the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
Currently, 16 states and the District of Columbia perform same sex marriage, although that could change in upcoming years.
On June 26, 2013, Section 3 of the act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Blake Ellender Lively (née Brown; born August 25, 1987) is an American movie, television, stage, voice actress and model who is known for her television role as Serena van der Woodsen in Gossip Girl.
She is also known for her roles in Accepted, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, The Town, Green Lantern, The Age of Adaline, and Savages.
Lively was born on August 25, 1987 in Tarzana, California.
She studied at Beverly Hills High School.
She married Ryan Reynolds in September 2012.
Queen Heonae(; 962-1029) was a queen of the Goryeo dynasty of Korea.
She was also a politician.
She was the second wife of the 5th king, Gyungjong.
She was also mother of the 7th king, Mokjong, and the elder sister of the 6th king, Seongjong.
Heonae ruled as Regent from 997 to 999 during the early years of her son King Mokjong's reign.
Queen Heonae:Navercast
남성우월 시각이 만든 ‘음탕한 천추태후’ 중앙일보 2009.02.20
헌애·헌정 자매의 싸움… 고려 王씨 왕조가 김씨 왕조가 될 뻔 조선일보 2009.09.19
964 births
1029 deaths
Transfection is the process of deliberately introducing DNA or RNA into cells.
The word is formed from
Transformation of bacterial cells with viral nucleic acids
Transformation of animals cells in tissue culture with purified DNA.
The DNA is added to the cells' genome.
Transformation of cells or embryos with single or double-stranded RNA.
This causes the building of particular proteins, or the silencing of particular genes.
Gene therapy using a modified virus as a vector.
Transfection can result in unexpected morphologies and abnormalities in target cells.
Transfection with RNA molecules produces changes which cannot be permanently transmitted down a line of cells.
DNA constructs
A DNA construct is an artificially constructed bit of nucleic acid which is going to be 'transplanted' into a target tissue or cell.
It may include a DNA insert, which contains the gene sequence coding for a protein of interest.
The DNA insert is the heart of the molecular biology vector.
This is a general term for a vehicle used to transfer foreign genetic material into another cell.
Transfection of animal cells usually involves opening temporary pores (holes) in the cell membrane, to allow the cells to take up the vector.
Purity means that a substance is all the same.
There are no contaminants or other things added.
The word also means no badness in a person's character.
An indication of the amount of other gases in a particular gas
Purity, a 1916 movie.
A measure of correlation between a system and its environment,
"Purity", a song by Slipknot on their debut self-titled album
Purity in Buddhism, a spiritual purity of character or essence
Purity Dairies, a dairy company in Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Purity Factories, a food processing company in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
Purity Distilling Company, an alcohol manufacturer involved in the Boston Molasses Disaster in the United States
Black oil (also known as Purity), a fictional alien virus in the TV series The X-Files
Purity, a former supermarket brand owned by Woolworths Limited
Purity, the colorfulness of a light source.
Antibiotics kill certain types of bacteria.
Over time, those bacteria change to develop a resistance to the antibiotics.
Called antibiotic resistance, this is one of the most serious problems facing modern surgery and medicine.
It is also one of the best examples of evolution in action.
Antibiotic resistance spreads very quickly, far faster than microbiologists expected. "
As long as new drugs keep coming, resistance is not a problem.
But there has not been a new class of antibiotics discovered since the 1980s".
This was true until recently.
Some scientists have developed new antibiotics to combat resistant bacteria.
However, there is a lag-time of about eight years between discovery and possible availability for general use.
The process is also extremely costly.
Natural selection in action
When exposed to antibiotics, most bacteria die quickly, but some may have mutations that make them slightly less susceptible.
This selective elimination of maladapted individuals from a population is natural selection.
"It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them, and the same thing has occasionally happened in the body... The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops.
Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant".
"There are a number of infections from which no-one had [ever] recovered before the discovery of effective anti-bacterial agents".
Effect on surgery and medicine
All surgery that involves cutting open the body poses massive risks of infection.
Antibiotics given before and after surgery allow surgeons to do operations that would have been deadly before.
Open-heart surgery is one obvious example.
Cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy damage the immune system.
Antibiotics are prescribed to boost the body's natural defences.
Patients with organ transplants always use drugs to suppress the immune system, otherwise it attacks the transplant.
Therefore, antibiotics are used to protect the body.
Without effective antibiotics, both sets of patients might die from infections which their immune systems could no longer control.
"It's a pretty grim future, I think a lot of major surgery would be seriously threatened," said Professor Richard James of the University of Nottingham.
Medical uses are also threatened.
The number of tests coming back with resistance to carbapenems, one of the most powerful groups of antibiotics, has soared from a handful of cases in 2003 to more than 300 cases by 2010. "
My lab is seeing an increasing number of resistant strains year on year," said Prof Neil Woodford, of the Health Protection Agency's antimicrobial resistance unit.
Most cases are resistant to some drugs.
Even worse, there are a few cases of strains which no antibiotic can touch.
Many infections which were almost eliminated are coming back.
The sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea is becoming increasingly difficult to treat.
