the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
A bad set of killings took place during Operation Searchlight, a series of killings which began on March 25, 1971 and ended on December 16, 1971 and led to death of 3 million Bengalis in East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh), and other things like rape and looting.
Originally, the Pakistanis wanted to take over the big cities in Bangladesh and control everybody in one month.
They did not expect that the Bengalis would fight back, which they did.
Pakistanis got very angry and started to kill all the Bengalis.
Eventually, the Bengali freedom fighters under the Mukti Bahini would seek help from India to win against the Pakistanis.
India sent its army in and fought the Pakistanis with the Bengalis until Pakistan was totally defeated and went away from Bangladesh on December 16, 1971.
Number of people killed
People disagree about how many people died.
According to the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, it could have been as few as 500,000 or as many as 3 million.
It was during the Cold War and so different groups said more or fewer people had died depending on their own political ideas and goals.
The Soviets, who supported Bangladesh, said that it was 3 million.
The CIA said it was 200,000.
Pakistan was then an ally of the United States, and the West Pakistani soldiers used weapons given by the Americans.
India, which was also pro-Soviet, and Bangladesh state that nearly 3 million had been killed.
In 1997, R. J. Rummel wrote the book Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900.
In Chapter 8, Statistics Of Pakistan's Democide - Estimates, Calculations, And Sources, he noted:
In East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) [General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generals] also planned to murder its Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite.
They also planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India.
And they planned to destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West Pakistan for at least a generation to come.
This despicable and cut throat plan was outright genocide.
Rummel called it an act of killing specific groups of people: "Consolidating both ranges, I give a final estimate of Pakistan's democide to be 300,000 to 3,000,000, or a prudent 1,500,000."
Not everyone agrees that the atrocities were a genocide, as nationalist Bangladeshis call it.
Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan say that is "Bengali Lies."
Bangladeshi authorities and some independent organizations say that one to three million people were killed.
Another 10 million ran away from the country to be safe in the Indian province of West Bengal.
No people involved in the genocide were put on trial until 2011.
Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunals convicted 26 people for genocide and crimes against humanity.
Some were executed, but international organizations stated that the accused had not been tried fairly.
1971 War - Myths and Realities- The Free Library
Behind the Myth of 3 million February, 1996 (Dr. M. Abdul Mu’min Chowdhury)
1971 in Bangladesh
Murder in the 1970s
Iwao Takamoto (29 April 1925 - 8 January 2007) was a Japanese-American animator, television producer, and film director.
He was a production designer for Hanna-Barbera Productions and the artist/character designer of Scooby-Doo.
Iwao Takamoto's father moved from Hiroshima to the United States for his health.
He only went back to Japan once, and that was to marry his wife.
Iwao Takamoto was born on April 19 1925 in Los Angeles, California.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Iwao Takamoto's family, like many Japanese-Americans, had to move to an internment camp.
They spent the rest of World War II in the Manzanar internment camp.
While he was there, Iwao Takamoto received basic illustration training from other people in the camp.
Iwao Takamoto first started doing cartoons professionally after the end of the war.
He was hired as an assistant animator by Walt Disney Studios in 1947.
Iwao Takamoto eventually became an assistant animator for the legendary Milt Kahl.
He worked as an animator on such titles as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and Lady and the Tramp.
Takamoto left Disney in 1961 and joined Hanna-Barbera shortly afterwards.
He did many jobs there, but is probably best known as a character designer.
He was responsible for the original character designs of such characters as Scooby-Doo, The Jetsons' dog Astro, and Penelope Pitstop.
He worked as a producer at Hanna-Barbera, supervising shows such as The Addams Family, Hong Kong Phooey, and Jabberjaw.
He directed several feature-length animated films, including Charlotte's Web (1973) and Jetsons: The Movie (1990).
The inspiration for Scooby-Doo's creation as a Great Dane came from an employee of the Hanna-Barbera company who bred this dog.
Takamoto was Vice-President of Creative Design at Hanna-Barbera, and was responsible for overseeing Hanna-Barbera's product-related merchandising.
In 2005, he received the Golden Award from the Animation Guild, to honor his more than 50 years of service in the animation field.
Mussels are several families of bivalve molluscs.
Mussels live in lakes, rivers, and creeks.
They sometimes also live in intertidal areas along coastlines worldwide.
The freshwater mussels (several allied families, the largest being the Unionidae) and saltwater mussels (family Mytilidae) are not closely related, despite the fact that they may look similar.
They are grouped in different subclasses.
The freshwater Zebra mussels and their relatives (family Dreissenidae) live attached to rocks in a manner similar to marine mussels, but are classified with the Heterodonta, the taxonomic group including most bivalves referred to as "clams".
From archeology, it is known that humans have been eating mussels for thousands of years.
They can be cooked or eaten raw.
Care must be taken however as mussels quickly become poisonous after they die.
Freshwater Mussel Genera
Methods of mussel farming
Photo of bouchot pilings for growing mussels
Gilbertson, Lance. (
Zoology Laboratory Manual (4th ed.),
11.1-11.4.
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Mississippi River Mussels
Marine Ecology Station
Gastropods, or univalves, are the largest and most successful class of molluscs.
60,000–75,000 known living species belong to it.
Most of are marine, but many live in freshwater or on land.
Their fossil record goes back to the later Cambrian.
