We now have four-month-old diabetes-free mice that used to have it," he added.
Dr. Ehud Ur, a professor of medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and chair of the clinical and scientific division of the Canadian Diabetes Association, noted that the research is in its infancy.
Like some other experts, he is skeptical about whether it is possible to cure diabetes. He points out that the findings do not apply to people who already have type 1 diabetes.
Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Nobel Committee for Literature at the Swedish Academy, announced on Monday during a radio show on Sveriges Radio that after a failed attempt to directly contact Bob Dylan after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, the committee is giving up on trying to contact him.
Danius said: "We're not doing anything right now. I've called and emailed his closest colleague and received very friendly replies. For now, that's definitely enough."
Jamie Siminoff, chief executive of Ring, previously said his company was founded after he couldn't hear the doorbell in his garage workshop.
He said he created a Wi-Fi doorbell.
Siminoff said sales spiked after he appeared on Shark Tank in 2013, when the show's panel of investors declined to fund his startup.
In late 2017, Siminoff appeared on the shopping channel QVC.
Ring also settled a lawsuit with competing security firm ADT Corp.
Although one experimental vaccine appears to be able to protect against Ebola, no drug has yet been proven effective at treating the current outbreak.
One antiviral drug, ZMapp, initially looked promising but formal studies suggested it offered no more benefit than a placebo in preventing deaths.
In the PALM trial, ZMapp was used as the control treatment. In other words, the scientists used it as a baseline to compare three other treatments.
USA Gymnastics supports the letter to the U.S. Olympic Committee and recognizes the absolute need for the Olympic Family to promote a safe environment for all of our athletes.
We agree with the statement of the United States Olympic Committee that the interests of our athletes, their clubs, and the sports themselves will be better protected if we support meaningful changes within our organization rather than if the organization loses its official powers.
The U.S. Gymnastics Committee supports an independent investigation that will help to shed light on how such widespread abuse, as courageously described by the survivors of Larry Nassar, could have gone undetected for so long. We also welcome all necessary changes.
USA Gymnastics and the USOC have the same goal - to make the sport of gymnastics and all sports as safe as possible for the athletes so they can pursue their dreams in a safe, positive and nurturing environment.
During the 1960s, Brzezinski worked as an advisor for John F. Kennedy and later for Lyndon B. Johnson.
He advised Carter on foreign policy during the 1976 election and served as National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981, succeeding Henry Kissinger.
In the NSA, Carter relied on Brzezinski to help resolve world crises such as the Camp David Accords (1978); normalization of relations between the U.S. and China at the end of the 1970s; the Iranian revolution that led to the seizure of American hostages in Iran (1979); and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979).
The film starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone received nominations in all the major categories.
Gosling and Stone received nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress.
Other nominations include: best picture, director, cinematography, costume design, editing, original score, production design, sound editing and original screenplay.
Two songs from the film La La Land, "City of Stars" and "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)," are nominated for best original song, and Lionsgate led all studios with 26 nominations.
Then on Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump, in a statement released through a spokesman, announced that U.S. forces would be withdrawing from Syria.
The announcement came after Trump had a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey will also take over the detention of captured ISIS fighters who were denied repatriation by European nations, according to the statement.
This not only confirms that at least some dinosaurs had feathers (an established theory), but also provides details that fossils in general cannot provide, such as colouration and three-dimensional arrangement.
Scientists say the animal's feathers were chestnut brown on top with a pale or caramel underside.
The discovery also sheds light on the development of feathers in birds.
Because the dinosaur's feathers do not have a very developed rachis, but have other features - barbs and hooks - the researchers concluded that the rachis probably evolved later than these other features.
The structure of the feathers suggests they were not used in flight, but rather for temperature regulation or display. Scientists had suspected that although the specimen is the tail of a young dinosaur, the sample shows adult feathers rather than juvenile ones.
Although it is a young dinosaur's tail, the sample represents an adult feather and not the down of a baby.
The car bomb that exploded near a police headquarters in the Turkish city of Gaziantep yesterday morning killed two police officers and injured more than 20 other people.
Nineteen of the injured were police officers, the governor's office said.
Police said they suspected a supporter of the Islamic State militant group of carrying out the attack.
They discovered that the Sun works on the same basic principle as other stars: the activity of all stars in a system is apparently determined by their brightness, their rotation, and nothing else.
Based on luminosity and rotation, a star's Rossby number is determined, which is related to the flow of plasma.
The smaller the Rossby number, the less active the star is in terms of magnetic activity.
During his travels, Iwasaki got into a lot of trouble.
He was robbed by pirates, attacked by a rabid dog in Tibet, escaped a marriage in Nepal and was arrested in India.
802.11n operates on both 2.4Ghz and 5.0Ghz frequencies.
So there may be backward compatibility with 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g standards as long as the base station has a dual transmitter.
802.11n is much faster than its predecessors, with a maximum theoretical throughput of 600 Mbit/s.
Duvall, who is married with two grown children, did not make much of an impression on Miller, the story's subject.
When asked about the comment, Miller said, "Mike was talking a lot during the hearing, and I was preparing my opening statement, so I didn't catch exactly what he said."
We will try to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by a significant difference from the level in 2005 to 2020," Hu said.
He did not give any figures for the restrictions and said they would be determined based on China's economic performance.
Hu encouraged developing countries to "avoid the old ways of first polluting and then cleaning up."
He added that they "shouldn't be asked to take on responsibilities that go beyond their development, accountability and capability."
The Iraqi study group presented its report today at 12:00 GMT.
It warns that it is impossible to guarantee that any targeted activity in present-day Iraq will stop sectarian fighting, rising violence or the slide towards chaos.
The report begins with a plea for an open debate and consensus in the United States on policy toward the Middle East.
The report is highly critical of nearly all aspects of the current administration's approach to Iraq, and calls for an immediate change of course.
The first of his 78 recommendations is that a new diplomatic initiative should be taken before the end of this year to secure Iraq's borders against hostile interventions and to restore diplomatic relations with its neighbors.
Current senator and First Lady of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, announced her presidential run yesterday evening in La Plata, a city 50 kilometres (31 miles) from Buenos Aires.
Ms. Kirchner announced her plans to run for the presidency at the Teatro Argentino, the same place where she launched her campaign for the Senate in 2005 as a member of the Buenos Aires delegation.
The discussion was sparked by controversy over spending for Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction, which some fiscal conservatives humorously dubbed "The Bush New Orleans Legacy."
Liberal critics of the reconstruction efforts focused on the fact that the reconstruction contracts were awarded to alleged Washington insiders.
More than four million people flocked to Rome for the funeral.
The number of people present was so large that it was not possible for all of them to get to the funeral at St. Peter's Square.
Large television screens were set up in various locations in Rome so that people could watch the ceremony.
In many other Italian cities, as well as in the rest of the world, especially in Poland, similar projections were taking place, which were watched by a large number of people.
Historians have criticized previous FBI practices for focusing resources on easily solved cases, especially car thefts, in order to pad the agency's success statistics.
Congress began funding the initiative against obscenity in fiscal year 2005, and stipulated that the FBI must dedicate 10 agents to investigating adult pornography.
Robin Uthappa hit the highest score of the innings with 70 runs off 41 balls with 11 fours and 2 sixes.
Middle-order batsmen Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid put up a good show to take their partnership to 100,000 runs.
However, after losing the captain's wicket, India managed to score only 36 runs and lost 7 wickets to end the innings.
U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Singapore in the morning of November 16 for a week-long tour of Asia.
He was welcomed by Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng and discussed trade and terrorism with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
After a week of losses during the midterm elections, Bush informed the audience about the expansion of the market in Asia.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed that the government's "Clean Air Act" should be reviewed by a committee of all parties before its second reading, after a 25-minute meeting with NDP leader Jack Layton in his parliamentary office on Tuesday.
During a meeting with the Prime Minister, Layton asked for changes to the Conservative Party's proposed Environmental Protection Bill, specifically requesting a "complete overhaul" of the Conservative Party's Environmental Protection Bill.
Since the federal government took over the funding of the Mersey Hospital in Devonport, Tasmania, the state government and some federal members have been critical of the move, saying it was simply a gesture ahead of the federal election, which was due to be held in November.
Prime Minister John Howard, however, said the aim was only to protect the hospital's equipment from a Tasmanian government cut of A$45 million.
According to the latest bulletin, tide gauges indicated a tsunami had been generated. A tsunami was confirmed by gauges close to Pago Pago and Nuku'alofa.
No major damage or injuries were reported in Tonga, but there was a temporary power outage, which reportedly prevented Tongan authorities from receiving a tsunami warning from the PTWC.
Fourteen schools on or near the shore were closed Wednesday, even though the warning had been canceled.
U.S. President George W. Bush welcomed the announcement.
Bush spokesman Gordon Johndroe called the North Korean pledge "an important step toward achieving the goal of a fully accountable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."
Today, the tenth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Subtropical Storm Jerry, has formed in the Atlantic Ocean.
The National Hurricane Center says Jerry currently poses no threat to land.
The US Army Corps of Engineers estimates that 6 inches of rain could cause the already-damaged levees to break.
The Ninth Ward, which was flooded up to 20 feet deep during Hurricane Katrina, now has water up to the waist as a nearby levee overflowed.
Water overflows the dam on a 30-metre wide section.
Commons administrator Adam Cuerden expressed his frustration with the deleted data in an interview with Wikinews last month.
He [Wales] lied to us from the get-go. First of all, by acting like it was a legal reason. Secondly, by pretending to listen to us until he got rid of us."
The community's frustration has led to the current effort to prepare rules regarding sexual content for a website that contains millions of open-licensed media.
The work was mostly theoretical, but a program was written with the aim of simulating the observation of the Sagittarius galaxy.
The team was looking for an effect that would be caused by tidal forces between the dark matter of this galaxy and the dark matter of the Milky Way.
Like the Moon, the Milky Way exerts a gravitational pull on Earth, causing the tides, and on the Galaxy as a whole.
Scientists have concluded that dark matter interacts with other dark matter in the same way that normal matter does.
This theory states that most of the dark matter in the galaxy is located around the galaxy in a "halo" of small particles.
Television footage showed a plume of white smoke rising from the plant.
Local authorities have warned residents near the factory to stay indoors, keep their air conditioning off and not to drink tap water.
According to Japan's nuclear agency, cesium and iodine were identified at the plant.
Officials speculate that this may be an indication that the local uranium fuel containers may have ruptured and the fuel is now leaking.
Dr. Tony Moll discovered XDR-TB, an extremely drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa.
In an interview, he said the new variant is "pretty alarming" because of its high infectivity.
Dr Moll believes some of the patients may have caught the virus in hospital, with at least two of them being healthcare workers.
During one year, an infected person can infect 10 to 15 close contacts.
However, the percentage of XDR-TB in the group of people with tuberculosis still seems to be low; 6,000 people out of the total of 330,000 infected at a certain moment in South Africa.
The satellites, weighing more than 450 kg and travelling at approximately 27,300 km/h, collided 790 km above Earth.
Scientists say the impact explosion was massive.
Scientists are still working to determine the size of the impact and its effect on Earth.
The debris is being tracked by the United States Strategic Command of the U.S. Department of Defense.
The results of the drawing analysis will be published on a publicly accessible website.