Around the world, multi-drug resistant and extremely-drug resistant tuberculosis is a growing problem.
Only a couple of drugs still work.
Infections that hit the elderly when they are  in hospital are one of the main concerns.
The greatest threat in the UK is opportunistic bugs which live in the gut such as E. coli and Klebsiella.
They are now the most common form of infection which patients get in hospital.
They show rising levels of resistance to antibiotics.
Official warning
The UK Cabinet Office has issued a warning by the National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies.
It says "the number of infections complicated by antimicrobial resistance could increase markedly over the next 20 years".
"The use and misuse of antimicrobials... over the past 70 years has led to a relentless rise in the number and types of microorganisms resistant to these medicines – leading to death, increased suffering and disability, and higher healthcare costs".
"Deaths from acute respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases, measles, AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis account for more than 85% of the mortality from infection worldwide.
Resistance to first-line drugs in most of the pathogens causing these diseases ranges from zero to almost 100%.
The bacteria that cause tuberculosis (TB) can develop resistance to the antimicrobial drugs used to cure the disease.
Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is TB that does not respond to at least isoniazid and rifampicin, the 2 most powerful anti-TB drugs (WHO, 2018)
"Added to this is the significant global burden of resistant, hospital-acquired infections, the emerging problems of antiviral resistance and the increasing problems of drug resistance in the neglected parasitic diseases of poor and marginalized populations".
The WHO has now listed the world's most threatening superbugs.
Antibiotic resistant infections are being seen all over the world.
Gonorrhoea
A man in the UK has caught the "world's worst-ever case" of gonorrhoea, a sexually-transmitted disease.
The main treatment by antibiotics azithromycin and ceftriaxone has failed to cure the disease.
An authority said "This is the first time a case has displayed such high-level resistance to both of these drugs and to most other commonly used antibiotics".
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
New strains of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have emerged that are resistant the next generation of drugs.
It is caused by various types of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
The pathogen can travel through the air, and spread from one person to the next.
Drug-resistant TB is a serious public health issue in many developing countries, as its treatment is longer and requires more expensive drugs.
MDR-TB is defined as resistance to the two most effective first-line TB drugs: rifampicin and isoniazid.
Extensively drug-resistant TB is also resistant to three or more of the six classes of second-line drugs.
Totally drug-resistant TB was first observed in 2003 in Italy, but not widely reported until 2012.
It is resistant to all currently used drugs.
Malaria infections are not caused by bacteria: they are caused by a protozoan parasite injected into the blood by a mosquito.
They are normally treated by a
combination of two drugs, artemether-lumefantrine.
Now four cases have occurred in Britain where the drugs have failed.
The patients got the disease in Africa.
A doctor said "It is an early sign and we need to take it quite seriously as it may be snowballing into something with greater impact".
Teixobactin is an antibiotic discovered in 2015, the first new antibiotic discovered for forty years.
It is not yet licensed for general use.
It works against all gram-positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and against some other bacteria such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Stanford Robert Ovshinsky (November 24, 1922 – October 17, 2012) was an American inventor and scientist.
He had well over 400 patents over fifty years.
Most of these were in the areas of energy and information.
Many of his inventions have had many uses.
Among the most important are:
An environmentally friendly nickel-metal hydride battery.
These are used in laptop computers, digital cameras, cell phones, and electric and hybrid cars
solar energy laminates and panels
Flat screen liquid crystal displays
Rewritable CD and DVD discs
Nonvolatile phase-change memory.
Scientists from Akron, Ohio
Wilhelm Theodor H. Wulff (27 March 1892 – 9 June 1979) was a German-Austrian astrologer and writer.
He is best known for the 1973 book Zodiac and Swastika.
The book tells about his time as an astrologer in Nazi Germany near the end of World War II.
He was Heinrich Himmler's astrologer.
Peter Mark Richman (born Marvin Jack Richman, April 16, 1927 – January 14, 2021) was an American movie, television, stage, voice, and radio actor who was known for his roles in productions like Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, Friendly Persuasion, Agent for H.A.R.M and Dark Intruder.
He also provided his voice in cartoons such as Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
His career began in 1949.
Richman was born on April 16, 1927 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Yetta Dora Peck and to Benjamin Richman.
Richman studied at the Actors Studio.
He married to Helen Richman in 1953.
Richman died of natural causes on January 14, 2021 at his Los Angeles home, aged 93.
Peter Mark Richman Official Site
Jada Koren Pinkett Smith (born September 18, 1971) is an American movie, television, voice actress, movie produer and director, singer-songwriter, writers, and businesswoman.
She is known for her roles as Carla Purty in The Nutty Professor and as Gloria the Hippo in Madagascar, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and in Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted.
Jada was also entangled with August Alsina in 2016.
She won an Image Award in 2010.
Smith was born on September 18, 1971 in Baltimore, Maryland.
She studied at the Baltimore School for the Arts and at North Carolina School for the Arts.
Smith was married to Will Smith since 1997.
