The Arabic alphabet (,   or , ), or Arabic abjad, is the Arabic script as specifically codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right-to-left in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters, of which most have contextual letterforms. The Arabic alphabet is considered an abjad, with only consonants required to be written; due to its optional use of diacritics to notate vowels, it is considered an impure abjad.

Consonants
The basic Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. Forms using the Arabic script to write other languages added and removed letters: for example Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Kurdish, Urdu, Sindhi, Azerbaijani, Malay, Pashto, Punjabi, Uyghur, Arwi and Arabi Malayalam  all have additional letters in their alphabets. There are no distinct upper and lower case letterforms.

Many letters look similar but are distinguished from one another by dots () above or below their central part (). These dots are an integral part of a letter, since they distinguish between letters that represent different sounds. For example, the Arabic letters  ,  , and   have the same basic shape, but with one dot added below, two dots added above, and three dots added above respectively. The letter   also has the same form in initial and medial forms, with one dot added above, though it is somewhat different in its isolated and final forms.

Both printed and written Arabic are cursive, with most letters within a word directly joined to adjacent letters.

Alphabetical order
There are two main collating sequences ('alphabetical orderings') for the Arabic alphabet: , and .

The original  order derives from that used by the Phoenician alphabet, and is therefore reminiscent of the orderings of other alphabets, such as those in Hebrew and Greek. With this ordering, letters are also used as numbers known as abjad numerals, possessing the same numerological codes as in Hebrew gematria and Greek isopsephy.

The  or  order is used when sorting lists of words and names, such as in phonebooks, classroom lists, and dictionaries. The ordering groups letters by the graphical similarity of the glyphs' shapes.

Abjadi
The  order is not a simple correspondence with the earlier north Semitic alphabetic order, as it has a position corresponding to the Aramaic letter samek , which has no cognate letter in the Arabic alphabet historically.

The loss of  was compensated for by:
In the Mashriqi abjad sequence, the letter shin  was split into two Arabic letters,   and  , the latter of which took the place of .
In the Maghrebi abjad sequence, the letter   was split into two independent Arabic letters,   and  , with the latter taking the place of .

The six other letters that do not correspond to any north Semitic letter are placed at the end.

This is commonly vocalized as follows:
 .
Another vocalization is:

This can be vocalized as:

Modern dictionaries and other reference books do not use the  order to sort alphabetically; instead, the newer  order is used wherein letters are partially grouped together by similarity of shape. The  order is never used as numerals.

In the  order (replaced recently  by the Mashriqi order, (though still used in many Quranic schools in Algeria) the sequence is:

In Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani's encyclopedia  , the letter sequence is:

Letter forms

The Arabic alphabet is always cursive and letters vary in shape depending on their position within a word. Letters can exhibit up to four distinct forms corresponding to an initial, medial (middle), final, or isolated position (IMFI). While some letters show considerable variations, others remain almost identical across all four positions. Generally, letters in the same word are linked together on both sides by short horizontal lines, but six letters () can only be linked to their preceding letter. For example,  (Ararat) has only isolated forms because each letter cannot be connected to its following one. In addition, some letter combinations are written as ligatures (special shapes), notably  , which is the only mandatory ligature (the un-ligated combination  is considered difficult to read).

Table of basic letters

Notes

 See the article Romanization of Arabic for details on various transliteration schemes. Arabic language speakers may usually not follow a standardized scheme when transcribing words or names. Some Arabic letters which do not have an equivalent in English (such as ق) are often spelled as numbers when Romanized. Also names are regularly transcribed as pronounced locally, not as pronounced in Literary Arabic (if they were of Arabic origin).
 Regarding pronunciation, the phonemic values given are those of Modern Standard Arabic, which is taught in schools and universities. In practice, pronunciation may vary considerably from region to region. For more details concerning the pronunciation of Arabic, consult the articles Arabic phonology and varieties of Arabic.
 The names of the Arabic letters can be thought of as abstractions of an older version where they were meaningful words in the Proto-Semitic language. Names of Arabic letters may have quite different names popularly.
 Six letters () do not have a distinct medial form and have to be written with their final form without being connected to the next letter. Their initial form matches the isolated form. The following letter is written in its initial form, or isolated form if it is the final letter in the word.
 The letter  originated in the Phoenician alphabet as a consonant-sign indicating a glottal stop. Today it has lost its function as a consonant, and, together with  and , is a mater lectionis, a consonant sign standing in for a long vowel (see below), or as support for certain diacritics ( and ).
 Arabic currently uses a diacritic sign, , called , to denote the glottal stop , written alone or with a carrier:
 alone:
 with a carrier:  (above or under an ),  (above a ),  (above a dotless  or ).

In academic work, the  () is transliterated with the modifier letter right half ring (ʾ), while the modifier letter left half ring (ʿ) transliterates the letter  (), which represents a different sound, not found in English.

The  has a single form, since it is never linked to a preceding or following letter. However, it is sometimes combined with a , , or , and in that case the carrier behaves like an ordinary , , or .

Variations

Alif

Modified letters
The following are not individual letters, but rather different contextual variants of some of the Arabic letters.

Ligatures

The use of ligature in Arabic is common. There is one compulsory ligature, that for  ل +  ا, which exists in two forms. All other ligatures, of which there are many, are optional.

A more complex ligature that combines as many as seven distinct components is commonly used to represent the word .

The only ligature within the primary range of Arabic script in Unicode (U+06xx) is  + . This is the only one compulsory for fonts and word-processing. Other ranges are for compatibility to older standards and contain other ligatures, which are optional.
  +

Note: Unicode also has in its Presentation Form B FExx range a code for this ligature. If your browser and font are configured correctly for Arabic, the ligature displayed above should be identical to this one, U+FEFB ARABIC LIGATURE LAM WITH ALEF ISOLATED FORM:

 U+0640 ARABIC TATWEEL +  +

Note: Unicode also has in its Presentation Form B U+FExx range a code for this ligature. If your browser and font are configured correctly for Arabic, the ligature displayed above should be identical to this one:
 U+FEFC ARABIC LIGATURE LAM WITH ALEF FINAL FORM

Another ligature in the Unicode Presentation Form A range U+FB50 to U+FDxx is the special code for glyph for the ligature  ("God"), U+FDF2 ARABIC LIGATURE ALLAH ISOLATED FORM:

This is a work-around for the shortcomings of most text processors, which are incapable of displaying the correct vowel marks for the word  in Koran. Because Arabic script is used to write other texts rather than Koran only, rendering  +  +  as the previous ligature is considered faulty.

If one of a number of the fonts (Noto Naskh Arabic, mry_KacstQurn, KacstOne, Nadeem, DejaVu Sans, Harmattan, Scheherazade, Lateef, Iranian Sans, Baghdad, DecoType Naskh) is installed on a computer (Iranian Sans is supported by Wikimedia web-fonts), the word will appear without diacritics.
  +  +  = LILLĀH (meaning "to Allāh [only to God]")
   or   لله
  +  +  +  = ALLĀH (the Arabic word for "god")
   or   الله
  +  +  + U+0651 ARABIC SHADDA + U+0670 ARABIC LETTER SUPERSCRIPT ALEF +
  اللّٰه   (DejaVu Sans and KacstOne don't show the added superscript Alef)

An attempt to show them on the faulty fonts without automatically adding the gemination mark and the superscript alif, although may not display as desired on all browsers, is by adding the U+200d (Zero width joiner) after the first or second
 ( +)  +  + U+200d ZERO WIDTH JOINER +

Gemination

Gemination is the doubling of a consonant. Instead of writing the letter twice, Arabic places a W-shaped sign called , above it. Note that if a vowel occurs between the two consonants the letter will simply be written twice. The diacritic only appears where the consonant at the end of one syllable is identical to the initial consonant of the following syllable. (The generic term for such diacritical signs is ).

Nunation

Nunation ( ) is the addition of a final   to a noun or adjective. The vowel before it indicates grammatical case. In written Arabic nunation is indicated by doubling the vowel diacritic at the end of the word.

Vowels
Users of Arabic usually write long vowels but omit short ones, so readers must utilize their knowledge of the language in order to supply the missing vowels. However, in the education system and particularly in classes on Arabic grammar these vowels are used since they are crucial to the grammar. An Arabic sentence can have a completely different meaning by a subtle change of the vowels. This is why in an important text such as the  the three basic vowel signs (see below) are mandated, like the ḥarakāt and all the other diacritics or other types of marks, for example the cantillation signs.

Short vowels

In the Arabic handwriting of everyday use, in general publications, and on street signs, short vowels are typically not written. On the other hand, copies of the  cannot be endorsed by the religious institutes that review them unless the diacritics are included. Children's books, elementary school texts, and Arabic-language grammars in general will include diacritics to some degree. These are known as "vocalized" texts.

Short vowels may be written with diacritics placed above or below the consonant that precedes them in the syllable, called . All Arabic vowels, long and short, follow a consonant; in Arabic, words like "Ali" or "alif", for example, start with a consonant: , .

Long vowels
In the fully vocalized Arabic text found in texts such as Quran, a long  following a consonant other than a  is written with a short  sign () on the consonant plus an  after it; long  is written as a sign for short  () plus a ; and long  as a sign for short  () plus a . Briefly,  = ;  = ; and  = . Long  following a  may be represented by an  or by a free  followed by an  (two consecutive s are never allowed in Arabic).

The table below shows vowels placed above or below a dotted circle replacing a primary consonant letter or a  sign. For clarity in the table, the primary letters on the left used to mark these long vowels are shown only in their isolated form. Most consonants do connect to the left with ,  and  written then with their medial or final form. Additionally, the letter  in the last row may connect to the letter on its left, and then will use a medial or initial form. Use the table of primary letters to look at their actual glyph and joining types.

In unvocalized text (one in which the short vowels are not marked), the long vowels are represented by the vowel in question: , , or . Long vowels written in the middle of a word of unvocalized text are treated like consonants with a  (see below) in a text that has full diacritics. Here also, the table shows long vowel letters only in isolated form for clarity.

Combinations  and  are always pronounced  and  respectively. The exception is the suffix  in verb endings where  is silent, resulting in  or .

In addition, when transliterating names and loanwords, Arabic language speakers write out most or all the vowels as long ( with  ,  and  with  , and  and  with  ), meaning it approaches a true alphabet.

Diphthongs
The diphthongs  and  are represented in vocalized text as follows:

Vowel omission
An Arabic syllable can be open (ending with a vowel) or closed (ending with a consonant):
 open: CV [consonant-vowel] (long or short vowel)
 closed: CVC (short vowel only)

A normal text is composed only of a series of consonants plus vowel-lengthening letters; thus, the word qalb, "heart", is written qlb, and the word qalaba "he turned around", is also written qlb.

To write qalaba without this ambiguity, we could indicate that the l is followed by a short a by writing a fatḥah above it.

To write qalb, we would instead indicate that the l is followed by no vowel by marking it with a diacritic called sukūn (), like this: .

This is one step down from full vocalization, where the vowel after the q would also be indicated by a fatḥah: .

The Qurʾān is traditionally written in full vocalization.

The long i sound in some editions of the Qur'ān is written with a kasrah followed by a diacritic-less y, and long u by a ḍammah followed by a bare w. In others, these y and w carry a sukūn. Outside of the Qur'ān, the latter convention is extremely rare, to the point that y with sukūn will be unambiguously read as the diphthong , and w with sukūn will be read .

For example, the letters  can be read like English meel or mail, or (theoretically) also like mayyal or mayil. But if a sukūn is added on the y then the m cannot have a sukūn (because two letters in a row cannot be sukūnated), cannot have a ḍammah (because there is never an uy sound in Arabic unless there is another vowel after the y), and cannot have a kasrah (because kasrah before sukūnated y is never found outside the Qur'ān), so it must have a fatḥah and the only possible pronunciation is  (meaning mile, or even e-mail). By the same token, m-y-t with a sukūn over the y can be mayt but not mayyit or meet, and m-w-t with a sukūn on the w can only be mawt, not moot (iw is impossible when the w closes the syllable).

Vowel marks are always written as if the i'rāb vowels were in fact pronounced, even when they must be skipped in actual pronunciation. So, when writing the name Aḥmad, it is optional to place a sukūn on the ḥ, but a sukūn is forbidden on the d, because it would carry a ḍammah if any other word followed, as in Aḥmadu zawjī "Ahmad is my husband".

Another example: the sentence that in correct literary Arabic must be pronounced Aḥmadu zawjun shirrīr "Ahmad is a wicked husband", is usually mispronounced (due to influence from vernacular Arabic varieties) as Aḥmad zawj shirrīr. Yet, for the purposes of Arabic grammar and orthography, is treated as if it were not mispronounced and as if yet another word followed it, i.e., if adding any vowel marks, they must be added as if the pronunciation were Aḥmadu zawjun sharrīrun with a tanwīn 'un' at the end. So, it is correct to add an un tanwīn sign on the final r, but actually pronouncing it would be a hypercorrection. Also, it is never correct to write a sukūn on that r, even though in actual pronunciation it is (and in correct Arabic MUST be) sukūned.

Of course, if the correct i'rāb is a sukūn, it may be optionally written.

ٰٰ
The sukūn is also used for transliterating words into the Arabic script. The Persian word  (mâsk, from the English word "mask"), for example, might be written with a sukūn above the  to signify that there is no vowel sound between that letter and the .

Additional letters

Regional variations
Some letters take a traditionally different form in specific regions:

Non-native letters to Standard Arabic
Some modified letters are used to represent non-native sounds of Modern Standard Arabic. These letters are used in transliterated names, loanwords and dialectal words.

  is considered a native phoneme/allophone in some dialects, e.g. Kuwaiti and Iraqi dialects.
  is considered a native phoneme (instead of ) in a number of  Levantine and North African dialects and as an allophone in others.
  is considered a native phoneme/allophone in most modern Arabic dialects.

Used in languages other than Arabic

Numerals

There are two main kinds of numerals used along with Arabic text; Western Arabic numerals and Eastern Arabic numerals. In most of present-day North Africa, the usual Western Arabic numerals are used. Like Western Arabic numerals, in Eastern Arabic numerals, the units are always right-most, and the highest value left-most. Eastern Arabic numbers are written from left to right.

Letters as numerals

In addition, the Arabic alphabet can be used to represent numbers (Abjad numerals). This usage is based on the  order of the alphabet.   is 1,   is 2,   is 3, and so on until   = 10,   = 20,   = 30, ...,   = 200, ...,   = 1000. This is sometimes used to produce chronograms.

History

The Arabic alphabet can be traced back to the Nabataean script used to write Nabataean Aramaic. The first known text in the Arabic alphabet is a late fourth-century inscription from  50 km east of  in Jordan, but the first dated one is a trilingual inscription at Zebed in Syria from 512. However, the epigraphic record is extremely sparse, with only five certainly pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions surviving, though some others may be pre-Islamic. Later, dots were added above and below the letters to differentiate them. (The Aramaic language had fewer phonemes than the Arabic, and some originally distinct Aramaic letters had become indistinguishable in shape, so that in the early writings 15 distinct letter-shapes had to do duty for 29 sounds; cf. the similarly ambiguous Book Pahlavi.)

The first surviving document that definitely uses these dots is also the first surviving Arabic papyrus (PERF 558), dated April 643, although they did not become obligatory until much later. Important texts were and still are frequently memorized, especially in Qurʾan memorization.

Later still, vowel marks and the hamzah were introduced, beginning some time in the latter half of the 7th century, preceding the first invention of Syriac and Tiberian vocalizations. Initially, this was done by a system of red dots, said to have been commissioned in the Umayyad era by Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, a dot above = , a dot below = , a dot on the line = , and doubled dots indicated nunation. However, this was cumbersome and easily confusable with the letter-distinguishing dots, so about 100 years later, the modern system was adopted. The system was finalized around 786 by al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi.

Arabic printing
Medieval Arabic blockprinting flourished from the 10th century until the 14th. It was devoted only to very small texts, usually for use in amulets.

In 1514, following Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1450, Gregorio de Gregorii, a Venetian, published an entire prayer-book in Arabic script; it was entitled Kitab Salat al-Sawa'i and was intended for eastern Christian communities.

Between 1580 and 1586, type designer Robert Granjon designed Arabic typefaces for Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, and the Medici Oriental Press published many Christian prayer and scholarly Arabic texts in the late 16th century.

Maronite monks at Maar Quzhay Monastery on Mount Lebanon published the first Arabic books to use movable type in the Middle East. The monks transliterated the Arabic language using Syriac script.

Although Napoleon generally receives credit for introducing the printing press to Egypt during his invasion of that country in 1798, and though he did indeed bring printing presses and Arabic presses to print the French occupation's official newspaper Al-Tanbiyyah "The Courier", printing in the Arabic language started several centuries earlier.

A goldsmith (like Gutenberg) designed and implemented an Arabic-script movable-type printing-press in the Middle East. The Lebanese Melkite monk Abdallah Zakher set up an Arabic printing press using movable type at the monastery of Saint John at the town of Dhour El Shuwayr in Mount Lebanon, the first homemade press in Lebanon using Arabic script. He personally cut the type molds and did the founding of the typeface. The first book came off his press in 1734; this press continued in use until 1899.

Computers
The Arabic alphabet can be encoded using several character sets, including ISO-8859-6, Windows-1256 and Unicode (see links in Infobox above), latter thanks to the "Arabic segment", entries U+0600 to U+06FF. However, none of the sets indicates the form that each character should take in context. It is left to the rendering engine to select the proper glyph to display for each character.

Each letter has a position-independent encoding in Unicode, and the rendering software can infer the correct glyph form (initial, medial, final or isolated) from its joining context. That is the current recommendation. However, for compatibility with previous standards, the initial, medial, final and isolated forms can also be encoded separately.

Unicode

As of Unicode , the Arabic script is contained in the following blocks:
 Arabic (0600–06FF, 256 characters)
 Arabic Supplement (0750–077F, 48 characters)
 Arabic Extended-A (08A0–08FF, 96 characters)
 Arabic Extended-B (0870–089F, 41 characters)
 Arabic Extended-C (10EC0–10EFF, 3 characters)
 Arabic Presentation Forms-A (FB50–FDFF, 631 characters)
 Arabic Presentation Forms-B (FE70–FEFF, 141 characters)
 Rumi Numeral Symbols (10E60–10E7F, 31 characters)
 Indic Siyaq Numbers (1EC70–1ECBF, 68 characters)
 Ottoman Siyaq Numbers (1ED00–1ED4F, 61 characters)
 Arabic Mathematical Alphabetic Symbols (1EE00—1EEFF, 143 characters)

The basic Arabic range encodes the standard letters and diacritics but does not encode contextual forms (U+0621-U+0652 being directly based on ISO 8859-6). It also includes the most common diacritics and Arabic-Indic digits. U+06D6 to U+06ED encode Qur'anic annotation signs such as "end of ayah" ۝ۖ and "start of rub el hizb" ۞. The Arabic supplement range encodes letter variants mostly used for writing African (non-Arabic) languages. The Arabic Extended-A range encodes additional Qur'anic annotations and letter variants used for various non-Arabic languages.

The Arabic Presentation Forms-A range encodes contextual forms and ligatures of letter variants needed for Persian, Urdu, Sindhi and Central Asian languages. The Arabic Presentation Forms-B range encodes spacing forms of Arabic diacritics, and more contextual letter forms. The Arabic Mathematical Alphabetical Symbols block encodes characters used in Arabic mathematical expressions.

See also the notes of the section on modified letters.

Keyboards

Keyboards designed for different nations have different layouts, so proficiency in one style of keyboard, such as Iraq's, does not transfer to proficiency in another, such as Saudi Arabia's. Differences can include the location of non-alphabetic characters.