A doctor who worked at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh will be tried for murder with aggravating circumstances in Ohio after his mother was found dead in the trunk of her car on Wednesday, authorities said.
Dr. Malar Balasubramanian, 29, was found in Blue Ash, Ohio, a suburb about 15 miles north of Cincinnati, lying beside a road in his underwear and a T-shirt, apparently under the influence of powerful drugs.
She led the officers to her black Oldsmobile Intrigue, which was parked about 150 metres away.
They found the body of 35-year-old Saroja Balasubramanian covered in blood-stained bedding.
The body appeared to have been there for about a day, police said.
The first cases of the disease appeared in this season at the end of July.
This disease is transmitted by pigs and is passed to humans through mosquito bites.
The outbreak has prompted India's government to take measures such as deploying carnivore hunters in affected areas, distributing thousands of mosquito nets and spraying pesticides.
The government has also promised several million doses of the encephalitis vaccine, which will help health agencies prepare for next year.
Vaccination plans designed to be delivered to the most at-risk areas this year have been put on hold due to funding shortages and low prioritisation compared to other diseases.
In 1956, Słania moved to Sweden, where three years later he started working for the Swedish Postal Service and became its chief engraver.
He has produced more than 1,000 stamps for Sweden and 28 other countries.
His work is so highly regarded that he is considered to be one of the few "established names" among philatelists, and some people specialise in collecting his work only.
His thousandth stamp was a beautiful "Great Deeds of the Swedish Kings" by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl from 2000, which is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.
He has also worked on designs for banknotes for many countries, including a recent example being the portraits of the prime ministers on the front of the new Canadian $5 and $100 banknotes.
Gibson was taken to hospital after the crash but died a short time later.
The 64-year-old lorry driver was unhurt in the collision.
The vehicle itself was removed from the scene of the accident approximately at 12:00 Greenwich Mean Time on the same day.
A woman who works in a nearby garage said: "The kids were waiting to cross the road and they were all screaming and crying."
Everyone was running back from the scene of the accident.
Other topics on the Bali agenda include saving the world's remaining forests and sharing technology to help developing nations grow in a less polluting way.
The UN also hopes to complete a fund to help countries cope with the impacts of global warming.
The money can be used for flood protection of homes, better water management and diversification of crops.
Fluke wrote that the efforts of some people to silence women on the issue of women's health had been unsuccessful.
She came to that conclusion after receiving an overwhelming amount of positive comments and encouragement from women and men urging her to consider the medical necessity of contraceptives.
When the fighting stopped after the evacuation of the wounded, about 40 remaining prisoners remained in the courtyard and refused to return to their cells.
Negotiators have been trying to resolve the situation but the inmates' demands are not clear.
Between 22:00 and 23:00 MDT, a fire was started in the prison yard.
Soon after, riot police entered the area and fired tear gas at the inmates.
Firefighters eventually put out the blaze at 11:35 p.m.
After the dam was built in 1963, seasonal floods stopped, allowing sediment to build up in the river.
These sediments were essential for the formation of dunes and beaches, which served as natural habitats for wild animals.
As a result, two species of fish have become extinct and another two, including the Arizona gila, are now endangered.
Although the water level will only rise a few feet after the flood, officials hope that will be enough to restore the eroded beaches below the dam.
No tsunami warning was issued, and the Jakarta-based geophysics agency said none would follow, as the quake did not have the magnitude of 6.5 required to trigger a warning.
Despite no tsunami threat, residents began panicking and evacuating their homes and businesses.
Although Winfrey was emotional during her farewell, she assured her fans that she would be back.
This is not goodbye, this is the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another."
The final results of Namibia's presidential and parliamentary elections show that incumbent president Hifikepunye Pohamba has been re-elected by a large margin.
The ruling South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) party also retained its majority in parliament.
Coalition and Afghan forces moved into the area to secure the site, with more coalition air support on the way.
The collision happened at high altitude in mountainous terrain and it is believed to be the result of friendly fire.
Efforts to search the crash site have been hampered by bad weather and rugged terrain.
Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders, and the World Health Organization say it is the worst outbreak in the country's history.
Richard Veerman, a spokesman for Doctors Without Borders, said: "Angola is heading towards the worst epidemic in its history and the situation remains very critical."
The game kicked off at 10am in glorious sunshine, with the exception of a morning shower that quickly passed over, it was a great day for sevens rugby.
South Africa 1, the top-ranked team, got off to a good start by comfortably beating fifth-ranked Zambia 26-0.
Although their play against their southern neighbours was clearly lacking, South Africa improved as the tournament progressed.
Their defensive discipline, ball retention and excellent teamwork made them the exceptional outfit they were and it was certain that this was the team to beat.
Representatives for the city of Amsterdam and the Anne Frank Museum say the tree is infested with fungus and poses a risk to public health, as it could collapse at any time.
The felling was scheduled for Tuesday but was prevented by an extraordinary court decision.
All of the entrances to the cave known as the "Seven Sisters" are at least 100 to 250 meters (328 to 820 feet) long.
The infrared photos show the temperature differences between day and night, indicating that it is probably a cave.
During the day they are cooler than the surrounding surface and at night they are warmer.
Their thermal changes are not as stable as those of large caves on Earth, which often maintain fairly constant temperatures, but this is consistent with them being deep holes in the ground," said Glen Cushing of the US Geological Survey (USGS) and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.
In France, voting traditionally takes place without modern technology: the voter goes into a booth and closes the door behind him or her, and then fills out a pre-printed piece of paper listing the candidate of his or her choice.
After officials verify a voter's identity, the voter casts a ballot into the ballot box and signs a voter registration list.
The French election law contains a fairly strict codification of the electoral process.
Since 1988, voting booths must be transparent so that voters and observers can verify that no ballots were in the box prior to the start of voting, and that no other ballots were added by anyone other than the counted and authorized voters.
Candidates can send representatives to witness the entire process. In the evening, the votes are counted by volunteers under strict supervision and according to specific procedures.
The ASUS Eee PC, introduced globally in 2007 to save and function, became a hot topic at the Information Month in Taipei in 2007.
However, the consumer market for portable computers will radically shake and transform after ASUS was awarded the Taiwan Sustainable Award by the Prime Minister of the Republic of China in 2007.
The station's website describes the show as "old-school theatre with a new and irreverent geek twist!"
In its early days, the show only aired on the long-established internet radio station Toginet, a website focused on spoken word radio.
In late 2015, TogiNet established AstroNet Radio as a sister station.
The show originally featured amateur voice actors from the East Texas area.
The widespread looting reportedly continued through the night, as police were not on the streets of Bishkek.
Bishkek was described by one observer as being in a state of "anarchy" with gangs of people roaming the streets and looting shops.
Several residents of Bishkek accused the protesters from the south of illegal actions.
South Africa beat the All Blacks (New Zealand) in a rugby match of the Tri Nations tournament at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in South Africa.
The final score was a one-point win, 21-20, ending the All Blacks' winning streak at 15 matches.
It was the end of a five-match losing streak for the Springboks.
For the All Blacks, who had already won the trophy two weeks ago, it was their last match.
The series finale will take place next week at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, where the Springboks will face Australia.
A mid-sized earthquake shook western Montana at 22:08 on Monday.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and its National Earthquake Information Center did not receive any immediate reports of damage.
The epicenter of the quake was about 20 km (15 miles) north-northeast of Dillon and 65 km (40 miles) south of Butte.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu, which is fatal to humans, has been confirmed in a dead wild duck found in a marsh near Lyon in eastern France on Monday.
France is the seventh European Union country to be affected by the virus, after Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy.
Suspected cases of H5N1 in Croatia and Denmark remain unconfirmed.
Chambers sued God for "permitting the spreading of death, destruction, and terrorizing millions of Earth's inhabitants."
Agnostic Chambers claims his lawsuit is "frivolous" and "anyone can sue anyone."
Camille Saint-Saëns' opera tells the story of an artist "whose life is ruled by his love of drugs and Japan."
The result is that performers on stage smoke marijuana joints on stage and the theatre itself encourages the audience to join in.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Representative Michele Bachmann came in fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.
After the results came in, Gingrich heaped praise on Santorum but had harsh words for Romney, who launched negative ads against Gingrich in Iowa.
Perry said, "I'm going to take a look at the results of today's election and then I'll make a determination as to whether or not there's a path forward for me," but later said he would continue his campaign and participate in the South Carolina primary on January 21.
Bachmann, the winner of the August straw poll for Republican presidential candidates in Ames, has decided to end her campaign.
The photographer was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center where he later died.
He was reportedly in his mid-20s. In a statement, Bieber said, "While I was not on scene or directly involved in the accident, my heart goes out to the family of the victim here, and my prayers are with them."
The entertainment news website TMZ reported that the photographer stopped his car on the opposite side of Sepulveda Boulevard and tried to take photos of a police traffic stop before crossing the street and being twice ordered by a California Highway Patrol officer to return to his side of the road.
The driver of the car that struck the photographer is unlikely to face criminal charges, police said.
With only eighteen medals available per day, some countries were unable to win a place on the podium.
They include the Netherlands, as Anna Jochemsen finished ninth in the women's race yesterday, and Finland with Katja Saarinen, who finished tenth in the same race.
Australian Mitchell Gourley finished eleventh in the men's super-G standing. Czech skier Oldřich Jelínek finished sixteenth in the men's super-G sitting.
Mexico's Arly Velasquez finished 15th in the men's super-G sitting and New Zealand's Adam Hall finished ninth in the men's super-G standing.
Visually impaired skier Maciej Krezel and guide Anna Ogarzynska from Poland finished 13th in the super-G. Jong Seork Park from South Korea finished 24th in the men's super-G.
UN peacekeepers who arrived in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake have been accused of spreading the cholera epidemic that killed nearly 10,000 people.
According to the legal suit, the camp's waste was not properly disposed of, allowing bacteria to enter the Artibonite River, which is one of Haiti's largest.
Haiti had not seen a case of the disease since the early 19th century prior to the arrival of the troops.
The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti cited independent studies that suggested that Nepalese U.N. peacekeepers unwittingly brought the disease to Haiti.
Danielle Lantagne, a UN expert on the disease, said the outbreak was probably caused by peacekeeping troops.
Hamilton confirmed that Howard University Hospital received the patient in stable condition.
The patient was in Nigeria, where several cases of Ebola have been reported.
The hospital was following infectious control protocols, including isolating patients to prevent the possible spread of infection to others.
Simon had previously worked with Simpson on several shows in various roles.
In the 1980s he worked on shows such as Taxi, Cheers and The Tracey Ullman Show.
In 1989, he helped Brooks and Groening create The Simpsons and was responsible for hiring the show's first staff writers.
Despite leaving the show in 1993, he remained an executive producer and continued to earn tens of millions of dollars in licensing fees every year.
China's state news agency Xinhua earlier announced that the plane had been hijacked.
Later reports said the plane had received a bomb threat and was on its way back to Afghanistan, where it landed in Kandahar.
The first reports indicate that the plane was diverted back to Afghanistan after it was denied permission to make an emergency landing in Urumqi.
Air crashes are common in Iran because its ageing fleet is not maintained well enough for either civil or military operations.
International sanctions meant new planes could not be bought.
Three people died and three others were injured in a helicopter crash earlier this week.
Last month, Iran experienced its worst air disaster in recent years when a plane headed for Armenia crashed, killing all 168 people on board.
