John Mason Neale (24 January 1818 – 6 August 1866) was an English Anglican priest, scholar, and hymnwriter. He worked and wrote on a wide range of holy Christian texts, including obscure medieval hymns, both Western and Eastern. Among his most famous hymns is the 1853 Good King Wenceslas, set on Boxing Day. An Anglo-Catholic, Neale's works have found positive reception in high-church Anglicanism and Western Rite Orthodoxy.

Life
Neale was born in London on 24 January 1818, his parents being the clergyman Cornelius Neale and Susanna Neale, daughter of John Mason Good. A younger sister Elizabeth Neale (1822–1901) founded the Community of the Holy Cross. He was educated at Sherborne School, Dorset, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where (despite being said to be the best classical scholar in his year) his lack of ability in mathematics prevented him taking an honours degree. Neale was named after the Puritan cleric and hymn writer John Mason (1645–94), of whom his mother Susanna was a descendant.

At the age of 22 Neale was the chaplain of Downing College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he was affected by the Oxford Movement and, particularly interested in church architecture, helped to found the Cambridge Camden Society (afterwards known as the Ecclesiological Society). The society advocated for more ritual and religious decoration in churches, and was closely associated with the Gothic Revival. Neale's first published address was made to the society on November 22, 1841. Neale was ordained in 1842. He was briefly incumbent of Crawley in Sussex, but was forced to resign due to a chronic lung disease. The following winter he lived in the Madeira Islands, where he was able to do research for his History of the Eastern Church. In 1846 he became warden of Sackville College, an almshouse at East Grinstead, an appointment which he held until his death.

In 1854 Neale co-founded the Society of Saint Margaret, an order of women in the Church of England dedicated to nursing the sick. Many Protestants of the time were suspicious of the restoration of Anglican religious orders. In 1857, Neale was attacked and mauled at a funeral of one of the Sisters. Crowds threatened to stone him or to burn his house. He received no honour or preferment in England, and his doctorate was bestowed by Trinity College (Connecticut).

He was also the principal founder of the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association, a religious organization founded as the Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches Union in 1864. A result of this organisation was the Hymns of the Eastern Church, edited by John Mason Neale and published in 1865.

Neale was strongly high church in his sympathies, and had to endure a good deal of opposition, including a fourteen years' inhibition by his bishop. Neale translated the Eastern liturgies into English, and wrote a mystical and devotional commentary on the Psalms. However, he is best known as a hymnwriter and, especially, translator, having enriched English hymnody with many ancient and mediaeval hymns translated from Latin and Greek. For example, the melody of Good King Wenceslas originates from a medieval Latin springtime poem, Tempus adest floridum. More than anyone else, he made English-speaking congregations aware of the centuries-old tradition of Latin, Greek, Russian, and Syrian hymns. The 1875 edition of the Hymns Ancient and Modern contains 58 of his translated hymns; The English Hymnal (1906) contains 63 of his translated hymns and six original hymns by Neale.

His translations include:

 "All Glory, Laud and Honour"
 "A Great and Mighty Wonder"
 "O Blest Creator of the Light"
 "O come, O come, Emmanuel"
 "Of the Father's Heart Begotten"
 "Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle"
 "To Thee Before the Close of Day"
 "Ye Sons and Daughters of the King"

Death and legacy

Since Neale died on 6 August 1866, the Feast of the Transfiguration, he is commemorated by the Anglican churches on the following day, 7 August. Neale is honored in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church that day.

Neale and Catherine Winkworth are commemorated together in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on 1 July, the anniversary of Winkworth's death.  Neale was buried in St Swithun's churchyard, East Grinstead.

Works
Sermons
Sermons for the Black Letter Days (1868)
Sermons for Children (1869)
Sermons Preached in a Religious House (1869), volume one
Sermons on the Blessed Sacrament (1870)
Sermons on the Passages of the Psalms (1871)
Three Groups of Sermons (1871)
Occasional Sermons (1873)
Sermons for the Church Year (1876) volume one
Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel (1895)
Vol. IV. Minor Festivals of the Church of England
Sermons on Passages from the Prophets (1895), volume one

Hymns and carols

Neale's most enduring and widely known legacy is probably his contribution to the Christmas repertoire, most notably:
 Good Christian Men, Rejoice, Christmas carol
 Good King Wenceslas, his original legendary Boxing Day carol
 O come, O come, Emmanuel, Advent hymn translated from the "O Antiphons" for the week preceding Christmas

John Mason Neale also wrote the hymn:
 A Great and Mighty Wonder, translated from the Greek of St Germanus, although Neale incorrectly attributed it to St Anatolius.

Hymn-books
 Hymni ecclesiae e breviariis: quibusdam et missalibus gallicanis, germanis, hispanis, lusitanis (1851)
 Hymnal Noted (Novello, Ewer and Company, 1851)
 Accompanying Harmonies to The Hymnal Noted by John Mason Neale and Thomas Helmore, published under the sanction of the Ecclesiological society by Novello, Ewer (1852)
 Sequentiae ex missalibus : Germanicis, Anglicis, Gallicis, Aliisque medii aevi, collectae (1852)
 Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences, 1862 edition compiled by John Mason Neale
 Seatonian poems (1864)
 Hymns of the Eastern Church, translated with Notes and an Introduction 1870 edition compiled by John Mason Neale

Theological and historical books
 A History of the Holy Eastern Church (1847)
 An Introduction to the History of the Holy Eastern Church (1850, 2 vols)
 A short commentary on the Hymnal noted; from ancient sources (1852)
 The Bible, and the Bible only, the religion of protestants, a lecture (1852)
 The ancient liturgies of the Gallican Church: now first collected, with an introductory dissertation, notes, and various readings, together with parallel passages from the Roman, Ambrosian, and Mozarabic rites (1855)
 Mediæval preachers and mediæval preaching (1856)
 A history of the so-called Jansenist church of Holland; with a sketch of its earlier annals, and some account of the Brothers of the common life (1858)
 Voices from the East, documents on the present state and working of the Oriental Church (1859)
 Essays on Liturgiology and Church History (1863)
 A commentary on the Psalms by John Mason Neale and Richard Frederick Littledale (1868)
 A History of the Holy Eastern Church (1873)
 A Commentary on the Psalms: From Primitive and Mediaeval Writers by John Mason Neale and Richard Frederick Littledale (1874)

Books related to Cambridge Camden Society
 The history of pews: a paper read before the Cambridge Camden Society on Monday, November 22, 1841: with an appendix containing a report presented to the Society on the statistics of pews, on Monday, December 7, 1841 (1841)
 A few words to churchwardens on churches and church ornaments (1842)
 The symbolism of churches and church ornaments: a translation of the first book of the Rationale divinorum officiorum (1843) by John Mason Neale and Benjamin Webb

Novels
 Theodora Phranza; or, the Fall of Constantinople (1857)

Poetry
Edom: A Seatonian Poem (1849)
Sinai: A Seatonian Prize Poem (1857)
Ruth: A Seatonian Poem (1860)
Seatonian Poems (1864)

References

Sources
 John Mason Neale, DD: A Memoir (1907), Eleanor Towle
 Memoir by his friend, Richard Frederick Littledale
 Letters of John Mason Neale (1910), selected and edited by Eleanor Towle
  Has a complete list of Neale's works
 Online Books by J. M. Neale (Neale, J. M. (John Mason), 1818–1866), University of Pennsylvania

External links

 Works of John Mason Neale
 John Mason Neale and the Christian Heritage
 John Mason Neale 1818–1866
 John Mason Neale
 John Mason Neale directory on Project Canterbury

1818 births
1866 deaths
19th-century English Anglican priests
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Anglican saints
Anglo-Catholic clergy
Anglo-Catholic poets
Anglo-Catholic writers
Christian hymnwriters
English Anglo-Catholics
People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar
People educated at Sherborne School
Trinity College (Connecticut) alumni
19th-century Anglican theologians

John Mason Neale


The word longevity means long life, or life expectancy. It often means someone or something lasting longer than expected.

Longevity usually includes thinking about methods to extend life. Longevity has been a topic not only for the scientific community but also for writers of science fiction and utopian novels.

Longevity stories
Longevity stories are cultural traditions and lore about exceptional human longevity, with or without eternal youth. These stories include sincere beliefs of claims of extreme age. Each category of belief is based on a different motivation for claiming exceptional age.

Stories of exaggerated longevity have been around since the earliest civilizations. The first longevity narratives were probably the patriarchal/matriarchal claims, which are often an attempt to link humans to the gods or to God due to fuller life. In some religious traditions there are claims that, if one follows a certain philosophy or practice, one can become immortal or at least live to an extreme age.

Fountain of Youth narratives describe some natural source that provides healing and particularly longevity and youthful health. An extension and adaptation of the fountain of youth concept is the idea that a particular place, rather than a substance, carries what is needed to attain extreme age, and that a person seeking extreme longevity needs to move to a special district.

Predictions
The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that life expectancy in the United States will be in the mid-80s by 2050 (up from 77.85 in 2006) and will top out eventually in the low 90s, barring major scientific advances that can change the rate of human aging itself, as opposed to merely treating the effects of aging as is done today. The Census Bureau also predicted that the United States would have 5.3 million people aged over 100 in 2100. The United Nations has also made projections far out into the future, up to 2300, at which point it projects that life expectancies in most developed countries will be between 100 and 106 years and still rising, though more and more slowly than before. However, the UN has warned that these projections are uncertain, and caution that any change or advancement in medical technology could invalidate their projections.

Related pages
List of centenarians

Notes

Other websites
List of famous people, how old they died, year and month. For example: 40 years, 1 month, John Lennon

Life
Demography
Population
Gerontology
Health

Longevity


Afikoman (Mishnaic Hebrew: אֲפִיקִימוֹן ʾăpîqîmôn; Modern pronunciation: אֲפִיקוֹמָן ʾăpîqômān) based on Greek epikomon [ἐπὶ κῶμον] or epikomion [ἐπικώμιον], meaning "that which comes after" or "dessert"), a word originally having the connotation of "refreshments eaten after the meal", is now almost strictly associated with the half-piece of matzo which is broken in two during the early stages of the Passover Seder and set aside to be eaten as a dessert after the meal.

Based on the Mishnah in Pesahim 119b, the afikoman is a substitute for the Passover sacrifice, which was the last thing eaten at the Passover meal during the eras of the First and Second Temples and during the period of the Tabernacle. The Talmud states that it is forbidden to have any other food after the afikoman, so that the taste of the matzo that was eaten after the meal remains in the participants' mouths. Since the destruction of the Temple and the discontinuation of the Korban Pesach, Jews eat a piece of matzo now known as afikomen to finish the Passover Seder meal.

Customs around the afikoman vary, though they often share the common purpose of keeping children awake and alert during the Seder until the afikoman is eaten. Following Ashkenazi customs, the head of household may hide the afikoman for the children to find, or alternatively, the children may steal the afikoman and ransom it back. Chabad tradition discourages stealing the afikoman lest it lead to bad habits.
Following Mizrahi customs, the afikoman may be tied in a sling to a child's back for the duration of the Seder.