All Arabic keyboards allow typing Roman characters, e.g., for the URL in a web browser. Thus, each Arabic keyboard has both Arabic and Roman characters marked on the keys. Usually, the Roman characters of an Arabic keyboard conform to the QWERTY layout, but in North Africa, where French is the most common language typed using the Roman characters, the Arabic keyboards are AZERTY.

To encode a particular written form of a character, there are extra code points provided in Unicode which can be used to express the exact written form desired. The range Arabic presentation forms A (U+FB50 to U+FDFF) contain ligatures while the range Arabic presentation forms B (U+FE70 to U+FEFF) contains the positional variants. These effects are better achieved in Unicode by using the zero-width joiner and zero-width non-joiner, as these presentation forms are deprecated in Unicode and should generally only be used within the internals of text-rendering software; when using Unicode as an intermediate form for conversion between character encodings; or for backwards compatibility with implementations that rely on the hard-coding of glyph forms.

Finally, the Unicode encoding of Arabic is in logical order, that is, the characters are entered, and stored in computer memory, in the order that they are written and pronounced without worrying about the direction in which they will be displayed on paper or on the screen. Again, it is left to the rendering engine to present the characters in the correct direction, using Unicode's bi-directional text features. In this regard, if the Arabic words on this page are written left to right, it is an indication that the Unicode rendering engine used to display them is out of date.

There are competing online tools, e.g. Yamli editor, which allow entry of Arabic letters without having Arabic support installed on a PC, and without knowledge of the layout of the Arabic keyboard.

Handwriting recognition
The first software program of its kind in the world that identifies Arabic handwriting in real time was developed by researchers at Ben-Gurion University (BGU).

The prototype enables the user to write Arabic words by hand on an electronic screen, which then analyzes the text and translates it into printed Arabic letters in a thousandth of a second. The error rate is less than three percent, according to Dr. Jihad El-Sana, from BGU's department of computer sciences, who developed the system along with master's degree student Fadi Biadsy.

See also

 Abjad numerals
 Ancient South Arabian script
 Algerian braille
 Arabic braille
 Arabic calligraphy
 Arabic chat alphabet
 Arabic diacritics
 Arabic letter frequency
 Arabic Mathematical Alphabetic Symbols
 Arabic numerals
 Arabic phonology
 Arabic script – about other languages written in Arabic script
 ArabTeX – provides Arabic support for TeX and LaTeX
 History of the Arabic alphabet
 Kufic
 Modern Arabic mathematical notation
 Perso-Arabic script
 Rasm
 Romanization of Arabic

References

Sources

External links

Arabic orthography

Arabic alphabet


Sydney Brenner  (13 January 1927 – 5 April 2019) was a South African biologist. In 2002, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and Sir John E. Sulston. Brenner made significant contributions to work on the genetic code, and other areas of molecular biology while working in the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He established the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of developmental biology, and founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, United States.

Education and early life

Brenner was born in the town of Germiston in the then Transvaal (today in Gauteng), South Africa, on 13 January 1927. His parents, Leah (née Blecher) and Morris Brenner, were Jewish immigrants. His father, a cobbler, came to South Africa from Lithuania in 1910, and his mother from Riga, Latvia, in 1922. He had one sister, Phyllis.

He was educated at Germiston High School and the University of the Witwatersrand. Having joined university at the age of 15, it was noted during his second year that he would be too young to qualify for the practice of medicine at the conclusion of his six-year medical course, and he was therefore allowed to complete a Bachelor of Science degree in Anatomy and Physiology. During this time he was taught physical chemistry by Joel Mandelstam, microscopy by Alfred Oettle and neurology with Harold Daitz. He also received an introduction to anthropology and paleontology with Raymond Dart and Robert Broom. The histologist Joseph Gillman and director of research in the Anatomy Department convinced Brenner to continue towards an honours degree and beyond towards an MSc. Brenner accepted though this would mean he would not graduate from medical school and his bursary would be discontinued. He supported himself during this time by working as a laboratory technician. It was during this time, in 1945, that Brenner would publish his first scientific works. His master thesis was in the field of cytogenetics and publications during this time in the field Brenner would later call Cell Physiology.

In 1946 Wilfred Le Gros Clark invited Brenner to his Department of Anatomy in Oxford, during a visit to South Africa. Brenner was persuaded to finish his medical education instead. Brenner returned to medical school where he failed Medicine, nearly failed Surgery and achieved a First Class in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Six months later Brenner had finished repeating Medicine and Surgery and in 1951 received the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBCh).

Brenner received an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 which enabled him to complete a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree at the University of Oxford as a postgraduate student of Exeter College, Oxford, supervised by Cyril Hinshelwood.

Career and research

Following his DPhil, Brenner did postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley. He spent the next 20 years at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. There, during the 1960s, he contributed to molecular biology, then an emerging field. In 1976 he joined the Salk Institute in California.

Together with Jack Dunitz, Dorothy Hodgkin, Leslie Orgel, and Beryl M. Oughton, he was one of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA, constructed by Francis Crick and James Watson; at the time he and the other scientists were working at the University of Oxford's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner, who subsequently worked with Crick in the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge and the newly opened Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB). According to Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA.

Brenner made several seminal contributions to the emerging field of molecular biology in the 1960s (see Phage group). The first was to prove that all overlapping genetic coding sequences were impossible. This insight separated the coding function from structural constraints as proposed in a clever code by George Gamow. This led Francis Crick to propose the concept of a hypothetical molecule  (later identified as transfer RNA or tRNA) that transfer the genetic information from RNA to proteins. Brenner gave the name "adaptor hypothesis" in 1955. The physical separation between the anticodon and the amino acid on a tRNA is the basis for the unidirectional flow of information in coded biological systems. This is commonly known as the central dogma of molecular biology, i.e. information flows from nucleic acid to protein and never from protein to nucleic acid. Following this adaptor insight, Brenner conceived of the concept of messenger RNA during an April 1960 conversation with Crick and François Jacob, and together with Jacob and Matthew Meselson went on to prove its existence later that summer. Then, with Crick, Leslie Barnett, and Richard J. Watts-Tobin, Brenner genetically demonstrated the triplet nature of the code of protein translation through the Crick, Brenner, Barnett, Watts-Tobin et al. experiment of 1961, which discovered frameshift mutations. Brenner collaborating with Sarabhai, Stretton and Bolle in 1964, using amber mutants defective in the bacteriophage T4D major head protein, showed that the nucleotide sequence of the gene is co-linear with the amino acid sequence of the encoded polypeptide chain.

Together with the decoding work of Marshall Warren Nirenberg and others, the discovery of the triplet nature of the genetic code was critical to deciphering the code. Barnett helped set up Sydney Brenner's laboratory in Singapore, many years later.

Brenner, with George Pieczenik, created the first computer matrix analysis of nucleic acids using TRAC, which Brenner continued to use. Crick, Brenner, Klug and Pieczenik returned to their early work on deciphering the genetic code with a pioneering paper on the origin of protein synthesis, where constraints on mRNA and tRNA co-evolved allowing for a five-base interaction with a flip of the anticodon loop, and thereby creating a triplet code translating system without requiring a ribosome. This model requires a partially overlapping code. The published scientific paper is extremely rare in that its collaborators include three authors who independently became Nobel laureates.

Brenner then focused on establishing a free-living roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of animal development including neural development. He chose this 1-millimeter-long soil roundworm mainly because it is simple, is easy to grow in bulk populations, and turned out to be quite convenient for genetic analysis. One of the key methods for identifying important function genes was the screen for roundworms that had some functional defect, such as being uncoordinated, leading to the identification of new sets of proteins, such as the set of UNC proteins. For this work, he shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and John Sulston. The title of his Nobel lecture in December 2002, "Nature's Gift to Science", is a homage to this nematode; in it, he considered that having chosen the right organism turned out to be as important as having addressed the right problems to work on. In fact, the C. elegans community has grown rapidly in recent decades with researchers working on a wide spectrum of problems.

Brenner founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California in 1996.  he was associated with the Salk Institute, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, the Singapore Biomedical Research Council, the Janelia Farm Research Campus, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In August 2005, Brenner was appointed president of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. He was also on the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute, as well as being Professor of Genetics there. A scientific biography of Brenner was written by Errol Friedberg in the US, for publication by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press in 2010.

Known for his penetrating scientific insight and acerbic wit, Brenner, for many years, authored a regular column ("Loose Ends") in the journal Current Biology. This column was so popular that "Loose ends from Current Biology", a compilation, was published by Current Biology Ltd. and became a collectors' item. Brenner wrote "A Life in Science", a paperback published by BioMed Central. He is also noted for his generosity with ideas and the great number of students and colleagues his ideas have stimulated.

In 2017, Brenner co-organized a seminal lecture series in Singapore describing ten logarithmic scales of time from the Big Bang to the present, spanning the appearance of multicellular life forms, the evolution of humans, and the emergence of language, culture and technology. Prominent scientists and thinkers, including W. Brian Arthur, Svante Pääbo, Helga Nowotny and Jack Szostak, spoke during the lecture series. In 2018, the lectures were adapted into a popular science book titled Sydney Brenner's 10-on-10: The Chronicles of Evolution, published by Wildtype Books.

Brenner also gave four lectures on the history of molecular biology, its impact on neuroscience and the great scientific questions that lie ahead. The lectures were adapted into the book, In the Spirit of Science: Lectures by Sydney Brenner on DNA, Worms and Brains.

American plan and European plan

The "American plan" and "European plan" were proposed by Sydney Brenner as competing models for the way brain cells determine their neural functions. According to the European plan (sometimes referred to as the British plan), the function of cells is determined by their genetic lineage. According to the American plan, a cell's function is determined by the function of its neighbours after cell migration. Further research has shown that most species follow some combination of these methods, albeit in varying degrees, to transfer information to new cells.