In the same month, another passenger plane overshot the runway in Mashhad and crashed into a wall, killing seventeen people.
Aerosmith has cancelled the remaining dates of their tour.
The rock band was scheduled to embark on a U.S. and Canadian tour on September 16.
The tour was cancelled after frontman Steven Tyler injured himself by falling off the stage during the show on 5 August.
Murray lost the first set in a tiebreak after both players held their serves throughout the set.
Del Potro got the break in the second set but he still had to face the tie-break after reaching 6-6.
Potro currently needed shoulder treatment, but he was able to return to the game.
The program started at 20:30 local time (15:00 UTC).
Famous singers from all over the country presented bhajans or songs of devotion to Shri Shyam.
The evening began with singer Sanju Sharma and was followed by Jai Shankar Choudhary. Lakkha Singh also sang chhappan bhog bhajan, which was accompanied by singer Raju Khandelwal.
Then the singing of bhajans was taken over by Lakkha Singh.
Baba Shyam received 108 plates of Chhappan Bhog (56 different types of food items like sweets, fruits, nuts, dishes, etc. offered to the deity).
After that, Lakkha Singh also presented chhappan bhog bhajan. He was accompanied by singer Raju Khandelwal.
During a key Thursday presentation at the Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata unveiled the design for the company's new controller for its upcoming console, the Nintendo Revolution.
A controller similar to a television remote uses two sensors located near the user's television to triangulate their position in three-dimensional space.
This will allow players to control their actions and movements in video games by moving their device in space.
Giancarlo Fisichella lost control of his car and crashed out early in the race.
His teammate Fernando Alonso led for most of the race, but it ended after his pit stop, probably because of a badly fitted right front wheel.
Michael Schumacher retired a few laps after Alonso, due to a damaged suspension, the result of many battles throughout the race.
She's really cute and also quite a good singer," he said, according to a transcript of the press conference.
I was completely blown away every time we had a rehearsal."
Approximately 3 minutes after takeoff, the onboard camera showed the amount of insulation foam that had detached from the fuel tank.
However, it is not expected that the shuttle was damaged in any way.
NASA's space shuttle program manager, N. Wayne Hale Jr., said the foam broke loose "well after the critical time."
Five minutes before the fireworks started, the wind picked up and about a minute later it reached 70 km/h... Then it started to rain, but it was so heavy that it was hitting you in the face like needles, then the hail started, people panicked, screamed and ran around confused.
I lost my sister and her friend, and I had two disabled people on wheelchairs that people just jumped over and pushed out of the way," Armand Versace said.
NHK also reported that the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata prefecture was operating normally.
Hokuriku Electric Power Co. said the quake had no impact on its operations and that the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at its Shika nuclear plant had been shut down.
Approximately 9,400 households were without water and approximately 100 were without power in the area.
Some roads were damaged, rail traffic was halted in the affected areas and Noto airport in Ishikawa prefecture remains closed.
A bomb exploded in front of the governor's office.
Three more bombs exploded near government buildings within two hours.
Some reports say the official death toll is 8, while official reports confirm 30 injured; the final toll is not yet known.
Both cyanide and melamine were found in the urine samples of the pets that died after consuming the contaminated feed.
Researchers at the university said the two compounds react to each other to form crystals that can block the function of the kidneys.
Scientists observed crystals formed in cat urine by adding melamine and cyanuric acid.
The composition of these crystals, when compared using infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), matched those found in the urine of the infected pets.
I don't know if you're aware or not, but most goods from Central America come into the country duty-free.
However, eighty percent of our goods were taxed through customs in Central American countries. We will take care of you.
It didn't make sense to me, it wasn't fair.
I tell people, look, we treat you like we want to be treated.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.
This law requires that violent video games sold in the state of California be labeled with a "18" rating sticker and that the sale of these games to minors be punishable by a fine of $1,000 per violation.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Kier Starmer QC, made a statement this morning announcing the commencement of criminal proceedings against Hoon and Prescott.
Huhne has resigned and will be replaced in the Cabinet by MP Ed Davey, with Norman Lamb MP expected to take over as Business Secretary from Davey.
Huhne and Pryce are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on February 16.
The victims were identified as Nicholas Alden, 25, and Zachary Cuddeback, 21. Cuddeback was the driver.
Edgar Veguilla injured his arm and face, while Kristoffer Schneider had to undergo facial reconstructive surgery.
When Uka aimed for the fifth person's head, the weapon malfunctioned. Schneider suffered permanent headaches, lost sight in one eye, had part of his skull removed and underwent facial reconstruction using titanium.
Schneider testified via video conference call from a U.S. Air Force base in his home country.
In addition to Wednesday's action, Carpanedo also competed in two individual events at the championships.
Her first race was the slalom, where she did not finish the first round. 36 of the 116 competitors had the same result in this race.
In her next race, the giant slalom, she finished tenth in the women's group with a total time of 4:41.30, 2:11.60 slower than the first Austrian Claudia Loesch and 1:09.02 slower than the ninth Gyöngyi Dani from Hungary.
Four skiers in the women's sitting group failed to complete their runs and 45 of the total 117 skiers in the giant slalom failed to finish.
Police in Madhya Pradesh recovered a stolen laptop and a mobile phone.
Deputy Commissioner of Police D. K. Arya said: "We have arrested five persons for raping a Swiss woman and recovered a mobile phone and a laptop belonging to the victim from the arrested persons."
The accused are Baba Kanjar, Bhutha Kanjar, Rampro Kanjar, Gaza Kanjar and Vishnu Kanjar.
Police Inspector Chandra Shekhar Solanki said the accused were produced before the court with their faces covered.
Although three people were in the house at the time of the crash, none of them were hurt.
The driver, however, suffered a serious head injury.
The road where the collision happened was temporarily closed while emergency services worked to free the driver of the red Audi TT.
He was initially taken to James Paget Hospital in Great Yarmouth.
He was then taken to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.
Adekoya was then charged with the murder of her son by the Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
She is currently in custody awaiting trial and a trial date has not yet been set, but the testimony of the witnesses could be compromised as her image has been widely circulated.
This is common practice elsewhere in the UK but the Scottish justice system works differently and the courts viewed the publication of the photographs as potentially prejudicial.
Prof Pamela Ferguson, of the University of Dundee, notes that "journalists are probably treading a fine line if they publish photographs of the alleged perpetrators."
The prosecutor's office, which is in charge of the criminal prosecution, has made it clear to the press that no further information will be provided at least until the indictment is filed.
According to the leak, the document will focus on border disputes in which Palestine seeks to maintain borders as they were before the Middle East war of 1967.
Other topics reportedly included the future of Jerusalem, which is holy to both nations, and the issue of the Jordan Valley.
Israel is demanding a permanent military presence in the valley for ten years after the signing of the agreement, while the Palestinian Authority agrees to a five-year military presence.
The hunters were under the strict supervision of rangers during the supplementary protection study, as the study was monitored and its effectiveness assessed.
The NPSW and NSW Inc (Australian Sporting Shooters Association) worked together to employ qualified volunteers under the auspices of the association's hunting program.
According to Mick O'Flynn, acting head of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) conservation area, the four hunters selected for the first hunt received comprehensive safety training and practice.
Yesterday, Martelly was sworn in before the nine-member Provisional Electoral Council (CEP).
It is Martelly's fifth CEP in four years.
Last month, the presidential commission recommended the resignation of the previous CEP members as part of measures to move the country to new elections.
The commission was set up in response to massive anti-government protests that began in October.
These sometimes violent protests were sparked by the failure to hold elections and some have been ongoing since 2011.
Approximately 60 overheated iPods were reported, causing six fires and four people with minor burns.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) said it was aware of 27 accidents related to the devices.
Last week, METI announced that Apple had informed them of 34 more incidents of overheating, which the company deemed "not serious."
The ministry reacted by describing Apple's postponement of the report as "really regrettable."
The quake hit the Mariana Islands at 7:19 a.m. local time (7:19 p.m. ET Thursday).
The Northern Mariana Islands Office of Emergency Management said there were no reports of damage in the country.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center also said there were no signs of a tsunami.
A former Filipino policeman held Hong Kong tourists hostage after hijacking their bus in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.
Rolando Mendoza fired his M16 rifle at the tourists.
Several hostages were rescued and at least six people have been confirmed dead.
Six hostages, including children and the elderly, were soon released and so were the Filipino photographers.
Photographers later replaced the elderly woman because she needed to use the bathroom. Mendoza was shot.
Liggins followed in his father's footsteps and pursued a career in medicine.
He was trained as a midwife and began working at National Women's Hospital in Auckland in 1959.
While working in the hospital, Liggins began studying premature births in his spare time.
His research showed that if the hormone is given, it speeds up the development of the baby's lungs.
The Sin-chua news agency reported that government investigators on Wednesday found two "black boxes" with flight data recorders.
Wrestling colleagues also paid tribute to Luna.
Tommy Dreamer said, "Luna was the first Queen of Extreme. My first manager. Luna died during the night when there were two moons in the sky. Unique, just like her herself. She was a strong woman.
Dustin "Goldust" Runnels said, "Luna was crazy like me... maybe even more... I loved her and will miss her... maybe she's somewhere better."
A survey of 1400 people before the 2010 federal election showed that the number who disagreed with the idea of Australia becoming a republic had risen by 8 per cent since 2008.
During the 2010 federal election campaign, then Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she believed Australia should become a republic when Queen Elizabeth II dies.
Thirty-four per cent of survey respondents agreed with this opinion and wanted Queen Elizabeth II to be the last monarch of Australia.
When it comes to the extremes of the survey, 29 per cent of respondents believe Australia should become a republic as soon as possible, while 31 per cent believe Australia should never become a republic.
The Olympic gold medallist was due to swim the 100m and 200m freestyle and three relays at the Commonwealth Games, but doubts were raised about his eligibility.
He was unable to take the medication he needed to get through the pain as drugs are banned at the Games.
Curtis Cooper, a mathematician and professor of computer science at the University of Central Missouri, discovered the largest known prime number on January 25.
The discovery was verified using different hardware and software by several people before being announced on Tuesday.
Comets can be a source of water on Earth, along with organic material which can form proteins and support life.
Scientists hope to understand how planets formed, in particular how the Earth formed out of the collisions of comets with the Earth in the distant past.
Cuomo, 53, began his term as governor earlier this year and signed a law last month legalizing same-sex marriage.
He described the reports as "political gossip and nonsense."
There have been speculations that he will run for president in 2016.
NextGen is the system that, according to the FAA, will allow planes to fly shorter routes and save millions of gallons of fuel and reduce carbon emissions every year.
Compared to ground-based radar, the satellite-based technology allows air traffic controllers to detect aircraft with greater accuracy and gives pilots more precise information.
No special traffic arrangements will be in place, overground train services will not be stopping at Wembley and there will be no park and ride facilities on site.
Concerns over transportation options have increased the chances that the match will be played in front of a closed-door crowd.
A study published Thursday in the journal Science describes the creation of new bird species on the Galapagos islands in Ecuador.
Researchers from Princeton University in the United States and Uppsala University in Sweden found that the new species had developed within just two generations, although it was previously thought that this process would take much longer, due to the breeding between the endemic finches, Darwin's middle finches and the immigrant cactus finches and waxbills.
Gold can be worked into all sorts of shapes. It can be rolled into tiny balls.
It can be drawn into thin wire which can be bent and woven. It can be hammered or rolled into sheets.
It can be worked into a very thin sheet and attached to other metals. It can be made so thin that it is sometimes used as a decorative coating for illuminated manuscripts called "illuminated manuscripts".
This is called the pH of the chemical. You can make your own indicator using red cabbage juice.
The juice from cabbage changes color depending on whether the chemical is acidic or alkaline (alkaline).
The pH value is determined by the amount of hydrogen ions (the H in pH) in the substance being tested.
Hydrogen ions are protons that have lost electrons (because the atoms of hydrogen consist of one proton and one electron).
Mix both the dry powders together and then make a ball out of it with your wet hands.
The moisture in your hands will react with the outer layers, giving you a strange feeling and forming a sort of shell.
The cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro had nearly all houses with flushing toilets connected to a sophisticated drainage system.
Remains of sewage systems have been found in Minoan towns on Crete and Santorini in Greece.
Public toilets existed in ancient Egypt, Persia and China. In ancient Rome, public toilets were sometimes part of public baths, which were used by both men and women.
When you call someone who is thousands of miles away, you are using a satellite to make the call.
The satellite in space receives the call and almost instantly reflects the signal back down.
The satellite was launched into space by a rocket. Scientists use space telescopes because the Earth's atmosphere partly blocks the light and limits the field of view.
It takes a really big rocket to put a satellite or telescope into orbit - over 100 feet long.
The invention of the wheel changed the world in an unprecedented way. The most important effect was the significant facilitation and speeding up of transportation.
He brought us the train, the car and other means of transportation.
Below them are medium-sized cat-like carnivores that hunt medium-sized prey ranging from hares to antelopes and deer.
In the end, there are a lot of small cats (including domestic cats) whose main source of food is small prey such as insects, rodents, lizards and birds.
The secret to their success is their ecological niche, i.e. each cat has its own tasks that do not allow it to compete with others.
Lions are the most social of all cats and live in large groups called prides.
A pack consists of one to three related adult males, plus up to thirty females and their young.
Females are usually closely related and represent a large family consisting of sisters and daughters.
Lion prides behave much like wolf packs or dog packs, surprisingly similar to lions (but not other large cats) in their behaviour, and also very deadly to their prey.
Tigers can climb (though not well), swim, jump very far, and pull with five times the strength of a fit human.
Tigers belong to the same genus (Panthera) as lions, leopards and jaguars. These four big cats are the only ones that roar.
A tiger's roar is not like a lion's full-throated roar, but rather a series of sharp, yelled words.
Ocelots like to eat small animals. If they can, they catch monkeys, snakes, rodents, and birds. Almost all of the animals that ocelots hunt are much smaller than they are.
Scientists believe that ocelots hunt and find prey (prey) by smell, when they smell where they walked on the ground.
They have very good night vision due to their night vision and can move around very quietly. Jaguars hunt by ambushing their prey and then pouncing on them.
When a small group of organisms (a small population) separates from a main population (such as when they cross a mountain range or a river, or when they move to a new island), they often find themselves in a different environment.
This new environment has different sources and different competitors, so the new population will need different characteristics or ways of adapting in order to become a more powerful competitor than in the past.
The original population has not changed at all, they still need the same adaptations as before.
Over time, as the new population adapts to its new environment, they begin to look less and less like the other population.
Eventually, after several thousand or even million years, these two populations will become so different that they will no longer be considered the same species.
This process is called speciation, which means the formation of new species. Speciation is an inevitable and very important part of evolution.
Plants produce oxygen that people breathe and take in carbon dioxide that people exhale.
Plants make their own food from the sun using photosynthesis. They also provide shade.
We make our houses and our clothes from plants. Most of the food we eat is plant-based. Without plants, animals could not live.
The Mosasaurus was the apex predator of its time, so it had nothing to fear except other Mosasaurs.
Its long jaws were lined with more than 70 razor-sharp teeth and an extra set in the upper jaw, so that nothing could escape its bite.
We don't know for sure, but they may have had a split tongue. Their diet consisted of turtles, large fish, other mosasaurs, and possibly even cannibalism.
They also attacked anything that went into the water, even a large dinosaur like T. rex was no match for them.
While most of their dishes would be familiar to us, the Romans had their own take on special or unusual ingredients, including wild boar, peacock, snails and a type of dormouse.
Another difference was that women and the poor ate their food while sitting on chairs, while the rich men preferred to hold banquets together and eat while reclining on their sides.
Ancient Roman food could not have included foods that did not arrive in Europe from the Americas or Asia until later centuries.
For example, they did not have corn, tomatoes, potatoes, or chocolate, and no ancient Roman ever ate turkey.
The Babylonians built a temple for each of their gods, which were believed to be their home.
People brought offerings to the gods and priests tried to please the gods through rituals and festivals.
Each temple had an open courtyard and then an inner sanctuary where only priests were allowed to enter.
Sometimes, they were built as part of temples as special pyramid-shaped towers called ziggurats.
The top of the tower was a special sanctuary for the god.
In the warm climate of the Middle East, a house was not as important.
Most of a Hebrew family's life was lived outdoors.
Women cooked in the courtyard; shops were only open counters facing the street. Stone was used to build houses.
There were no extensive forests in the land of Canaan, so wood was very expensive.
Greenland was sparsely populated. In the Nordic sagas, it is written that Erik the Red was banished from Iceland for murder and, when he traveled further west, he found Greenland and named it.
Regardless of its discovery, there were already tribes of Eskimos living there at the time.
Although all of the countries were part of "Scandinavia," there were many differences between the peoples, kings, customs, and histories of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland.
If you've seen the movie National Treasure, you might think there's a map to the treasure on the back of the Declaration of Independence.
This is not true. Although there is something written on the back of the document, it is not a map to the treasure.
On the back of the Declaration of Independence are the words "Original Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776." The text is on the bottom of the document, written with the letters upright.
Although the author is not known for certain, it is clear that the large parchment document (29 3/8 by 24 1/2 inches) was rolled up not long after it was created.
It is therefore likely that the entry was simply added as an afterthought.
The invasion of Normandy and subsequent battles had freed northern France, but southern France had not yet been liberated.
They were the Vichy French, the French who signed an armistice with the Germans in 1940 and then collaborated with the invading forces.
On August 15, 1940, the Allies invaded southern France. The invasion was code-named Operation Dragoon.
In just two weeks, the Americans and the Free French forces had liberated southern France and turned to face Germany.
A civilization is a certain culture, a significant large group of people who live and work together in mutual cooperation, i.e. together they form a society.
The word civilization is derived from the Latin word civilis which means "civil" and is related to the Latin word civis which means "citizen" and also "city" or "city-state" and also in some way defines the size of a society.
The predecessors of nations were city-states. Civilization is distinguished from barbarism by the transmission of knowledge over several generations, the presence of long-lasting cultural artifacts, and moderate diffusion.
Small cultures often disappear without leaving any relevant historical evidence and are not recognized as proper civilizations.
During the War of Independence, the thirteen states initially formed a weak central government with the Congress as its sole component, under the Articles of Confederation.
Congress lacked the power to levy taxes, and as there was no national executive or judicial branch, it relied on the states to carry out the laws, which were often ignored by the states.
It also had no power to repeal tax laws and tariffs between states.
Articles required a unanimous consent of all states, and only then could they be ratified. States took the central government very lightly, so much so that their representatives were often absent.
The Italian national football team, along with the German national football team, is the second most successful team in the world, and in 2006 Italy won the FIFA World Cup.
Popular sports include football, basketball, volleyball, water polo, fencing, rugby, cycling, ice hockey, roller hockey, and Formula 1 racing.
Winter sports are very popular in the northern regions, where the Italians compete in international games and Olympic competitions.
Japan has almost 7,000 islands and the largest of these is Honshu, so Japan is actually the 7th largest island in the world!
Because of the cluster/group of islands that Japan has, it is sometimes referred to in a geographical sense as an "archipelago".
The beginnings of Taiwan can be traced back to the 15th century when nearby European sailors noted the name of the island as Ilha Formosa, meaning beautiful island.
In 1624, the Dutch East India Company established a base at Tainan in southwest Taiwan and began the transformation of the original grain-producing practices, employing Chinese laborers on their rice and sugar plantations.
In 1683, forces of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) took control of the southwestern and northern coastlines of Taiwan, and in 1885, Taiwan became a province of the Qing Empire.
In 1895, after its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), the Qing government signed the Shimonoseki Peace Treaty, which ceded sovereignty over Taiwan to Japan. Japan then ruled the island until 1945.
Machu Picchu is made up of three main sections: the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows.
Most of the buildings at the edges of the complex have been refurbished to give visitors a better idea of how the buildings originally looked.
By 1976, 30% of Machu Picchu had been restored and restoration continues to the present day.
For example, the most common format for photographs worldwide is 35mm, which was the standard film size at the height of the analogue era.
They are still made today, but more importantly their aspect ratios have been inherited by modern digital camera sensors.
Although somewhat confusing, the 35mm format actually has a width of 36mm and a height of 24mm.
The aspect ratio of this format (divided by twelve to obtain the simplest ratio in whole numbers) is therefore 3:2.
Many common aspect ratios (such as the family of aspect ratios 16:9) are equal or very close to this ratio.
Often abused and ridiculed, the "rule of thirds" is simply a guideline that creates dynamics in a picture while maintaining a certain amount of order.
According to this specification, the most efficient place for the main subject is at the intersection of lines that divide the image vertically and horizontally into thirds (see example).
During this period of European history, the Catholic Church, which had become wealthy and powerful, became the target of detailed investigation.
For more than a thousand years, Christianity has united European states despite differences in language and customs.
Its ubiquitous power touched everyone from kings to peasants.
One of the main Christian principles is that wealth should be used to relieve suffering and poverty, and that the church's financial resources are there for that purpose.
For more than 1,000 years, the central authority of the church has been in Rome. This concentration of power and wealth has led many to question whether this principle has been upheld.
Britain quickly established a naval blockade of Germany after the conflict began.
The strategy proved effective in disrupting vital military and civilian resupply, even though the blockade violated generally accepted international law codified in several international agreements from the previous two centuries.
Britain had crossed international waters to prevent any ships from entering the whole of the ocean, which posed a danger even to neutral ships.
As the tactics were only met with limited response, Germany expected a similar reaction to its unrestricted submarine warfare.
During the 1920s, most citizens and nations were pacifist and isolationist.
As witnesses to the horrors and atrocities of World War I, the nations sought to avoid a similar situation in the future.
In 1884, Tesla moved to the United States to accept a job with the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City.
He came to the U.S. with four cents in his pocket, a book of poems and a letter of recommendation from his previous employer, Charles Batchelor, to Thomas Edison.
Ancient China had a unique way of distinguishing different time periods; each era of China or each ruling dynasty was considered a separate dynasty.
Between each of the dynasties, there were also periods of divided provinces. The most famous of these was the Three Kingdoms Period which lasted for 60 years between the Han and Jin dynasties.
During these periods there was a vicious civil war between many of the claimants to the throne.
The Warring States period is considered to be one of the bloodiest periods of ancient Chinese history, with thousands of people dying in battles for the throne at the great palace at Xi'an.
