porto Velho (314,525); Macapá (282,745); Santarém (262,721); Rio Branco (252,885); Boa Vista (220,383); Palmas (208,000).
Economy: Iron, Energy production, electronic manufacturing, latex, tourism.
Transport: Mainly rivers (which are abundant in the region).
Highways are scarce and present mainly in the east.
Airplanes are commonly used in small remote communities and sometimes in the larger cities.
Vegetation: Almost the entire region is covered by the Amazon Rainforest, except the state of Tocantins, which has savanna-like vegetation (cerrado).
Although most of the native vegetation still remains, the region suffers from critical problems due to the growing deforestation of the area.
Notable characteristics: Presence of the Amazon Rainforest, which is the vegetation dominant in every state but Tocantins.
Cities are spread far apart in the region, and it has the lowest population density of the country.
There are very few paved highways in the region, as it is almost isolated from the rest of the country.
It is also the biggest region of Brazil, being responsible for almost half of the Brazilian territorial extension.
Economic growth above national average (especially in Amazonas and in Tocantins).
Area: 1,561,177 km² (18.3%)
Population: 47,700,000 (30.55 people/km²; 27%)
GDP: ~$48.1 billion (~12%)
HDI: ~0.716
Climate: Very hot all the year long.
Tropical near the coast and semi-arid in the interior; semi-equatorial in the far west of the region.
States: Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe
Largest Cities: Salvador (2,892,625); Fortaleza (2,138,234); Recife (1,421,993); São Luís (868,047); Maceió (796,842); Natal (789,836); Teresina (714,583); João Pessoa (595,429); Jaboatão dos Guararapes; (580,795); Feira de Santana (481,137); Aracaju (461,083); Olinda (368,666); Campina Grande (354,546).
Economy: Tourism, cocoa, machinery manufacturing, textiles.
Transport: Mainly highways, which are more abundant along the coast, although transport by sea is also important.
Vegetation: Mainly desert-like vegetation, with tropical forests along the coast and in the west and savanna-like vegetation in the southwest.
Notable characteristics: This region was the first part of Brazil discovered by the Portuguese, and the first Brazilian capital, Salvador, was founded here.
It has the lowest levels in the country in many social indicators, but it had the best economic growth (above national average) between 2000 and 2003.
Central-West Region
Area: 1,612,077.2 km² (18.86%)
Population: 11,616,750 (7.2 people/km²; 6.4%)
GDP: ~$40 billion (8%)
HDI: ~0.818
Climate: Savanna climate (hot, with relative little precipitation) northeast and the east; Tropical in the east and in the west; Equatorial in the north.
States: Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Distrito Federal (Federal District).
Largest Cities: Brasília (national capital) (2,043,169); Goiânia (1,090,737); Campo Grande (662,534); Cuiabá (483,044); Aparecida de Goiânia (335,849); Anápolis (287,666).
Economy: Livestock, Soybeans, tourism.
Transport: Highways where they are present (mostly in the center and east regions); transport by rivers is common in the north and in the east; airplanes are used in remote and smaller communities.
Vegetation: Mainly savanna-like vegetation, including the Pantanal (Chaco, in Paraguay), flooded areas in the west, equatorial rainforests in the north.
Notable characteristics: With a low population density, most of the land in the region is used for grazing instead of agriculture.
The region is also the least industrialized in the country, based mainly in food & meat processing.
Area: 927,286 km² (10.85%)
Population: 72,300,000 (77.96 people/km², 38%)
GDP(nominal): ~$320 billion (58,5%)
HDI: ~0.817
Climate: Tropical in the northwest (warm, relatively dry in the winter and wet in the summer); Semi-arid in the north; Temperate in the south
States: Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo
Largest Cities: São Paulo (10,405,867); Rio de Janeiro (5,851,914); Belo Horizonte (2,232,747); Guarulhos (1,071,268); Campinas (968.172); Nova Iguaçu (915,366); São Gonçalo (889,828); Duque de Caxias (770,865); São Bernardo do Campo (701,289); Osasco (650,993); Santo André (648,443); Contagem (600,236); São José dos Campos (610,965);  Ribeirão Preto (505,053); Uberlândia (500,488); Sorocaba (494,649); Niterói (458,465); Juiz de Fora (456,432); Santos (412,243), Vila Velha (357,952), Jundiaí (340,907), Bauru (310,000), Vitória (291,941)
Economy: Manufacturing (machinary, electronics, automobilive and aviation), coffee, sugar cane, tourism, petroleum, textiles, energy production (not sufficient, however, to fulfill its demand).