Awards and honours

Brenner received numerous awards and honours, including:

 Fellow of King's College, Cambridge since 1959.
 Elected an EMBO Member in 1964.
 Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) of London in 1965.
 Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1966.
 William Bate Hardy Prize in 1969.
 Albert Lasker Medical Research Award in 1971.
 Royal Medal from the Royal Society in 1974.
 Elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1977.
 Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1978 and again in 1991.
 Elected member of the American Philosophical Society in 1979.
 Krebs Medal in 1980.
 Novartis Medal and Prize of the Biochemical Society in 1980.
 Rosenstiel Award in 1986.
 Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1986.
 Harvey Prize in 1987.
 Genetics Society of America Medal in 1987.
 Kyoto Prize in 1990.
 Copley Medal in 1991.
 King Faisal International Prize in Medicine in 1992.
 The Dendrobium Sydney Brenner named in 1998 on the occasion of his visit to Singapore's National Orchid Garden the prior year.
 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2002.
 Dan David Prize in 2002. directed by Professor Gad Barzilai
 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology in 2002.
 In recognition of his pioneering role in starting what is now a global research community that work on C. elegans, another closely related nematode was given the scientific name Caenorhabditis brenneri.
 The National Science and Technology Medal by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research awarded Brenner in 2006 for his distinguished and strategic contributions to the development of Singapore's scientific capability and culture, particularly in the biomedical sciences sector.
 In 2008, the University of the Witwatersrand named the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience (SBIMB) in his honour.
 Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun in 2017.
 In 2019, a newly discovered species of bobtail squid, Euprymna brenneri, was named in his honour.

Personal life

Brenner was married to May Brenner (, subsequently Balkind) from December 1952 until her death in January 2010; their children include Belinda, Carla, Stefan, and his stepson Jonathan Balkind from his wife's first marriage to Marcus Balkind. He lived in Ely, Cambridgeshire. He was an atheist.

Brenner died on 5 April 2019, in Singapore, at the age of 92.

See also

 List of Jewish Nobel laureates

References

Further reading

 Soraya De Chadarevian; Designs For Life: Molecular Biology After World War II, CUP 2002, 444 pp;
 Francis Crick; What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (Basic Books reprint edition, 1990)
 Georgina Ferry; 'Max Perutz and the Secret of Life', (Chatto & Windus 2007) 352pp, . For uncaptioned picture.
Robert Olby; Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, , published on 25 August 2009.
 Max Perutz; What a Time I am Having: Selected Letters., CSHL Press 2008, 506pp . For captioned picture.
Matt Ridley; Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code (Eminent Lives) first published in June 2006 in the US and then in the UK September 2006, by HarperCollins Publishers; 192 pp, ; in paperback, by Atlas Books (with index), .
 Sydney Brenner Collection Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives
Lewis Wolpert; How We Live and Why We Die, Faber and Faber 2009, 240 pp;

External links

 Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 23 August 2007 (video)
  including the Nobel Lecture 8 December 2002 Nature's Gift to Science

1927 births
2019 deaths
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
South African Nobel laureates
South African emigrants to the United Kingdom
Jewish biologists
South African biologists
South African geneticists
Jewish geneticists
History of genetics
People from Germiston

University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
Fellows of King's College, Cambridge
Fellows of Exeter College, Oxford
Scripps Research faculty
South African biotechnologists
Caenorhabditis elegans
Phage workers

Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)
Fellows of the Royal Society
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Kyoto laureates in Advanced Technology
Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour
Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
Recipients of the Copley Medal
Royal Medal winners

Jewish atheists
Jewish scientists
South African atheists
South African Jews
South African people of Latvian-Jewish descent
South African people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
White South African people
Salk Institute for Biological Studies people

Members of the American Philosophical Society
Members of the National Academy of Medicine

Sydney Brenner


{{Speciesbox
| name = Rambutan
| image = Rambutan white background alt.jpg
| image_caption = Unpeeled and peeled rambutan
| image2 = Rambutans_by_Muhammad_Mahdi_Karim.jpg
| image2_caption = Rambutan fruits
| image2_alt = A bundle of fuzzy red fruits on woody stems
| status = LC
| status_system = IUCN3.1
| status_ref =
| genus = Nephelium
| species = lappaceum
| authority = L.
| synonyms = {{collapsible list|
 Dimocarpus crinitus Lour.
 Euphoria glabra  Blume
 Euphoria nephelium DC.
 Nephelium obovatum  Ridl.
 Nephelium pallens  Radlk.
 Nephelium rambutan  Schnizl.
 Scytalia crinita Raeusch.
 Scytalia rimosa Roxb. }}
| synonyms_ref=

}}
Rambutan (; taxonomic name: Nephelium lappaceum) is a medium-sized tropical tree in the family Sapindaceae. The name also refers to the edible fruit produced by this tree. The rambutan is native to Southeast Asia. It is closely related to several other edible tropical fruits, including the lychee, longan, pulasan, and quenepa.

 Description
It is an evergreen tree growing to a height of . The leaves are alternate, 14–30 cm long, pinnate, with three to 11 leaflets, each leaflet 5–15 cm wide and 3–10 cm broad, with an entire margin.

The flowers are small, 2.5–5 mm, apetalous, discoidal and borne in erect terminal panicles 15–30 cm wide. Rambutan trees can be male (producing only staminate flowers and, hence, produce no fruit), female (producing flowers that are only functionally female) or hermaphroditic (producing flowers that are female with a small percentage of male flowers).

 Fruit
The fruit is a round to oval single-seeded drupe, 3–6 cm (rarely to 8 cm) long and 3–4 cm broad, borne in a loose pendant cluster of 10–20 together. The leathery skin is reddish (rarely orange or yellow) and covered with fleshy pliable spines, hence the name, which means 'hairs'. The spines (also known as "spinterns") contribute to the transpiration of the fruit, which can affect the fruit's quality.

The fruit flesh, the aril, is translucent, whitish or very pale pink, with a sweet, mildly acidic flavor reminiscent of grapes.

The single seed is glossy brown, 1–1.3 cm, with a white basal scar. Soft and containing equal portions of saturated and unsaturated fats, the seed may be cooked and eaten, but is bitter and has narcotic properties.

 History
Around the 13th to 15th centuries, Arab traders, who played a major role in Indian Ocean trade, introduced rambutans to Zanzibar and Pemba of East Africa. There are limited rambutan plantings in some parts of India. In the 19th century, the Dutch introduced rambutans from Indonesia in Southeast Asia, to Suriname in South America. Subsequently, the plants spread to tropical Americas, planted in the coastal lowlands of Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Cuba. In 1912, rambutans were introduced to the Philippines from Indonesia. Further introductions were made in 1920 (from Indonesia) and 1930 (from Malaya), but until the 1950s its distribution was limited.

There was an attempt to introduce rambutans to the Southeastern United States, with seeds imported from Java, Indonesia in 1906, but the species proved to be unsuccessful, except in Puerto Rico.

 Etymology
The name rambutan is derived from the Malay word  meaning 'hair' referring to the numerous hairy protuberances of the fruits, together with the noun-building suffix . Similarly, in Vietnam, they are called  (meaning 'messy hair').

 Composition

 Nutrients
Rambutan fruit is 78% water, 21% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and has negligible fat (table; data are for canned fruit in syrup; raw fruit data are unpublished). In terms of nutritional content, the canned fruit contains only manganese at a moderate level (16% of the Daily Value), while providing 82 calories in a 100 gram reference amount (table). Other micronutrients are at a low level.

 Phytochemicals
As an unpigmented fruit flesh, rambutan does not contain significant polyphenol content, but its colorful rind displays diverse phenolic acids, such as syringic, coumaric, gallic, caffeic, and ellagic acids. Rambutan seeds contain equal proportions of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, where arachidic (34%) and oleic (42%) acids, respectively, are highest in fat content.

The pleasant fragrance of rambutan fruit derives from numerous volatile organic compounds, including beta-damascenone, vanillin, phenylacetic acid, and cinnamic acid.

 Ecology
 Pollination
Aromatic rambutan flowers are highly attractive to many insects, especially bees. Flies (Diptera), bees (Hymenoptera) and ants (Solenopsis) are the main pollinators. Among the Diptera, Lucilia spp. are abundant and among the Hymenoptera, honey bees (Apis dorsata and A. cerana) and the stingless bee genus Trigona are the major visitors. A. cerana colonies foraging on rambutan flowers produce large quantities of honey. Bees foraging for nectar routinely contact the stigma of female flowers and gather significant quantities of the sticky pollen from male blossoms. Little pollen has been seen on bees foraging female flowers. Although male flowers open at 06:00, foraging by A. cerana is most intense between 07:00 and 11:00, tapering off rather abruptly thereafter. In Thailand, A. cerana is the preferred species for small-scale pollination of rambutan. Its hair is also helpful in pollination where pollen can be hooked on and transported to female flowers.

 Varieties
Well over 200 cultivars were developed from selected clones available throughout tropical Asia. Most of the cultivars are also selected for compact growth, reaching a height of only 3–5 m for easier harvesting.

Compared to propagated rambutan clones, rambutans taken from the wild have a higher acidity and potential for various food purposes. In Indonesia, 22 rambutan cultivars were identified with good quality, with five as leading commercial cultivars: 'Binjai', 'Lebak Bulus', 'Rapiah', 'Cimacan' and 'Sinyonya', with other popular cultivars including 'Simacan', 'Silengkeng', 'Sikonto' and 'Aceh kuning'. In the Malay peninsula, commercial varieties include 'Chooi Ang', 'Peng Thing Bee', 'Ya Tow', 'Azimat', and 'Ayer Mas'.

In Nicaragua, a joint World Relief–European Union team distributed seedlings to organizations such as Ascociación Pueblos en Acción Comunitaria in 2001 to more than 100 farmers. Some of these farmers saw the first production of rambutans from their trees in 2005–2006 with development directed at the local market.

In the Philippines, two cultivars of rambutans are distinguished by their seed. The common rambutan seed and fruit are difficult to separate, while the 'Maharlika Rambutan' fruit separates cleanly from its seed. The fruit taste and size of these two cultivars are identical, but the 'Maharlika Rambutan' is more popular with a higher price.

