A little known species driven to the edge of extinction by poaching has gained extra protection at the Cites meeting in South Africa. Pangolins are slow moving, nocturnal creatures found across Asia and Africa but over a million have been taken from … Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
In the final year of his life, prolific composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart produced the opera Die Zauberflöte—The Magic Flute—featuring a libretto by the actor Emmanuel Schikaneder. The work is considered a singspiel—an opera in German that contains spoken dialogue and is usually comic in tone. Mozart brought this form of light musical entertainment to a height of lyrical and symbolic art. How much longer did Mozart live after The Magic Flute debuted? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
San Geronimo Feast Day is the feast day for St. Jerome, the patron saint of Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. For 1,000 years, the Tiwa-speaking Taos Indians have lived at or near the present pueblo, and it is still the home of about 1,500 residents. The celebration commences on the evening of Sept. 29 with a sundown dance, followed by vespers in the San Geronimo Mission. On the following day, there are foot races in the morning, and, in the afternoon, “clowns” with black-and-white body paint climb a pole, an act that has secret religious significance to the Taos. Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
After receiving a doctorate in physics in Germany in 1906, Geiger traveled to England, where he assisted chemist Ernest Rutherford. In 1908, they designed an instrument to detect and count alpha particles, positively charged ionizing particles produced by radioactive decay. He then returned to Germany, directing radiation research at several universities. Two decades later, Geiger developed the sensitive, portable radiation counter that now bears his name. Geiger was a member of what “club”? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Among the best primary sources on Aztec culture, Aztec codices contain firsthand accounts of the civilization’s history and religion. While the pre-Colombian codices are largely pictorial, later colonial era codices contain Aztec pictograms, as well as Aztec, Spanish, and occasionally Latin writings. Though there are few surviving pre-conquest codices, the tradition endured the transition to colonial culture, and about 500 such works survive today. What massacre is described in the Aubin Codex? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Definition: (verb) To wave or flourish (a weapon, for example) menacingly.
Synonyms: flourish, wave.
Usage: The farmer, seeing before him this figure in full armor brandishing a lance over his head, gave himself up for dead.
Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
The first three months of pregnancy, a time that parenting magazines and Hallmark cards often portray as magnificent and carefree, can actually be a wretched experience for many women. As many as 90 percent of mothers-to-be experience some degree of nausea … Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Abbreviated as CERN after the original French name, the European Organization for Nuclear Research is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. CERN’s activities are sponsored by 20 European countries. It was there that the World Wide Web—developed to promote scientific collaboration by facilitating information sharing—was invented in the 1990s. CERN’s latest project, the Large Hadron Collider, is, among other things, being used to discover the hypothesized Higgs boson, which is what? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
The Feast of the Archangel Michael, or the Day of St. Michael and All Angels, is a traditional feast day in the Roman Catholic, Anglican Communion, and Orthodox churches. Churches dedicated to Michael can be found in Asia and throughout coastal Europe, usually in places where Michael is reputed to have saved the community from the threat of a monster or giant. The ninth-century abbey Mont St.-Michel, off the coast of Normandy, France, once held the shield said to have been worn by Michael in his fight against the dragon. Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Frustrated by the way his fountain pen’s sharp tip would tear paper and by the amount of time he wasted filling the pen with ink and cleaning up smudges, László Bíró set to work developing a better pen. A Hungarian newspaper editor, he noticed that the ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly and without smudging, but it was too viscous for use with existing pens. With the help of his brother, a chemist, he developed the modern ballpoint pen. How long did it take him to build his pen? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary