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December 28

George E. Mylonas (1898–1988) was a Greek archaeologist of ancient Greece and of Aegean prehistory. He excavated widely, particularly at Olynthus, Eleusis and Mycenae, where he made the first archaeological study and publication of Grave Circle B, the earliest known monumentalized burials at the site. Mylonas was born in Smyrna, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and received an elite education. In 1924, he began working for the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He took part in excavations at Corinth, Nemea and Olynthus under its auspices. He studied and taught at universities in Greece and the United States. He was prominent in the Archaeological Society of Athens and in efforts to conserve the monuments of the Acropolis of Athens. He had co-responsibility for the excavation of Mycenae's Grave Circle B in the early 1950s, and from 1957 until 1985 he excavated on the citadel of the site. His excavations at Mycenae have been credited with bringing coherence to the site. (Full article...)

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April 28

The Republic of South Africa is a large republic in Southern Africa. It is located at the southern tip of the continent, and borders Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho, which is entirely surrounded by South African territory. Its economy is the largest and most well developed of the entire African continent, with modern infrastructure common in nearly all of the country. South Africa has the largest population of people of European descent in Africa, the largest Indian population outside of Asia, as well as the largest Coloured community in Africa, making it one of the most ethnically diverse countries on the continent. Racial and ethnic strife between the white minority and the black majority have played a large part in the country's history and politics. The National Party began introducing the policy of apartheid after winning the general election of 1948; however, it was the same party under the leadership of F.W. de Klerk who started to dismantle it in 1990. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup d'état, and regular free and fair elections are held since 1994, making it a regional power and among the most stable democracies in Africa. (more...)

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March 28

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, named after the Roman goddess Venus. It is a terrestrial planet, very similar in size and bulk composition to Earth; it is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" as a result of this similarity. Although all planets' orbits are elliptical, Venus' orbit is the most nearly circular of all, with an eccentricity of less than 1%. Venus was known to ancient Babylonians around 1600 BC, and probably was known long before in prehistoric times given that it is the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon. Its symbol is a stylized representation of the goddess Venus' hand mirror: a circle with a small cross underneath (Unicode: ♀). (more...)

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February 28

The Hrafnkels saga is an Icelandic saga telling of struggles between chieftains in the east of Iceland in the 10th century. The eponymous main character, Hrafnkell, starts out his career as a fearsome duelist and a dedicated worshipper of the god Freyr. After suffering defeat, humiliation, and the destruction of his temple, he becomes an atheist. His character changes and he becomes more peaceful in dealing with others. After gradually rebuilding his power base for several years, he achieves revenge against his enemies and lives out the rest of his life as a powerful and respected chieftain. The saga has been read as the story of a man who realizes that the true basis of power is not belief in the gods but the loyalty of one's subordinates. It is widely read today and appreciated for its logical structure, plausibility and vivid characters. For these reasons, it has served as a test case in the dispute on the origins of the Icelandic sagas. (more...)

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January 28

A 335,000 gallon (1.3 million liter) aquarium at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

An aquarium is a clear-sided container (typically constructed of glass or high-strength plastic) in which water-dwelling plants and animals (usually fish and sometimes invertebrates) are kept in captivity. Aquarium keeping is a popular hobby around the world, with about 60 million enthusiasts worldwide. From the 1850s, when the predecessor of the modern aquarium was first developed as a novel curiosity, the ranks of aquarists have swelled as more sophisticated systems including lighting and filtration systems were developed to keep aquarium fish healthy. Public aquaria reproduce the home aquarist's hobby on a grand scale — the Osaka Aquarium, for example, brags of a tank of nearly 5.3 million litres (1.4 million U.S. gallons) and a collection of about 580 species of aquatic life. The careful aquarist dedicates considerable effort to maintaining a tank ecology that mimics its inhabitants' natural habitat. Controlling water quality includes managing the inflow and outflow of nutrients, most notably the management of waste produced by tank inhabitants. (more...)

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December 28

The Palace of Westminster, with the House of Lords on the left

The House of Lords is a component of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also includes the Sovereign and the House of Commons. The House of Lords is an unelected body, consisting of senior clerics of the Church of England (the "Lords Spiritual"), as well as certain members of the Peerage (the "Lords Temporal"). Lords Spiritual serve as long as they continue to occupy their ecclesiastical positions, but Lords Temporal serve for life. Members of the House of Lords are known as "Lords of Parliament". The House of Lords evolved at some point during the fourteenth century and has been in almost continuous existence since. It was abolished in 1649 by the revolutionary government that came to power during the English Civil War, but was restored in 1660. The House of Lords (the "Upper House") was once more powerful than the elected House of Commons (the "Lower House"). Since the nineteenth century, however, the powers of the House of Lords have been steadily declining; now, the Upper House is far weaker than its parliamentary counterpart. Under the Parliament Act 1911, most legislation passed by the House of Commons can be delayed, but cannot be rejected, by the House of Lords. (more...)

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November 28

Mozilla Firefox is a free web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and hundreds of volunteers. Before its 1.0 release on November 9, 2004, Firefox had already garnered a great deal of acclaim from the media, ranging from Forbes to the Wall Street Journal. With over 5 million downloads in the first 12 days of its release, Firefox 1.0 is one of the most-used free software applications among home users. With Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation aims to develop a small, fast, simple, and highly extensible web browser (separate from the larger Mozilla Suite). Firefox has become the main focus of Mozilla development along with the Mozilla Thunderbird email client and has replaced the Mozilla Suite as the official browser release of the Mozilla Foundation. Firefox has attracted attention as an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer, since Internet Explorer has come under fire by the media for insecurity, lack of features, disregard for Web standards, and vulnerability to spyware and malware installation. (more...)

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October 28

Greco-Buddhism is the cultural syncretism between the culture of Classical Greece and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 800 years in Central Asia in the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE. Greco-Buddhism influenced the artistic (and, possibly, conceptual) development of Buddhism, and in particular Mahayana Buddhism, before it was adopted by Central and Northeastern Asia from the 1st century CE, ultimately spreading to China, Korea and Japan. Numerous Greco-Buddhist works of art display the intermixing of Greek and Buddhist influences, around such creation centers as Gandhara. The subject matter of Gandharan art was definitely Buddhist, while most motifs were of Western Asiatic or Hellenistic origin. The interaction between Hellenistic Greece and Buddhism started when Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor and Central Asia in 334 BCE, going as far as the Indus, thus establishing direct contact with India, the birthplace of Buddhism. (more...)

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September 28

Robert Lowth was the first grammarian to prohibit the split infinitive in English

A split infinitive is a construction in the English language made by inserting an adverb or adverbial phrase between "to" and a verb in its infinitive form. One famous example is from the science fiction series Star Trek: "To boldly go where no man has gone before." Here, the infinitive verb form of "go" is "to go", and the adverb "boldly" has been inserted, creating a split infinitive. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some grammatical authorities argued that split infinitives should not be allowed in English, by an analogy with Latin, where they are usually impossible. Most authorities from the last 100 years, however, agree that this rule was mistaken, and indeed that splitting an infinitive can sometimes reduce ambiguity. (more...)

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September 6

The Warsaw Uprising was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on August 1, 1944 as a part of a nationwide uprising, Operation Tempest. The Polish troops resisted the German-led forces until October 2. An estimated 85% of the city was destroyed during the urban guerrilla war and after the end of hostilities. The Uprising started at a crucial point in the war as the Soviet army was approaching Warsaw. Although the Soviet army was within a few hundred metres of the city from September 16 onward, the link between the uprising and the advancing army was never made. This failure and the reasons behind it have been a matter of controversy ever since. (more...)

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August 28

Russian is the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. It belongs to the group of Indo-European languages, and is therefore related to Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, as well as the modern Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages, including English, French, and Gaelic. Written examples are extant from the tenth century A.D. onwards. While it preserves much of its ancient synthetic-inflexional structure and a Common Slavonic word base, modern Russian shares a large stock of the international vocabulary for politics, science, and technology. A language of political importance in the twentieth century, Russian is one of the official languages of the United Nations. (more...)

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July 28

A comparison of the mitochondrial DNA of humans from many races and regions suggests that all of these DNA sequences have evolved molecularly from a common ancestor sequence. Under the assumption that an individual inherits mitochondria only from his or her mother, this finding implies that all living humans have a female line of descent from a woman who researchers have dubbed Mitochondrial Eve. Based on the molecular clock technique, Eve is believed to have lived about 150,000 years ago. At the time of Eve's existence, there may have been up to 20,000 individuals. Phylogenies suggest she lived in Africa. (more...)

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June 28

Synapses are specialized junctions through which cells of the nervous system signal to one another and to non-neuronal cells such as muscles or glands. Synapses are circuits in which the neurons of the central nervous system interconnect. They are thus crucial to the biological computations that underlie perception and thought. They also provide the means through which the nervous system connects to and controls the other systems of the body. At a prototypical synapse, such as a dendritic spine, a mushroom-shaped bud projects from each of two cells and the caps of these buds press flat against one another. (more...)

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May 28

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-born philosopher who contributed several groundbreaking works to modern philosophy, primarily on the foundations of logic and the philosophy of language. Although numerous collections from Wittgenstein's notebooks, papers, and lectures have been published since his death, he published only one philosophical book in his own lifetime—the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; his second magnum opus, Philosophical Investigations, was published posthumously. (more...)

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April 28

A beer is any of a variety of alcoholic beverages produced by the fermentation of starchy material derived from grains or other plant sources. The production of beer and some other alcoholic beverages is often called brewing. Historically, beer was known to the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians, and dates back at least as far as 4,000 BC. Because the ingredients used to make beer differ from place to place, beer characteristics (type, taste, and color) vary widely. (more...)

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March 28

Bioinformatics is the use of mathematical and informational techniques to solve biological problems, usually by creating or using computer programs, mathematical models or both. One of the main areas of bioinformatics is the data mining and analysis of the data gathered by the various genome projects. Other areas are sequence alignment, protein structure prediction, systems biology, and virtual evolution. (more...)

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