There are many social and political consequences, such as the use of the metric system, the transition from absolutism to republicanism and nationalism, or the belief that the country belongs to the people, not just one ruler.
After the revolution, the professions were opened to all male applicants, allowing the most ambitious and successful to rise to the top.
The same is true for the military, which has done away with class-based ranks in favor of skill-based ones.
The French Revolution also inspired many oppressed workers in other countries to try to start a revolution in their own countries.
Muhammad was deeply interested in matters beyond the affairs of this world. He often visited a cave known as Hira in the mountain called Noor (light) and meditated there.
The cave itself, which has survived for a long time, gives a very vivid picture of Muhammad's spiritual focus.
Due to its position on top of one of the mountains north of Mecca, the cave is completely isolated from the rest of the world.
In fact, it is not very easy to find it, even if you know it exists. It is completely isolated inside the cave.
There is nothing to see except a beautifully clear sky and a large number of surrounding mountains. From inside the cave, one can only see and hear very little of the outside world.
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World that still exists.
The Great Pyramid of Giza, built in the 3rd century BCE, is one of many large pyramid-shaped structures built as tombs for the Pharaohs.
The Giza Plateau or "Giza Plateau" in Egypt's Valley of the Kings includes several pyramids (of which the Great Pyramid is the largest), small pyramids, tombs, and the Great Sphinx.
The Great Pyramid was built as a burial chamber for the Pharaoh Khufu, with many smaller pyramids, tombs, and temples surrounding it for his wives and family members.
The "backslash up" looks like a V and the "backslash down" looks like a hook or a square with the bottom missing.
Top means you start at the tip and pull the bow toward the frog (where the hand holds the bow) and Bottom means you start at the frog (where the hand holds the bow) and pull the bow toward the tip.
Moving up usually produces a softer sound, while moving down produces a louder and more penetrating sound.
You can write in your own brands on the sheet, but keep in mind that printed brands have a reason in music, so they should usually be adhered to.
The terrified King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, their two young children (11-year-old Marie Therese and 4-year-old Louis-Charles) and the king's sister Elizabeth Philippine, the Duchess of Chartres, were forced by the mob of market women to return from Versailles to Paris on 6 October 1789.
They made their way back to Paris in a carriage surrounded by a furious mob shouting abuse at the king and queen.
A crowd of people forced the king and queen to leave the windows of their carriage wide open.
At one point in Versailles, a member of the criminal gang waved his head at the royal guard in front of a horrified queen.
The war expenses of the American imperialism in the conquest of the Philippines were paid by the Filipino people themselves.
They were forced to pay taxes to the colonial regime of the United States to pay for a large part of the expenses, while the interest on the bonds flowed in the name of the Philippine government through Wall Street banks.
Of course, the extra profits gleaned from long-term exploitation of Filipinos would be the very essence of American imperialism.
In order to understand the Templars, it is necessary to understand the context that led to the creation of the order.
The period in which these events occurred is commonly referred to as the High Middle Ages in European history, from the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries (1000–1300 AD).
The Early Middle Ages were followed by the High Middle Ages, and then the Late Middle Ages, which ended around 1500.
Technological determinism is a term that in practice encompasses a wide range of thoughts: for example, the so-called push theory or technological imperative, or the belief that human destiny is determined by all-pervading logic along with the scientific laws and their manifestations in technology.
Most interpretations of technological determinism share two general ideas: (1) that the development of technology follows a path that is largely independent of cultural or political influences, and (2) that technology in turn exerts an independent influence on the societies in which it is used.
For example, we can say that when motorized carriages appear, it will inevitably lead to the development of roads.
However, the national road network is not economically viable for just a handful of cars, so new manufacturing methods are being developed to reduce the cost of owning a car.
Mass car ownership also leads to an increase in road traffic accidents, which in turn leads to the invention of new medical techniques to repair injured bodies.
Romanticism also contained a large element of cultural determinism derived from writers such as Goethe, Fichte, and Schlegel.
In the context of Romanticism, the geographically-separated individuals, and over time, gave rise to customs and culture associated with the geography, and those, because they were in harmony with the society, were better than arbitrarily enforced laws.
Similarly, as Paris is known as the center of modern world fashion, Constantinople was known as the center of feudal European fashion.
Its fame as an epicenter of luxury began around 400 BCE and lasted until around 1100 CE.
Its importance declined in the 12th century, partly because participants in the Crusades brought back riches such as silk and spices, which were more valuable in Europe than in Byzantium.
It was during this time that the fashion capital title moved from Constantinople to Paris.
The Gothic style reached its peak during the 10th to 11th and 14th centuries.
Early on, dress was significantly influenced by Byzantine culture.
However, due to the slow communication, the Western styles were lagging behind by 25 to 30 years.
By the end of the Middle Ages, Western Europe began to develop its own style. One of the biggest advances of this time was that as a result of the Crusades, people began to use buttons to fasten their clothing.
Homesteading is the act of producing just enough food to feed the farmer and his or her family.
Subsistence farming is a simple, often organic system of farming in which farmers cultivate only enough to feed themselves and their families with little or no surplus production, and may practice crop rotation or other relatively simple techniques to maximize the yield of their land.
Throughout most of history, most farmers practiced subsistence farming, which is still the case in many developing countries.
Subcultures bring together like-minded individuals who feel excluded from mainstream society, and allow them to develop a sense of identity.
Subcultures can be distinguished by age, ethnic origin, class, location, and/or gender of their members.
The characteristics that distinguish a subculture may be linguistic, aesthetic, religious, political, sexual, geographic, or any combination of factors.
Members of the subculture often express their membership through conspicuous and symbolic use of style, which includes clothing, behavior, and slang.
One of the most common methods used to illustrate the importance of socialization is to draw from several unfortunate cases of children who were not socialized by adults due to neglect, bad luck, or intentional abuse.
Such children are called "wolf children". Some wolf children were long-term prisoners (usually imprisoned by their own parents), in some cases they lived alone because they were rejected by their parents due to their severe mental or physical disability.
Wild children may have experienced serious abuse or trauma before being abandoned or running away.
Others were said to have been raised by animals, while some were said to have lived in the wild alone.
In complete care of non-human animals, the wild child shows almost identical behavior (within physical limits) as the caring animal, such as its fear or indifference towards humans.
While project-based learning should make learning easier and more interesting, scaffolding goes one step further.
The skeleton is not a teaching method but rather a tool that provides support to those individuals who are undertaking the acquisition of a new practice, such as using a new computer program or launching a new project.
The scaffolding can be virtual or real, in other words, the teacher is a type of scaffolding, but so is a small hook in Microsoft Office.
The software includes Virtual Constructions designed to analyse, motivate and explain procedures that may be too difficult for the student to perform alone.
Children are placed in foster care for a variety of reasons, ranging from neglect to abuse to exploitation.
No child should ever grow up in an environment where they are not getting proper nutrition, care and upbringing, but such cases do exist.
We believe the foster care system will be a safe zone for these children.
Our foster care system should provide a safe home, loving foster parents, stable education, and reliable health care.
Foster care is designed to meet all the needs that were not being met in the home from which they came.
The Internet combines elements of both mass communication and interpersonal communication.
The specific characteristics of the Internet add another dimension to considerations of use and satisfaction.
For example, "learning" and "socialization" are proposed as important motivations for using the Internet (James and colleagues, 1995)
“Personal involvement” and “continued interest” were also identified by Eighmey and McCord (1998) as new aspects of motivation when they studied audience reactions to a website.
The use of video recordings has led to important discoveries in the interpretation of micro expressions - facial movements lasting only a few microseconds.
Specifically, you can use the correct interpretation of micro-expressions to determine if someone is lying to you.
Oliver Sacks suggested in his article The President's Speech how people who are unable to understand speech due to brain damage are able to accurately judge the sincerity of the person speaking.
It even suggests that such an ability to interpret human behaviour may be shared by animals such as domestic dogs.
Research in the twentieth century showed that there are two areas of genetic variation: hidden and expressed.
Mutations add a new genetic variant, and selection removes them from the pool of expressed variants.
Segregation and recombination will shuffle the differences between the two files in each generation.
For primates with a digestive system similar to that of humans, it is difficult to meet the need for amino acids from plant sources available in the open savanna.
If they don't, there are serious consequences: growth of depression, malnutrition and eventually death.
The easiest plant-based sources of protein are those found in leafy greens and legumes, but these are hard to digest for us primates unless they are cooked.
In contrast, animal food (ants, termites, eggs) is not only easily digestible but also provides a high amount of proteins, which contain all essential amino acids.
All in all, we shouldn't be surprised if our ancestors dealt with the protein problem in a similar way to the chimpanzees in the savannah today.
Sleep deprivation is the deliberate act of willfully depriving oneself of sleep for an extended period of time (typically 10–60 minutes).
This can easily be achieved by using a relatively quiet alarm to wake you up without fully rousing you.
If you find that you are sleeping through your alarm, consider placing it across the room so that you are forced to get out of bed to turn it off.
Other options based on circadian rhythms include drinking a large amount of fluids (especially water or tea, a known diuretic) before bedtime, as this forces the person to get up and go to the toilet.
The degree of inner calmness of a person corresponds to the opposite degree of tension in his body and spirit.
The lower the tension, the more goodness life brings. Every human being has the potential to find absolute peace and happiness.
Enlightenment can be attained by anyone. The only thing that prevents us from achieving this is our own tension and negativity.
Tibetan Buddhism is based on the teachings of Buddha, but it was expanded to include the Mahayana path of love and many techniques from Indian yoga.
The essence of Tibetan Buddhism is very simple. It is Kundalini yoga, meditation and the path of universal love.
In Kundalini yoga, the energy of kundalini (the energy of enlightenment) is awakened by the asanas (yoga poses), pranayama (breathing exercises), mantras (mantras) and visualizations of this yoga.
The center of Tibetan meditation is Deity Yoga. Through the visualization of various deities, the energy channels are purified, the chakras are activated and an enlightened mind is created.
Germany was a common enemy during World War II, which led to cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States. Conflicting systems, processes, and cultures led to the breakdown of cooperation between the countries after the end of the war.
Two years after the war ended, former allies became enemies and the Cold War began.
It lasted for another 40 years and was fought with proxy armies on battlefields from Africa to Asia, in Afghanistan, Cuba, and many other places.
By September 17, 1939, the Polish defense had already been breached, and the only hope was to retreat and regroup along the Romanian border.
These plans, however, almost overnight fell apart when more than 800,000 Soviet Red Army troops formed Belorussian and Ukrainian fronts after Soviet troops had invaded eastern Poland, violating the Riga Peace Treaty, the Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact and other international treaties, both bilateral and multilateral.
Using ships to transport people and goods across oceans is by far the most efficient way to do so.
The traditional role of the Navy has been to ensure that the state has the ability to transport people and goods, but also to prevent the enemy from doing so.
One of the most notable recent examples was the North Atlantic campaign during World War II. The Americans tried to move men and material across the Atlantic to help Britain.
At the same time, the German Navy was trying to stop this traffic, mainly using submarines.
If the Allies had failed, then Germany might have been able to invade the UK, just as it had taken the rest of Europe.
Goats were probably first domesticated about 10,000 BCE in the Zagros Mountains of Iran.
Ancient cultures and tribes began to domesticate them for easy access to milk, wool, meat and hides.