Etymology
Mishnaic Hebrew: אֲפִיקִימוֹן. The Greek word on which afikoman is based has two meanings, according to the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud. Both Talmuds agree on the halakha (stated in the Passover Haggadah under the answer given to the Wise Son) that no other food should be eaten for the rest of the night after the afikoman is consumed. The Babylonian Talmud explains that the word "afikoman" derives from the Greek word for "dessert", the last thing eaten at a meal. The Jerusalem Talmud, however, derives the word afikoman from epikomion, meaning "after-dinner revelry" or "entertainment". It was the custom of Romans and Greeks to move from one party or banquet to another. The halakha prohibiting anything else being eaten after the afikoman therefore enjoins Jews to distinguish their Passover Seder from the pagan rituals of other nations.

Use
The afikoman is prepared during the fourth part of the Seder, Yachatz. During this ritual, the leader of the Seder takes the middle piece of matzo out from the stack of three whole matzot on the Seder table. They break the matzo in two, returning the smaller piece to the stack and putting aside the larger piece to be eaten later during Tzafun ("Hidden", the twelfth part of the Seder,  which immediately follows the main meal). This is the afikoman, which is wrapped in a napkin before being hidden.

Custom of "stealing"
The custom of hiding the afikoman so that the children at the Seder will "steal" it and demand a reward for it is based on the following Gemara: Rabbi Eliezer says that one should "grab the matzos" so that the children won't fall asleep.

The Haggadah Otzar Divrei HaMeforshim cites several other reasons for the custom of stealing the afikoman. According to the author of the work Mekor Chaim – Chavos Yair, this custom demonstrates love for the mitzvah of afikoman. Rabbi Menashe Klein, the Ungvar Rebbe, says that this custom is a re-enactment of the biblical account of Jacob stealing the blessings that were supposed to go to his brother Esau. Midrash Pliah says that Isaac told Esau, "Your brother came with trickery" (Genesis 27:35), adding, "and he took out the afikoman." According to the Midrash, this account took place on Passover. Therefore, the children steal the afikoman to get the blessings, which are the present that they ask their fathers to buy for them.

Eating the afikoman
After the meal and customary desserts, the leader of the Seder distributes pieces of the afikoman to each guest. If there is not enough to go around, additional pieces of matzo may be added to each person's portion of afikoman.

Jewish law prescribes that an olive-sized piece of matzo be eaten to fulfill the mitzvah of eating the afikoman. Many people eat an additional, olive-sized piece of matzo together with it. The first piece of matzo commemorates the Korban Pesach (Paschal lamb), whose meat was eaten at the very end of the festive Seder meal in the days that the Temple stood. The second piece commemorates the matzo that was eaten together with the meat of the Paschal Lamb in the days of the Temple, in fulfillment of the Torah commandment, "They shall eat [the Passover lamb] together with matzo and maror" (Exodus 12:8). Like the eating of the matzo earlier in the Seder, the afikoman is eaten while reclining to the left (in some Orthodox Jewish circles, women and girls do not lean).

According to Jewish law, the afikoman must be consumed before midnight, just as the Korban Pesach was eaten before midnight during the days of the Temple in Jerusalem. Thus, if the Seder is running late with much singing and discussion of the themes of the Exodus from Egypt, families may have to shorten the meal segment of the Seder and proceed quickly to the afikoman.

After the eating of the afikoman, no other food may be eaten for the rest of the night, other than the last two cups of wine at the Seder and coffee, tea, or water.

References

Sources
 Kaplan, Aryeh (1978). The MeAm Lo'ez Haggadah. Brooklyn, NY: Maznaim Publishing Corporation.

External links
Etymology of "afikoman"
 Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, Tzafun – the Afikoman in Peninei Halakha

Matzo
Greek language
Jewish ritual objects
Desserts
Jewish ceremonial food and drink
Greek words and phrases in Jewish law
Talmud concepts and terminology

Afikoman


In enzymology, a cholestanetriol 26-monooxygenase () is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction

5beta-cholestane-3alpha,7alpha,12alpha-triol + NADPH + H+ + O2  (25R)-5beta-cholestane-3alpha,7alpha,12alpha,26-tetraol + NADP+ + H2O

The 4 substrates of this enzyme are 5beta-cholestane-3alpha,7alpha,12alpha-triol, NADPH, H+, and O2, whereas its 3 products are (25R)-5beta-cholestane-3alpha,7alpha,12alpha,26-tetraol, NADP+, and H2O.

This enzyme belongs to the family of oxidoreductases, specifically those acting on paired donors, with O2 as oxidant and incorporation or reduction of oxygen. The oxygen incorporated need not be derived from O2 with NADH or NADPH as one donor, and incorporation of one atom o oxygen into the other donor.  The systematic name of this enzyme class is 5beta-cholestane-3alpha,7alpha,12alpha-triol,NADPH:oxygen oxidoreductase (26-hydroxylating). Other names in common use include 5beta-cholestane-3alpha,7alpha,12alpha-triol 26-hydroxylase, 5beta-cholestane-3alpha,7alpha,12alpha-triol hydroxylase, cholestanetriol 26-hydroxylase, sterol 27-hydroxylase, sterol 26-hydroxylase, cholesterol 27-hydroxylase, CYP27A, CYP27A1, and cytochrome P450 27A1'.  This enzyme participates in bile acid biosynthesis and ppar signaling pathway.

References

EC 1.14.13
NADPH-dependent enzymes
Enzymes of unknown structure

Cholestanetriol 26-monooxygenase


EBI is a Grande Ecole d'Ingénieurs (Top graduate engineering school) founded in 1992, providing courses in Industrial Engineering with a strong focus on Biological Engineering.

EBI is a private technical further education establishment managed by a non-profit association, the purpose of which is to offer further education courses in industrial biology, whether in the form of initial training or continued vocational training.
EBI is state-approved and authorised to teach scholarship students. It awards a Master's engineering degree recognised by the Engineering Qualifications Commission and also offers specialised 1-year postgraduate courses.

EBI's governing body is composed of various industrial partners : Air Liquide, Galderma, DERMA Développement, EFFIK, Association FERT, L'Oréal ...

It is chaired by Xavier YON, former CEO of GALDERMA.

EBI is a member of the Saint Louis Polytechnic Institute (with 2,200 students, 500 postgraduates every year), grouping together complementary specialist colleges in Cergy to provide a multidisciplinary approach to engineering sciences as well as lateral humanities and vocational training.

EBI is a founding member of the Cergy-Pontoise Val d'Oise further education and research centre, along with Cergy's other prestigious colleges (ESSEC, ENSEA, EISTI, etc.) and Cergy-Pontoise University. It is also member of the University of Paris-Seine.

External links
 Official website

Engineering universities and colleges in France
Universities in Île-de-France
Buildings and structures in Val-d'Oise
Grandes écoles
1992 establishments in France
Educational institutions established in 1992

École de Biologie Industrielle


St Nectan's Church is the parish church of Welcombe, on the border of Devon and Cornwall.

W. G. Hoskins writes "St Nectan's Chapel was one of the many medieval chapels in the vast parish of Hartland. It lies in unspoiled country, altogether Cornish in appearance and feeling, with views down the combes to the Atlantic. Welcombe was raised to parochial status in 1508, when the church was enlarged by the addition of the north and south transepts. The square-headed screen (early 14th century) is of unique interest. It is, except for its cornice (which is later and much resembles that at Hartland) by far the earliest remaining screen in Devon. The lectern is Jacobean and the pulpit restored Tudor." The church was 'restored' in 1883-84 and a vestry added in 1911. The tower contains six bells, four cast in 1731.

According to Nikolaus Pevsner the building is early medieval, including the low western tower. The pulpit has narrow early Renaissance panels. There is a holy well near the church.

References

Welcombe
Diocese of Exeter

St Nectan's Church, Welcombe


Carex acuta,  the acute sedge, slender tufted-sedge, or slim sedge, can be found growing on the margins of rivers and lakes in the Palaearctic terrestrial ecoregions in beds of wet, alkaline or slightly acid depressions with mineral soil.

Carex acuta does not tolerate prolonged desiccation. The community is distributed, in particular, in northern France, the Low Countries, Central Europe south to the Sava and Drava valleys of Croatia, the northern Morava valley of Serbia and Romania, north to Poland, the Kaliningrad District, Lithuania and Latvia, in southern Scandinavia, in the Dnieper basin of northern Ukraine and southern Belarus, in the lower Volga Valley.

References

External links

acuta
Flora of Asia
Flora of Europe
Flora of North Africa
Plants described in 1753
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus

Carex acuta


Sir Henry Wood (3 March 1869 - 19 August 1944) was an English conductor. He is famous for having been the conductor of the Proms. He conducted the Proms for 50 years. They became known as the "Henry Wood Promenade Concerts". Today they are called the "BBC Proms".

His life
Henry Wood was born in London. His father was an optician, but had become well known for making model trains. He sold them in his shop in Oxford Street in London. His parents liked music. They both sang and his father played the cello.

Although Henry heard a lot of music around him he did not have proper music lessons until he was already quite old. When he was 14 he learned to play the organ. He also played the piano and violin. When he was 16 he went to the Royal Academy of Music where he had lessons in piano, organ, composition and singing. He wanted to become a singing teacher, and he did in fact give singing lessons all his life. He became good at the piano so that he could accompany singers.

When he left the Royal Academy of Music he found work as a singing teacher and as a conductor of choirs and orchestras. He wrote a small book called The Gentle Art of Singing.

Promenade Concerts
In 1893 a man called Robert Newman, who was manager of the Queen's Hall, had an idea. He wanted to organize a series of concerts in which the audience could walk about and listen to music. He wanted to call them "Promenade Concerts" (the word comes from the French "se promener" = "to walk"). There were already promenade concerts in the parks in London, but those Promenade concerts were just for music that was easy to listen to. Newman wanted people to get to know good classical music. He wanted the tickets to be cheap so that people who were not rich would be able to afford to go. Newman thought that Henry Wood was a good conductor and asked him to conduct these concerts.

The first series of Promenade Concerts (or "Proms" for short) was in 1895. The programmes were much longer than they are in concerts today. There were lots of short pieces of music. Wood gradually made his audiences get used to listening to longer pieces of music. He introduced them to new music which had only recently been written. He conducted music by many British composers and European composers. People at that time were very prejudiced. They thought that only German conductors knew how to conduct German composers such as Richard Wagner. Wood showed them that he could do it too. He conducted every night during the Proms season. On Mondays he played a lot of Wagner and on Fridays he played Beethoven. He played music by European composers whose music was not yet well known in England, e.g. Sibelius, Schoenberg and many Russian composers.

Wood conducted the Proms until his death in 1944. Most of that time he was the only conductor of the Proms. Later in life he shared the conducting with other conductors such as Basil Cameron and Sir Adrian Boult. Wood had a big influence on the standard of music making in England. He made orchestral playing better, making sure that the players did not send in deputies instead of them. He made sure that the orchestral players were paid well and he allowed women to play in the orchestra.

Other musical activities
Wood is mainly remembered for the promenade concerts, but he conducted many other groups as well. He travelled around England, conducting at music festivals. He often conducted amateur groups. He made sure that he knew the music he was conducting very well. Many conductors in the 19th century did not do this. They were more keen to show off, but Wood prepared the music carefully, marking things in his score with coloured pencils.

Wood made arrangements of other composer's music, e.g. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor for organ. He arranged a group of songs called Fantasia on British Sea Songs for the 1905 centenary celebrations of the Battle of Trafalgar. These are always played at the Last Night of the Proms.

In 1938 he conducted a jubilee concert in the Royal Albert Hall. Rachmaninov was the soloist, and Vaughan Williams wrote his Serenade to Music for orchestra and sixteen soloists. Wood often worked too hard and it was not good for his health. He died on 19 August 1944, just over a week after the fiftieth anniversary concert of the Proms, which he had been too ill even to listen to on the radio.

Wood was given many honours: he was knighted by the king in 1911, he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1921 and was made a Companion of Honour in 1944. At the Proms today his bust is put at the front of the Royal Albert Hall during the whole of each Prom season. At the Last Night of the Proms it is decorated by a chaplet.

Other websites

1869 births
1944 deaths
British conductors
Companions of Honour
Knights Bachelor

Henry Wood


is a manga series created by Tite Kubo. It ran seventy four volumes for fifteen years, and was adapted into an anime series, two original video animations, four films, seven rock musicals and video games. Compilation volumes of the manga have sold over fifty million copies. The series follows a high school student with the ability to see spirits. After befriending a female shinigami, they work together to defend Japan from spiritual monsters and cleanse spirits. As the series progresses, they explore the world of the afterlife.

Media information
The manga was released in August 2001 in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. New Japanese-language chapters are featured weekly in the same magazine. The chapters are complied in seven-to-nine chapter books every few months. The anime series aired on Wednesday by TV Tokyo. The first 63 episodes were based on the manga, and the next 46 were original to the anime. Beginning with episode 110, the anime has returned to the manga storyline, yet has parts from the previous 46 filler episodes. There are no plans to stop making the series. Also, two OVAs have been produced and two animated films, Bleach: Memories of Nobody, which was released in Japan on December 16, 2006, and Bleach: The Diamond Dust Rebellion, which was released on December 22, 2007. Viz Media released twenty six English language volumes of the manga in North America, and many scanlation groups release unofficial English translations of new chapters.

Plot
Ichigo Kurosaki is a teenager from Karakura Town who can see ghosts, a talent which lets him cross paths with Rukia Kuchiki, a Soul Reapers whose task is guiding dead spirits from the World of the Living to the Soul Society and defeat Hollows, monstrous lost souls who can harm both ghosts and humans. Wounded by a Hollow she was hunting, Rukia transfers her powers to Ichigo so that he may fight in her stead while she recovers her strength in an artificial human body. Ichigo balances the demands of his substitute Soul Reaper duties and high school while gaining allies in his classmate Orihime Inoue, Yasutora "Chad" Sado, and Uryu Ishida of the Quincies.

When Rukia is arrested by her Soul Reaper superiors and sentenced to death, Ichigo and his friends travel to the Soul Society with the help of ex-Soul Reaper scientist Kisuke Urahara, who allows Ichigo to access his own Soul Reaper powers. Conflict unfolds in the Soul Society as Ichigo's group fight through the 13 Court Squads save Rukia, only to learn that everyone have been manipulated by Squad Five captain Sosuke Aizen who faked his death to cause disorder within the Soul Reapers. Aizen reveals himself to masterminded Rukia's capture to acquire Kisuke's desire-granting invention, the Hogyoku, before he and his fellow conspirators escape into the Hollows' realm of Hueco Mundo. Afterwards, Ichigo is accepted by the Soul Reapers and is made an official substitute Soul Reaper.

Ichigo and friends soon enter into escalating skirmishes with Aizen's army of humanoid Hollows, the Arrancars, while joined by the Vizards—Soul Reapers who were victims of Aizen's experiments in creating Soul Reaper/Hollow hybrids. When Orihime is kidnapped by Ulquiorra Cifer of the Espadas, Aizen's 10 most powerful Arrancars, Ichigo and his allies mount a rescue operation that turned out to be a distraction as Aizen's forces appear in Karakura Town with intent of sacrifice the residents to create a key as part of Aizen's plan to reach and assassinate the Soul King who reigns over the Soul Society. As the Vizards join the Soul Reapers defending the town, Aizen's conspirator Gin Ichimaru reals his true colors and attempts to kill Aizen. But Aizen uses Hogyoku to become a Hollow-like being, killing Gin while overpowering everyone. Ichigo ultimately subdues Aizen at the cost of his powers and reverts to a normal human. Months later, Ichigo prepares for life after high school when he is approached by Xcution, a gang of Fullbringers like Chad, who exploit him and his love ones to siphon his own Fullbring abilities. When Soul Society allies restore his Soul Reaper powers, Ichigo resolves to fight with them despite learning their apparent distrust when Xcution's leader Ginjo Kujo is revealed to be his predecessor.

Later, Ichigo faces an army of Quincies known as the Wandenreich who serve under their people's progenitor Yhwach, who declares war on the Soul Society with ever intent of eliminating the Soul King and dispute the balance of life and dead. Ichigo, learning the full story of himself being a Visard with both Fullbring and Quincy powers, defeats Yhwach in an epic battle with aid from Uryu and his father. Years later, Rukia and Ichigo have their own children, Ichika Abarai and Kazui Kurosaki, who are also Soul Reapers.

Main characters
 Voiced by Masakazu Morita (Japanese), Johnny Yong Bosch (English)
The series protagonist, a high school student with becomes a "substitute Soul Reaper" after unintentionally absorbing most of Rukia Kuchiki's powers. Initially disinterested in being a Soul Reaper, he can to accept his position while later learning his true nature. As a Vizard, Ichigo uses the Zanpakutō Zangetsu whose spirit form is his Hollow nature which was subjugated by the embodiment of his Quincy power that posed as Zanpakutō itself. Ichigo later acquires his Bankai Tensa Zangetsu, using it in his Getsuga Tensho attack. Following Zangetsu being damaged in the final arc, the weapon was remade into two connecting blades representing Ichigo's powers as a Vizard and as a Quincey.

 Voiced by Fumiko Orikasa (Japanese), Michelle Ruff (English)
A Soul Reaper lieutenant of Squad Thirteen who is assigned jurisdiction of Karakura Town, ending up making Ichigo a substitute Soul Reaper. Her adopted brother and guardian, Byakuya, is the captain of Squad Six. Her Zanpakutō "Sode no Shirayuki" allows her to utilize ice in her attacks, later acquiring her Bankai Hakka no Togame.

 Voiced by Noriaki Sugiyama (Japanese), Derek Stephen Prince (English)
An intelligence archer who is of the Quincies, a bloodline of hollow-hunting archers who were nearly driven to extinction by the Soul Reapers as their power to destroy Hollows threatens the balance of life and death. Initially Ichigo's enemy, Uryū became an ally rival.

 Voiced by Yuki Matsuoka (Japanese), Stephanie Sheh (English)
 Ichigo's classmate and friend, having romantic feelings for him. She lost her brother, Sora, who later becomes a Hollow. Though initially devoid of spiritual powers, she develops spiritual awareness and acquires the god-like ability to warp reality through rejecting past phenomena.

 Voiced by Hiroki Yasumoto (Japanese), Jamieson Price (English)
A Japanese-Mexican orphan whose super strength and imposing appearance conceal his pacifist nature, later revealed to be a Fullbringer in the form of enhancing his arms when he protected Ichigo's sister Karin and her friends from a Hollow.

 Voiced by Kentaro Ito (Japanese), Wally Wingert (English)
A Soul Reaper lieutenant of Squad Six and Rukia's childhood friend, initially an enemy to Ichigo before joining forces with him to rescue Rukia from being executed and since became a consistent ally of Kurosaki. His Zanpakutō "Zabimaru", whose spirit form is a snake-tailed ape known as a Nue, is a whip sword. For most of the series, Renji's uses his Bankai's imperfect form "Hihiō Zabimaru", a giant skeletal snake blade, before revealing his true and more practical Bankai "Sōō Zabimaru".

 Voiced by Shinichiro Miki (Japanese), Michael Lindsay (English)
The eccentric owner of the Urahara Shop convenience store that predominantly deals in snacks and small household goods, aiding Ichigo and his friends in their adventures. He is later revealed to be the former Captain of Squad Twelve and founder of the Soul Reaper Research and Development Institute, force to flee from the Soul Society as a fugitive after being set up by Aizen. His zanpakutō is "Benihime", whose bankai form "Kannonbiraki Benihime Aratame" restructures anything it touches.

References

Manga
Afterlife

Bleach (manga)


The cleidoic egg (from Greek kleistos = closed) is the type of egg which reptiles and birds lay. Mammalian reproduction has evolved from laying cleidoic eggs to live birth. The cleidoic egg is sometimes called the amniotic egg, because it is characteristic of amniotes.

Discussion
These eggs have a protective shell, and are laid out of water. The shell is porous to air, and may be flexible or calcareous (hard). The eggs contain all the food the embryo needs to develop into a hatchling. As a result, the amphibian's larval stage, the tadpole, is not needed by reptiles or birds. The special membranes that support these eggs are typical traits of all amniotes, including mammals.

The significance of the cleidoic egg is that it enables reproduction out of, and often away from, water. The cleidoic egg has been called "a private little pond", from the way it gives water and nutrition to the embryo. Cleidoic eggs must have evolved in the early or middle Carboniferous, after the early tetrapods evolved, but before the amniotes split into sauropsids (reptile ancestors) and synapsids (mammal ancestors).

Reproductive strategy
The basic reproduction strategy of amphibia (frogs, for example), is to lay a huge number of eggs, which are left to their own fate. The strategy of amniotes is to invest more in the production of eggs, lay fewer eggs and take some care of them.

Because the eggs are laid on land, internal fertilisation is needed. Thus, from the initial step of a cleidoic egg comes a number of changes in behaviour. With the changes in behaviour comes better and more flexible brains. Some reptiles, for example, crocodiles and birds, look after and protect their young. Mammals are an extreme case: they carry the protection and nursing of the young much further. All mammals provide milk for their young, and many smaller mammals raise their young in burrows, providing a meaasure of security. Humans go even further still, with the long period of learning before their young are independent. Also, in human evolution, there is a reduction in instinctive behaviour, which is inherited. Instead, there is a great increase in learned behaviours and social life. These later adaptations were made possible by the earlier evolution of the cleidoic egg.

Live birth
Live birth is a comparatively recent adaptation. Monotreme mammals do still lay eggs. It is the marsupial and eutherian mammals which developed live birth. Actually,the embryo developing in the womb has the same membranes round it as does the embryo inside a bird egg. Mammals give birth to live young because the development takes place internally. Live birth has evolved independently a number of times in reptiles, for example Ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young. So do some snakes.

Consequences
The cleidoic egg is a good example of an evolutionary innovation which permitted the invasion of a vast range of new habitats, and led to one of the greatest adaptive radiations in the history of the vertebrates. In comparison, the amphibia, whose reproduction is tied to water, are represented today by just a few highly specialised groups.