 Uses
 Culinary
The fruit of the rambutan tree may be eaten raw by removing the peel, eating the pulp, and discarding the seed. Rambutan is most often used in desserts, such as sorbets and puddings, but also in curries and savory dishes. The flavor is similar to lychee, and pairs well with other tropical fruits.

 Cultivation
Rambutans are adapted to warm tropical climates, around 22–30 °C, and are sensitive to temperatures below 10 °C. It is grown commercially within 12–15° of the equator. The trees grows well at elevations up to  above sea level, and does best in deep soil, clay loam or sandy loam rich in organic matter. They grow on hilly terrain where there is good drainage.

Rambutans are propagated by grafting, air-layering, and budding. Budded trees may fruit after two to three years with optimum production occurring after eight to 10 years. Trees grown from seed bear after five to six years.

The aril is attached to the seed in some commercial cultivars, but "freestone" cultivars are available and in high demand. Usually, a single light brown seed is found, which is high in certain fats and oils (primarily oleic acid and arachidic acid) valuable to industry, and used in cooking and the manufacture of soap. Rambutan roots, bark, and leaves have various uses in traditional medicine and in the production of dyes.

In some areas, rambutan trees can bear fruit twice annually, once in late fall and early winter, with a shorter season in late spring and early summer. Other areas, such as Costa Rica, have a single fruit season, with the start of the rainy season in April stimulating flowering, and the fruit is usually ripe in August and September. The fragile fruit must ripen on the tree, then they are harvested over a four- to seven-week period. The fresh fruit are easily bruised and have a limited shelf life. An average tree may produce 5,000–6,000 or more fruit (60–70 kg or 130–155 lb per tree). Yields begin at 1.2 tonnes per hectare (0.5 tons/acre) in young orchards and may reach 20 tonnes per hectare (8 tons per acre) on mature trees. In Hawaii, 24 of 38 cultivated hectares (60 of 95 acres) were harvested producing 120 tonnes of fruit in 1997. Yields could be increased by improved orchard management, including pollination, and by planting high-yielding compact cultivars.

Most commercial cultivars are hermaphroditic; cultivars that produce only functionally female flowers require the presence of male trees. Male trees are seldom found, as vegetative selection has favored hermaphroditic clones that produce a high proportion of functionally female flowers and a much lower number of flowers that produce pollen. Over 3,000 greenish-white flowers occur in male panicles, each with five to seven anthers and a nonfunctional ovary. Male flowers have yellow nectaries and five to seven stamens. About 500 greenish-yellow flowers occur in each hermaphroditic panicle. Each flower has six anthers, usually a bilobed stigma, and one ovule in each of its two sections (locules). The flowers are receptive for about one day, but may persist if pollinators are excluded.

In Thailand, rambutan trees were first planted in Surat Thani in 1926 by the Chinese Malay K. Vong in Ban Na San. An annual rambutan fair is held during August harvest time.

In Malaysia, rambutan flowers from March to July and again between June and November, usually in response to rain following a dry period. Flowering periods differ for other localities. Most, but not all, flowers open early in the day. Up to 100 flowers in each female panicle may be open each day during peak bloom. Initial fruit set may approach 25 percent, but a high abortion level contributes to a much lower level of production at harvest (1 to 3 percent). The fruit matures 15–18 weeks after flowering.

Rambutan cultivation in Sri Lanka mainly consists of small home gardens. Malwana, a village in the Kelani River Valley, is popular for its rambutan orchards. Their production comes to market in May, June, and July, when it is very common to observe seasonal traders along the streets of Colombo. Sri Lanka also has some off-season rambutan production in January and February in areas such as Bibile, Medagama, and Monaragala.

Both male and female flowers are faintly sweet-scented and have functional nectaries at the ovary base. Female flowers produce two to three times more nectar than male flowers. Nectar sugar concentration ranges between 18–47 percent and is similar between the flower types. Rambutans are an important nectar source for bees in Malaysia.

Cross-pollination is a necessity because the anther is absent in most functionally female flowers. Although apomixis may occur in some cultivars, rambutans, like lychee, are dependent upon insects for pollination. In Malaysia, where only about one percent of the female flowers set fruit, no fruit is set on bagged flowers while hand pollination resulted in a 13 percent fruit set. Pollinators may maintain a fidelity to either male or hermaphroditic flowers (trees), thus limiting pollination and fruit set under natural conditions where crossing between male and female flowers is required.

 Production

Rambutan is a fruit tree cultivated in humid tropical Southeast Asia. It is a common garden fruit tree and propagated commercially in small orchards. It is one of the best-known fruits of Southeast Asia and is also widely cultivated elsewhere in the tropics including Africa, southern Mexico, the Caribbean islands, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, India, Vietnam, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. It is also produced in Ecuador where it is known as achotillo, and on the island of Puerto Rico.

, Thailand was the largest producer of rambutans (, ), growing 450,000 tonnes, followed by Indonesia at 100,000 tonnes, and Malaysia, 60,000 tonnes. In Thailand, major cultivation centers are Chanthaburi Province, followed by Chumphon Province and Surat Thani Province. In Indonesia, the production center of rambutan is in the western parts of Indonesia, which includes Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan. In Java, the orchards and pekarangan'' (habitation yards) in the villages of Greater Jakarta and West Java have been known as rambutan production centers since colonial era, with a trading center in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta.

During 2017 and years before, imports of rambutan to the European Union were about 1,000 tonnes annually, enabling a year-round supply from numerous tropical suppliers.

The fruits are usually sold fresh and have a short shelf-life, and are commonly used in making jams and jellies, or canned. Evergreen rambutan trees with their abundant colored fruit make attractive landscape specimens.

In India, rambutan is imported from Thailand, as well as grown in Pathanamthitta District of the southern state of Kerala.

Rambutans are not a climacteric fruit — that is, they ripen only on the tree and appear not to produce a ripening agent, such as the plant hormone ethylene, after being harvested. However, at post-harvest, the quality of the fruit is affected by storage factors. Low humidity levels, storage time, and incidences of mechanical damage can severely affect the quality of the fruit which would negatively affect the demand for such. In general, the fruit has a short shelf life in ambient conditions but implementing methods that can extend such is a productional advantage. Certain treatments like irradiation and the use of hot-forced air can help in fruit preservation although the former has seen more success.

Distribution
The center of genetic diversity for rambutans is the Indonesian region. They have been widely cultivated in southeast Asia areas, such as Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines. It has spread from there to parts of Asia, Africa, Oceania and Central America.

Gallery

See also
 List of culinary fruits
 Pomology
 Pulasan

References

Edible fruits
Fruits originating in Asia
Medicinal plants
Trees of Thailand
Trees of Malesia
Tropical fruit
Nephelium
Fruit trees

Rambutan


Karuna was a  municipality in Southwest Finland region of Western Finland Province, Finland, until 1969 when it merged into the municipality of Sauvo. Part of the former municipality, the village of Sandö, was merged into the municipality of Kimito. In 1963, Karuna had 1,213 inhabitants. About 700 people inhabit the area currently. A peculiarity regarding the church of Karuna is that the older wooden church from 1685 was transported into the open-air museum of Seurasaari, Helsinki, and replaced by a stone church in 1910 designed by Josef Stenbäck.

See also
 Karuna homepage, in Finnish

Sauvo
Populated places disestablished in 1969
Former municipalities of Finland

Karuna, Finland


Kantishna Airport  is a state-owned airstrip located two nautical miles (3.7 km) northwest of the former mining district of Kantishna in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

As per Federal Aviation Administration records, the airport had 985 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008. This airport is included in the FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2009–2013, which categorizes it as a general aviation facility.

Facilities and aircraft
Kantishna Airport covers an area of  at an elevation of 1,575 feet (480 m) above mean sea level. It has one runway designated 10/28 with a gravel surface measuring 1,850 by 35 feet (564 x 11 m). For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2005, the airport had 1,200 aircraft operations, an average of 100 per month: 83% air taxi and 16% general aviation.

References

External links
 FAA Alaska airport diagram (GIF)

Airports in Denali Borough, Alaska

Kantishna Airport


Ciência sem Fronteiras (Science Without Borders) was a research and exchange program established on July 26, 2011, by the Brazilian federal government to encourage scholarships for scientific projects abroad.

The main objective of the program is to distribute scholarships for students of all levels in STEM related majors for international exchange programs. The goal of the Brazilian federal government in funding the program is to attract scientists from other countries to Brazil in order to stimulate research and innovation in Brazilian science and technology (S&T).

The program aims to provide 101,000 scholarships by 2015.

See also
Brazilian science and technology

References

External links
Ciência sem Fronteiras

Science and technology in Brazil

Ciência sem Fronteiras


Lee Vernon Stiff (February 4, 1949 - March 19, 2021) was an American mathematics education researcher; a professor in the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education and the Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the College of Education at North Carolina State University (NCSU); and the author of several mathematics textbooks. In his 72 years of living he wrote many books.

Stiff's father was "a factory worker with only a third-grade education". Stiff studied mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1971, and went on to earn a master's degree from Duke University in 1974 and a doctorate in mathematics education from North Carolina State University in 1978. After teaching mathematics at the middle school and high school levels, and then holding a faculty position at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte beginning in 1978, he returned to NCSU in 1983.

From 2000 to 2002 Stiff was president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Under his leadership, the NCTM pushed for a greater emphasis on basic computational skills in elementary and secondary school mathematics education, and for an appropriate emphasis on conceptual understanding. Stiff rejected simple solutions to complex issues, saying that "Back to basics is moving backward. Number-crunching alone is no longer enough." Instead, Stiff has recommended better training and incentives for mathematics teachers, a teaching style that incorporates a variety of ways of looking at the same material, and an attitude that all students can learn mathematics regardless of their background.

In 1995 he was a Fulbright scholar in Ghana. In 2010 the NC State College of Education gave him their Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2015 he received the Benjamin Banneker Lifetime Achievement Award, in 2017 he was given the TODOS Iris M. Carl Leadership and Equity Award, and in 2019 he was honored with the NCTM Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2019, with Drs. Valerie Faulkner and Patricia Marshall, he wrote the critically important work, The Stories We Tell: Math, Race, Bias, and Opportunity, which "...sits the "gap problem" on the doorsteps of schools and districts and off the backs of children and parents."

References

External links
Faculty web site at NCSU
Personal web site

1941 births
Living people
African-American mathematicians
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
Mathematics educators
Duke University alumni
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
North Carolina State University alumni
University of North Carolina at Charlotte faculty
North Carolina State University faculty
20th-century African-American people
21st-century African-American people

Lee Stiff


The Exopterygota (Ancient Greek ἔξω (éxō, "outside") + πτερόν (pterón, "wing") + Neo-Latin -ota ("having")), also known as Hemipterodea, are a superorder of insects of the subclass Pterygota in the infraclass Neoptera, in which the young resemble adults but have externally developing wings. They undergo a modest change between immature and adult, without going through a pupal stage. The  nymphs develop gradually into adults through a process of moulting.

The Exopterygota are a highly diverse insect superorder, with at least 130,000 living species divided between 15 orders. They include cockroaches, termites, grasshoppers, thrips, lice and stick insects, among many other types of insects.

They are distinguished from the Endopterygota (or Holometabola) by the way in which their wings develop. Endopterygota (meaning literally "internal winged forms") develop wings inside the body and undergo an elaborate metamorphosis involving a pupal stage. Exopterygota ("external winged forms") develop wings on the outside of their bodies without going through a true pupal stage, though a few have something resembling a pupa (e.g., Aleyrodidae).

Ephemeroptera (mayflies) and Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) also have gradual wing development, this being a plesiomorphic trait. These two orders belong to the infraclass Palaeoptera however, which is not included in Neoptera. As opposed to Neoptera, they cannot fold their wings over their back in the horizontal plane, only vertically (as damselflies do) if at all.

Systematics

Traditionally Exopterygota included all neopterans that show incomplete metamorphosis. More recently, there is increasing debate about how to subdivide the Exopterygota, and the Neoptera in general. It is realized that some presumed Exopterygota may in fact be basal neopterans, making the superorder paraphyletic.

Here is a complete list of living and extinct orders of "exopterygotes", with some proposed subdivisions:

Superorder Exopterygota sensu stricto
 Caloneurodea (Extinct)
 Titanoptera (Extinct)
 Protorthoptera (Extinct)
 Plecoptera (stoneflies)
 Embioptera (webspinners)
 Zoraptera (angel insects)
 Dermaptera (earwigs)
 Orthoptera (grasshoppers, etc.)
Proposed superorder Dictyoptera
 Phasmatodea (stick insects – tentatively placed here)
 Grylloblattodea (ice-crawlers – tentatively placed here)
 Mantophasmatodea (gladiators – tentatively placed here)
 Blattodea (cockroaches and termites)
 Mantodea (mantids)
Proposed superorder Paraneoptera
 Psocoptera (booklice, barklice)
 Thysanoptera (thrips)
 Phthiraptera (lice)
 Hemiptera (true bugs)

References

Insect superorders
Paraphyletic groups
Neoptera

Exopterygota


Sir Ian Wilmut  (7 July 1944 – 10 September 2023) was a British embryologist and the chair of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known as the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal from an adult somatic cell, a Finnish Dorset lamb named Dolly.

Wilmut was appointed OBE in 1999 for services to embryo development and knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours. He, Keith Campbell and Shinya Yamanaka jointly received the 2008 Shaw Prize for Medicine and Life Sciences for their work on cell differentiation in mammals.

Early life and education
Wilmut was born in Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, England, on 7 July 1944. Wilmut's father, Leonard Wilmut, was a mathematics teacher who suffered from diabetes for fifty years, which eventually caused him to become blind. The younger Wilmut attended the Boys' High School in Scarborough, where his father taught. His early desire was to embark on a naval career, but he was unable to do so due to his colour blindness. As a schoolboy, Wilmut worked as a farm hand on weekends, which inspired him to study Agriculture at the University of Nottingham.

In 1966, Wilmut spent eight weeks working in the laboratory of Christopher Polge, who is credited with developing the technique of cryopreservation in 1949. The following year Wilmut joined Polge's laboratory to undertake a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Cambridge, from where he graduated in 1971 with a thesis on semen cryopreservation. During this time he was a postgraduate student at Darwin College.

Career and research
After completing his PhD, he was involved in research focusing on gametes and embryogenesis, including working at the Roslin Institute.

Wilmut was the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal, a lamb named Dolly. She died of a respiratory disease in 2003. In 2008 Wilmut announced that he would abandon the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer by which Dolly was created in favour of an alternative technique developed by Shinya Yamanaka. This method has been used in mice to derive pluripotent stem cells from differentiated adult skin cells, thus circumventing the need to generate embryonic stem cells. Wilmut believed that this method holds greater potential for the treatment of degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease and to treat stroke and heart attack patients.

Wilmut led the team that created Dolly, but in 2006 admitted his colleague Keith Campbell deserved "66 per cent" of the invention that made Dolly's birth possible, and that the statement "I did not create Dolly" was accurate. His supervisory role is consistent with the post of principal investigator held by Wilmut at the time of Dolly's creation.

Wilmut was an Emeritus Professor at the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and in 2008 was knighted in the New Year Honours for services to science.

Wilmut and Campbell, in conjunction with Colin Tudge, published The Second Creation in 2000.
In 2006 Wilmut's book After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning was published, co-authored with Roger Highfield.

Death
Wilmut died from complications of Parkinson's disease on 10 September 2023, aged 79.

Awards and honours
In 1998 he received the Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Award and the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

Wilmut was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours "for services to Embryo Development" and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2002. He was also an elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1999 and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2000. He was elected an EMBO Member in 2003.

In 1997 Wilmut was Time magazine man of the year runner up. He was knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours for services to science.

Publications

References

External links

1944 births
2023 deaths
People from Warwickshire
Alumni of the University of Nottingham
Cloning
Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization
English atheists
English inventors
English geneticists
Academics of the University of Edinburgh
Alumni of Darwin College, Cambridge
Fellows of the Royal Society
Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
British embryologists
People educated at Scarborough High School for Boys
Deaths from Parkinson's disease

Ian Wilmut


In the formal language theory of computer science, left recursion is a special case of recursion where a string is recognized as part of a language by the fact that it decomposes into a string from that same language (on the left) and a suffix (on the right).  For instance,  can be recognized as a sum because it can be broken into , also a sum, and , a suitable suffix.

In terms of context-free grammar, a nonterminal is left-recursive if the leftmost symbol in one of its productions is itself (in the case of direct left recursion) or can be made itself by some sequence of substitutions (in the case of indirect left recursion).

Non-technical Introduction
Formal language theory may come across as very difficult. Let's start off with a very simple example just to show the problem. If we take a look at the name of a former Dutch bank, VSB Bank, you will see something odd.

What do you think the B stands for? Bank. The same word again. How many banks are in this name?

Let's chop down the name in parts:

 VSB Bank:
 V = Verenigde (United)
 S = Spaarbank (Savings Bank)
 B = Bank
 Bank.
Concluding: VSB Bank = Verenigde Spaarbank Bank Bank.

Now you see what a left recursive name abbreviation is all about. The remainder of this article is not using examples, but abstractions in the forms of symbols.

Definition
A grammar is left-recursive if and only if there exists a nonterminal symbol  that can derive to a sentential form with itself as the leftmost symbol. Symbolically,
,
where  indicates the operation of making one or more substitutions, and  is any sequence of terminal and nonterminal symbols.

Direct left recursion
Direct left recursion occurs when the definition can be satisfied with only one substitution.  It requires a rule of the form

where  is a sequence of nonterminals and terminals . For example, the rule

is directly left-recursive. A left-to-right recursive descent parser for this rule might look like
void Expression() {
  Expression();
  match('+');
  Term();
}
and such code would fall into infinite recursion when executed.

Indirect left recursion
Indirect left recursion occurs when the definition of left recursion is satisfied via several substitutions.  It entails a set of rules following the pattern

where  are sequences that can each yield the empty string, while  may be any sequences of terminal and nonterminal symbols at all.  Note that these sequences may be empty.  The derivation

then gives  as leftmost in its final sentential form.

Removing left recursion
Left recursion often poses problems for parsers, either because it leads them into infinite recursion (as in the case of most top-down parsers) or because they expect rules in a normal form that forbids it (as in the case of many bottom-up parsers).  Therefore, a grammar is often preprocessed to eliminate the left recursion.

Removing direct left recursion
The general algorithm to remove direct left recursion follows. Several improvements to this method have been made.
For a left-recursive nonterminal , discard any rules of the form  and consider those that remain:

where:
 each  is a nonempty sequence of nonterminals and terminals, and
 each  is a sequence of nonterminals and terminals that does not start with .
Replace these with two sets of productions, one set for :

and another set for the fresh nonterminal  (often called the "tail" or the "rest"):

Repeat this process until no direct left recursion remains.

As an example, consider the rule set

This could be rewritten to avoid left recursion as

Removing all left recursion
By establishing a topological ordering on nonterminals, the above process can be extended to also eliminate indirect left recursion :
Inputs A grammar: a set of nonterminals  and their productions
Output A modified grammar generating the same language but without left recursion
 For each nonterminal :
 Repeat until an iteration leaves the grammar unchanged:
 For each rule ,  being a sequence of terminals and nonterminals:
 If  begins with a nonterminal  and :
 Let  be  without its leading .
 Remove the rule .
 For each rule :
 Add the rule .
 Remove direct left recursion for  as described above.
Note that this algorithm is highly sensitive to the nonterminal ordering; optimizations often focus on choosing this ordering well.

Pitfalls
Although the above transformations preserve the language generated by a grammar, they may change the parse trees that witness strings' recognition.  With suitable bookkeeping, tree rewriting can recover the originals, but if this step is omitted, the differences may change the semantics of a parse.