Domesticated goats were mostly kept in herds that roamed around on hills or other rough pasture, often under the supervision of herders, sometimes children or adolescents, in a manner similar to the more familiar herding of sheep. This type of herding is still practiced.
Railways in England were built in the 16th century.
Although the towpaths were usually just parallel planks, they allowed draught horses to haul heavier loads at a faster speed than on other roads of the time, which were somewhat rougher.
The wheels were introduced reasonably early to keep the tracks in place. Eventually, however, it was found that rails were more efficient if they had iron on their surface.
This had become a common occurrence, but the iron wheels caused more wear on the wooden wheels of the carriages.
Eventually, wooden wheels were replaced by iron. In 1767, the first all-iron wheel was introduced.
The first known means of transportation was walking upright, which humans began doing about two million years ago with the advent of Homo erectus ("upright man").
Their ancestors, the australopithecines, usually did not walk upright.
Bipedalism has been found in the fossil record of Australopithecus from 4.2 to 3.9 million years ago, though Sahelanthropus may have been bipedal as early as 7 million years ago.
To some extent, we can reduce future suffering by living more sustainably, joining an environmental protection movement, and even becoming an environmental activist.
In many cases, it is the same as symptomatic treatment. If, however, we are not just looking for a temporary solution, we should find the cause of the problem and get rid of it.
It is obvious that the world has changed a lot due to the scientific and technological progress of the human race, and the problems have grown due to overpopulation and the extravagant lifestyle of the human race.
After being passed by Congress on July 4, the handwritten draft, signed by President of the Congress John Hancock and Secretary Charles Thomson, was sent a few blocks away to be printed by John Dunlap.
Between 150 and 200 copies were produced overnight, which are now known as "Dunlap prints".
The document was first publicly read by John Nixon on July 8, 1776, on the steps of the Pennsylvania State House.
One was sent to George Washington on July 6, which he read to his troops in New York on July 9; one was sent to London on August 10.
The oldest known surviving copies of the document are called the Dunlap broadsides, a set of 25 broadsides printed by Dunlap. The original manuscript is not known to have survived.
Many paleontologists today believe that one group of dinosaurs survived until today. We call them birds.
Many people don't think of them as dinosaurs because they have feathers and can fly.
But there are still plenty of similarities between birds and dinosaurs.
They have claws and spikes on their feet, lay eggs and walk on their two hind legs like a T-Rex.
Almost all of today's computers are based on processing information in the form of binary numbers.
A binary number can only have one of two values, namely 0 or 1, and these are known as binary digits or bits for short.
Internal poisoning may not be immediately apparent. Symptoms such as vomiting are too nonspecific to be used as an immediate diagnosis.
The best indicator of poisoning may be the presence of an open container of medications or household cleaners that contain toxic chemicals.
Check the label for specific first aid instructions for that particular poison.
The term "bug" is used by entomologists to refer to this group of insects in a formal sense.
The term is derived from the ancient familiarity with fleas, which are highly adapted parasites of humans.
Both bed bugs and fleas are stealthy, adapting to living in a nest or the home of their host.
Approximately 400,000 people in the United States have been diagnosed with MS, making it the most prevalent disabling neurological disease in young and middle-aged adults.
MS is a disease that affects the central nervous system, which includes the brain, optic nerves and spinal cord.
The research showed that women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with RS than men.
A couple may decide that bringing up a child is not in their or their child's best interests.
These couples may decide to pursue an adoption plan for their child.
In the case of adoption, biological parents give up their parental rights so that another couple can become the child's legal parents.
The main goal of science is to determine how the world works through the scientific method. This method is actually the guide for most scientific research.
However, it is not the act of experimenting itself. An experiment is a test conducted to disprove one or more hypotheses, but for scientific research it is also important to ask questions and observe.
Naturalists and philosophers focused on classical texts and especially the Latin Bible.
Aristotle's views on all areas of science, including psychology, were accepted.
As the knowledge of Greek declined, the West found itself cut off from its Greek philosophical and scientific heritage.
Many of the rhythms recorded in physiology and behaviour often depend fundamentally on the presence of endogenous cycles and their production through biological clocks.
Periodic rhythms that are not just responses to external periodic stimuli have been documented in most living things, including bacteria, fungi, plants and animals.
Biological clocks are self-sustaining oscillators that continue to run even in the absence of external stimuli.
The Hershey-Chase experiment was one of the major pieces of evidence that DNA is the genetic material.
Hershey and Chase used phages or viruses to inject their own DNA into bacteria.
They performed two experiments in which either the DNA in the phage was labelled with radioactive phosphorus or the protein in the phage was labelled with radioactive sulphur.
Mutations can have different effects depending on the type of mutation, the significance of the affected piece of genetic material, and whether or not the mutation affects stem cells.
Only mutations in the germ line of cells can be transmitted to offspring, while somatic mutations can cause cell death or cancer.
Nature-oriented tourism attracts people who are interested in visiting natural areas to admire landscapes, including wildlife and animals.
Examples of activities in this type of tourism include hunting, fishing, photography, bird watching, visiting parks and studying information on the corresponding ecosystem.
An example is visiting, photographing and learning about orangutans in Borneo.
Every morning, people in cars leave the small towns, drive to work, and on the way they pass other people on their way to work from where the people in the car just came from.
This dynamic commuter transport relies on everyone contributing and supporting a transport system based on private vehicles.
Science now suggests that this massive carbon economy tipped the biosphere out of its stable state that had supported human evolution for the previous two million years.
Everyone participates in society and uses the transportation system. Almost everyone complains about the transportation system.
In developed countries, you rarely see similar levels of complaint about water quality or collapsing bridges.
Why do transportation systems generate so many complaints, why do they fail so often? Are transportation engineers just incompetent? Or is it something deeper?
Traffic flow is the study of how individual drivers and vehicles interact while moving from one point to another.
Unfortunately, studying traffic flow is difficult because the behavior of drivers cannot be predicted with 100% certainty.
Fortunately, drivers behave in a similar way in a certain range; therefore, traffic usually has a certain reasonable consistency and can be approximately mathematically modeled.
For the purpose of better representation of the flow rate, relationships were established between the three main characteristics: (1) flow rate, (2) density, and (3) velocity.
These relationships help when planning, designing, and operating transportation facilities.
Insects were the first animals to evolve flight. Their ability to fly allowed them to escape from predators and quickly move to find food and a mate.
Most insects have the advantage of being able to fold their wings back along their body.
This gives them a greater selection of small spaces to hide from predators.
Today, the only insects that can't fold their wings are dragonflies and dung beetles.
About a thousand years ago, a man named Aristarchus said that the Solar System goes around the Sun.
Some people thought he was right, but most people believed the opposite; that the solar system, including the Sun (and even other stars) orbits the Earth.
That makes sense, because you don't get the feeling that the Earth is moving, do you?
The Amazon is the largest and second longest river in the world, with more than eight times the flow of the second largest river.
The Amazon is also the widest river in the world, in some places as much as six miles wide.
A whopping 20 percent of the water that flows out of our planet's rivers into the oceans comes from the Amazon.
The main stem of the Amazon is 6,387 km (3,980 mi) long. It drains an area more than twice the size of the United States and has more tributaries than any other river on Earth.
Although the building of stone pyramids continued until the end of the Old Kingdom, the Giza pyramids were never exceeded in size or precision of construction.
The ancient Egyptians of the New Kingdom marvelled at the monuments of their ancestors, which were more than a thousand years old at the time.
The population of Vatican City is around 800. It is the smallest independent country in the world and the country with the lowest population.
The Vatican uses Italian in its legal documents and official pronouncements.
Italian is also the everyday language of most of those who work in the state, while Latin is often used in religious ceremonies.
All citizens of Vatican City are Roman Catholic.
Humans have known the basic chemical elements like gold, silver and copper for a long time, as these elements are found in nature in their pure form and can be relatively easily mined using simple tools.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed everything was made of one or more of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire.
It was more like the four states of matter (in the same order): solid, liquid, gas, and plasma, though he also theorized that they change into new substances that make up what we see.
Alloys are basically mixtures of two or more metals. Don't forget there are lots of elements on the periodic table.
Elements like calcium and potassium are metals. Of course, there are also metals like silver and gold.
You also have alloys, which are composed of small amounts of non-metal elements such as carbon.
Everything in the universe is made of stuff. All the stuff in the universe is made of tiny particles called "atoms".
Atoms are so incredibly small that you could fit trillions of them on the end of a single grain of sand.
That is why the pencil became a good friend to many people after it was invented.
Unfortunately, with the advent of new ways of writing, the pencil has been relegated to lower status and secondary use.
Nowadays, people write messages on computer screens, so they don't even get in contact with the scissors.
The only thing one can do is marvel at what happens to the keyboard when something newer comes along.
A nuclear fission bomb works on the principle that it takes energy to keep the many protons and neutrons together in the nucleus.
It's sort of like pushing a heavy cart uphill. When you split the atom, some of that energy is released.
Some atoms have unstable nuclei, meaning they tend to break down when hit by subatomic particles.
The surface of the Moon is covered with rocks and dust. The outer layer of the Moon is called the crust.
The crust is about 70 km thick on the side facing the planet and about 100 km on the far side.
It is weaker under the seas and stronger under the mountains.
The side facing away from the planet may have more monthly seas because the crust is thinner there, allowing lava to more easily reach the surface.
Content theories are focused on finding out what people can relate to or what they find attractive.
These theories suggest that people have certain needs and/or desires that are accepted as part of growing up.
These theories are concerned with what motivates people to do the things they do and what in their environment leads them to do or not do certain things.
Two popular theories of motivation are Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's two-factor theory.
In general, two types of behaviors can emerge when managers start leading their former peers: on one end of the spectrum is the desire to "fit in" (or "be one of them").
This type of manager has trouble making unpopular decisions, implementing disciplinary measures, assessing performance, allocating responsibility, and leading people to be accountable.
At the other end of the spectrum, a person can change completely and feel like they have to change everything the team does and do it their own way.
The manager is, after all, responsible for the success and failure of the team.
This behavior often leads to conflict between the leaders and the rest of the team.
Virtual teams follow the same standards of excellence as conventional teams, but there are subtle differences.
Members of a virtual team often act as the contact point for their physical group.
They often have more independence than regular team members, since their teams can meet in different time zones, which their local management may not understand.
Another unique aspect of the virtual team is the presence of a so-called "invisible team" (Larson & LaFasto, 1989, p. 109).
The "invisible team" is the management team to which every member reports. The invisible team sets the standards for the individual members.
Why would an organization want to go through the time-consuming process of establishing a learning organization? One of the goals of implementing a learning organization concept is innovation.
When all available resources are effectively utilized across the organization, creativity and innovation can flourish.
The result is that the collaborating organization's process for overcoming the obstacle may lead to new innovative ways of serving customer needs.
For the organization to be innovative, its leadership must create an innovative corporate culture, introduce knowledge sharing and organizational learning.
Angel (2006) explains the Continuum approach as a method that organizations use to reach a higher level of performance.
Neurobiological evidence provides a physical basis for a theoretical approach to the study of cognition, thus narrowing and clarifying the scope of this area of research.
Scientists have long suspected a link between brain disorders and behaviour.
It has long been known that different types of brain damage, trauma, lesions and tumors can affect behavior and produce changes in some mental functions.