Closed eggs in other animal groups
Some authors make a distinction between amniotic eggs (of reptiles, birds and mammals) and closed eggs of invertebrate groups such as insects and spiders. In that case:
Cleidoic egg = any closed egg of a land animal
Amniotic egg = eggs of amniotes, namely reptiles, birds and mammals
This is logical, but in practice the terms are usually synonymous.

Related pages
Ovum
Egg (biology)
Fertilisation

References

Reptiles
Birds
Zoology
Developmental biology
Evolutionary biology
Biological reproduction

Cleidoic egg


The Marvel Universe (MU) is a comic book fictional universe created by Marvel Comics. The MU is where most of the main stories published by Marvel Comics takes place. The MU is actually just one of an infinite number of different dimensions. Each one can be called a Marvel universe, but the term is commonly used for just one. This one is also called Earth-616 when looking at all the universes as a group. The other universes vary from very similar to the Earth-616 universe to completely different. This lets the writers create stories which have a large effect to the universe they take place in without affected the main universe used by all of the writers as a group.

Fictional universes
Marvel Comics

Marvel Universe


Margarete of Saxony (born 4 August 1469 in Meissen – died: 7 December 1528 in Weimar) was a Saxon princess of the Ernestine line of the house Wettin by birth and by marriage a Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

Life
Margarete was a daughter of the Elector Ernest of Saxony (1441–1486) from his marriage to Elizabeth (1443–1484), a daughter of the Duke Albert III of Bavaria-Munich.  Her brothers Frederick the Wise and John the Steadfast were Electors of Saxony; her sister Christina was Queen of Denmark.

Margarete married on 27 February 1487 in Celle with Duke Henry I of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1468–1532).  Henry had already been sent to the Saxon court as a 12-year-old.  Marriage negotiations presumably began in 1469, as Henry's father, Otto V had formed an alliance with Margarete's uncle William.  The Saxon side had delayed the marriage until the expansion of the Celle Castle was completed, as the district and castle of Celle had been promised to Margarete as her wittum.

Margarete died in 1528 and was buried in the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Weimar.

Issue
 Anna (born: 1492; died young)
 Elisabeth (1494–1572)
 married in 1518 Duke Charles II of Guelders (1467–1538)
 Otto I (1495–1549), Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
 married in 1525 Meta of Campe (died: 1580)
 Ernest I the Confessor (1497–1546), Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
 married in 1528 Princess Sophia of Mecklenburg (1508–1541)
 Apollonia (1499–1571), nun
 Anna (1502–1568)
 married in 1525 Duke Barnim IX of Pomerania (1501–1573)
 Francis (1508–1549), Duke of Brunswick-Gifhorn
 married in 1547 princess Clara of Saxe-Lauenburg (1518–1576)

References
 Martina Schattkowsky: Witwenschaft in der frühen Neuzeit, Universitätsverlag Leipzig, 2003, p. 171 ff (Online)
 Horst Masuch: Das Schloss in Celle, A. Lax, 1983
 Ingetraut Ludolphy: Friedrich der Weise: Kurfürst von Sachsen 1463- 1525, Vandenhoeck und Rupprecht, Göttingen, 1984

House of Wettin
1469 births
1528 deaths
Duchesses of Brunswick-Lüneburg
15th-century German people
16th-century German people
15th-century German women
Middle House of Lüneburg
Daughters of monarchs
Mothers of monarchs

Margaret of Saxony, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg


Misfits is a British science fiction comedy-drama television show, on E4, about a group of young offenders sentenced to work in a community service programme, where they obtain supernatural powers after a strange electrical storm. The show premiered on 12 November 2009 and concluded on 11 December 2013 in its fifth series.

Antonia Thomas, Iwan Rheon, Lauren Socha, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, and Robert Sheehan are introduced as Alisha Daniels, Simon Bellamy, Kelly Bailey, Curtis Donovan, and Nathan Young respectively. Sheehan left after the second series, replaced in the third by Joseph Gilgun as Rudy Wade. After the third series it was announced that Rheon, Thomas, and Socha had left and would be replaced by new cast members Karla Crome, Nathan McMullen and Matt Stokoe, as Jess, Finn, and Alex respectively. Midway through the fourth series, Stewart-Jarrett left while Natasha O'Keeffe joined the cast as Abbey Smith.

Production
The first series started broadcasting in the U.K. on 12 November 2009 on E4, and was produced by Clerkenwell Films. The show aired in Australia in 2010 on ABC2, and in New Zealand, it screened on FOUR. In June 2011, it was made available online in the United States via Hulu, where it became one of the service's most-watched series.

Recording for the second series began on 24 May 2010, next to Southmere Lake, Thamesmead, Bexley, Southeast London. The second series aired from 11 November 2010 to 16 December 2010 on E4. A Christmas special, written by Howard Overman, featuring the whole main cast of the first series was broadcast on E4 in December 2010. The first series won the 2010 BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series. The third series began airing on 30 October 2011, and ended on 18 December 2011. The fourth series premiered in October 2012, and the fifth in October 2013.

Filming locations

The show is filmed in south east London, mostly on location around the Southmere Lake in Thamesmead, including the signature shot of the four multi-storey buildings from the roof of the Lakeside Centre and Bexley College. The scenes under the flyover used the M4 at Boston Manor Park, Brentford. Many interiors were filmed in sets built in the old Runnymede campus of Brunel University.

Marketing
The first series was accompanied by an online viral marketing, on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. For example, in a British first, the characters Simon and Kelly tweeted during the initial transmission of each episode, with the content of the tweets provided by writers Sam Liefer and Ben Edwards, under the direction of lead writer Howard Overman and executive producer Petra Fried. These tweets and other website postings provided additional narrative material, and amongst other things did not ultimately reveal the identity of a key character who appeared only in episode six. Since then other characters have appeared, such as Rudy Wade and Alisha Daniels, as well as a fan-based "observer" character named "That Guy". Additional strategic components included direct-to-YouTube video clips and an online game based on the show.

Cast and characters

Main

Episodes

The first series comprised six episodes, airing from 12 November to 17 December 2009 on E4. The second series started filming in May 2010 and aired on E4 from 11 November to 16 December 2010. This series had seven episodes, including a Christmas episode.

An exclusive short film, "Vegas Baby!"''', premiered on E4's official website on 15 September 2011, focusing on Nathan's departure. The third series began airing on 30 October 2011 on E4. It introduced new character Rudy (Joe Gilgun) and was eight episodes long. Unlike the first two series, Howard Overman did not write all the episodes, instead writing six of the eight with Jon Brown writing the other two.
Series 4 began on 28 October 2012, introducing new characters Finn, Jess, Greg, Alex and Abbey. This series also saw the departures of Seth and Curtis. Like series 3, Howard Overman penned six episodes and Jon Brown wrote the remaining two. Series 4 came to a close on 16 December 2012.

 Story overview

 Series 1 (2009) Misfits follows five delinquents on community service at a community centre who are caught outside during a supernatural thunderstorm and who acquire special abilities. Initially, the show focused on five young adults, each gaining a superpower which mirrors their character. Kelly Bailey (Lauren Socha)—constantly judged for her class ("chav")—gains the ability of telepathy, Curtis Donovan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett)—trying to escape a mistake from his past—can rewind time after experiencing an immense sense of regret, Alisha Daniels (Antonia Thomas)—a woman who is extremely comfortable with her sexuality and body—sends people into a sexual frenzy when they touch her skin and Simon Bellamy (Iwan Rheon)—often ignored or not acknowledged—can become invisible. Nathan Young (Robert Sheehan) appears unchanged.

The group are attacked by their probation officer, Tony, who was driven insane when he acquired his strange powers in the electrical storm, and is accidentally killed by Kelly in self-defence. The main plot of the first series is the five trying to stop anyone else finding out about the death. Tony's replacement, Sally is revealed to be Tony's fiancée, and she suspects that the gang know more than they claim to. Sally's suspicion grows and she forms a relationship with Simon, secretly pretending to like him in order to get information from him about Tony's disappearance. She steals his mobile phone, which has the video of Nathan saying they killed Tony, sees it, and tries to convince Simon to go to the police. When she tries to get away, Simon turns invisible, intentionally unnerves her while doing so, and then accidentally kills her in the struggle for his mobile.

Other subplots of the series involve Nathan living in the community centre after his mother kicks him out of her house, Alisha and Curtis becoming involved in a relationship, Curtis accidentally changing time so he never split up from his ex-girlfriend Sam, Nathan trying to figure out what his power could possibly be, and Simon's sense of loneliness and isolation from the rest of the group.

After disposing of Sally's body, the delinquents discover the Virtue cult, a group of young people who have begun adopting ultra-conservative behaviour. Nathan and Simon discover that this is the fault of Rachel, a conservative young woman who gained the power of suggestion due to the storm. During a struggle on a rooftop, both Rachel and Nathan are killed and the brainwashed youth freed. As his friends mourn, Nathan's power is finally revealed to be immortality as he awakens in his coffin, unharmed and buried alive.

 Series 2 (2010)
As the gang are approaching the end of their community service, they are stalked by a mysterious masked man who had previously saved Nathan from the Virtue cult. He assists them through dangerous situations and is seemingly aware of events that take place before they happen and saving members of the group on multiple occasions, such as revealing to Kelly that Nathan was still alive, saving Curtis from being strangled to death by a shapeshifter, saving Nathan from a car explosion when taking drugs makes him temporarily mortal, and saving Alisha from a mugger. When Alisha is attacked a second time, she is taken back to the masked man's safe house. It is revealed that he is a time-traveling, future Simon, with whom Alisha falls in love and learns she is to fall in love with the present Simon. Future Simon warns of an unspecified, upcoming crisis and shows that the superpowers will soon become public knowledge – which eventually occurs, only for that timeline to be erased. Future Simon sacrifices himself to save Alisha, prompting Alisha to reveal the truth to present Simon.

Throughout the series, subplots include Nathan discovering his immortality extends to mediumship, Nathan and Kelly's abortive attempt at a relationship, Curtis and Alisha breaking up, Simon slowly becoming more assertive and comfortable with himself, and Curtis starting a relationship with a girl named Nikki, who obtained her teleportation power from a heart transplant.

Three months later, the Misfits give up their powers by selling them to Seth, a former drug dealer with the ability to transfer powers from one person to another. Elliot, a disillusioned priest, purchases several powers from the same dealer including Alisha's and Nikki's, and uses them to pose as a reborn Jesus Christ. While the Misfits are celebrating the fact that they are free from their powers, a follower of "Jesus" holds up the bar where Curtis and Alisha are now working, robs them, and kills Nikki. The Misfits steal the money that Elliot has gathered from his followers so they can purchase their powers back, accidentally killing him while doing so. Curtis attempts to buy his power back so that he can save Nikki from the shooting, however Seth informs him that his power has already been given to an old Jewish man who wanted to kill Hitler and change history. The Misfits use the money to buy new powers from Seth, with Kelly being the first to volunteer.