John Carradine (Richmond Reed Carradine; February 5, 1906 – November 27, 1988) was an American movie, television, voice, stage, and radio actor who is known for his roles in House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, The Grapes Wrath, Stagecoach, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, and in House of the Long Shadows.
He has won an Daytime Emmy Award.
Carradine was born on February 5, 1906 in New York City, New York.
Carradine was married to Ardanelle McCool from 1935 until they divorced in 1944.
Then he was married to Sonia Sorel from 1944 until they divorced in 1956.
Then he was married to Doris Rich from 1957 until her death in 1971.
Then he was last married to Emily Cisneros from 1975 until his death in 1988.
He has five children, Bruce (his McCool's son whom he adopted), David, Christopher, Keith and Robert.
Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr. (born February 20, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Kentucky.
A member of the Republican Party, he is the Minority Leader of the Senate, succeeding Chuck Schumer.
He is the longest-serving U.S. Senator in Kentucky history.
Mitch McConnell was born to Julia (née Shockley) and Addison Mitchell McConnell at Helen Keller Hospital in Sheffield, Alabama on February 20, 1942.
He grew up in segregated Athens, Alabama.
They moved to southern Louisville, Kentucky and McConnell attended the duPont Manual High School.
In 1964, he graduated with honors from the University of Louisville with a B.A. in political science.
He graduated in 1967 from the University of Kentucky College of Law.
In 1984, McConnell ran for the United States Senate against two-term Democratic incumbent Walter "Dee" Huddleston.
The election race wasn't decided until the last polls returned came in, and McConnell won by a thin margin—only 5,200 votes out of more than 1.8 million votes cast, just over 0.4%.
McConnell was the only Republican Senate challenger to win that year, despite Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in the presidential election.
Part of McConnell's success came from a series of television campaign spots called "Where's Dee", which featured a group of bloodhounds trying to find Huddleston, implying that Huddleston's attendance record in the Senate was less than stellar.
It is likely that he was helped by Ronald Reagan's 21-point win in Kentucky that year.
His campaign bumper stickers and television ads asked voters to "Switch to Mitch".
McConnell is a member of the Baptist Church.
His first wife was Sherrill Redmon, from whom he was later divorced; they have three daughters.
His second wife, whom he married in 1993, is Elaine Chao, the current Secretary of Transportation under Donald Trump and the former Secretary of Labor under George W. Bush (the first Asian American woman to serve in the Cabinet).
Senator Mitch McConnell official U.S. Senate site
Mitch McConnell For U.S. Senate official campaign site
Politicians from Louisville, Kentucky
The leopard gecko, also known as the panther gecko or the common leopard gecko, is a medium-sized lizard.
They live in the southern part of Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, northwest India, and parts of Iran.
They live in dry rocky regions, dry grasslands and deserts.
Leopard geckos are around 7-9 inches (17.8-22.9 cm avg female)& (20-28 avg male) long, with large heads, big eyes with oval-shaped pupils, thin toes, and, unlike other reptiles, they have eyelids.
They have thick tails that narrow to a point and, like their bodies and heads, are slightly flattened from top to bottom.
Most of their scales are small and rough.
Spaced rows of larger, bumpy scales give them a knobby, rough look, but they are actually soft when touched.
mm long when they hatch, and when they hatch they have dark bands which go around their bodies.
These bands lighten as the babies grow into adults which have spots instead of bands.
Leopard geckos are normally lavender or yellow in colour, but pet leopard geckos come in different "colour morphs" like albino, "Banana blizzard", "Blizzard", "Ghost", "High Yellow", "Hyper Xanthic", "Jungle", "Leucistic", "Normal" or "Wild", "Patternless", "Red-stripe", "Snow", "Tremper Albino" and many more.
Like many lizards, the leopard gecko has a tail that breaks off when grabbed by a predator.
The tail breaks at a crack in the vertebra, and the surrounding muscles are arranged so that they separate neatly and instantly.
A muscle closes around the artery in the tail at the point of the break and stops blood loss.
Normally a new tail grows back.
This method helps the leopard gecko to escape when attacked.
Leopard geckos also have teeth and they are born with about 100 teeth.
The temperatures of these areas during winter can be quite low, below , forcing the animals underground into semi-hibernation, called brumation, and they live on fat reserves.
Leopard geckos are crepuscular reptiles; during the day they hide in burrows, but they are active at dawn and dusk when the temperature is favorable.
Leopard Geckos are friendly, docile creatures by nature, but they sometimes bite.
If held in a human hand they will only bite if they mistake a finger for food, or if the person is holding the gecko too tightly.
In the wild, leopard geckos feed mainly on insects, fruits, spiders, snails, small lizards, birds, and bird eggs.
In captivity they feed on mealworms, crickets, and sometimes baby mice.
Leopard geckos reach sexual maturity at the age of one to three years.
Mating usually happens during the rainy season.
During courtship, the male walks alongside the female, licking and lightly biting her side.
He then grasps her neck in his mouth.
If she accepts to mate with him, she lifts her tail allowing the male to insert one of his paired copulatory organs, called hemipenes.
Female leopard geckos can store sperm in their reproductive tracts for 15 months or more.
They can lay up to five clutches of one or (usually) two eggs during the five month breeding season, and may use some of the stored sperm to fertilize each clutch.
The eggs hatch after around 55 days.
Afghan leopard gecko, Eublepharis macularius afghanicus
Eublepharis macularius fasciolatus
Eublepharis macularius macularius
Eublepharis macularius montanus
Eublepharis macularius smithi
Pitchblende is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and ore.
It has a chemical composition that is largely UO2, but also contains UO3 and oxides of lead, thorium, and rare earth elements.
It is known as pitchblende due to its black color and high density.
It is also commonly referred to as Uraninite.
The mineral has been known at least since the 15th century from silver mines in the Ore Mountains, on the German/Czech border.
Pitchblende found in Germany was used by M. Klaproth in 1789 to discover the element uranium.
Pitchblende contains a small amount of radium as a radioactive decay product of uranium.
Because the uranium isotopes 238U and   235U will decay to form the lead isotopes 206Pb and 207Pb, pitchblende also always contains small amounts of lead.
Small amounts of helium are also present in pitchblend as a result of alpha decay.
Helium was first found on Earth in pitchblende after having been discovered  in the Sun's atmosphere.
Pitchblende is a major ore of uranium.
Some of the highest grade uranium ores in the world were found in the Shinkolobwe mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the initial source for the Manhattan Project) and in the Athabasca Basin in northern Canada.
Another important source of pitchblende is at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada, where it is found in large quantities associated with silver.
It also occurs in Australia, Germany, England, and South Africa.
In the United States it can be found in the states of New Hampshire, Connecticut, North Carolina, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.
Thorianite
Uranium ore deposits
List of uranium mines
Rare earth elements ("REEs") are a set of seventeen chemical elements.
They include the fifteen lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium.
Scandium and yttrium are rare earth elements since they are often found in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and have similar chemical properties.
Although they are called rare, rare earth elements are not extremely rare on Earth.
They were called this because they are spread very evenly over the Earth, so it is hard to find a lot in one place.
Promethium is rare, because it is radioactive, and decays.
Cerium, one of the lanthanides, is the 25th most common element in the Earth's crust.
However, most rare earth elements are not found concentrated or in pure forms.
List of rare earth elements
A table listing the seventeen rare earth elements, their atomic number and symbol, the origin of their names, and some of their uses is provided here.
Some of the rare earths are named after the scientists who discovered them, and some are named based on where they were discovered.
class="unsortable"|Name Origin
class="unsortable"|Selected applications
|Sc
|Scandium
|from Scandinavia, where the first rare earth ore was discovered.
|Light aluminium-scandium alloy is used for aerospace components.
It is also an additive in certain lamps.<ref name="CRC_ed89_elements">C. R. Hammond, "Section 4; The Elements", in CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 89th Edition (Internet Version 2009), David R. Lide, ed.,
CRC Press/Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton, FL.</ref>
|Yttrium
|after the village of Ytterby, Sweden, where it was discovered.
|Yttrium is found in certain lasers and TV phosphors.
It also has applications in high-temperature superconductors, and microwave filters.,
energy-efficient light bulbs
|La
|Lanthanum
|from the Greek "lanthanein", meaning to be hidden.
|High refractive index glass, flint, hydrogen storage, battery-electrodes, camera lenses, fluid catalytic cracking catalyst for oil refineries
|Ce
|Cerium
|after the dwarf planet Ceres, named after the Roman goddess of agriculture.
|Chemical oxidizing agent, polishing powder, yellow colors in glass and ceramics, catalyst for self-cleaning ovens, fluid catalytic cracking catalyst for oil refineries,  flints for lighters
|Pr
|Praseodymium
|from the Greek "prasios", meaning leek-green, and "didymos", meaning twin.
|Rare-earth magnets, lasers, core material for carbon arc lighting, colorant, additive in  glass used in welding goggles,
|Nd
|Neodymium
|from the Greek "neos", meaning new, and "didymos", meaning twin.
|Rare-earth magnets, lasers, violet colors in glass and ceramics, ceramic capacitors
|Pm
|Promethium
|after the Titan Prometheus, who brought fire to mortals.
|Nuclear batteries
|62
|Sm
|Samarium
|after Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets, who discovered the rare earth ore samarskite.
|Rare-earth magnets, lasers,
|Eu
|Europium
|after the continent of Europe.
|Red and blue phosphors, lasers, mercury-vapor lamps,
|Gd
|Gadolinium
|after Johan Gadolin (1760–1852), to honor his investigation of rare earths.
|Rare-earth magnets, high refractive index glass or garnets, lasers, X-ray tubes, computer memories, neutron capture, MRI contrast agents |-
|65
|Tb
|Terbium
|after the village of Ytterby, Sweden.
|Green phosphors, lasers, fluorescent lamps
|66
|Dy
|Dysprosium
|from the Greek "dysprositos", meaning hard to get.
|Rare-earth magnets, lasers
|67
|Ho
|Holmium
|after Stockholm (in Latin, "Holmia"), native city of one of its discoverers.
|Lasers
|Er
|Erbium
|Lasers, vanadium steel
|69
|Tm
|Thulium
|after the mythological northern land of Thule.
|Portable X-ray machines
|70
|Yb
|Ytterbium
|Infrared lasers, chemical reducing agent
|71
|Lu
|Lutetium
|after Lutetia, the city which later became Paris.
|Medical devices, high refractive index glass
Rare earth elements are heavier than iron.