The gastropods are in origin sea-floor predators, though they did evolve into many other habitats.
Many lines living today evolved in the Mesozoic era, taking advantage of the huge supply of food on the sea floor.
Snails have torsion, a process where the body coils to one side during development.
The significance of this procedure is not yet clear.
They have a well-defined head with two or four sensory tentacles.
They also have a head-foot, which it moves on.
The eyes at the tip of the tentacles range from simple to more complex eyes.
Most members have a shell, which is in one piece and coiled or spiralled; it usually opens on the right hand side (viewed with the shell apex pointing up).
Some species have an operculum, a lid or trapdoor to close the shell.
In some, the slugs, the shell is absent, and the body is streamlined.
The best-known gastropods are land slugs and snails, but more than half of all species live in a marine environment.
Marine gastropods include herbivores, detritus feeders, carnivores and a few ciliary feeders, in which the radula is reduced or absent.
The radula is usually adapted to the food that a species eats.
The simplest gastropods are the limpets and abalones, both herbivores that use their hard radulas to rasp at seaweeds on rocks.
Many marine gastropods are burrowers and have siphons or tubes that extend from the mantle and sometimes the shell.
These act as snorkels, enabling the animal to continue to draw in a water current containing oxygen and food into their bodies.
The siphons are also used to detect prey from a distance.
These gastropods breathe with gills.
Some freshwater species and almost all terrestric species have developed lungs.
Gastropods from several different families are called sea slugs.
They are often flamboyantly coloured.
This may be either as a warning if they are poisonous or to camouflage them on the corals and seaweeds where many of them live.
Their gills are often feathery plumes on their backs.
This is what gives the name to the nudibranchs.
Nudibranchs with smooth or warty backs have no visible gill mechanisms and respiration may take place directly through the skin.
A few of the sea slugs are herbivores and some are carnivores.
Many have distinct dietary preferences and regularly occur in association with certain species.
The taxonomy of the Gastropoda is under constant revision: two major revisions have been published in the last twenty years.
There will certainly be other revisions using the data from DNA sequencing.
At present, the taxonomy of the Gastropoda may differ from author to author.
According to modern cladism, the taxonomy of the Gastropoda should be written in terms of strictly monophyletic groups.
That means only one lineage of gastropods in each group.
It will be difficult to do this, and still have a practical taxonomy for working biologists.
Classifying animals in practice means using morphology (what they look like).
But there are differences between the older groupings got from morphology, and those based on genome sequences.
Convergent evolution, which has occurred often in Gastropods, may account for this.
Prosobranchia: (gills in front of the heart).
Opisthobranchia: (gills to the right and behind the heart).
Gymnomorpha: (no shell)
Pulmonata: (with lungs instead of gills)
Geological history
The first gastropods were exclusively marine.
The first of the group appeared in the Upper Cambrian (Chippewaella, Strepsodiscus).
By the Ordovician period the gastropods were a varied group present in a few aquatic habitats.
Commonly, fossil gastropods from the rocks of the early Palaeozoic era are too poorly preserved for accurate identification.
Still, the Silurian genus Poleumita contains fifteen identified species.
Fossil gastropods are less common during the Palaeozoic era than bivalves.
Most of the gastropods of that era belong to primitive groups.
A few of these groups still survive today.
By the Carboniferous period many of the shapes seen in living gastropods can be matched in the fossil record.
Despite these similarities in appearance, the majority of these older forms are not directly related to living forms.
It was during the Mesozoic era that the ancestors of many of the living gastropods evolved.
One of the earliest known terrestrial (land-dwelling) gastropods is Maturipupa which is found in the Coal Measures of the Carboniferous period in Europe.
In the case of the common fossil Bellerophon, from Carboniferous limestones in Europe, it is not known whether it is a gasropod or not.
Relatives of the modern land snails are rare before the Cretaceous period.
The familiar Helix first appeared in that period.
In rocks of the Mesozoic era gastropods are more common as fossils and their shell is often well preserved.
Their fossils occur in beds of both freshwater and marine environments.
The Purbeck Marble of the Jurassic period and the Sussex Marble of the early Cretaceous, which both occur in southern England, are limestones containing the tightly packed remains of the pond snail Viviparus.
Rocks of the Cainozoic era have very large numbers of gastropod fossils in them.
Many of these fossils are closely related to modern living forms.
The diversity of the gastropods increased markedly at the beginning of this era, along with that of the bivalves.
Gastropod pages
Conchology.be consult over 2,100,000 figured gastropods and other shells
Gastropod Classification compiled by Paul Jeffery
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature 4th edition, 2000
Gastropods in captivity
Reconstructions of fossil gastropods at www.emilydamstra.com
The name Limpet is used for many marine and freshwater gastropod species which have a simple conical shell.
The phrase "true limpets" is used only for marine limpets in the ancient clade Patellogastropoda.
This article is mainly about the true limpets.
True limpets are small marine gastropod molluscs with flattened, cone-shaped shells.
They live throughout the intertidal zone, attached to rocks or other hard ground.
They attach themselves using mucus and a muscular "foot", which seals them against the rock and protects them from desiccation during low tide, and from high-energy waves action.
Limpets eat by grazing on algae found on rock surfaces.
They scrape films of algae from the rock with a radula, a ribbon-like tongue with rows of teeth.
Limpets move by rippling the muscles of their foot in a wave-like motion.
Most limpets are less than 3in (8cm) long, but a West Mexican Limpet grows to be 8in (20 cm).
Fossil record & taxonomy
There are many limpets in the Paleozoic fossil record, from the lower Cambrian, but none can be placed with certainty in the Patellogastropoda.
Some might be Monoplacophorans, which is a separate mollusc class with a similar life-style.
The earliest patellogastropod verified by shell microstructure is from the Triassic of Italy, but it is in the Upper Cretaceous and Cainozoic periods that many of the living forms make their first appearance.
Patellogastropods (roughly = order)
Patelloidea (~superfamily)
Nacelloidea
Lottoidea
Neolepetopsoidea
Homing behaviour
Some species of limpets return to the same spot on the rock known as a "home scar" just before the tide ebbs.
It is thought that they follow chemical trails.
In such species, the shape of their shell often grows to precisely match the contours of the rock surrounding the scar.
This behaviour permits a better seal to the rock.
It is thought that they follow a mucus trail left as they move.
Where the limpets eat the algae, off bare rocks, it causes places where other organisms can grow and thrive.
Some species, such as Lottia gigantea "garden" a patch of algae around their home scar.
They push other organisms out of this patch by ramming with their shell, allowing their patch of algae to grow for their own grazing.
Predators and threats
Limpets are prey for starfish, shore-birds, fish, seals, and humans.
They have a two main defences; fleeing (letting go in the water) or clamping their shells against the surface they are on.
The defence response can be adjusted to the type of predator, which can often be detected chemically by the limpet.
Limpets can be long lived, with tagged specimens surviving for more than 10 years.
If the limpet lives on bare rock, it grows at a slower rate but can live for up to 20 years.
Limpets found on sheltered shores (limpets that are less frequently in contact with wave action, and thus less frequently in contact with water) have a greater risk of desiccation because of the effects of sunlight, water evaporation and the wind.
To avoid drying out they will clamp to the rock they inhabit, minimizing water-loss from the rim around their base.
As this occurs chemicals are released that promote the vertical growth of the shell.
Limpets are hermaphrodites (producing both male and female reproductive cells) and undergo sex change during life.
They become male at about 9 months, but after a couple of years they change sex to become female.
Spawning occurs once a year, usually during winter, and is triggered by rough seas which disperse the eggs and sperm.
Larvae are pelagic for a couple of weeks before settling onto a hard substrate.
Lottia gigantea: taxonomy, facts, life cycle, bibliography
Abalone (from Spanish Abulón) are shellfish, a genus of gastropods.
Abalone are known by their colorful "pearlescent" inside shell.
This is also called ear-shell, ormer in Guernsey, abalone in South Africa, and pāua in New Zealand.
Abalones live all over the world, They can be seen along the waters of every continent, except the Atlantic coast of South America, the Caribbean, and the East Coast of the United States.
Most abalones are found in cold waters, along the coasts of New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, and Western North America and Japan in the Northern Hemisphere.
In the Chilean Pacific coast, the species called loco (Concholepas concholepas) has a hard, black shell, and is eaten by many people.
Abalone have unique features: the shell is round, with two to three spirals.
The last spiral is grown into a large "ear"-like shape, which explains the name 'ear-shell'.
The inside of the shell is shiny, from silvery white to green-red mother-of-pearl.
Abalones can start to give birth at a small size.
Their fertility is high and increases with size (from 10,000 to 11 million eggs at a time).
Young albalones, called larvae, feed on plankton.
The adults eat plants and feed on algae.
They like to eat red algae.
Their size can be as small as 20 mm to as big as 200 mm.
Abalone shell
The shell of the abalone is known for being very strong.
It is made of very tiny calcium carbonate tiles stacked like bricks.
Between the layers of tiles is a sticky protein substance.
Allergic skin reactions and asthma attacks can happen when breathing the dust made when these tiles are broken down.
Abalone trade
Sport harvesting of red abalone is allowed with a California fishing license and an abalone stamp card.
Abalone may only be taken using breath-hold techniques: freediving or shorepicking.
SCUBA diving for abalone is strictly not allowed.
Abalone harvesting is not allowed south of the mouth of the San Francisco Bay.
There is a size minimum of seven inches measured across the shell and a limit of three per day and 24 per year that can be taken.
Abalone may only be taken in April, May, June, August, September, October and November, but they may not be taken in July, December, January, February or March.
Transportation of abalone is only legal while the abalone is still attached to the shell.
Sale of sport-caught abalone is illegal, including the shell.
Only red abalone may be taken; black, white, pink, and flat abalone are protected by law.
Abalone divers normally use a very thick wetsuit, including a hood, booties, and gloves.
They also wear a mask, snorkel, weight belt, abalone iron, and abalone gauge.
It is common to take abalone in water a few inches up to 10 m/28' deep.
Fewer freedivers can work deeper than that.
Abalone are normally found on rocks near food sources (kelp).
An abalone iron is used to pry the abalone from the rock before it can fully clamp down.
Visibility is normally five to ten feet.
Divers commonly dive out of boats, kayaks, tube floats or directly off the shore.
An eight-inch abalone is considered a good catch, a nine-inch would be very good, and a ten-inch plus (250 mm) abalone would be an excellent catch.