 Series 3 (2011)
Simon, Kelly, Alisha and Curtis acquired new powers following their encounter with Seth; Simon can glimpse into the future, Kelly has complete knowledge of rocket science and mechanical systems, Alisha has a form of clairvoyance which allows her to see through the eyes of others and Curtis can change into a woman at will. Nathan is absent, having gone to Las Vegas in the hope that his new ability of magic will make him a millionaire. A young man on community service named Rudy, with the ability to split himself into two separate people based on the different aspects of his personality, meets the gang when he upsets a woman, causing her to use her power to freeze people within proximity in order to wreak havoc on Rudy. Rudy's actions accidentally put Simon, Kelly, Alisha and Curtis back into community service. Major subplots include Simon and Alisha's relationship, Simon's progressive transformation into his 'future self', Rudy's womanising and philandering, Curtis's experimentation as a female, Kelly's infatuation and eventual relationship with Seth, and Seth's obsessive search for a mysterious power. Additional minor plots include Simon being manipulated by a cartoonist with a time altering power and Alisha then pushing him to not become "the man in the mask". Someone with a time travel power fails to kill Hitler, resulting in the Nazis winning World War II, causing an alternate time stream where the misfits are a band of rebels. Rudy contracts a superpower made STD in the confusion of a club, going on a hunt to find the person responsible.

Seth eventually finds what he was looking for, the power of resurrection. He gives it to Curtis in exchange for his sex-change power, after Curtis accidentally impregnates himself. Curtis uses his power to resurrect Seth's ex-girlfriend, Shannon, who died of a drug overdose that Seth feels responsible for. Seth breaks up with Kelly and returns to Shannon but quickly realises that anyone resurrected has an all-encompassing desire for blood, essentially rendering them a zombie. Seth and the gang manage to defeat Shannon and the others infected by the power, resulting in Seth and Kelly restarting their relationship, eventually deciding to travel in order to escape the mayhem of the community centre.

A medium uses his power to inadvertently bring the spirits of Tony, Sally and Rachel back to haunt the gang, with the spirits unable to move on due to having unfinished business. Sally and Tony move on to the afterlife after they reconcile, and Rachel tries to fit in with the culture that she despised by swearing, drinking, trying drugs and having sex, but is unsuccessful. She comes to the realisation that she is back for revenge, slicing Alisha's throat with a Stanley knife and moving on. After Alisha's death, Seth helps Simon to go back in time, allowing Simon to help the gang in the past and resulting in Simon's eventual death in Alisha's arms. Back in the present day, Rudy, Kelly and Curtis agree to keep their heads down and continue their community service.

 Series 4 (2012)
After Alisha's death and Simon's departure to the past, Kelly and Seth travel to Africa, where Kelly uses her knowledge of mechanical systems to defuse land mines, and end up staying. Curtis and Rudy continue with community service joined by Finn, an anxious telekinetic, and Jess, a snarky, reserved girl with x-ray vision. Major subplots include Rudy and Finn moving into the community centre together, Finn's one-sided infatuation with Jess, Curtis's encounters with Lola, a mysterious woman who claims to be a trainee probation worker, Finn's search for his father, and Jess's relationship with Alex, "From the Bar", a mysterious bartender who spends most of his time looking for his penis, lost as a result of a mysterious power. As a result of his encounters with Lola, Curtis ends up using his resurrection power again, leading to his own infection. In order to stop his increasing thirst for blood, Curtis commits suicide, emotionally affecting Rudy as a result.

After Curtis's suicide, the gang encounters Abbey, a girl who suffers from amnesia as a result of the storm who later joins the group on community service, and Nadine, a nun with a mysterious secret whom Rudy falls in love with. Alex finds and retrieves his penis, but his regained sense of masculinity causes him to cheat on Jess, angering Finn. Nadine's power is eventually revealed to be the ability to inadvertently summon the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when surrounded by anger or violence, which she does after witnessing Alex and Finn arguing over Jess. The Horsemen attack the gang and stab Alex when he steps in to protect Jess. Nadine sacrifices herself in order to stop the Horsemen from wreaking more havoc, leaving Rudy heartbroken once more. As a result of the Horsemen's attack, Alex is rushed to the hospital to receive an emergency lung transplant.

 Series 5 (2013)
As a result of his lung transplant, Alex inherits the power to remove others' powers through sexual intercourse. After breaking and entering the community centre to save the group, he is placed on community service. A major arc of the series sees him coming to terms with his new power, as he learns to use it to help others and become less selfish. Another story arc has Rudy's sensitive emotional duplicate, Rudy Two, joining a support group for those affected by the storm. The group's leader, Maggie, is an older woman with the ability to knit jumpers of the future; her jumpers include a depiction of what Rudy Two believes to be him and a group of powered individuals seemingly using their powers in an act of heroism. Rudy Two becomes obsessed with the first jumper and encounters people whom he believes to be on the jumper, including Sam, a young man with the power to fly, Helen, a young woman with the ability to emit and control electricity, and Karen, a woman with the power to camouflage. The gang run into Tim, a man from Series 2 who sees reality as if it is a video game, who is now struggling to keep his power under control. Abbey begins a relationship with a man called Mark who is trapped inside a tortoise's body, and Rudy and Jess begin a relationship as well. Rudy struggles to tell this to Finn who is trying to get over his crush on Jess.

During the series the gang confronts a group of Satanic scouts, and Finn becomes possessed with the power to convert people to Satanism. As he slowly converts each member of the gang Alex is forced to use his power and remove Finn's Satanic power. Over the course of the series Alex also takes away someone's power that causes accidents to always happen, the power to turn objects inside out, and the power to hypnotise men with the user's breasts. Rudy discovers that his father is affected by a very similar power to his own, as he runs into a very violent duplicate of his father. Abbey discovers that she is the manifestation of a girl named Laura's power to bring imaginary characters to life, thus explaining why she does not remember anything from before the Storm. Rudy Two is the victim of a man who has the power to swap ages, forcing him to the very brink of death, and Finn finds a new love interest who can download her consciousness into other people's minds, trapping them in a virtual world within her computer. Finn also becomes the victim of a young man who can steal the will to live from other people, just as Alex is the victim of a gypsy curse which makes him feel as if he is drowning whenever he refuses to help someone.

On the one year anniversary of the Storm, Rudy Two and Abbey hold a birthday party which unleashes chaos as people begin to realise that ecstasy reverses their powers. All the powers that Alex has taken are placed into one girl, Sarah, while Jess is blinded, and Mark briefly becomes human again. With the powers of Satanic conversion, object inversion and hypnotic breasts, Sarah begins to wreak havoc on the party; killing Mark by turning him inside out and successfully converting all of the gang but Alex to Satanism. With no options left, Alex is forced to kill Sarah by using her new-found power of being accident prone against her. Rudy Two and Helen, who have begun a relationship, are attacked by Tim, who can no longer control his power. Karen saves the duo by stabbing Tim in the back and Rudy Two and all three of them bury him under the flyover before they, along with Sam, agree to become "proper" superheroes.

In the finale, Rudy and Jess are having difficulties in their relationship due to Rudy not being there for her when she needs him. Jess ends up sleeping with a man she meets at the bar, Luke, who uses his power to throw them both forward in time by a year where Jess has had Luke's baby, Leo. Jess demands to be returned to the present and when Luke refuses, escapes his flat to go and find the rest of the gang. In the year gone by, Finn has started working as a trainee probation worker, Alex is still working at the bar and Abbey has been holding a sign for a golf sale that doesn't actually exist. When most of the gang are assembled in the bar and have overcome their shock at Jess's reappearance (they all thought she was dead due to her disappearance), Rudy reappears, looking shabby due to his grooming regimen having gone out the window. Rudy and Jess reconcile with each other and Rudy agrees to love her baby "as though he was [his] own".

Meanwhile, Rudy Two's "Jumper Posse" have gone off the rails and begun to kill people. After a failed attempt on Finn's life, the Misfits assemble to deal with the Rudy Two's delinquent gang. Rudy Two confronts Helen on her betrayal in the community centre but is knocked out by Karen. As the rest of this Misfits gang approach, they are attacked by Sam. Alex grabs onto Sam and takes his power from him via sexual intercourse mid-flight, causing them both to fall. Alex lands in a skip and survives the fall but Sam is less than fortunate, hitting the pavement with immense force. When the gang enter the community centre (except for Jess, who stays outside with Leo), they are then attacked by Karen who uses her camouflage and a knife in tandem with each other. As she is about to kill Alex, Finn uses his telekinesis to launch a piano at her in an unusual display of brilliance. Helen then appears, intent on killing the gang before Rudy Two intervenes. After a brief exchange Rudy Two rejoins Rudy who proceeds to tell Helen that together "they are twice as strong" (although this really has no truth). As Helen readies herself to kill them both, Rudy stalls for time and begins to pee himself, creating a trail of urine from him to Helen. Helen electrocutes Rudy but is fried herself as her electric current travels back to her through Rudy's stream of urine. Helen dies quickly but Rudy lays gravely injured in the gang's arms. Rudy gives Jess a scratch card, having won a quid on it, and tells Jess to look after the baby before dying himself.

The gang bury him and Jess returns to Luke's flat before committing suicide. Luke finds her body and throws them back in time to just before they first met. Jess sees a video from her future self in the bar toilets that tells her of everything that happened. Jess reluctantly has sex with Luke in order to conceive Leo before killing him and reconciling with Rudy. Jess also informs Rudy Two of how the "Jumper Posse" will begin to murder people and Rudy Two shuts down his superhero operations before they begin, opting to go travelling with Helen instead. On the roof of the community centre, with their community service finally over, the Misfits gang agree to become proper superheroes themselves after hearing Jess's story.

 Reception

 Critical response to Series 1
British reviews were positive. The Times gave it four out of five stars, calling it "a new union – salty British street humour with whizz-bang special effects" which should "keep E4's core audience happy".
An online review by The Guardian's Richard Vine said that it was "confident enough to operate in its own universe and set up something new" and that it was aimed at slowly presenting us the "real people" behind a seemingly "tabloid stereotype" of the "ASBO teenager", while also noting that the series Skins also used such a technique for their show. The Guardian's print reviewer Tim Dowling was enthusiastic, saying: "Misfits is indeed silly – sillier, even, than it sounds – but it's also brilliant: sharp, funny, dark and, in places, quite chilling. Both the writing and the performances ensure that everything but the preposterous central premise remains entirely believable."The Daily Telegraph called attention to Howard Overman's script which, it said, "sparkled from the off, introducing his posse of social outcasts as a bunch of total losers, but each one distinctively and memorably so. (2009) "

The Irish media were also impressed with the show. The Evening Herald called the debut episode "dark, hilarious, exciting and beautifully produced". It went on to say that "the spark comes from Overman's razor-sharp script, yet a lot of the credit also has to go to the well-chosen young cast, who are uniformly superb."