The rise of new technologies allows us to observe and investigate brain structures and processes that have never been seen before.
This gives us a lot of information and material for creating simulation models to help us understand the processes going on in our minds.
Although AI has a strong association with science fiction, it is a very important area of computer science dealing with the behavior, learning, and intelligence exhibited by machines.
Artificial intelligence research is concerned with the creation of machines that are capable of intelligent action.
Examples include control, planning and scheduling, being able to respond to diagnoses and customer queries, recognising signatures, voices and faces.
These things have become their own separate disciplines that focus on providing solutions to real-world problems.
Artificial intelligence is now being used often in economic, medical, mechanical and military fields and is built into many home computers and video games.
Field trips are an important part of every subject. Teachers often want to take their students to places that are not easily accessible by bus.
The technology offers a solution in the form of virtual field trips. Students can view artifacts from a museum, visit an aquarium or marvel at beautiful art while sitting in class.
Virtual sharing of field trips is also a great way to think about the trip and share experiences with future classes.
Students at Bennet School in North Carolina, for example, create a website each year about their trip to the state capital. They redesign the site every year, but the old versions remain online as an album.
Blogs can also improve students' writing skills. Although their blogging in the beginning is often marked by careless spelling, the influence of other readers usually changes this.
Because students are often the most critical of readers, the blogger seeks to improve his writing to avoid criticism.
Blogging also "forces students to become aware of the world around them." The need to stimulate interest in an audience encourages students to become intelligent and interesting (Townsend, 2004).
Blogging is a tool that encourages collaboration and prompts students to extend their learning beyond the traditional school day.
The appropriate use of blogs "will allow students to improve their analytical and critical skills; by actively reacting to online materials, students can define their attitudes in relation to other texts and formulate their views on the subject in specific topics" (Oravec, 2002).
Ottawa is an enchanting, bilingual capital city of Canada that offers a number of art galleries and museums that showcase Canada's past and present.
Further south are the Niagara Falls and to the north are still waiting to be discovered the beauty of the Muskoka region and more.
All of this, and much more, demonstrates that Ontario is seen as a typical part of Canada by foreigners.
Much of the land further north is sparsely populated and some of it is virtually uninhabited wilderness.
Many people would be surprised to learn that there are more African-Americans in the U.S. than there are Canadian citizens.
The East African islands are in the Indian Ocean, off the eastern coast of Africa.
Madagascar is by far the largest and in terms of wildlife can be considered a separate continent.
Most of the smaller islands are independent states or French overseas territories, and are known for their luxury beach resorts.
The Arabs also brought Islam to these countries. It prospered in Comoros and Mayotte.
European influence and colonialism began in the 15th century with the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama's discovery of a sea route (Cape Route) from Europe to India.
In the north it is bounded by the Sahel, while in the south and west it is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean.
Women: It is recommended that all female travelers be listed as married, regardless of their actual marital status.
A ring is also a good option (as long as it doesn't look too expensive).
Women should be aware that due to cultural differences, they may sometimes encounter harassment, and that it is not uncommon for men to follow women, grab their hand, etc.
Be resolute in rejecting men and don't be afraid to stand your ground (cultural differences don't justify this!).
The modern city of Casablanca was founded by Berber fishermen in the 10th century BC and was used as a strategic port by the Phoenicians, Romans, and Moroccans called Anfa.
The Portuguese destroyed and rebuilt the city, renaming it Casa Branca, and they abandoned it after the 1755 earthquake.
The Moroccan Sultan transformed the city to Daru l-Badya and Spanish traders, who established trading posts there, called it Casablanca.
Casablanca is one of the least interesting places to shop in all of Morocco.
Around the old Medina it is easy to find places selling traditional Moroccan goods such as tagine, pottery, leather goods, water pipes and a wide range of spices, but all of this is for tourists.
Goma is a tourist city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located on the eastern border near Rwanda.
In 2002, Goma was destroyed by lava from the Nyiragongo volcano, which buried most of the streets and especially the city center.
While Goma is relatively safe, any visit outside the city should be carefully considered in light of ongoing fighting in North Kivu province.
The city is also a base for climbing Nyiragongo and offers one of the cheapest gorilla trekking options in Africa.
For travel within Goma, you can use moto-taxis (motorcycle taxis). A short ride should cost around 500 Congolese francs.
In combination with its relative inaccessibility, Timbuktu became a metaphor for exotic, distant lands.
Today, Timbuktu is a poor city, but its fame makes it a tourist attraction. It also has an airport.
It was added to the World Heritage List in 1990 due to its desert sand.
It was one of the stops on Henry Louis Gates's PBS series The African American Century.
The city is in stark contrast to the rest of the country, which feels more Arab than African.
The Kruger National Park (KNP) is located in the northeast of South Africa and borders Mozambique in the east, Zimbabwe in the north and the Crocodile River in the south.
The park covers 19,500 km² and is divided into 14 different eco-zones, each supporting a different type of wildlife.
It is one of the main attractions of South Africa and is considered to be the flagship of the South African National Parks (SANParks).
Similarly to all South African National Parks, an entrance fee and conservation levy must be paid to enter the park.
A Wildcard can also be a good option, which allows entry to either selected parks in South Africa or all South African national parks.
The city of Hong Kong is named after the island of Hong Kong, which many tourists consider to be the main travel destination.
The skyscrapers that make up Hong Kong's skyline are likened to a glittering bar graph reflecting on the waters of Victoria Harbour.
The best views of Hong Kong are from across the harbour on the Kowloon peninsula.
Most of Hong Kong's dense urban development is on land reclaimed from the sea along the north shore.
This is the place that the British colonists claimed, so if you are looking for evidence of the colonial past of the territory, then this is a good place to start.
The Sundarbans is the largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world, spreading across 80 km (50 miles) of coastline in Bangladesh and India.
The Sundarbans was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Part of the forest in Indian territory is known as the Sundarbans National Park.
These forests, however, are not just mangroves; they are also some of the last remaining tracts of the mighty forests that once covered the Gangetic plains.
The Sundarbans covers an area of 3,850 km2 (1,520 sq mi), of which about a third is water or marsh.
Since 1966, the Sundarbans has been a natural reserve and it is estimated that there are 400 Bengal tigers and 30,000 Indian muntjac in the area.
Buses depart from the town bus station (across the river) throughout the day, but most of them, especially those heading east and to Jakar/Bumthang, leave between 6:30 and 7:30.
As intercity buses are often full, we recommend that you book your ticket several days in advance.
Most suburbs are serviced by small Japanese coastal buses which are comfortable and reliable.
Shared taxis are a quick and convenient way to get to nearby places like Paro (Nu 150) and Punakha (Nu 200).
The Oyapock River Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Oyapock River to link the Brazilian town of Oiapoque with Saint-Georges de l'Oyapock in French Guiana.
These two towers rise to a height of 83 metres, the bridge is 378 metres long and has two lanes, each 3.5 metres wide.
The vertical clearance below the bridge is 15 metres. The bridge was completed in August 2011, but opened only in March 2017.
The bridge should be fully functional by September 2017, when the Brazilian customs control points are expected to be completed.
The Guarani were the most important indigenous group to inhabit the area now known as eastern Paraguay. They lived as hunter-gatherers and also practiced subsistence agriculture.
The region of Chaco was home to other indigenous tribes such as the Guaycurú and Payaguá, who survived by hunting, gathering, and fishing.
In the 16th century, Paraguay, originally called the "Great Province of the Indians," was born out of the meeting of Spanish conquerors and indigenous groups.
The Spanish began a period of colonization that lasted for three centuries.
Since the founding of Asunción in 1537, Paraguay has managed to preserve much of its original character and identity.
Argentina is well known for having one of the best polo teams and players in the world.
The biggest tournament of the year takes place in December at the polo fields in Las Cañitas.
Smaller tournaments and matches are also played here during other parts of the year.
If you are interested in tournaments and where to get tickets for the polo matches, check out the Asociación Argentina de Polo.
The official currency of the Falkland Islands is the Falkland pound (FKP), which is pegged to the British pound (GBP) at a rate of 1:1.
Money can be exchanged at only one bank in the islands, which is located in Stanley, opposite the FIC West store.
British pounds are widely accepted anywhere on the islands and in Stanley, credit cards and US dollars are also widely accepted.
Credit cards are probably not accepted on remote islands, but you may be able to pay with British and U.S. currency. Be sure to ask the owner in advance what type of payment he or she will accept.
It is almost impossible to exchange Falkland Island currency outside of the islands, so be sure to exchange before leaving.
Because Montevideo is south of the equator, summer is then when it is winter in the northern hemisphere and vice versa.
Montevideo is in a subtropical climate; in the summer months, it is not uncommon for temperatures to reach 30 °C (86 °F).
Winters can be deceptively cold: although temperatures rarely drop below freezing, the combination of wind and humidity makes it feel colder than the thermometer indicates.
There are no specific "rainy" and "dry" seasons: The amount of rainfall remains fairly constant throughout the year.
Although most of the animals in the park are used to seeing people, they are still wild animals in the wild and should not be fed or disturbed.
According to park rules, you must stay at least 100 yards/meters away from bears and wolves and 25 yards/meters away from all other wildlife!
Although they appear docile, bison, moose, elk, bears, and almost all large animals can be dangerous.
Many visitors are injured every year due to failure to maintain a safe distance from these animals; they are large, wild animals and can be dangerous, so please give them their space.
Also keep in mind that bears and other wild animals are attracted to smells, so avoid cooking or heating up strong-smelling food and keep your campsite clean.
Apia is the capital of Samoa. The city is located on the island of Upolu and has about 40,000 inhabitants.
Apia was founded in the 1850s and became the official capital of Samoa in 1959.
The harbor was the scene of an infamous maritime standoff in 1889, when seven ships from Germany, the United States and Britain refused to leave.
All but one of the ships were sunk, with the loss of nearly 200 Americans and Germans.
During a push for independence organized by the Mau movement, a peaceful rally in the town ended in the killing of the prime minister, Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III.
There are many beaches given that Auckland is situated between two harbours. The most popular beaches can be found in three areas.
The beaches of the North Shore (in the North Harbour area) are on the Pacific Ocean and stretch from Long Bay in the north to Devonport in the south.
These are nearly sand beaches with safe swimming and most are shaded by pohutukawa trees.
Tamaki Drive beaches are located along the waterfront of Waitemata Harbour in the sought-after suburbs of Mission Bay and St Heliers in central Auckland.
These are sometimes crowded family beaches with a large selection of shops right on the beach. Swimming is safe.
The local beer of choice is Number One, which is not a particularly complex beer but a pleasant and refreshing one. The other local beer is called Manta.
There are many French wines that you can drink, but New Zealand and Australian wines may be a better choice.
Drinking water from the tap is safe, but if you are concerned, bottled water is readily available.
For Australians, the idea of a "flat white" is bizarre. A small black coffee is an "espresso", a cappuccino is a full milk (not foam) based drink and tea is not served with milk.
The hot chocolate is up to Belgian standards. Although the fruit juices are expensive, they are first-rate.
Many trips to the cliffs are made throughout the year, and injuries resulting from any of these causes are rare.
Even so, heed the advice of authorities, follow the signs, and pay close attention to safety warnings.
Squareheads can be found near beaches and river mouths from October to April north of Seventeen Seventy. They can also be found outside of this time.