Rock- or shore-picking is a different method from diving where the rock picker feels below rocks during low tides for abalone.
There has been a trade in diving to catch abalones off parts of the United States coast from before 1939.
In World War II, many of these abalone divers were recruited into the United States armed forces and trained as frogmen.
There is a worldwide black market in the collection and export of abalone meat.
In New Zealand, where abalone is called pāua in the Māori language, this can be a particular problem.
The right to harvest pāua can be granted legally under Māori customary rights.
When such permits are overused, it is difficult to police.
The legal daily limit is 10 pāua per diver with a minimum shell length of 125 mm.
The limit is strictly enforced by many Ministry of Fisheries officers with the help of the police.
Pāua 'poaching' is a major industry in New Zealand with many thousands of abalones being taken illegally, mostly undersized.
Convictions have caused removal of diving gear, boats and motor vehicles as well as fines and in rare cases; imprisonment.
The Ministry of Fisheries expects in the year 2004/05, nearly 1000 tons of pāua will be poached, with 75% of that being undersized.
Highly polished New Zealand pāua shells are extremely popular as gifts with their striking blue, green and purple iridescence.
Transporting unprocessed abalone shells out of New Zealand is illegal.
The largest abalone in South Africa, Haliotis midae, can be found along about two-thirds of the country’s coastline.
Abalone-diving has been a recreational activity for many years, but stocks are currently being threatened by illegal commercial harvesting.
Channel Islands, Europe
Ormers (Haliotis tuberculata) are considered a delicacy in the Channel Islands and are looked after with great eagerness by the locals.
Unfortunately, this has led to a huge decrease in numbers since the second half of the 19th century, and 'ormering' is now strictly regulated in order to keep stocks.
The taking of ormers is now restricted to a number of 'ormering tides', from the January 1 to April 30, which happen on the full or new moon and two days after that.
No ormers may be taken from the beach that are under 8 cm in shell length.
Gatherers are not allowed to wear wetsuits or even put their heads underwater.
Any breach of these laws is illegal and can lead to a large fine.
The demand for ormers is so big that it started the world's first underwater arrest, when Mr. Kempthorne-Leigh of Guernsey was arrested by a police officer in full diving gear while illegally diving for ormers.
California Red Abalone
Specimen shells; many pictures.
Imagemap of worldwide abalone distribution
Shellfish is a culinary term for some aquatic invertebrates used as food: molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms.
It is not a scientific term, and its use may vary from place to place.
Both saltwater and freshwater invertebrates are considered shellfish.
Molluscs commonly used as food include the clam, mussel, oyster, winkle, and scallop.
Echinoderms are not eaten as commonly as molluscs and crustaceans.
In Asia, sea cucumber and sea urchins are eaten.
The term finfish is sometimes used to distinguish ordinary (vertebrate) fish from shellfish.
In Japanese cuisine, chefs often use shellfish and their roe.
Sushi and sashimi feature both raw and cooked shellfish.
Shellfish News
Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory  at Rutgers University
Shellfish Gallery  from the Shellfish Association of Great Britain
Shellfish Facts
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections -- Freshwater and Marine Image Bank -- Shellfish An ongoing digital collection of images related to shellfish.
Alban Berg (born Vienna, 9 February 1885; died Vienna 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer.
Alban Berg and Anton Webern were both pupils of Arnold Schoenberg.
All three composers in their own way changed the style of musical composition in the early 20th century.
They grew up at a time when most composers were still writing Romantic music, but Schoenberg and his pupils started to write atonal music (music which is not in any key) and then twelve-tone music in which all 12 notes in an octave are of the same importance.
Although Berg wrote a lot of twelve-tone music he still managed to make it sound quite Romantic at times, more so than Schoenberg or Webern.
His most important works are his two operas Wozzeck and Lulu and his Violin Concerto.
Berg was brought up in the centre of Vienna.
His family had plenty of money, but when Berg’s father died in 1900 life became much harder for them.
He did not do very well at school.
He also had a love affair with a kitchenmaid, with whom he had a daughter.
He was interested in music, played the piano and had started to compose, but he had not done well enough in his school exams to get into the music conservatory.
He was not interested in business like his father had been.
He got an unpaid job.
Then, in 1904, he started to study with Schoenberg.
This was the first time he had been given proper music lessons.
Two years later, his mother inherited some money, and Berg was then able to give up his unpaid job and concentrate on music.
Schoenberg taught him harmony, counterpoint and music theory, all the things one needs to know to compose well.
Berg had lessons from him from 1904 until 1911.
His first proper pieces include a Piano Sonata and a String quartet.
Here he had already found the modern style which suited him.
He wrote harmonies which seemed to float.
He often wrote pieces with several movements which are all linked by a common theme.
He also liked themes which are heard upside down, or palindromes, where the tune sounds the same forwards as backwards.
He met a girl called Helene and they married in 1910.
Berg liked to listen to all kinds of music.
In this way he was different to Schoenberg or Webern.
Berg was interested in French composers such as Debussy, as well as jazz.
He liked the modern theatre and the political works of the playwright Bertolt Brecht and the composer Kurt Weill.
Berg was very grateful to Schoenberg for all that he had learned from him, but he still continued to be quite afraid of him.