 Television ratings

 Series 1
The first series averaged 707,500 viewers per episode.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2" style="width:70px;"| Episode
! rowspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Airdate
! colspan="3" style="width:220px;"| Viewers
! colspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Rank
|-
! E4 !! E4+1 !! Total !! E4 !! E4+1
|-
! 1
| 12 November 2009 || 574,000 || 213,000 || 787,000 || No. 4 || No. 9
|-
! 2
| 19 November 2009 || 569,000 || 169,000 || 738,000 || No. 2 || No. 11
|-
! 3
| 26 November 2009 || 592,000 || 88,000 || 680,000 || No. 1 || No. 11
|-
! 4
| 3 December 2009 || 632,000 || 78,000 || 710,000 || No. 5 || No. 11
|-
! 5
| 10 December 2009 || 598,000 || 72,000 || 670,000 || No. 8 || No. 21
|-
! 6
| 17 December 2009 || 592,000 || 68,000 || 660,000 || No. 6 || No. 21
|}

 Series 2
The second series averaged 1,462,000 viewers per episode.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2" style="width:70px;"| Episode
! rowspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Airdate
! colspan="3" style="width:220px;"| Viewers
! colspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Rank
|-
! E4 !! E4+1 !! Total !! E4 !! E4+1
|-
! 1
| 11 November 2010 || 1,185,000 || 238,000 || 1,423,000 || No. 1 || No. 5
|-
! 2
| 18 November 2010 || 1,055,000 || 250,000 || 1,305,000 || No. 1 || No. 2
|-
! 3
| 25 November 2010 || 1,119,000 || 251,000 || 1,370,000 || No. 1 || No. 4
|-
! 4
| 2 December 2010 || 1,075,000 || 341,000 || 1,416,000 || No. 1 || No. 2
|-
! 5
| 9 December 2010 || 1,074,000 || 355,000 || 1,429,000 || No. 1 || No. 1
|-
! 6
| 16 December 2010 || 1,201,000 || 392,000 || 1,593,000 || No. 2 || No. 1
|-
! Christmas Special
| 19 December 2010 || 1,420,000 || 278,000 || 1,698,000 || No. 1 || No. 3
|}

 Series 3
The Third series averaged 1,515,125 viewers per episode.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2" style="width:70px;"| Episode
! rowspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Airdate
! colspan="3" style="width:220px;"| Viewers
! colspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Rank
|-
! E4 !! E4+1 !! Total !! E4 !! E4+1
|-
! 1
| 30 October 2011 || 1,471,000 || 323,000 || 1,794,000 || No. 1 || No. 2
|-
! 2
| 6 November 2011 || 1,329,000 || 296,000 || 1,625,000 || No. 4 || No. 4
|-
! 3
| 13 November 2011 || 1,176,000 || 322,000 || 1,498,000 || No. 1 || No. 3
|-
! 4
| 20 November 2011 || 1,142,000 || 300,000 || 1,442,000 || No. 1 || No. 3
|-
! 5
| 27 November 2011 || 1,050,000 || 249,000 || 1,299,000 || No. 2 || No. 11
|-
! 6
| 4 December 2011 || 1,246,000 || 252,000 || 1,498,000 || No. 1 || No. 6
|-
! 7
| 11 December 2011 || 1,178,000 || 284,000 || 1,462,000 || No. 1 || No. 6
|-
! 8
| 18 December 2011 || 1,227,000 || 276,000 || 1,503,000 || No. 1 || No. 7
|}

 Series 4
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2" style="width:70px;"| Episode
! rowspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Airdate
! colspan="3" style="width:220px;"| Viewers
! colspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Rank
|-
! E4 !! E4+1 !! Total !! E4 !! E4+1
|-
! 1
|  || 777,000 || 239,000 || 1,016,000 || No. 2 || No. 6
|-
! 2
|  || 619,000 || 208,000 || 827,000 || No. 5 || No. 9
|-
! 3
|  ||  || 256,000 || 727,000 ||  || No. 4
|-
! 4
|  ||  ||  || 678,000 ||  ||
|-
! 5
|  ||  || 251,000 || 760,000 ||  || No. 9
|-
! 6
|  ||  ||  || 732,000 ||  ||
|-
! 7
|  ||  ||  || 778,000 ||  ||
|-
! 8
|  || 688,000 ||  || 840,000 || No. 9 ||
|}

 Series 5
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2" style="width:70px;"| Episode
! rowspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Airdate
! colspan="3" style="width:220px;"| Viewers
! colspan="2" style="width:150px;"| Rank
|-
! E4 !! E4+1 !! Total !! E4 !! E4+1
|-
! 1
|  || 616,000 ||  || 804,000 || No.7 ||
|-
! 2
|  ||  ||  || 582,000 ||  ||
|-
! 3
|  ||  ||  || 729,000 ||  ||
|-
! 4
|  || 602,000 ||  || 782,000 || No. 9 ||
|-
! 5
|  ||  ||  || 699,000 ||  ||
|-
! 6
|  ||  ||  || 638,000 ||  ||
|-
! 7
|  ||  ||  || 654,000 ||  ||
|-
! 8
|  ||  ||  || 729,000 ||  ||
|}

 Awards
Both the series and its writer Howard Overman were nominated in the 'Drama Series' and 'Drama Writer' categories for the RTS Awards in March 2010. The series won the 2010 BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series. Lauren Socha has won "Best Supporting Actress" for her part as Kelly. The show was also nominated for "Best Comedy Drama" at the British Comedy Awards in 2011, but lost to Psychoville.

 International broadcast Misfits began airing in the US on Logo TV on 19 July 2012. On 29 October 2012, Misfits started airing exclusively on Hulu for its American audience, immediately following the UK broadcast. The Italian webseries "Freaks!" (the second season of which was also broadcast on television) has partially been inspired by Misfits; this is apparent in some episodes in which Misfits is quoted (there is also a scene set in England with actors dressed with community service suits).

In France, Misfits began airing in November 2010 on OCS Choc, then in May 2012 on TF6 and in November 2016 on Numéro 23. In Québec, the series have been broadcast online since March 2011 on Tou.tv.

In other media

 Potential film
Work was started on a film in 2013, but it was tabled in 2014.

Overman reportedly wrote a "first draft of a script" to a Misfits feature film. Iwan Rheon, an early member of the cast, has stated that the movie is "quite likely" to happen if they can re-unite the cast, and that he would be an "idiot not to return".

On 18 September 2014, cast member Antonia Thomas reported that the film was probably not going to happen, stating "There was all sorts of talk about it. We read scripts and I think it's now not happening, I haven't heard anything. I think it's just difficult to get everybody together. Everybody is doing such different things. Maybe they think everybody has moved on, I don't know. You never say never but I have not heard anything of it of late". Iwan Rheon later commented: "It looked like it was really going to happen at one stage, but it's gone away now. I don't know exactly why or what's going on. It would've been nice to do for old times' sake. It's been a while now since we did it and it would've been nice to work with [the old cast] again."

 US remake
An American version was put in development in 2016 at Freeform from a spec script that had been shopped around as early as 2012.

On 6 June 2017, Freeform pressed forward with a pilot. The remake was to follow a similar premise to the original British series. Ashleigh LaThrop, Tre Hall, Allie MacDonald and Jake Cannavale, were cast in the pilot, following the lives of Alisha (LaThrop), Curtis (Hall), Kelly (MacDonald), and Nathan (Cannavale). On 7 July 2017, Charlie Saxton was cast in the role of Simon and Dave Foley was cast as Bernie, a disheveled driver.

It was announced that the show would be produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage's Fake Empire Productions. Diane Ruggiero-Wright wrote the adaption and was to serve as showrunner. Victoria Mahoney was to make her directing debut with the pilot episode. Howard Overman, creator of the UK series, and Murray Ferguson, who produced the original version, were also to be involved with the project. Fake Empire executive Lis Rowinski was to serve as co-executive producer.

In November 2018, Vulture'' noted that Freeform had not made any further announcements in over a year, and doubted that the network would find a place for the series in its family friendly programming.

References

External links

 Clerkenwell Films official site
 Official Website

2009 British television series debuts
2013 British television series endings
2000s British comedy-drama television series
2000s British science fiction television series
2000s supernatural television series
2010s British comedy-drama television series
2010s British science fiction television series
2010s supernatural television series
BAFTA winners (television series)
British superhero television series
Channel 4 television dramas
English-language television shows
E4 (TV channel) original programming
Fictional quintets
Serial drama television series
Teen superhero television series
Television series by Clerkenwell Films
Television shows set in London
Youth culture in the United Kingdom

Misfits (TV series)


A cubic foot is a measure of volume. It is the amount of liquid that can be fit into a box 1 foot deep, one foot wide, and one foot in length. A cubic foot can be written ft3. It is used in the United States, and partially in Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Units of volume

Cubic foot


Matthias Bernard Braun (Czech: Matyáš Bernard Braun, 24 February 1684 in Sautens near Innsbruck – 15 February 1738 in Prague) was a sculptor and carver active in the Czech lands, one of the most prominent late baroque style sculptors in the area.

Matthias Bernard Braun was born as the fifth child of Jacob Braun and Magdalene born Neureuter. He apprenticed in Austria (Salzburg) and Italy (Venice, Bologna, Rome). And in his work, it is the Italian influence, that is the most prominent. He was inspired by Michelangelo Buonarroti, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and by the Venetian sculptural school of the 17th century and thus became a great propagator of the Italian-provenience sculpture in the Central-European context.

Some time before 1710, Braun came to visit Prague, already as a full-fledged artist creating from sandstone, and soon he became domestic in Bohemia. He found his wife and friends there, and became a citizen to the New Town of Prague. Already his first work - the statuary of the Vision of St. Luthgard (Czech: Vidění sv. Luitgardy) from 1710, situated on Charles Bridge in Prague - brought to him much attention and many new orders. Braun then was able to found the biggest workshop in Prague, employing six journeymen and having an income of 900 golden a year around 1725. Soon, he himself could not manage the number of new commissions for Prague palaces, gardens, churches and many other places in Bohemia, a situation worsened by the progressing tuberculosis. That is why he only created the designs and models, had his cooperators realize them and completed the work into the final appearance. He had five children, none of which continued his work, though. He died in Prague in 1738.

Matthias Braun is probably the most famous for his collection of the allegories of Virtues and Vices situated at the Kuks Hospital in Bohemia, a commission of count František Antonín Špork. Other notable sculptures include: the Bethlehem - monumental statues chiselled directly in sandstone rocks near Kuks, forty pitoresque statues of dwarfs at the Kuks race-course, several statuaries at Charles Bridge in Prague, statues in St. Kliment's Church in Prague, the stone pillar of the Holy Trinity in Teplice, the sculptures in the interior of Czernin palace (Prague), and many others.

There is an asteroid named Mathiasbraun (number 6768), discovered in 1983.

See also
 Statue of Ivo of Kermartin, Charles Bridge
 Statue of Saint Ludmila, Charles Bridge

External links

 An online tour of the Betlehem sculptures
 The Rescue of M. Braun's Area by Kuks
 Some more biographic info
 The allegories of Virtues and Vices at Kuks (Czech text, and photos)

Books about Braun
 Neumann, Jaromír: Český barok. Praha: Odeon 1968, 2.vyd. 1975
 Poche, Emanuel: Matyáš Bernard Braun, sochař českého baroka a jeho dílna. Praha: Odeon 1986
 Blažíček, Oldřich J.: Sochařství vrcholného baroka v Čechách, v: Dějiny českého výtvarného umění, díl II/2. Praha 1989
 Kořán, Ivo: Karlův most. Praha: Odeon 1989.
 Hoferica, Jilji: 3x Mathias Bernard Braun. Praha 2012
 Hoferica Jilji: Mathias Braun a Georg Patzak. Praha 2013

Durant James (2007)
Jordan Videcoqs (2012)
Machias Brownlli (CKS)

1684 births
1738 deaths
Austrian sculptors
Austrian male sculptors
Czech Baroque sculptors
Czech male sculptors

Matthias Braun


Achyuta Pisharodi  (c. 1550 at Thrikkandiyur (aka Kundapura), Tirur, Kerala, India – 7 July 1621 in Kerala) was a Sanskrit grammarian, astrologer, astronomer and mathematician who studied under Jyeṣṭhadeva and was a member of Madhava of Sangamagrama's Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. He is remembered mainly for his part in the composition of his student Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri's devotional poem, Narayaneeyam.