They are made by supernovae (exploding stars).
In nature, fission of uranium-238 creates very small amounts of radioactive promethium.
Most promethium is synthetically created in nuclear reactors.
Rare earth elements change through time in small quantities (ppm, parts per million).
Their proportion can be used for geologic dating and dating fossils.
Geological distribution
The rare earth elements are often found together.
The longest-lived isotope of promethium has a half life of 17.7 years.
Because of this, the element exists in nature in only very small amounts.
Promethium is one of the two elements that do not have stable (non-radioactive) isotopes and are followed by stable elements (the other being  technetium).
Because all lanthanides are close in size, the rare earth elements have always been hard to separate.
Even with eons of geological time, separation of the lanthanides in nature has only rarely gone farther than the separation between light versus heavy lanthanides, otherwise known as the cerium and yttrium earths.
This geochemical separation is shown in the first two rare earths that were discovered.
These were yttria in 1794 and ceria in 1803.
When first found, each was a mixture of all of the rare earths.
Large ore bodies of the cerium earths can be found around the world and are being exploited.
Ore bodies for yttrium are rarer.
Also, they are usually smaller and less concentrated.
Global rare earth production
Until 1948, most of the world's rare earths came from sand deposits in India and Brazil.
Through the 1950s, South Africa mined most of the world's rare earths.
This happened after large veins of a rare earth bearing mineral were found there.
Through the 1960s until the 1980s, a mine in California was the leading producer.
Today, the Indian and South African deposits still make some rare earth concentrates, but they are very small compared to the amount being produced in China.
China had produced over 95% of the world's rare earth supply.
Most of this has been done in Inner Mongolia,China's Rare Earth Dominance, Wikinvest.
Retrieved on 11 Aug 2010.
even though it had only 37% of proven reserves.
Although these numbers have since been said to have lowered to 90% of global production and a proven reserve rate of only 23% by 2012.
All of the world's heavy rare earths (such as dysprosium) come from Chinese rare earth sources such as the polymetallic Bayan Obo deposit.
Chao E.C.T.et al  1997.
"Sedimentary carbonate‐hosted giant Bayan Obo REE‐Fe‐Nb ore deposit of Inner Mongolia, China; a cornerstone example for giant polymetallic ore deposits of hydrothermal origin".
United States Geological Survey Publications Warehouse.
In 2010, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) released a study which found that the United States had 13 million metric tons of rare earth elements.
New demand for these elements is higher than the supply of them.
The world may soon face a shortage of the rare earths.
In several years from 2009, worldwide demand for rare earth elements is expected to be more than the supply by 40,000 tonnes each year unless new sources are developed.
These concerns have gotten larger because of the actions of China.
China has said it will put regulations on exports and work to stop smuggling.
On September 1, 2009, China said it is going to lower its exports to 35,000 tons per year in 2010–2015.
China said that this was done to conserve rare resources and protect the environment.
On October 19, 2010 China Daily reported that China will "further reduce quotas for rare earth exports by 30 percent at most next year to protect the precious metals from over-exploitation".
At the end of 2010 China said that the first round of exports in 2011 for rare earths would be 14,446 tons.
This was a 35% decrease from the first round of exports in 2010.
In September 2011 China said it was stopping production at three of its eight rare earth mines.
These mines produced almost 40% of China's total rare earth production.
In August 2012, China said there would be another 20% reduction in production.
Outside of China
Because of the increased demand and the restrictions on exports of the metals from China, some countries are stockpiling rare earth resources.
Searches for new sources in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, Tanzania, Greenland, and the United States are taking place.
Mines in these countries were closed when China undercut world prices in the 1990s.
It will take a few years to restart production.
The European Union has urged the Denmark protectorate Greenland to restrict Chinese development of rare-earth projects there, as China accounts for 95 percent of the world’s current supply.
As of early 2013, the government of Greenland has said that it has no plans to impose such restrictions.
Nuclear reprocessing is another possible source of rare earth or any other elements.
Nuclear fission of uranium or plutonium creates a many elements as well as all their isotopes.
However, it is not likely that creating them can be done safely and economically because of the radioactivity of many of these isotopes.
Another source of rare earths is electronic waste and other wastes that have a large amount of rare earth components.
New advances in recycling technology have made getting the rare earths from these materials easier to do.
Recycling plants are currently operating in Japan, where there is about 300,000 tons of rare earths in unused electronics.
In France, the Rhodia group is setting up two factories in La Rochelle and Saint-Fons.
These factories will produce 200 tons a year of rare earths from used fluorescent lamps, magnets and batteries.
Geo-political considerations
China has said that resource depletion and environmental concerns are the reasons for increased nationwide control of its rare earth mineral production.
Non-environmental reasons have also been suggested to explain China's rare earth policy.
According to The Economist'', "Slashing their exports of rare-earth metals...is all about moving Chinese manufacturers up the supply chain, so they can sell valuable finished goods to the world rather than lowly raw materials."
A 2011 report issued by the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Department of the Interior, “China’s Rare-Earth Industry," deals with industry trends in China.
It looks at national policies that may guide the future of the country's production.
The report says that China’s lead in the production of rare-earth minerals has grown over the past two decades.
In 1990, China accounted for only 27% of such minerals.
In 2009, world production was 132,000 metric tons.
China produced 129,000 of those tons.
According to the report, recent patterns suggest that China will slow the export of such materials to the world: “Owing to the increase in domestic demand, the Government has gradually reduced the export quota during the past several years.”
In 2006, China allowed 47 domestic rare-earth producers and traders and 12 Sino-foreign rare-earth producers to export.
By 2011, there were only 22 domestic rare-earth producers and traders and 9 Sino-foreign rare-earth producers.
The government’s future policies will likely keep in place strict controls: “According to China’s draft rare-earth development plan, annual rare-earth production may be limited to between 130,000 and 140,000 [metric tons] during the period from 2009 to 2015.
The export quota for rare-earth products may be about 35,000 [metric tons] and the Government may allow 20 domestic rare-earth producers and traders to export rare earths.”
The United States Geological Survey is searching southern Afghanistan for rare earth deposits under the protection of United States military forces.
Since 2009, the USGS has done remote surveys as well as fieldwork to verify Soviet claims that volcanic rocks containing rare earth metals exist in Helmand province near the village of Khanneshin.
The USGS has found an  area of rocks in the center of an extinct volcano with light rare earth elements including cerium and neodymium.
It has mapped 1.3 million metric tons of useful rock.
This is about 10 years of supply at current demand levels.
The Pentagon has estimated its value at about $7.4 billion.
Rare earth pricing
Rare earth elements are not exchange-traded in the same way that precious (for instance, gold and silver) or non-ferrous metals (such as nickel, tin, copper, and aluminium) are.
Instead, they are sold on the private market.
This makes their prices hard to monitor and track.
However, prices are published periodically  on websites such as mineralprices.com.
The 17 elements are not usually sold in their pure form.
They are usually distributed in mixtures of varying purity, e.g. "Neodymium metal ≥ 99.5%".
because of this, pricing can vary based on the quantity and quality required by the end user.
Rare earths mining: China's 21st Century gold rush, BBC News June 2010 infographic examining China's role in the rare earths market.
Larry Hankin (born August 31, 1940) is an American movie, television, radio, stage, voice actor, movie director and movie producer who is known for his role as Mr. Heckles in Friends.
Hankin was born on August 31, 1940 in New York City, New York.
Jonathan Harris (Jonathan Charasuchin; November 6, 1914 – November 3, 2002) was an American movie, television, radio, stage, and voice actor who is known for his role as Dr. Zachary Smith in Lost in Space.
Harris was born on November 6, 1914 in The Bronx, New York City, New York.
He studied at James Monroe High School.
Harris was married to Gertrude Bregman from 1938 until his death in 2002.
Harris died on November 3, 2002 in Encino, Los Angeles, California from heart failure, aged 87.
In astronomy, the zenith is a point "above" a particular location, in the sky. "
Above" means in the opposite direction of gravity at that location.
The zenith is the opposite of the nadir.
The nadir is in the direction the direction that gravity pulls.
The zenith is not a real point,  it is used as a reference for the location of other things in the sky.
Relevance and use
For scientists, the zenith is the direction of reference for measuring the zenith angle.
The zenith angle is the angle between a place in the sky (usually a star) and the local zenith.
In astronomy, the nadir is a point "below" a particular location. "
Below" means in the same direction of gravity at that location.
The nadir is the opposite of the zenith.
The nadir is not a real point.
It is used as a reference for the location of other things.
Herman Bing (March 30, 1889 – January 9, 1947) was a German-American character actor and voice actor.
He was the brother of Gus Bing (1893–1967).
Lawrence "Larry" Semon (February 9, 1889 – October 8, 1928) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter during the silent movie era.
In his day, Semon was considered a major movie comedian.
He is now remembered mainly for working with both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy before they started working together.
Joyce Cary (born Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary; December 7, 1888 – March 29, 1957) was an Irish novelist and writer, who was born in Donegal, Ireland.
He studied at Clifton and Trinity College, Oxford.
Afterwards, he also spent some time learning art at Edinburgh and Paris.
In 1913, he joined the Nigerian Political Service, under the British colonial system and was posted out to Nigeria.
While working there, he also fought in the First World War, with the local Nigerian Regiment.
After the end of the war, he returned to politics.
However, he was becoming very sick, and was advised to retire and go back home.
After retiring back to Britain, he began to write seriously and full-time.
His first novel, Aissa Saved, was published in 1932.
He published several other works after this, including The Captive and the Free, Herself Surprised, A Fearful Joy, The Horse's Mouth, To be a Pilgrim and others.
Theodore Huebner Roethke ( ; May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was an American poet.
Roethke's parents were German immigrants, who settled in Michigan and started a highly prosperous floral business.
He was born in Michigan.
He grew up in an atmosphere of greenhouses and plants.
These images stayed with him, and he often alluded to it in his work.
He was educated at the Michigan State University and then Harvard.
He became a teacher and sports coach.
He began to publish his poetry later, around 1941, with the publication of Open House.
However, according to critics and scholars, he really began to 'mature' with his second book, The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948) which was followed by other critically acclaimed volumes.
Roethke joined the University of Washington as a lecturer in 1947.
He stayed there until his sudden death in 1963.
Khan Bahadur Captain (retd) Sardar Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, KBE, (born 1892 - died 1942) was an important Punjabi statesman and popular leader.
He was Governor and then Premier of this province in British India.
After initial education at the Aligarh school and the MAO College at Aligarh (later to become the Aligarh Muslim University), he went for higher education to the King's College London.
On returning home, in 1915, he enrolled as an Assistant Recruiting Officer in the Punjab, to help the British Indian Army's efforts during the First World War; and was later one of the very first natives to receive the King's Commission, as a Captain of the 67th Punjabis (later the 1st Battalion of the 2 Punjab Regiment) in 1919.
After the war he started his own business ventures and also entered grassroots politics in his area.
In the 1920s, Sikandar Hayat Khan slowly began to make his mark as a statesman, and in collaboration with Sir Fazli Husain and Sir Chotu Ram became one of the founders of the Unionist Party (Punjab).
This was a secular party representing all Punjabis of different creeds mostly united by the zamindar (rural/agrarian) interest, and it soon became the most popular political group in the province.
Due to his special services at this time, in various ways, the Government of British India granted a knighthood to Sir Sikandar.
Between 1932 and 1934 he also had the unique honour of being the only native to be appointed acting Governor of the Punjab under British rule.
Thereafter, for a brief while, Sir Sikandar also worked as Deputy-Governor of the Reserve Bank of India but in July 1936, on the demise of Sir Fazli Husain, he returned to take on leadership of the Unionist party for the general elections held in Winter of the same year, winning by a simple majority and forming a coalition government along with the Indian National Congress and the Sikh Akali Dal.
Sikandar was now chosen as Leader of the House and the Premier or Chief Minister of the Punjab.
He remained in this position from 1937 to December 1942, when he died of a sudden heart failure.
Role in the Second World War
Between 1939 and 1942, when he died, Sir Sikandar supported the British struggle against Nazi Germany and believed in cooperating with the British government in the Second World War.
He believed that this support would be good for India and help it towards independence after the War ended.
He was very active in maximizing recruitment of troops from the Punjab as part of the 'war effort' and even made morale-boosting tours of the Middle East where most Indian (especially Punjabi)troops where serving.
The Muslim League leadership agreed with this perspective of his and also announced full cooperation with the British Raj, or government, to achieve their own ends.
Muslim League and Lahore Resolution
Soon after winning the general elections in 1937, Sir Sikandar felt conscious of the need to maintain a balanced stance in a volatile and divided Punjabi political system.
He thus decided to also negotiate with the All India Muslim League  under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
As a result, he and Jinnah signed the Jinnah-Sikandar Pact at Lucknow in October 1937, merging the Muslim elements of his powerful Unionist party with the Muslim League, as a move towards forming a common, united front for safeguarding their community rights and interests in India.
He was also later one of the chief supporters and architects of the Lahore Resolution, March 1940, calling for an autonomous or semi-independent Muslim majority region within the larger Indian confederation—which demand later led to the demand for an independent Pakistan.
Death and Legacy
At the time of his sudden death in December 1942, Sir Sikandar was honoured by the people of Lahore and granted burial outside the old Badshahi Mosque there, on the other side from Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the poet.
Much of his work was left half done, in particular his plan to help the British war effort towards eventual Indian freedom, and his attempts to weld the Punjab together and save it from communal friction.
Many historians have opined that Sir Sikandar's early demise at the age of 50 was, arguably, a major blow to the Indian freedom movements, especially to the Punjab.
He wished to preserve this intact, within a larger Indian Confederation whereby his own Muslim community could enjoy full and maximum freedom and self-governance without truncating India or the Punjab region.
He was too well aware of the potential bloodbath and conflict resulting from any such division or separation which, alas, was witnessed on such massive scale at the time of the August 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan.
It would thus not be wrong to say that Sir Sikandar's presence would certainly have been a 'moderating influence—and his death must be reckoned a great misfortune [at the time]''.
Working Committee of the All-India Muslim League
He was the son of a tribal Tarin (or Tareen) chieftain and cavalry officer, Sardar Habib Khan (1829–1888), Nawab-Bahadur, Risaldar; and was born in Talokar village, near Haripur,  in what was later to be the Hazara area of the NWFP, in British India.
After his father's death he was educated by English tutors and then sent to Aitchison College, Lahore for studies.
Later, he was sent to England and became a Barrister.