It is the business-economic center of Brazil, and most large companies present in Brazil have constructed their headquarters in this region
Transport: The region is heavily covered by highways, and, to some extent, railways.
Railways and rivers are used mainly for freight, and used where they are present.
The region also contains several airport hubs which provide many domestic and international air routes.
Vegetation: Mainly tropical-like semideciduous forests (Mata Atlântica); semi-arid in the north, with almost no vegetation; savannah-like vegetation in the west and in the northwest (Cerrado).
Very little of the native vegetation still remains (~2%, mostly in parks)
Notable characteristics: The southeast region is the major powerhouse of the Brazilian economy, being responsible for 58% of the Brazilian GDP (approximately $320 billion).
It is also the most populous region in the country, and has the three most important national metropolitan regions (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte) as well as many other large cities (Campinas, Santos, Juiz de Fora, Uberlândia).
Area: 577,214 km² (6.75%)
Population: 25,800,000 (43,46 people/km², 12.5%)
GDP: ~$91.5 billion (16.5%)
HDI: ~0.831
Climate: Subtropical in almost all of the entire region, hot to moderately hot in the summer, mild (though cold for Brazilian standards) and very humid winters.
Snow is extremely rare except for the highlands where some occasional light snow might fall.
The northeast part of the region has a tropical climate, being hot in the summer and warm/cool during the winter.
States: Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina
Largest Cities: Curitiba (1,828,092); Porto Alegre (1,441,554); Londrina (446,822); Joinville (429,004); Caxias do Sul (360,223); Florianópolis (341,781); Pelotas (323,034); Canoas (305,711); Maringá (288.,465); Ponta Grossa (281,000); Blumenau (277,500); Cascavel (273,000); Foz do Iguaçu (269,585); Santa Maria (243,396), Rio Grande (238,000)
Economy: Machinery and automobile industries, textiles, tourism, energy production, information technology, orange, apple, grapefruit.
Transport: There are many developed highways and railways throughout the region, although the latter is mainly used for freight.
Rivers are used when possible.
Vegetation: Rainforests along the coast (Mata Atlântica), tropical semiciduous in the north and west (Araucárias) and prairie-like vegetation in the south (Pampas).
Little native vegetation still remains due to deforestation.
Notable characteristics: The South region is characterized by its high standard of living, with the best social indicators of the country.
This region contains the cities with the highest HDI levels: Florianópolis has an HDI of 0.875; Porto Alegre has an HDI of 0.865; Curitiba has an HDI of 0.856 (information accurate as of 1996).
The region, along with the state of São Paulo, is also also characterized by its strong immigrant presence, with many inhabitants descended from Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Japanese, Arabic, Ukrainian and Lithuanian immigrants, and have added to the local culture, especially in architecture, cuisine and forms of agriculture.
The word mantle means cloak or cape, and does often resemble a cloak.
The edges of the mantle may extend far beyond the main part of the body, forming flaps, double-layered structures adapted for many different uses, including for example, the siphon.
The mantle cavity
The mantle cavity is a central feature of molluscan biology.
This cavity is formed by the mantle skirt, a double fold of mantle which encloses a water space.
This space contains the mollusc's gills, anus, and organs for taste, excretion and reproductive organs.
The mantle cavity functions as a respiratory chamber in all molluscs.
In bivalves it is usually part of the feeding structure.
In some mollusks the mantle cavity is a brood chamber, and in cephalopods and some bivalves such as scallops, it is a locomotory organ.
The mantle is highly muscular.
In cephalopods the contraction of the mantle is used to force water through a tubular siphon, and this propels the animal rapidly through the water.
In other molluscs, it is used as a kind of "foot" for locomotion.
The Carboniferous was the geological period after the Devonian and before the Permian.
It lasted from about 359 to about 299 million years ago.
It is the fifth period of the Paleozoic era and the Phanerozoic eon.
In the U.S.A. the Carboniferous is divided into the Mississippian (lower part, 359–323.2 mya) and the Pennsylvanian (upper part, 323.2–299 mya).
In Europe the terms lower, middle and upper are used.