Works
He discovered the techniques of 'the reduction of the ecliptic'. He authored Sphuta-nirnaya, Raasi-gola-sphuta-neeti (raasi meaning zodiac, gola meaning sphere and neeti roughly meaning rule), Karanottama (1593) and a four- chapter treatise Uparagakriyakrama on lunar and solar eclipses.

 Praveśaka
 An introduction to Sanskrit grammar.
 Karaṇottama
 Astronomical work dealing with the computation of the mean and true longitudes of the planets, with eclipses, and with the vyatūpātas of the sun and moon.
 Uparāgakriyākrama (1593)
 Treatise on lunar and solar eclipses.
 Sphuṭanirṇaya
 Astronomical text.
 Chāyāṣṭaka
 Astronomical text.
 Uparāgaviṃśati
 Manual on the computation of eclipses.
 Rāśigolasphuṭānīti
 Work concerned with the reduction of the moon's true longitude in its own orbit to the ecliptic.
 Veṇvārohavyākhyā
 Malayalam commentary on the Veṇvāroha of Mādhava of Saṅgamagrāma (ca. 1340–1425) written at the request of the Azhvanchery Thambrakkal.
 Horāsāroccaya
 An adaptation of the Jātakapaddhati of Śrīpati.

Narayaneeyam
Pisharati is known to have scolded and provoked an errant Narayana to take up the Brahmin's duties of prayer and religious practices. He accepted Narayana as his student. Later when Pisharati was struck with paralysis (or rheumatism by another account), Narayana, unable to bear the pain of his dear guru, by way of Gurudakshina took the disease upon himself. As a result, Pisharati is said to have been cured, but no medicine could cure Narayana. As a last resort, Narayana went to Guruvayur and requested Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan, a great devotee of Guruvayoorappan, to suggest a remedy for his disease. Ramajunan Ezhuthachan advised him to compose a poetical work on the Avatars (incarnations) of Lord Vishnu beginning with that of Matsya (Fish). Narayana composed beautiful slokas in praise of Lord Guruvayurappan and recited them before the deity. He was soon cured of his disease.

The book of slokas written by Narayana were named Narayaneeyam. The day on which Narayana dedicated his Narayaneeyam to Sri Guruvayurappan is celebrated as "Narayaneeyam Dinam" every year at Guruvayur.

See also
Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri
Narayaneeyam
Indian mathematics
List of astronomers and mathematicians of the Kerala school

References

 David Pingree. "Acyuta Piṣāraṭi". Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
 S. Venkitasubramonia Iyer. "Acyuta Piṣāroṭi; His Date and Works" in JOR Madras''', 22 (1952–1953), 40–46.
 K. V. Sarma (2008), "Acyuta Pisarati", Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures (2nd edition) edited by Helaine Selin, p. 19, Springer, .
 K. Kunjunni Raja. The Contribution of Kerala to  Sanskrit Literature (Madras, 1958), pp. 122–125.
  "Astronomy and Mathematics in Kerala" in Brahmavidyā'', 27 (1963), 158–162.

1550s births
1621 deaths
Scholars from Kerala
Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics
16th-century Indian astronomers
17th-century Indian astronomers
16th-century Indian mathematicians
17th-century Indian mathematicians
Scientists from Kerala
People from Malappuram district
16th-century Indian linguists
Writers from Kerala
Sanskrit writers
17th-century Indian linguists
People from Guruvayur

Achyutha Pisharadi


Avon can mean:
 River Avon, various rivers. Usually it means the River Avon in Devon.
 Avon (county), a former county of England
 Avon Water, a river in Scotland

Places

Australia
 Avon, South Australia

Canada
 Avon, New Brunswick, in the province of New Brunswick
 Avon, Ontario, in the province of Ontario
 Black Avon, Nova Scotia, in the province of Nova Scotia
 New Avon, New Brunswick, in the province of New Brunswick

France
 Avon, Seine-et-Marne, a commune in the département of Seine-et-Marne
 Avon, Deux-Sèvres, a commune in the département of Deux-Sèvres
 Avon-la-Pèze, a commune in the département of Aube
 Avon-les-Roches, a commune in the département of Indre-et-Loire

United States
 Avon, Alabama
 Avon, Colorado
 Avon, Connecticut
 Avon, Illinois
 Avon, Indiana
 Avon, Maine
 Avon, Massachusetts
 Avon, Minnesota, a city
 Avon, Montana, a town
 Avon (town), New York, a town
 Avon (village), New York, a village
 Avon, North Carolina
 Avon, Ohio, a city
 Avon, Pennsylvania, a town
 Avon, South Dakota, a city
 Avon, Utah, a town
 Avon, Wisconsin, a town
 Avon-by-Sea, New Jersey, a borough
 Avon Lake, Ohio, a city
 Avon Park, Florida, a city
There are also several Avon Townships.

Businesses and brands
 Avon (publishers), an imprint of the publisher HarperCollins
 Avon Comics, a comic book company
 Avon Inflatables, Ltd, a manufacturer of inflatable boats, RIBs and marine safety equipment
 Avon Products, Inc., a US cosmetics company
 Avon Rubber, a manufacturer of rubber products
 Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, Avon Tyres, a UK racing-tyre manufacturer, owned by the Cooper Tire brand
 The Rolls-Royce Avon, a jet engine

People (real and fictional)
 Kerr Avon, a character in the Blake's 7 science-fiction television series.
 Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon
 Avon Cobourne, American football player

Avon


Age of Empires is a series of real-time strategy computer games made by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios.

History
Four games in the main series are: Age of Empires, Age of Empires II , Age of Empires III and Age of Empires IV. There is also a spinoff game called Age of Mythology. It is similar to Age of Empires, but players can also control monsters like the cyclops. After Ensemble Studios had closed down, another game called Age of Empires Online was made. It is "free to play", which means that you do not have to pay money to play the game, but you can buy things in the game if you want to.

Age of Empires I (2018), Age of Empires II (2019) and Age of Empires III (2020) come in Definitive Editions with better graphics et cetera.

Gameplay
In Age of Empires, the player usually guides a small tribe of people to build a city. The people, called villagers, can hunt deer, collect berries, and farm for food. They can chop trees for wood. They can collect gold and stone at mines in the ground. The villagers build buildings to make a large city.

There are enemy cities that the player must destroy. When the player has enough food, wood, gold, and stone, the player can train soldiers to fight the enemy. At the beginning of the game, the player only gets weak soldiers, but the player can get better and better units as time goes on.

Each game takes place over four or five time periods called ages. Each players starts in the first age and wants to get to the last age. Each game has a different set of ages:
 Age of Empires starts in the Stone Age, and then you can advance to the Tool Age for 500 food, and then you can advance to the Bronze Age for 800 food, and then you can advance to the Iron Age for 1000 food and 800 gold.
 Age of Empires II (Age of Kings) starts in the Dark Age, and then you can advance to the Feudal Age for 500 food, and then you can advance to the Castle Age for 800 food and 200 gold, and then you can advance to the Imperial Age for 1000 food and 800 gold.
 Age of Empires III starts in the Discovery Age, then you can advance to the Colonial Age for 800 food, then you can advance to the Fortress Age for 1200 food and 1000 gold, then you can advance to the Industrial Age for 2000 food and 1200 gold, and then you can advance to the Imperial Age for 4000 food and 4000 gold.

When a player has enough food and gold to advance to the next age, the player must wait. After about a minute, the city reaches the next age. The player's buildings look different and the player can do new things to improve his town and soldiers. New, powerful soldiers such as archers (people that shoot with a bow and arrow), cavalry (warriors that ride horses), catapults (machines that throw stones), artillery (big guns that shoot cannon balls) can be used. The player can build walls and towers to defend the city. The player can even build many different Wonders that give different effects.

All of the Age of Empires games are usually good because the game makes sure no type of soldier is too powerful. There is always a way to kill a large group of enemy units. For example, if a group of twenty archers is attacking, the player should fight back with cavalry or artillery. Many people call this balance, because it is impossible for one unit to get too powerful.

The Age of Empires games have many different groups of people to choose from. Each group has a different set of soldiers and abilities.

There are four common ways to play Age of Empires:
 Random Map: Players start with a small town. They build up and fight each other.
 Deathmatch: Players start with a small town, but with lots of food, wood, gold, and stone. Because the players start with so much, they can build a huge army very fast, and there are big fights.
 Treaty: Players start with a small town. They build up their economy and cannot attack for a period of time. Because the players have time to build huge economy, there are big and long fights.
 Regicide (Age of Empires II): Players start with a small town, and a king. The player must protect his own king and kill the enemy kings. Once a player's king dies, he loses and can no longer play.

Age of Empires can be played alone (against computer players) or online against human players. Age of Empires can be played online using official multiplayer platforms or programs like GameRanger and Voobly.

Other websites
 Official Website

Real-time strategy video games
Video game series
Windows games

Age of Empires


Doctor of Science is often abbreviated as ScD, DSc, SD or DS. It is an academic research degree. Because most scientists qualify as a PhD the degree is not often awarded. Sometimes it is used as a higher doctorate, and sometimes as an honorary degree.

Academic degrees

Doctor of Science


The Krâvanh Mountains, literally the "Cardamom Mountains" (ជួរភ្នំក្រវាញ, Chuor Phnom Krâvanh; , Thio Khao Banthat, ), is a mountain range in the south west of Cambodia and Eastern Thailand.

The silhouette of the Cardamom Mountains appears in the provincial seal of Trat Province in Thailand.

Location and description

The mountain range extends along a southeast-northwest axis from Koh Kong Province on the Gulf of Thailand to the Veal Veang District in Pursat Province, and is extended to the southeast by the Dâmrei (Elephant) Mountains). The highest elevation of the Cardamom Mountains is Phnom Aural at  high. This is also Cambodia's highest peak. The northwestern end in Chanthaburi Province, Thailand, appears also as the 'Soi Dao Mountains' (Khao Soi Dao) and as 'Chanthaburi Range' in some maps.

Dense tropical rain forest prevails on the wet western slopes which annually receive from 150 to 200 inches (3,800–5,000 mm) of rainfall. By contrast only 40 to 60 inches (1,000 to 1,500 mm) fall in places like Kirirom National Park on the wooded eastern slopes in the rain shadow facing the interior Cambodian plain. On the eastern slopes cardamom and pepper are still grown commercially.