Associativity is particularly vulnerable; left-associative operators typically appear in right-associative-like arrangements under the new grammar.  For example, starting with this grammar:

the standard transformations to remove left recursion yield the following:

Parsing the string "1 - 2 - 3" with the first grammar in an LALR parser (which can handle left-recursive grammars) would have resulted in the parse tree:

This parse tree groups the terms on the left, giving the correct semantics (1 - 2) - 3.

Parsing with the second grammar gives

which, properly interpreted, signifies 1 + (-2 + (-3)), also correct, but less faithful to the input and much harder to implement for some operators.  Notice how terms to the right appear deeper in the tree, much as a right-recursive grammar would arrange them for 1 - (2 - 3).

Accommodating left recursion in top-down parsing
A formal grammar that contains left recursion cannot be parsed by a LL(k)-parser or other naive recursive descent parser unless it is converted to a weakly equivalent right-recursive form. In contrast, left recursion is preferred for LALR parsers because it results in lower stack usage than right recursion. However, more sophisticated top-down parsers can implement general context-free grammars by use of curtailment. In 2006, Frost and Hafiz described an algorithm which accommodates ambiguous grammars with direct left-recursive production rules. That algorithm was extended to a complete parsing algorithm to accommodate indirect as well as direct left recursion in polynomial time, and to generate compact polynomial-size representations of the potentially exponential number of parse trees for highly ambiguous grammars by Frost, Hafiz and Callaghan in 2007. The authors then implemented the algorithm as a set of parser combinators written in the Haskell programming language.

See also
 Tail recursion

References

External links
 Practical Considerations for LALR(1) Grammars

Control flow
Formal languages
Parsing
Recursion

Left recursion


Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (born Sukhinder Singh in 1970) is an entrepreneur. She founded many technology companies. In the beginning of her career, she worked for Amazon, BskyB, and Merrill Lynch. She founded a business called Yodlee.

Education
Cassidy was born in Tanzania. She lived in Canada as a child. She went to college at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. She studied Business Administration.

Career
By the age of 25, her goal was to start her very own business. Cassidy is known for leading many online businesses such as theBoardlist, Joyus, and StubHub. Cassidy also worked as CEO of Polyvore for some time. It is an online marketplace. Additionally, she worked for more than 5 years as president of one of Google's international businesses. She has led to the growth of many tech businesses. She still works as chairman of many companies including theBoardlist and Joyus. She continues to be a board member of Urban outfitters. Her goal is to assign women in to more leading positions on boards and lead successfully.

References

1970 births
Living people
Businesspeople from California

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy


Lisa Belkin is an American journalist and author.  She is best known for Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption, her 1999 book about a public housing battle in Yonkers, New York.

Show Me a Hero received positive reviews. Publishers Weekly wrote that it was a "vivid slice of urban politics, racial tension and the difficulties inherent in realizing the American dream."  Kirkus Reviews declared it a "riveting policy chronicle and cautionary tale that illustrates the urgency of rethinking our public housing policy."  The New York Times praised Belkin for maintaining a reportorial objectivity.  Show Me a Hero served as the basis for the 2015 HBO miniseries, starring Oscar Isaac.

Her first book, First, Do No Harm: The Dramatic Story of Real Doctors and Patients Making Impossible Choices at a Big-City Hospital, was a New York Times 1993 Notable Book of the Year.

Belkin has worked as a journalist for Yahoo News, The New York Times, and HuffPost.  She hosted a radio show on XM, an outgrowth of her "Life's Work" column.

She is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia's School of Journalism.

Books
 First, Do No Harm: The Dramatic Story of Real Doctors and Patients Making Impossible Choices at a Big-City Hospital  (1993)
 Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption (1999)
 Life's Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom (2002)
 Tales From the Times (2004), editor
 Genealogy of a Murder: Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful Night (2023)

References

External links

Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
American women journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers

Lisa Belkin


Tong or Tong Village is a village and former civil parish in the City of Bradford metropolitan district, West Yorkshire, England. It is a historic village, and gives its name to the larger electoral ward of Tong.

History
Evidence of early activity within the Tong area is sparse, an undated flint found within the grounds of Tong Hall represents the prehistoric period. Later artefacts within the general area include a Roman pre-Flavian coin (i.e. before 69 AD) and two coins dating to the second and third centuries found in the vicinity of Westgate Hill.

The village was an integral part of the Tempest estate, comprising workers' cottages, farmsteads and ancillary buildings. By 1725 a linear settlement extended eastwards from the chapel, towards Keepers Lane and Hill Green.  Dwellings were mainly located to the front of Tong Lane with barns or outbuildings to the rear. It is believed settlement may have initially comprised two focal points, near the church and at Hill Green. Rebuilding work/renovation of village buildings, undertaken by the Tempests, occurred in the 17th and early 18th centuries.

These works included the rebuilding of the 12th-century chapel by Sir George Tempest in 1727, and the construction of the village school and master's house in 1736. A vicarage also superseded the parsonage adjacent to the church. Church Farmhouse similarly dates from the 18th century. Although there is little remaining evidence of any permanent settlement of the area from prehistoric to through Roman times, St James Church provides conclusive evidence of an earlier settlement of some importance at Tong in Saxon times.  Excavations undertaken during the restoration of the church in the 1970s uncovered the fragmentary walls and foundation stones of two earlier buildings contained within the footprint of the remains of a Norman-era church which was built circa 1140.

The discovery of grave markers within these two buildings alludes to the fact that a church existed on the site of the present day church from the eleventh century, and, moreover, prior to the Norman invasion of 1066.

Around the time of the Norman invasion, it is known that Tong Manor was farmed and was owned by a Saxon named Stainulf. As happened across the country after 1066, the Norman invaders knocked down existing churches and built a new place of worship, often on the site of the church they demolished, and, under William the Conqueror, high ranking Normans were installed as the new lords and overlords of the English manors.

By the time of the Domesday Survey, in 1086, some twenty years after the invasion, Tong Manor was held by Ilbert de Lacy, an ally of William The Conqueror, who is recorded in the survey as holding 162 manors.  Among de Lacy's holdings was all of what is now Bradford (excluding Eccleshill).  At the time of the Domesday survey all manors which were held directly by de Lacy lay undeveloped wasteland, including the  Tong Manor, although it is known that Tong was cultivated when in the possession of Stainulf.

Asolf, an extensive landowner in West Riding, appears to have been lord of Tong Manor from around 1135 to about 1159 and it is therefore probably he who rebuilt the church in about 1140 on the site of the demolished pre-Conquest church.  Asolf had many sons, who, instead of taking the name Fitzasolf (son of Asolf) were named after where they were made lord of the manor on their father's death.

In this way, Asolf's son Richard de Tang (c.1130–c.1195) was the first in a line of Lords of Tong who would inhabit Tong Hall and oversee the running of the manor until 1941. The name Tong comes from the Old English term tang meaning tong or fork and refers to the village's position on a raised sliver of land between Ringshaw Beck and Cockersdale which converge at the eastern extreme of the manor.

Tong remained in the possession of the de Tangs as an agricultural manor for nine generations until the death of Hugh de Tong in 1445 and the passing of the manor to his grandson, John Mirfield, to which the woollen town of Mirfield got its name.

Holme Bank, located nearby in Ned Lane, was an ancient holding, but the earliest actual record discovered so far is from "Bradford Archive" is 1562 (Reign of Elizabeth I). Holme Bank Farm like most of the surrounding farms and cottages were owned by the  Tempest family of Tong Hall.

Tong Lane was described in the late 19th century as lined with old trees, with a parsonage, known as Lantern House, and former inn, The Griffin, standing adjacent to the church. The inn's license was subsequently transferred to the Greyhound Inn, a straw-thatched building on Tong Lane, but later moved to its present site, and thus, a griffin is the symbol of the historic pub village cricket team, Tong Cricket Club who have played in several cricket leagues in the West Yorkshire area.

Long since demolished buildings within the village included a wheelwright's shop and smithy adjacent to the pinfold at the junction of Keeper Lane. In order to prevent over-population of the village the Lord of the Manor discouraged new development. Some buildings were dismantled when they became vacant and the stone re-used.

In contrast landholdings elsewhere, such as at Tong Street (about one-and-a-half miles to the west) were sold, resulting in industrial, commercial and residential development. In the early 20th century the antiquarian, James Parker, described Tong village as set within a "charming" rural landscape, the village remaining the same "as it has done in generations past."  According to the estate sale particulars of 1943 the majority of village buildings had retained their function as farmsteads and dwellings, many of the dwellings being single-storey cottages.

The preservation of the Hall and Park, and the Estate's influence on development has helped maintain the character of the village and buildings within it. Many buildings within the Conservation Area are Grade II listed structures dating between the 17th and 18th centuries, with Tong Hall and gatepiers to the entrance of the drive listed respectively as Grade I and Grade II* listed structures. Despite modern residential development the layout of the linear settlement today is very similar to that recorded in 1725.

Governance
There is just one tier of local government covering Tong, being the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council.

Tong was historically a township in the parish of Birstall. From 1866 Tong was a civil parish in its own right. In 1871 a local government district called Tong Street was established covering the western part of the parish, governed by a local board. The local government district was extended to cover the whole parish in 1877 at which point it was renamed Tong. Such local government districts were reconstituted as urban districts in 1894. Tong Urban District was abolished in 1899 and absorbed into the County Borough of Bradford, since when Tong has administratively been part of the city of Bradford.

Tong remained a civil parish within Bradford, but as an urban parish it had no parish council. In 1951 the parish had a population of 5,849. The parish was abolished in 1974 when the metropolitan district of Bradford was created, becoming an unparished area.

Geography
Tong Village, approximately  to the south-east of Bradford City centre, is situated at an elevation of 145 m north of Ringshaw Beck, the land rising to an elevation of 167 m at Hall Green.  Formerly within the parish of Birstall the village is located on a prominent ridge between Pudsey Beck and Cockers Dale. Its place-name is derived from its location between the two valleys, from the Old English term tang, meaning tong or fork, such as a river fork.