Schoenberg wrote many letters to him asking him to do things for him (e.g. making piano arrangements of his orchestral pieces) and often criticising him.
Only in the 1920s, when Berg had become well-known, did Schoenberg start writing to him more like an equal friend.
Berg wrote Five Orchestral Pieces.
It is one of the first important works he wrote without Schoenberg’s help.
The music has some modern chords which must have sounded very shocking to the Viennese audience.
On 31 March 1913 Schoenberg conducted a concert in Vienna which included some songs by Berg.
People in the audience started to fight and the police had to be called.
When Schoenberg wrote to Berg criticising his music, Berg lost all his self-confidence.
Slowly he started to get more confidence again.
He wrote Three Orchestral Pieces op 6.
The music sounds quite like Mahler.
There are a lot of musical ideas which grow into one another and make a rich sound.
During World War I Berg spent some time in an army training camp.
This experience must have been in his mind when he wrote his opera Wozzeck.
This opera became very famous.
There were a lot of new ideas in it.
It is not about a great hero, but about a simple man who is mistreated by people.
The music, too, is very different from opera music up to that time.
Although it was so modern it was a great success and made Berg world-famous.
It gave him more money which, together with a little teaching, allowed him to spend most of his time composing.
Wozzeck has a little twelve tone music in it, but in his next works the twelve tone system is much more important.
He wrote Lyrical Suite for String Quartet and a Kammerkonzert (Chamber Concerto) in which the form is made up by mathematical rules.
He liked to hide things in his music e.g. favourite numbers or letters from people’s names.
These are like secret codes and, in later years, musicians have spent a lot of time trying to work out what Berg was trying to do.
In 1928 Berg started work on his second and last opera: Lulu.
He had thought about the opera for many years.
He had seen a play called Die Büchse des Pandora (Pandora’s Box) in 1905.
Wedekind had played the part of Jack the Ripper.
People thought the play was obscene, but it still became very popular, especially after 1918 when there was no more censorship in Germany.
He worked on the opera until 1934.
He then stopped work on it to write his Violin Concerto.
When he heard about the sad death from poliomyelitis of a young girl he knew called Manon Gropius, he dedicated the concerto to her memory.
He wrote: “To the memory of an angel”.
Manon’s mother, Alma, had been the wife of Gustav Mahler.
Soon after he had finished the Violin Concerto, Berg was stung by an insect.
This formed an abscess and he was rushed to hospital but he died.
The concerto had not yet been performed.
He had not finished Lulu.
The third act was only sketched in short score (showing the main notes, but not exactly what each instrument plays).
When the opera was first performed, Act III was just acted out in mime while some other music by Berg was played.
Berg’s widow Helene did not want anyone else to finish the opera, so Act III was never performed until after Helene died in 1976.
It was finished by Friedrich Cerha and performed in 1977, although a court action had tried to stop it from being performed.
Most important works
Kammerkonzert (1925) for piano, violin and 13 wind instruments
Seven Early Songs
Herefordshire (known as County of Herefordshire) is a county  in the West Midlands region of England.
It borders the English counties of Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south east and the Welsh counties of Gwent to the south west and Powys to the west.
It is not to be confused with Hertfordshire, a county north of London.
It is pronounced  (i.e. first syllable as in "herring", and -e- a separate syllable).
Historically, the Rivers Wye and Lugg were navigable but the wide seasonal variations in water levels mean that few craft larger than canoes and coracles are now used.
There are canoe centres at The Boat House, Glasbury-on-Wye, the Hereford Youth Service  and Kerne Bridge  Ross-on-Wye, as well as a rowing club in Hereford.
The early nineteenth century saw the construction of two canals, The Hereford & Gloucester Canal and The Leominster &  Stourport Canal but these were never successful and there are now few remains to be seen.
The Hereford Times Local news, sport & information
Herefordshire Portal Local events, jobs, photos and news
Herefordshire Libraries 10 Libraries across Herefordshire
A conch is a sea-dwelling mollusc.
It is a marine gastropod.
The ch at the end of 'conch' may be pronounced hard or soft.
Many other gastropods have common names with conch in them.
They are however not true conches, in the family
Strombidae.
One such example is the Horse Conch (Pleuroploca gigantea).
The genus Strombus is made up of the true conches.
While most Strombid species are extinct, at least 65 species still exist.
Of these, most are in the Indo-Pacific Oceans while six are in the greater Caribbean region.
Living true conch species include the Queen Conch, Strombus gigas, and the West Indian Fighting Conch (Strombus pugilis).
Strombus gigas is included in Appendix II of the UNEP's CITES list of endangered species and international trade is heavily restricted.
Conches have spirally constructed shells.
Depending on species (or aberrant growth patterns), shell growth can be sinistral (left-handed) or dextral (right-handed).
Conches have long eye stalks, a long and narrow aperture, and a siphonal canal with an indentation near the anterior end.
This indentation is called a stromboid notch.
They also have a foot ending in a pointed, sickle-shaped, horny operculum.
They grow a flared lip on their shells upon reaching sexual maturity.
Conches have a characteristic leaping motion, using their pointed, sickle-shaped, horny operculum to propel themselves forward.
They lay eggs in long, gelatinous strands.
The animal inside the shell is eaten, either raw, as in salads, or cooked, as in fritters, chowders, gumbos, and burgers.