ប្រវត្តិសាស្ត្រ
The mountains contain many 15th-17th century AD sites containing 60 cm exotic ceramic jars and rough hewn log coffins set out on remote, natural rock ledges, which are scattered around the mountains The jar burials are a unique feature of the mountain, and are a previously unrecorded burial practice in Khmer cultural history. Local legends suggest the bones are the remains of Cambodian royalty.

This range of mountains formed one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge, and many parts are largely inaccessible. The inaccessibility of the hills, however, helped to preserve the area.

Tourism is relatively new to the area. In 2008, Wildlife Alliance launched a community-based ecotourism program in the village of Chi-Phat, marketed as the "gateway to the Cardamoms". However the number of international visitors remains very small in comparison to the tourism development of Siem Reap (home to Angkor Wat) or Phnom Penh. Among the international conservation organizations working in the area are Wildlife Alliance, Conservation International, Fauna and Flora International and WWF (conservation organization).

បរិស្ថានវិទ្យា

These relatively isolated mountains now form an important tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion, the Cardamom Mountains Moist Forests Ecoregion. One of the largest and still mostly unexplored forests in southeast Asia, it is separated from other rainforests in the region by the large Khorat Plateau to the north. The Vietnamese Phú Quốc island off the coast of Thailand has similar vegetation and is included in the ecoregion.

Most of the region is covered in evergreen rain forest with a different type of thick evergreens above 700m and areas of dwarf conifer Dacrydium elatum forest on the southern slopes of the Elephant Mountains and an area of Tenasserim Pine dominated forest on the Kirirom plateau. Hopea pierrei, an endangered canopy tree rare  elsewhere, is relatively abundant in the Cardamom Mountains. Other angiosperm tree species are Anisoptera costata, Anisoptera glabra, Dipterocarpus costatus, Hopea odorata, Shorea hypochra, Caryota urens and Oncosperma tigillarium. Other conifers include Pinus kesiya, Dacrycarpus imbricatus, Podocarpus neriifolius, P. pilgeri and Nageia wallichiana.

Fauna
The moist climate and undisturbed nature of the rocky mountainsides appears to have allowed a rich variety of wildlife to thrive, although the  Cardamom and Elephant Mountains are poorly researched and the wildlife that is assumed to be here still needs to be catalogued. They are thought to be home to over 100 mammals such as the Large Indian Civet and Banteng cattle, and most importantly the mountains are thought to shelter at least 62 globally threatened animal species and 17 globally threatened trees, many of them endemic to Cambodia. Among the animals are fourteen endangered and threatened mammal species, including the largest population of Asian elephant in Cambodia and possibly the whole of Indochina although this still needs proving by research. Other mammals, many of which are threatened, include Indochinese Tiger, Clouded Leopard (Pardofelis nebulosa), Dhole (a wild dog) (Cuon alpinus), Gaur (Bos gaurus), Banteng (Bos javanicus), the disputed Kting Voar (Pseudonovibos spiralis), Malayan Sun Bear, Pileated Gibbon (Hylobates pileatus), Sumatran Serow (Capricornis sumatraensis), Sunda Pangolin and the Tenasserim White-bellied Rat. There are at least 34 species of amphibians, three of them described as new species to science from here.

The rivers are home to both Irrawaddy and humpback dolphins and are home to some of the last populations on earth of the very rare Siamese crocodiles and the only nearly extinct batagur baska, or Royal turtle remaining in Cambodia. While the forests are habitat for more than 450 bird species, half of Cambodia's total of which four, the Chestnut-headed Partridge, Lewis's Silver Pheasant (Lophura nycthemera lewisi), the Cardamom Peafowl (Pavo bokorensis) and the Siamese Partridge (Arborophila diversa) are endemic to these mountains. A reptile and amphibian survey led in June 2007 by Dr Lee Grismer of La Sierra University in Riverside, California, US and the conservation organisation Fauna and Flora International uncovered new species, such as a new Cnemaspis gecko, C.  neangthyi.

តំបន់ការពារ
The human population of the Cardamom Mountain Range although very small is extremely poor and threats to the biological diversity of the region include habitat loss due to illegal logging, wildlife poaching, and forest fires caused by slash-and-burn agriculture. While the Cambodian forests are fairly intact, the section in Thailand has been badly affected.

About a third of the ecoregion has been designated as protected areas, but the level of active protection in all parks in the mountains has been criticised.

កម្ពុជា
ដែនជម្រកសត្វព្រៃភ្នំសំកុស
Phnom Aural
Preah Monivong National Park
ឧទ្យានជាតិបុទុម-សាគរ
Samlaut Multiple Use Area

ប្រទេសថៃ
ឧទ្យានជាតិ ណាំតុក ខងកែវ
Khao Khitchakut National Park
Namtok Phlio National Park
Khao Chamao Khao Wong National Park
Khao Soi Dao Wildlife Sanctuary
Klong Kruewai Chalerm Prakiat Wildlife Sanctuary
Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Sanctuary.

ទេសចរណ៍
The Cardamom Mountains are an emerging tourist destination, with the opening of Wildlife Alliance's Chi-Phat eco-tourism area in the southern Cardamoms in 2007.  Activities range from mountain biking and trekking to boat cruises and bird watching.

Wildlife Alliance have also announced the opening, in February 2011, of a second Cardamon Mountains eco-tourism site in nearby Trapeang Roung, roughly 1 hour's drive from Koh Kong.
Also the newbie WAR Adventures Cambodia www.wildanimalsrescue.com organize a wide range of deep jungle activities from the family trekking to the hardcore RAID adventure, jungle orientation and survival training course , even animals and human tracking course .... All of this in the region of Sre Ambel in the south west of the Cardamom mountains. The ultimate experience

ឯកសារយោង

តំណភ្ជាប់ខាងក្រៅs
Cambodian Scene Magazine
WWF - Ecoregions

ជួរភ្នំក្រវាញ


Rambergite is a manganese sulfide mineral with formula .

It has been found in anoxic marine sediments, rich in organic matter of the Gotland Deep, Baltic Sea and also in skarn in the Garpenberg area, Dalarna, Sweden. It was named after the mineralogist, Hans Ramberg (1917–1998).

It is a member of the wurtzite group and is chemically related to hauerite.

References

Sulfide minerals
Manganese(II) minerals
Hexagonal minerals
Minerals in space group 186
Minerals described in 1996

Rambergite


Provenance is the history of ownership, or the position of a historical object. It comes from the French provenir, meaning "to come from".

The term was originally used in relation to works of art. It is now used in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, paleontology, archives, manuscripts, printed books, and science and computing. The main reason to trace the provenance of an object is to get evidence of its original production or discovery. This has a special value to help authenticate objects, to prove what they are. Provenance is essentially a matter of documentation.

In archaeology the term provenience is used in related but a subtly different sense to provenance. Archaeological researchers use provenience to refer to the three-dimensional location or find spot of an artifact or feature within an archaeological site, whereas provenance covers an object's complete documented history. Ideally, in modern excavations, the provenience or find spot is recorded (even videoed) with great precision, but in older cases only the general site or approximate area may be known, especially when an artifact was found outside a professional excavation and its specific position not recorded. An object may have both a provenience (where it was found) and a provenance (where it has been since it was found). In some cases, especially where there is an inscription, the provenance may include a history that predates its burial in the ground, as well as its history after rediscovery.

References

Archaeology
Art
Paleontology

Provenance


Events and trends
 609 BC—The Babylonians defeat the Assyrian army of Ashur-uballit II and gain Harran. Ashur-uballit, the last Assyrian king, disappears from history.
 609 BC—King Josiah of Judah dies in the Battle of Megiddo against Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt, who is on his way north to aid the Assyrian state of Ashur-uballit II. Jehoahaz succeeds his father Josiah as King of Judah.  He is quickly deposed by Necho, who puts Jehoahaz's brother Jehoiakim in his place.
 607 BC—Death of Zhou Kuang Wang, King of the Zhou Dynasty of China.
 606 BC—Zhou Ding Wang becomes King of the Zhou Dynasty.
 605 BC—Battle of Carchemish: Crown Prince Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon defeats the army of Necho II of Egypt, securing the Babylonian conquest of Assyria. The Babylonians pursue through Syria and Palestine.
 605 BC—Nebuchadnezzar II succeeds his father Nabopolassar as King of Babylon.
 601 BC—Foundation of Perinthus by settlers from Samos.
 600 BC— Foundation of Marseille by Focei winners in a naval clash on Carthaginians; It was the beginning of Greek-punic Wars.
 600 BC—Radiocarbon dating for first circular inhabitation enclosure at Emain Macha.
 600 BC—Creation of Armenia.
 600 BC—Foundation of Capua.
 600 BC—Foundation of Milan by Celts (approximate date).
 600 BC—Smyrna sacked and destroyed.
 600 BC—Nebuchadnezzar builds the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
 c. 600 BC—Orientalizing period of vases ends in Ancient Greece.
 c. 600 BC—Archaic period of sculpture starts in Ancient Greece.
 c. 600 BC—Pitcher (container) (olpe), from Corinth, is made. It is now at The British Museum, London.
 c. 600 BC—Kouros is made. It is now at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
 c. 600 BC–580 BC—Temple of Artemis, Korkyra (Corfu) is built.
 c. 600 BC—Pompeii is founded.
 c. 600 BC—Zarathustra's religion becomes popular in Persia.
 c. 600 BC—Beginning of the construction of the largest Mound at Cahokia, near East St. Louis, Illinois. Construction continues until AD 200.
 c. 600 BC—The Etruscans take the settlement of Rome, making it into a prosperous trading centre.
 c. 600 BC—Athens had severe economic problems.
 c. 600 BC—Doric order and Ionic order are well developed.
 c. 600 BC - 500 BC - Calendrical system appears in areas with strong Olmec influence in Mesoamerica.

Significant people
605 BC—Death of Nabopolassar, first ruler of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
c. 600 BC—Birth of King Cambyses I of Anshan, head of the Achaemenid dynasty.
c. 600 BC—Thales, Greek philosopher.

600s BC (decade)


Elasticity of substitution is a measure of how easily something is able to be substituted with something else. It is often used in marketing and economics. A product has a low elasticity if it is unable to raise its price because similar products (substitutes) are available. A product that is unique is able to charge higher prices because there are not as many choices. For example, in a fish market, there are many fishermen selling many fish. The price is not elastic because there is competition between many suppliers of fish.

Economics

Elasticity of substitution


Events
 The Glagolitic alphabet, devised by Cyril and Methodius, missionaries from Constantinople, is  adopted in the Bulgarian Empire.
 Alfred the Great captures London and renames it Lundenburgh. The boundaries between Wessex and the Danelaw are shifted.
 Alfred the Great builds a small harbour called Queenhythe slightly upstream from London Bridge.
 Alfred the Great mints the first halfpenny. Previous halfpennies had been pennies cut in half.
 Earl Aethelred is given control of London by Alfred the Great. Alfred's sister Ethelfleda marries Aethelred.
 Leo VI succeeds his stepfather Basil I as Byzantine emperor and replaces patriarch Photius with his brother Stephen I.
 Khan Boris I of Bulgaria establishes the Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools.
 Charles II of France purchases peace with Vikings at Paris.

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