Landmarks

Tong Village forms part of Tong Conservation Area, which was originally designated in 1973. The designation covers virtually the entire village which extends in a linear fashion along Tong Lane, the main thoroughfare.

Tong village predates the Norman Conquest and was the seat of Tong Manor between the thirteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.  The manor remained in the hands of the Tempest family, who resisted the expansion and industrialisation of the village, for some four hundred years before selling the Hall and estate in 1941, to  E. W. Towler director of Redpath Dorman and Long.  Unusually, a great number of the buildings in the conservation area were built in the 18th century including Tong Hall (1702) and the adjacent courtyard (1711), St James's Church (1727), the school (1736) and several newly built and rebuilt farmhouses and estate cottages. These buildings used a mixture of red brick and local gritstone, making the conservation area unique in Bradford in terms of materials.

Tong Hall, a Queen Anne manor house built in the late 17th century, replaced an older building—a capital messuage (manor house) is recorded in 1343 as part of the holdings of the Tong family, but was destroyed by fire around 1700. In 1702 Sir George Tempest built the present Tong Hall to designs by Theophilus Shelton. Further alterations took place in 1773 under the direction of architect John Platt. The estate and hall remained with the Tempest family until 1941, when the hall was subsequently used for a number of functions such as a Co-operative Youth Centre, a training college, a hall of residence, a museum, and its current use as a business centre with suites of offices. This small privately owned country estate complex contains high-tech businesses, including internet dating companies.

St James Church is the village's listed parish church (see the history section below), located between the Greyhound pub and the Marriott hotel.  The 12th-century chapel situated on Tong Lane formed the southern boundary of Tong Park. Other structures included a water corn mill, documented in 1218/19.  Archaeological investigations in 1979 found the remains of a probable earlier chapel, dating to the 11th century, standing within the foundations of the 12th century chapel.  A grave marker found during these works implies that there was a burial ground here prior to the 12th-century, suggesting that Tong was possibly a pre-Conquest settlement.

A former schoolroom opposite the parish church is used as a village gathering place, and a learning centre. The village post office operated from these premises, but following recent post office closures, it is no longer operational.

A further landmark of Tong village is Tong Garden Centre, which is situated at the south-western end of Tong Lane about  from its junction with the B6135.

On Tong Lane there is a holiday camping site, a motorcycle hill climb, and the Innovation Motorsports rally (and four by four) testing centre drive, located opposite the Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford, a testing facility used by professional rally teams to ensure their up-and-coming drivers are up to scratch, before the major European rallies.

Further down the road (which was once a short cut for Leeds-bound traffic until traffic-calming measures were introduced), is the Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford, set within wheat fields.

Past the village's new residential housing are preserved working farms, one of which supplies local ice-cream.

The Greyhound public house, a traditional pub and restaurant, is at the Leeds end of the village. Until recently, there was a dovecote on the gable end of the pub. Adjacent to the Greyhound is a small village cricket ground, home to Leeds And West Riding League Tong CC, who play their home games at one of Yorkshire's oldest cricket grounds.

See also
Listed buildings in Bradford (Tong Ward)

References

External links

 West Yorkshire Village Archive

Villages in West Yorkshire
Former civil parishes in West Yorkshire
Bradford

Tong, West Yorkshire


Aquila is a constellation. The name means 'eagle' in Latin. The constellation is normally represented as an eagle.

Aquila is just a few degrees North of the celestial equator. The constellation is best seen in the summer as it is along the Milky Way. Because of this location along the line of our galaxy, many clusters and nebulae are within its borders. However, they are dim and there are not many galaxies.

History
Aquila was one of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. It had been earlier mentioned by Eudoxus in the 4th century BC and Aratus in the 3rd century BC. It is now one of the 88 constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union.

The Greek Aquila is probably based on the Babylonian constellation of the Eagle (MUL.A.MUSHEN), which is in the same area as the Greek constellation.

Novae
Two major novae have been observed in Aquila. The first one was in 389 BC and was recorded as being as bright as Venus. The other was in 1918 and is known as (Nova Aquilae 1918). It briefly shone brighter than Altair, the brightest star in Aquila.

Deep-sky objects
Three interesting planetary nebulae lie in Aquila:
NGC 6804 shows a small but bright ring
NGC 6781 which bears some resemblance with the Owl Nebula in Ursa Major.
NGC 6751: also known as the Glowing Eye, a planetary nebula

Illustrations
In illustrations of Aquila that represent it as an eagle, a nearly straight line of three stars symbolizes part of the wings. The center and brightest of these three stars is Altair. The tips of the wings spread out to the southeast and northwest. The head of the eagle stretches off to the southwest.

Mythology

In mythology, Aquila was owned by the Roman god Jupiter and did many tasks for him.

In a book by Gavin White, the Babylonian Eagle carried the constellation called the Dead Man (LU.USH) in its talons. The author also draws a comparison to the Classical stories of Antinous and Ganymede.

In classical Greek mythology, Aquila was identified as Αετός Δίας (Aetos Dios). He was the eagle that carried the thunderbolts of Zeus. He was sent by Zeus to carry the shepherd boy Ganymede to Mount Olympus. The constellation of Aquarius is sometimes identified with Ganymede.

In the Chinese love story of Qi Xi, Niu Lang (Altair) and his two children (β and γ Aquilae) are separated forever from their wife and mother Zhi Nu (Vega) who is on the far side of the river, the Milky Way.

In Hinduism, the constellation Aquila is identified with the half-eagle half-human deity Garuda.

Chinese astronomy
In Chinese astronomy, ζ Aql is within the Heavenly Market Enclosure (天市垣, Tiān Shì Yuán), and the other stars of the constellation are placed within the Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武, Běi Fāng Xuán Wǔ).

References

Sources

Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion (2007). Stars and Planets Guide, Collins, London. . Princeton University Press, Princeton. .

Other websites

NightSkyInfo.com: Constellation Aquila
Star Tales – Aquila
The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Aquila
WIKISKY.ORG: Aquila constellation

Constellations
Constellations listed by Ptolemy

Aquila (constellation)


Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. It is in the Ivy League and considered by many people to be one of the best universities in the world. Yale is the third oldest university in the United States.

Yale was founded in 1701 in a town near New Haven by a group of church ministers. At first it was called "The Collegiate School" and was created to teach male church ministers in Connecticut. When Elihu Yale, a businessman with the East India Company, gave the school money and books in 1718, the school changed its name to Yale College. It moved into the center of New Haven in the same year. About fifty years later, the school began to teach other subjects like science and history. As the school became more liberal, it became one of the first American schools where extracurricular student groups were created, especially singing groups, sports teams, and student publications like the Yale Daily News.

In the beginning, Yale only taught undergraduate students. Over time, it created graduate schools for medicine, nursing, environmental science, law, music, drama, business, and other professions. In 1869, Yale became the first school in the United States to offer a PhD.  Because it had grown to have many types of schools, degrees, and courses, Yale changed its name to Yale University in 1887. The undergraduate college began to accept women as students in 1969.

Yale has one of the largest libraries in the United States, with 19 library buildings and over 15 million books. The school's main library building, Sterling Memorial Library, is built to look like a cathedral. The Beinecke Library has one of the world's largest collections of rare books and old manuscripts.

The school's campus is known for its Gothic Revival architecture, which was built to look like older English universities like Oxford and Cambridge. On its main campus, Yale has two art museums, a natural history museum, and many theaters. The university also has a golf course near campus and owns five forests in New England.

Fifty-two Nobel Prize winners have been students or professors at Yale, and five U.S. presidents have graduated from Yale, including George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Other famous alumni include politicians Hilary Clinton and John Kerry, actors Meryl Streep and Edward Norton, inventors Eli Whitney and Samuel Morse, CNN anchors Fareed Zakaria and Anderson Cooper, FedEx founder Fred Smith and Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi, and computer scientist Grace Hopper.

Yale's color is blue, and its mascot is a bulldog named "Handsome Dan." Its sports teams are called the Yale Bulldogs, and they play in the Ivy League.

Peter Salovey, a psychologist, is the current president of Yale.

Related pages
Database of (Macro)Molecular Motions at Yale University

References

Association of American Universities
ECAC Hockey
Ivy League
1700s establishments in Connecticut
1701 establishments

Yale University


Ubombo, is a small town in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa about 17 km north-east of Mkuze. It takes its name from the Lebombo Mountain range, on which it is situated. Derived from Zulu Lumbombo, 'high mountain ridge'. The Zulu name for this village is Obonjeni, 'on the big nose', i.e. 'ridge'.

The site and remains believed to be those of the camp where Sir David Bruce and his wife Mary worked between 1894 and 1897, and where Bruce discovered the causative agent of nagana, African trypanosomiasis ("sleeping sickness") and its transmission by the tsetse fly were discovered here.

Bethesda district hospital, founded by the Methodist Church is in this village. It started in 1932 and was initially built by Dr Robert Albert Turner who was the medical superintendent after being the District Surgeon and was a mission training hospital.

From the early 1950s, three prominent business families engaged in trade and transportation in Ubombo. Bob (Robert) Ueckermann and his wife Hazel and Bob's stepson David Irons operated a trading store and a bus transportation company.
Percy and Sybil Hoff operated the Tradewinds Store which still exists, while Herbert (Sonny) Hoff and his wife Nina operated a store and butchery next door to the Hoff business. Percy Hoff was a respected politician and member of the Council for Coloured Affairs, and was well known for his fight for social justice and rights of the coloured people.

Percy Hoff eventually acquired Herbert Hoff's business and amalgamated the stores when Herbert's family left for present day Zimbabwe in the late 1960s. Tradewinds was eventually sold to Nelson Thring when Percy Hoff moved his family to Swaziland and ultimately to Canada.

References

Populated places in the Jozini Local Municipality
Populated places established in 1890

Ubombo