In East Asian cuisines, the meat is often cut into thin slices and then steamed or stir-fried.
Conch meat is also often confused with Scungilli, which is more accurately whelk meat.
Conch shells are sometimes used as decoration, as decorative planters, and in cameo-making.
As with other mollusk shells, they are ground up into an ingredient in porcelain.
In classic Mayan art, conches are shown being utilized in many ways including as paint and ink holders for elite scribes, as bugle or trumpet, and as hand weapons (held by combatants by inserting their hands in the aperture).
In some countries, cleaned Queen Conch (Strombus gigas) shells or polished fragments are sold, mainly to tourists, as souvenirs or in jewelry.
Without a permit however, export is a breach of CITES regulations and may lead to arrest  .
This is most likely to occur on return to the tourist's home country while clearing customs.
In the UK conch shells are the 9th most seized import.
Playing the conch shell
Conch shells are sometimes made into crude bugles by removing the small tip of the shell to form a mouthpiece.
Such instruments are used in the Pacific Islands as well as in many parts of Asia.
While lacking the range capabilities and tonal quality of brass instruments, the conch shell is still an interesting instrument to play.
As it has no mouthpiece or valves, the embouchure in shell playing is critical.
Most shells will only naturally play one note, but with pitch manipulations, multiple sounds can be achieved.
The insertion of the hand and the placement of the fingers will also change the pitch of the shell.
The conch shell is said to be the musical instrument of mermaids and mermen.
Steve Turre is the leading innovator of the shell.
It is sometimes found in classical works, such as the symphony piece "La Noche de Los Mayas", or "Night of the Mayas", which was premiered in 1939 with Jacob Watkins on percussion and conch.
Religious symbolism
Hindu tradition
The conch shell is a major Hindu article of prayer, used as a trumpeting announcement of all sorts.
The God of Preservation, Vishnu, is said to hold a special conch, Panchajanya, that represents life as it has come out of life-giving waters.
In the story of Dhruva the divine conch plays a special part.
The warriors of ancient India would blow conch shells to announce battle, such as is famously represented in the beginning of the war of Kurukshetra in the Mahabharata, the famous Hindu epic.
The conch shell is a deep part of Hindu symbolic and religious tradition.
To this very day, many Hindus use the conch as a part of their religious practices, blowing it during worship at specific points, accompanied by ceremonial bells.
Buddhist tradition
Buddhism also has incorporated the conch into its symbolism.
See: Buddhist symbolism.
William Golding's Lord of the Flies features frequent references to "The Conch".
In the novel, a conch shell is blown to call the other boys together.
It is held by whoever is speaking at meetings, symbolically representing democracy and order.
When Roger, Jack's lieutenant, smashes the shell, it is a sign that civilized order has collapsed and Jack's domination has begun.
Gloucestershire (pronounced ; GLOSS-ter-sher) is a county in South West England.
The county includes part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean.
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.
Antiquities and Other Places of interest
Berkeley Castle, an example of a feudal stronghold.
Beverston Castle
Calcot Manor
Owlpen Manor
Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, Slimbridge
Gloucester County Official Site
Gloucester City Council website
Visit Gloucester Site
Gloucester jobs
Gloucestershire County Council
Gloucestershire Tourism Partnership
Official site for Cotswolds tourism
Yate and Chipping Sodbury Guide  - A Guide to Yate and Chipping Sodbury in South Gloucestershire
Archaeological Handbook of Gloucestershire by George Witts
Tales of the River Severn  by Chris Witts
They are found chiefly in tropical regions.
There are about 200 different species of cowry.
The shell itself is almost always very smooth and shiny.
They have with a long, narrow, slit-like opening.
All varieties have a porcelain-like shine  and many have colorful patterns.
In life the shell is covered by the slippery mantle.
Shell sizes range from 5 mm (1/5") for some tropical species to 15 cm (6") for the tiger cowry, Cypraea tigris.
The slippery shell is very difficult for most animals to grip.
The very narrow toothed aperture of the cowry shell makes it difficult for predators to reach into.
However cowries are still vulnerable to predation:
Some tropical crustaceans can break the dorsum of a cowry shell.
Some mollusc-eating cones like Conus textile can inject venom into the cowry's flesh.
The cone then extends its stomach into the shell, through the slit, to completely ingest the flesh.
Some octopuses can gouge a small hole (using a special barb/tooth and an acidic secretion) through the shell to inject a venom that kills the animal within.
For nearly 200 years, every species in the family Cypraeidae was placed in one genus, Cypraea, but in 2002  the cowries were divided into many different genera.
Cowries (esp.
Cypraea moneta) were used as a currency in Africa (Ghanaian cedi in Ghana named after cowry shells) and elsewhere, such as in China where the shell or copies of the shell were in theory used as a means of exchange.
They are also worn as jewelry or otherwise used as ornaments or charms, as they are viewed as symbols of womanhood, fertility, birth and wealth.
Many find the shiny, porcelain-like shells pleasing to look at.
Cowry shells are sometimes used in a way similar to dice, e.g., in board games like Pachisi, or in divination (cf.
Ifá and the annual customs of Dahomey).
Cowries have also been used in the recent past as a frame over which sock heels were stretched for darning.
The cowry ridges allowed the needle to get under the cloth more easily.
The Ojibway aboriginal people in North America used the cowry shells in ceremonies, and the Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba, Canada is named after this type of shell.