Vertebrate evolution
The early tetrapods split first into two major groups: the amphibians, which laid their eggs in water, and the amniotes, who laid their cleidoic eggs on land.
The amniotes gave rise to two groups both of which became dominant at different times.
They were the synapsids, which eventually gave rise to the mammals, and the sauropsids, which gave rise to the dinosaurs and other reptiles.
These momentous events took place in the lower part of the Carboniferous, the Mississippian.
The Carboniferous is named after the coal measures, the remains of peat formed by dense tropical wetland forests.
New kinds of vascular plants with thick bark grew in the forests.
Much of the coal came from this bark.
This biota occurred in the upper part of the period, the Pennsylvanian, from 315 to 300 million years years ago.
These forests were on the equator, and the wetlands, which are always low-lying, stretched across the supercontinent of Laurussia.
This included what is now North America in the west, through what is now Europe to China in the east.
The river plain which was the heart of the wetland stretched 5000 km from eastern Canada to Ukraine, and was 700 km wide.p6
This kind of climate and geography has no exact parallel today, but the peat swamp forests in Indonesia and Malaysia, the Amazon Basin, the Mississippi River system and the Okefenokee swamp give some idea.
The swamps were dominated by giant clubmosses, including Lepidodendron.
They were the earliest trees, which later replaced by conifers and flowering plants.
Sometimes other plants from the levee got swept down by the river, such as horsetails, ferns and tree-like pteridosperms.
The wetland forests ended when the land level was raised by the pressure of the Gondwana continent against Laurussia.
This caused the zone of contact to rise.
The end of the coal measures marks the end of the Carboniferous period.
China was too far away to be affected.
There, the wetland forests continued for another 50 million years, into the Permian.p30
The Mesozoic was the geological era in which dinosaurs lived, as well as the first  mammals.
It lasted about 186 million years, starting 252.2 mya (million years ago) with the P/Tr extinction and ending 66 mya with the K/T extinction (the one that killed all dinosaurs except birds).
Dinosaurs appeared around 231 mya (21 million years after the beginning of the Mesozoic).
They evolved from the reptiles called archosaurs.
Modern birds and crocodiles are part of that group).
Although mammals seem to have originated in the Upper Triassic, their fate was quite different to the dinosaurs.
Mammals spent most of the long Jurassic and Cretaceous periods as small nocturnal animals living mainly in forests.
They lost their colour vision, and only partly re-evolved it in the Cainozoic era.
The Mesozoic is the middle of the three eras that make up the Phanerozoic eon.
Before the Mesozoic was the Palaeozoic era.
The K/T extinction in 66 mya also marks the beginning of the Cenozoic era, the one we live in.
Triassic (252–201 mya)
Lower Triassic (252–247 mya)
Middle Triassic (247–237 mya)
Upper Triassic (237–201 mya)
Jurassic (201–145 mya)
Lower Jurassic (201–176 mya)
Middle Jurassic (176–161 mya)
Upper Jurassic (161–145 mya)
Cretaceous (145–66 mya)
Lower Cretaceous (145–100 mya)
Upper Cretaceous (100–66 mya)
The ecology of this world was quite different to that of the Pleistocene, the era when humans evolved.
For much of human history we lived in a cold world with quite a sharp difference between land and sea.
The Mesozoic was a much warmer world, with a higher temperature, and a high water stand.
There was little or no ice at the poles and the continents had large areas covered with shallow continental seas.
Moreover, the continents were all quite near each other, or actually touching.
Many land animals could walk or swim to other continents.
Actually, the Mesozoic starts off with all the continents together in Pangaea.
They stayed pretty close for the rest of the Mesozoic.
Textbooks have always described how the Mesozoic was the age of the dinosaurs, which has even more sense now that we know birds descended from land dinosaurs.
It was the age, too, of extraordinary marine reptiles.
Mammals were mainly small nocturnal animals which scurried around in the night-times of the great forests.
We know from their loss of colour vision (which is trichromatic in fish and reptiles) that they lived a nocturnal life.
The Palaeozoic (or Paleozoic) era is the earliest of the three eras of the Phanerozoic.
Its name means early life.
It lasted from about 541 to 252 million years ago (mya), and ended with the greatest extinction event, the Permian–Triassic extinction event.
The Palaeozoic began with an explosion of life forms.
The Cambrian explosion marks the era with thousands of new life forms in the ancient seas.
The era saw many important events, including the development of most invertebrate groups, life's conquest of land, the evolution of fish, reptiles, synapsids (the ancestors of mammals), amphibians, insects, and plants, the formation of the supercontinent of Pangea, and at least two distinct ice ages.
The earth rotated faster than it does today so days were shorter, and the nearer moon caused stronger tides.
Oxygen and CO2 levels
At the start of the long Carboniferous period oxygen was low and carbon dioxide was high.
The huge growth of trees and other plants during this time reversed these data.
The carbon dioxide level dropped throughout the Carboniferous, and the oxygen level rose continuously until it dropped in the Permian.
Oxygen reached a peak of about 30% about 280 million years ago.
That is much higher than today's 21%.
Mississippian
Blackjack (Twenty-one, pontoon or Vingt-et-un) is a kind of card game which usually involves gambling.
It is often played in casinos.
There is a dealer, who deals cards from a special device called a 'dealer's shoe' or a 'shuffling machine'.
The dealer has one to eight decks.
When there are one or two decks, the dealer usually holds the decks instead of dealing from a shoe.
It is a 'dealer versus players game'.
Each player has their own game against the dealer.
Cards are dealt in succession, and bets placed for each hand.
Players win if their cards add up to more than the dealer's hand to a limit of 21.
Hands which add up to more than 21, called busted hands, lose.
Face cards count as 10.
Aces can count as one or eleven.
'Blackjack', an ace and a face card or ten, is the top scorer.
Blackjack usually pays a bonus.
Five cards adding to 21 or fewer is the next ranking hand.
Apart from that, unbusted hands rank by total add-up.
Hands below the dealer's hand lose unless the dealer goes over 21 (busts).
Hands equal to the dealer's keep their chips.
If both the player and dealer bust, the dealer wins.
Players have a choice whether or not to get extra cards.
Stand means to get no more cards and hit means to ask for another card.
To stand, wave your hand back and forth.
To ask for another card, wave your hand toward you.
You can ask for any number of cards unless you bust.
The dealer has rules as to when he takes extra cards for himself (or herself).
In the UK, the dealer must stand on 16.
These rules are set by the casino and cannot change after the game has started.
In some states or countries, the rules are set by the government.
There is some skill in blackjack, because the odds change as the cards are dealt.
The critical information is the numbers of tens (including face cards) which have been dealt.
This is because they are the common cause of 'busting' the dealer hand and because they are needed for a blackjack.
Aces are also important because they are needed for a blackjack.
Keeping track of the cards is called 'card counting'.
It is legal if done without a device like a computer.
But, many casinos tell players to leave if they think are counting the cards.
Over the years the origin of Blackjack, like many other games, has eluded researchers for a long time and which continues to be hotly debated to this day.
Till date there has been no clear consensus, but most agree it probably originated in French casinos around 1700, where it was called Vingt-et-Unwhich, translated, means twenty-one.
Most believe it was probably derived from the French card games, Chemin de Fer, and French Ferme, which were in vogue at that time.
Another of its version was prevalent in Spain, which was called 'One and Thirty'.
The basic rule of the Spanish version was to reach 31 with a minimum of three cards.
A theory that's also doing the rounds is that Blackjack was an invention by the Romans.
It is believed that Romans used to play this game with wooden blocks of different numerical values.
This theory holds some weight as Romans loved gambling, but that by no means confirms the theory.
Among the various versions of the game, 'Vingt-et-Un' or '21' continued to grow in popularity and reach.
It gradually spread to North America thanks to French colonists and soon after it was played throughout the continent.
The rules of Blackjack were then different from those of modern or contemporary Blackjack.
Just to elaborate, in this form of Blackjack, only the dealer was permitted to double.
Also, a betting round was there between each of the playing cards dealt.
The game was still termed '21' when it gained popularity in Nevada in 1931 as the State first chose to make gambling legal.
Its origin is disputed, but it is certainly related to several French and Italian gambling games.
In Britain since World War I, the informal game has been called pontoon.
To draw more people to the game, some casinos then offered a special bet: A hand featuring either of the black jacks (the Jack of Spades or that of Clubs) plus the Ace of Spades would pay 10-to-1 odds on the lucky player's bet.