Abdul Majid Khan Tarin was a Magistrate and Judge in the Punjab service from 1902 to 1934 and then, after his retirement, he joined the All India Muslim League.
In 1937 he was elected an MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) of the North-West Frontier Province but could not complete his tenure there as he died in September 1939, after a short illness.
His son Khan Abdus Salim Khan was a Pakistani diplomat who was ambassador in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Japan, USA and the UK and his daughter-in-law Begum Mahmooda Salim Khan was later Pakistan's first woman minister during the regime of General Ayub Khan.
One of his great-grandsons is the Pakistani poet and scholar, Omer Tarin.
Majid Khan Tarin was also a very active early philanthropist of his area and opened many educational institutions and set up a medical ward for Tuberculosis patients at the Haripur government hospital.
His family has continued this charitable tradition.
Indian judges
Khattar is a tribe found in northern part of Punjab mainly in Rawalpindi and Attock districts and some parts of KPK in  Pakistan
Nawab Muhammad Hayat Khan, a punjabi muslim administrator in British rule.
Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, First Prime Minister of Punjab Province in British India.
Shaukat Hayat Khan, a senior Muslim league politician
Yawar Hayat Khan senior director/producer of Pakistan Television
General (retd) Ahsan Azhar Hayat, former senior officer of the Pakistan Army and ex-ambassador to Jordan
Major (retd) Tahir Sadiq. (
MNA NA-55 and Ex district nazim Attock)
Ghulam Sarwar Khan. (
Federal petroleum minister,MNA NA-59 and senior leader PTI party)
He was the eldest son of the former Punjabi statesman and leader, Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan.
As a young man, he joined the British Indian Army and served up to the rank of Major before resigning in 1942, on his father's death.
From 1942 to 1947, Khan was active as a leading Punjabi member of the All India Muslim League and assisted the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in the efforts to obtain a separate Muslim nation-state when the British left India.
In 1946, he was given the title of Shaukat i Punjab (The pride of the Punjab: a play on his name) by Jinnah himself.
Later politics
After 1947, for quite some time he remained an active political figure and member of parliament.
However, gradually between the 1960s and 1980s he became increasingly disillusioned by the corruption and dishonesty of politics in Pakistan and finally quit.
He died in September 1998, at Islamabad.
The Aitchison College is Pakistan's most prestigious school and college.
It is in the old and historical Punjabi city of Lahore.
The school was started during British colonial rule, in 1886.
It was first called the 'Punjab Chiefs' School and College'.
It is named after Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison, who was Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab.
Only boys aged 4 to 19 go there.
Tarin (also written as Tareen), are a large Pashtun tribe.
They mostly live in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Durrani tribe, which ruled Afghanistan for quite some time, is a branch descended from the main Tarin tribe.
Kim is a famous children's book.
It is a novel by the Nobel Prize winning English writer, Rudyard Kipling.
It was first published in 1901.
The book is set after the Second Anglo-Afghan War which ended in 1881, but before the Third, probably in the period 1893–98  The novel is notable for its detailed picture of the people, culture, and varied religions of India.
The novel tells the story of a young Irish orphan, Kimball O'Hara, better known as 'Kim'.
He is living in British India and brought up by his ayah (nursemaid) in the old Punjabi city of Lahore (now in Pakistan).
Kim meets a Buddhist Lama (priest) and has many exciting adventures, traveling along the Grand Trunk Road.
Some other interesting characters in this story are Mahbub Ali, Colonel Creighton, Lurgan-sahib and Hurree Chandar Mukerjee.
Critical View
Kim is Kipling's most important work and a significant work about India and the British Raj, and the famous 'Great Game' of espionage played there between the British Empire and Russia in the 19th century.
It is also his most 'enchanting' prose work and may well be compared to other great English literary classics by Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.
Maamme (in Finnish) or Vårt land (in Swedish) are the titles of the national anthem of Finland, in the country's two official languages which both mean 'Our Land' in English.
In the mid-19th century, the lyrics (words) written by Johan Ludvig Runeberg in what was then known as the Grand Duchy of Finland (while under Russian occupation) were originally in Swedish, and the music—the same one used in Estonia's national anthem Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm—was composed by German-born musician Fredrich Pacius around the same time.
In 1889, the anthem was translated into Finnish by poet Paavo Cajander.
The original text to the song has eleven verses, but nowadays only the first and last verses (in bold) are part of the national anthem.
However, three verses – the first in Finnish and in Swedish, and the last in Finnish – can be sung if among the singers are Swedes and Finns together.
Phonetic transcriptions
The national anthem of Estonia, Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm, and the ethnic anthem of the Livonians, Min izāmō, use the melody of Maamme.
19th-century establishments in Finland
The Chief Justice of Pakistan heads the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
These are the names of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (known as the Federal Court until 1960).
A Acting
± Recess appointment, later rejected by the Supreme Judicial Council.
All decisions voided due to illegality of appointment.
† Died in office
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jQuery is a JavaScript library created to make it easier and simpler to write JavaScript and HTML.
It works on most web browsers and was invented by John Resig.