There is some debate about how they traded for or found these shells so far inland, away from the natural sources.
Oral stories and birch bark scrolls seem to indicate that they were found in the ground, and/or washed up on the shores of lakes or rivers.
The cowry shells so far inland may indicate the use of them by an earlier tribe or group in the area, and an extensive trade network in the ancient past.
cowrys.org
Cowrie Genomic Database Project
Genus Cypraea on Animal Diversity Web
Cowries.info
Wiltshire (short: Wilts) is an English county.
It borders the counties of Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and contains the unitary authority of Swindon.
The county town is Trowbridge, in the west of the county at .
The county covers 858,931 acres (3476 km²)
Calne
Salisbury (city)
Marlborough Downs
Vale of Pewsey
A4 road
A303 trunk road
Fosse Way old Roman road
Great Western Main Line railway
Wessex Main Line railway
Kennet and Avon Canal
Swindon and Cricklade Railway
Thames Path, a long distance footpath
Wiltshire Cycleway
National Cycle Route 4
Wiltshire County Council
List of Councillors
Wiltshire Constabulary Online
BBC Wiltshire
Wiltshire Tourist Office
John Aubrey's The Natural History of Wiltshire
White horses of Wiltshire
Wiltshire Gazette & Herald
Wiltshire Times & Chippenham News
Geology map of Wiltshire (PDF)
Wiltshire & Swindon Intelligence Network
The County of West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a population of around 2,600,000 people.
The county contains three major cities, these being Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton.
Other large settlements in the county include Sutton Coldfield, Solihull, and the Black Country towns of Dudley, Walsall and West Bromwich.
The West Midlands is one of the most heavily urbanised counties in the UK.
Birmingham, Wolverhampton, the Black Country and Solihull together form the largest conurbation in the UK outside London, with a combined population of around 2.27 million.
Balsall Common, Bloxwich, Bilston, Birmingham.
Blackheath, Brierley Hill
Dorridge, Dudley
Halesowen, Hampton-in-Arden
Little Aston
Marston Green, Meriden
Oldbury
Sedgley, Smethwick, Solihull, Stourbridge, Sutton Coldfield, Streetly
Walsall, Wednesfield, Wednesbury, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton
Aston Hall, Birmingham
Bescot Stadium (Walsall FC)
Birmingham Bullring
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Birmingham Hippodrome
Birmingham Railway Museum
Birmingham Wheel
Blakesley Hall
Cadbury World, Bournville, Birmingham
Coventry SkyDome Arena
Dudley Castle
Dudley Zoo
Edgbaston Cricket Ground, Birmingham
Internation Convention Centre (including Symphony Hall), Birmingham
Molineux stadium (Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.)
National Exhibition Centre
National Indoor Arena (NIA), Birmingham
Netherton tunnel
Perrott's Folly
Ricoh Arena (Coventry City Football Club)
Sarehole Mill
Sea Life Centre, Birmingham
St Andrews (Birmingham City Football Club)
The Hawthorns, (West Bromwich Albion Football Club)
Thinktank, Millennium Point, Birmingham
Villa Park (Aston Villa Football Club)
Walsall Art Gallery
Wightwick Manor
University of Central England
Wolverhampton University
Photographs of Birmingham and the West Midlands
Identity in the West Midlands
West Midlands Joint Committee
West Midlands NO!
West Midlands Groups Communities
A conurbation is an urban area that includes a number of cities, towns and villages which, through population growth and expansion, have physically merged to form one continuous built up area.
It is a sort of agglomeration.
Dunkirk (, pronounced  or ; ) is a harbour city in the northernmost part of France, 10 km (6 mi) from the Belgian border.
Dunkirk was first mentioned in 1067 as Dunkerk ().
In World War II, heavy fighting took place around Dunkirk during the German invasion in 1940 (Battle of Dunkirk), but a lull in the action unexpectedly allowed a large number of French and British soldiers to escape to England.
The British evacuation of Dunkirk through the English Channel was codenamed Operation Dynamo.
Postwar Dunkirk
On 14 December 2002, the Norwegian auto carrier Tricolor collided with the Bahamian-registered Kariba and sank off Dunkirk harbour, causing a hazard to navigation in the English Channel.
Dunkirk has the third largest harbour in France, after those of Le Havre and Marseille.
It is also an industrial city, heavily dependent on the steel, food processing, oil refining, ship building and chemical industries.
The Musée Portuaire hosts exhibits images about the history and presence of the port.
The Musée des Beaux-Arts has a large collection of Flemish, Italian and French paintings and sculptures.
The Carnival of Dunkirk
Krefeld, Germany since June 15, 1974
Middlesbrough, United Kingdom since April 12, 1976
Dartford district, United Kingdom since March 1988
Thanet district, United Kingdom since June 18, 1993
1867 the Oberlahnkreis with the capital Weilburg was created.
In 1886 Limburg an der Lahn district was set up, with the capital Limburg.
In 1974 both districts were joined together.
The main river is the Lahn.
Official website  (German)
Elz is a municipality and a village in Hessen, Germany.
It is part of the Landkreis Limburg-Weilburg.
It is along the river Lahn.
It has 8,088 inhabitants (2004).
The elevation is between 110m and 291m above sea level.
Elz is in a valley called "Limburger Becken", which surrounds the town of Limburg.
Elz is also in the valley of the "Elbbach", which flows into the river Lahn after passing Elz.
Average temperatures are 10.5 °C in Elz and 9.9 °C in Malmeneich.
Though this sounds quite moderate, temperatures can vary between -20 °C in winter and 40 °C in summer.
In an average year there are 600mm of rain in Elz and 720mm in Malmeneich.
Elz was first mentioned in a document from 933 AD, which does not exist any more.
Political importance resulted from its position at the Hohe Straße, the former most important road between Frankfurt am Main and Cologne, which still exists and is now part of the "Bundesstraße 8", which can be translated with Interstate 8.
Elz got the town privileges in 1442.
Soon a wall around the town was constructed but knocked down later.
The council consists of 31 members.
19 members are from the Christian Democrats, seven are from the Social Democratic Party, four from the Free Voters' Community and one is from the Green Party.
The mayor Horst Kaiser is a Christian Democrat and was elected in 2005 with 84.8% of all votes.
Economy and infrastructure
In Elz thaere are more than 600 businesses with much more than 2,000 jobs.
The industrial area is at the B8 between Elz and Malmeneich.
Theodor Blank (1905-1972), Bundesverteidigungsminister (Federal minister for defense) 1955-1956, Bundesminister für Arbeit und Sozialordnung (Federal minister for employment and social matters) 1957-1965
Joseph Blank (1913-1994), Landesminister für Landesplanung, Wohnungsbau und öffentliche Arbeiten von Nordrhein-Westfalen (Minister for spatial planning, building and public works of North Rhine-Westphalia) 1962-1963
The Cephalopoda (Greek meaning "head-foot") is an important mollusc class.
They have bilateral symmetry, a head, and arms or tentacles.
Teuthology, a branch of malacology, is the study of cephalopods.
The class has two living subclasses.
In the Coleoidea, the mollusc shell has become smaller, or is not there at all; this subclass has the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish.
The Nautiloidea have a shell; Nautilus is its only living genus.
There are at least 800 different living species of Cephalopods.
Two important extinct taxa are the Ammonites, and the Belemnites (order Belemnoidea, of class Coleoidea).
Cephalopods are found in all the oceans of the world and at all pelagic levels.
None of them can live in freshwater (water with no salt in it), but a few species live in brackish (partly salty) water.
Cephalopod groups
Nautiloids: Nautilus
Ammonoids: Ammonites (extinct)
Coleoids
Belemnites (extinct)
Squid (4 different groups)
Cuttlefish (Sepia)
Number of species
1998: 703 recent species
2001: 786 recent species
2004: estimate: from 1000 to 1200 species
There are many more fossil species.
It is thought there are around 11,000 extinct taxa.
Nervous system and behaviour
Cephalopods are the most intelligent invertebrates and have good senses and large brains.
The nervous system of cephalopods is the most complex of the invertebrates, and their brain to body mass ratio falls between that of warm and cold blooded vertebrates.
The giant nerve fibers of the cephalopod mantle have been a favourite experimental material for many years; their large diameter makes them easier to study.
Colour and light
Most cephalopods have chromatophores – that is, cells with different colours – which they can use in a number of surprising ways.
As well as blending with their background, some cephalopods bioluminesce, shining light downwards to hide their shadows from any attackers.
The bioluminescence is made by bacterial symbionts; the host cephalopod is able to find the light made by these animals.
Bioluminescence may also be used to attract prey, and some species use colourful shows to get mates, amaze predators, or even signal to one another.
Colouration can be changed in milliseconds as they adjust to their environment, and the pigment cells can expand or contract.
Rapid colour change is usually more common in near-shore species than those living in the open ocean.
Those in open ocean mostly use camouflage to make their body outline less easy to see.
Evidence of original colouration has been found in cephalopod fossils as far back as the Silurian; certain straight-shelled species had lines round their shell, which are thought to have used as camouflage of their body outline.
Devonian cephalopods bear more complex colour patterns, whose function may be more complex.
Cephalopods usually move by jet propulsion (squirting water).
This uses a lot of energy to travel compared to the tail propulsion used by fish.
They use jet propulsion because they do not have fins or flippers.
The efficiency of jet propulsion goes down with larger animals.
This is probably the reason why many species use their fins or arms for moving if possible.
Oxygenated water is taken into the mantle cavity to the gills.
By contracting the mantle's muscles, the water is pushed out through the siphon, made by a fold in the mantle.
Motion of the cephalopods is usually backward as water is forced out forwards, but the siphon can be pointed in different directions.
Some cephalopods can adjust their body shape to move through the water more easily.
Some octopus species are also able to walk along the sea bed.
Squids and cuttlefish can move short distances in any direction by moving a flap of muscle around the mantle.
Like most molluscs, cephalopods use haemocyanin, a copper-containing protein, rather than haemoglobin to transport oxygen.
As a result, their blood is colourless when deoxygenated and turns blue when placed in air.
With a few exceptions, Coleoideans live short lives with fast growth.
Most of the energy from their food is used for growing.
The penis in most male Coleoidea is a long and muscular end of the vas deferens (tube for sperms) used to transfer spermatophores (sperm packages) to a modified arm called a hectocotylus.
That in turn is used to transport the spermatophores to the female.