Sharks really do exist, but they very rarely attack people. Most sharks are afraid of humans and will swim away if they see one.
The saltwater crocodile does not actively hunt in the ocean; its primary habitat is the river mouths north of Rockhampton.
Booking accommodation in advance gives the traveller the assurance that they will have somewhere to sleep when they reach their destination.
Travel agencies often have contracts with specific hotels, but through them you can also book other types of accommodation such as campgrounds.
Travel agencies usually offer packages which include breakfast, transport to/from the airport or even combined packages of flight and hotel.
They can also hold your reservation for you if you need time to think or to gather other documents for the destination (such as a visa).
Any changes or requests should be directed first to the travel agent and not the hotel directly.
For some festivals, the vast majority of attendees choose to camp on-site and this is considered an essential part of the experience.
If you want to be in the middle of the action, you will need to arrive as early as possible to secure a camping spot close to the main stage.
Remember that even though the music on the main stage may be over for the night, other sections of the festival may still be going on until late.
Some festivals offer special family camping areas for those with small children.
If you go through the northern Baltic Sea in winter, check the location of the cabin, as sailing through ice causes unbearable noise in exposed areas.
St. Petersburg's round-trip cruises include time in the city. Visa requirements do not apply to cruise passengers (see conditions).
Casinos are usually designed to tempt patrons to stay as long as possible and spend as much money as possible. Windows and clocks are usually covered, and it is often difficult to tell the time.
They usually have special food, drinks and entertainment in order to keep the visitors happy and in the premises of the casino.
Some establishments serve alcoholic drinks at the establishment's expense. Drunkenness, however, negatively affects one's ability to make good decisions, so all good players know how important it is to stay sober.
Anyone driving at high altitudes or in a mountain pass should consider the possibility of snow, ice or sub-zero temperatures.
On icy and snow-covered roads, the friction is low and you cannot drive the same way as on a bare asphalt road.
During a blizzard, enough snow falls in a very short time to prevent travel.
Visibility may also be limited by falling or blowing snow, or by fog or frost on the windshield.
On the other hand, ice and snow are normal in many countries and year-round traffic continues with little interruption.
Safari is probably the biggest tourist attraction in Africa and for many a traveller it represents the main reason for visiting the continent.
The term "safari" in its current sense refers to a land journey to see game, especially on a savanna.
Some animals, such as elephants and giraffes, are inclined to approach vehicles, and standard equipment will allow for good viewing.
Lions, cheetahs and leopards are sometimes shy and can be more easily observed with binoculars.
A tourist safari consists of a hike that takes several hours or several days.
The Paralympics will take place from August 24 to September 5, 2021. Some events will be held at different locations in Japan.
Tokyo will become the only Asian city to have hosted two summer Olympics, having hosted in 1964.
If you booked your flights and accommodation for 2020 before the postponement was announced, you may find yourself in a difficult situation.
The rules for cancelling events can vary, but as of the end of March 2020, most rules for cancelling events based on the coronavirus did not include the Olympics, which were scheduled for July 2020.
Tickets for most of the events are expected to cost between 2,500 and 130,000 yen, with regular tickets costing 7,000 yen.
Ironing a wet garment can help it to dry. Many hotels provide an iron and ironing board, although they may not be in the room.
If you don't have an iron or don't like ironed socks, you can try using a hair dryer if available.
Beware of overheating the fabric (which can cause shrinkage or, in extreme cases, burning).
There are many ways to purify water, some more effective against particular threats.
In some areas, a minute is all it takes; in others, several minutes are needed.
Filters have different efficiencies and if concerned, you should buy bottled water from a reputable company.
Travelers may encounter animal pests they are unfamiliar with in their home regions.
Biting insects can cause food spoilage, skin irritation or, at worst, allergic reactions, the spread of disease or the transmission of infectious diseases.
Infectious diseases or dangerous animals capable of inflicting injury or death on humans are usually not considered pests.
Duty-free shopping represents an opportunity to purchase goods free of tariffs and other taxes in certain areas.
Travellers heading to high-taxation countries can sometimes save significant amounts, especially when buying products such as alcoholic drinks or tobacco.
The section between Point Marion and Fairmont offers the steepest grades on the Buffalo–Pittsburgh route, as it often passes through isolated hilly terrain.
If you're not used to driving on country roads, beware: there are a lot of steep inclines, narrow lanes and sharp corners.
The maximum permitted speed is significantly lower than in the preceding and following sections - usually 35–40 mph (56–64 km/h) - and its strict observance is even more important.
Interesting, however, is that cellular service is much better here than in many other portions of the trail, such as in the Pennsylvania wilderness.
German baked goods are quite good and in Bavaria they are plentiful and varied, very similar to their southern neighbors in Austria.
Fruit bread is common. Apples are used year-round; in summer, then, come cherries and plums.
Many German baked goods also contain almonds and other nuts. Popular cakes often pair particularly well with a strong cup of coffee.
If you want to try some rich desserts, you might want to try some cakes, which are called Berliner, Pfannkuchen or Krapfen depending on the region.
Kari is a dish of various herbs, spices and meat or vegetables.
Kari can be either "dry" or "wet" depending on how much liquid it contains.
In northern Indian and Pakistani subcontinent regions, yogurt is commonly added to curry. In southern India and some other coastal regions of the subcontinent, coconut milk is usually used.
With 17,000 islands to choose from, Indonesian food is a catch-all term for a varied collection of regional cuisines from throughout the country.
However, if used without further qualification, the term usually refers to the cuisine of the central and eastern parts of Java island.
Indonesian cuisine, now widely available throughout the archipelago, contains many simple dishes with dominant flavours of peanuts, chilli, sugar (especially Javanese coconut sugar) and various aromatic spices.
The stirrups, which hang down on either side of the saddle, serve as a support for the rider's feet.
They give the rider more stability, but may pose safety issues due to the possibility of the rider's feet becoming trapped.
If a rider is thrown from a horse but their foot becomes trapped in the stirrup and the horse runs off, they may be dragged along at speed. A number of safety measures can be taken to mitigate this risk.
First, most riders wear riding boots with a heel and a fairly narrow sole.
In addition, some saddles, especially English, have safety stirrups that allow the stirrup leather to drop away from the saddle when the rider falls on to the stirrups.
Valle de la Luna - a popular rock climbing destination for the Chilean Prime Minister, known as the Yosemite of South America, with extensive granite walls and cliffs.
The peaks offer breath-taking views. Climbers from all over the world are constantly establishing new routes due to the infinite potential of the walls here.
Winter sports include skiing and snowboarding, which is gliding on snow with skis or a snowboard attached to one's feet.
“Skiing is a common travel activity with many fans, sometimes referred to as “ski bums” who plan an entire vacation around skiing in a particular resort. “
The idea of skiing is very old. Cave paintings of skiers date back to 5000 BCE!
Skiing as a sport can be traced back to at least the 17th century. The first recreational ski club was opened in Norway in 1861.
Skiing: This activity is also known as cross-country skiing, ski touring or backcountry skiing.
It has a relationship with Alpine skiing or mountaineering though they are not part of those activities, though the second of those activities is done in steep terrain and requires much stiffer boots and skis.
Imagine a ski trail as similar to a hiking trail.
In favourable conditions, you can cover slightly longer distances than on foot - but you will rarely move at speeds comparable to cross-country skiing without a heavy backpack and on prepared trails.
Europe is a relatively small continent, but with a number of independent countries. In normal circumstances, traveling through multiple countries would involve filling out multiple visa and passport applications.
However, the Schengen area functions much like a single country in this regard.
As long as you remain in this zone, you can generally cross the border without having to pass through immigration again.
Similarly, if you have a Schengen visa, you may not have to apply for a visa for each Schengen country separately, which will save you time, money, and red tape.
There is no universal definition of what constitutes an antique. Some tax authorities define antiques as items over 100 years old.
This definition has geographical variations; for example, the age limit in North America may be lower than in Europe.
Handmade items can be classified as antiques even if they are newer than similar mass-produced items.
Moose husbandry is an important source of livelihood for the Sami people and the trade-related culture is also important for many other professions.
Not all Sami people, however, traditionally practiced large-scale reindeer herding; they also made a living from fishing, hunting, and similar activities, and used the reindeer only as draft animals.
Today, many Samis work in modern professions. Tourism is an important source of income in Sápmi, the Sami region.
Although the word "Gypsy" is used by many non-Romani people, it is often considered offensive due to its association with negative stereotypes and misconceptions about Romani people.
If the country you are going to becomes subject to a travel advisory, this may affect your travel insurance or cancellation insurance.
Maybe you'd rather look at the advice of other governments than your own, but those are aimed primarily at their own citizens.
For example, U.S. citizens may face different situations in the Middle East than Europeans or Arabs do.
The advice is only a brief summary of the political situation in the given country.
Presented opinions are often superficial, general and over-simplified compared to more detailed information that is available elsewhere.
Unfavourable weather is a general term for any dangerous weather which has the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption or loss of life.
Stormy weather can happen anywhere in the world, and has different forms that can depend on geography, topography, and atmospheric conditions.
High winds, hail, heavy rain, and wildfires are all forms and results of stormy weather, such as thunderstorms, tornadoes, blizzards, and cyclones.
Regional and seasonal extreme weather events include blizzards, snowstorms, hailstorms and dust storms.
Travelers are strongly advised to be aware of all possible risks of adverse weather in their area, as this can affect all travel plans.
Anyone planning to visit a country that could be considered a war zone should undertake professional training.
An internet search for the phrase "Course for hostile environment" is likely to reveal the address of the local company.
The course usually covers these problems in much more detail, often also with practical exercises.
The course usually takes 2–5 days and includes role-playing, intensive first aid training, and sometimes weapons training.
Books and magazines on survival in the wild are common, but publications on war zones are scarce.
Passengers who plan to have gender reassignment surgery in a foreign country should make sure they have valid documentation for their return trip.
The willingness of governments to issue passports without gender (X) or to update documents to reflect a desired name and gender varies.
The willingness of foreign governments to honour these documents varies.
Inspections at security checkpoints became much more disruptive after 9/11.
Transgender people should not expect to be able to pass through metal detectors after surgery, as their privacy and dignity may be compromised.
Rip currents are returning currents that flow away from the shore, often at the edge of a reef or headland.
Because of the submarine topography, the return current concentrates in a few deep sections, and this is where the fast current into deep water can develop.
Most deaths are due to exhaustion from trying to swim back against the current, which can be impossible.
Once you get out of the current, swimming back isn't any more difficult than usual.
Try to head for somewhere out of the current, or to the best of your ability and depending on whether or not you are being noticed, wait for help.
The culture shock comes later than the shock of returning (there's an initial honeymoon phase) and lasts longer and can be more severe.
Travelers who easily adapt to a new culture often have particularly difficult experiences adjusting to their home culture.
After returning home from a stay in a foreign country, you are accustomed to a new culture and some habits from your home are already lost.
When you first went abroad, people were probably patient and understanding because they knew travelers had to adapt to a new country.
People may not realise that travellers returning home also need patience and understanding.
The pyramid sound and light show is one of the most interesting things to do for kids in the area.
The pyramids can be seen in the dark and in silence before the show starts.
After all, you usually hear tourists and vendors all the time. The story of sounds and lights reminds of a fairy tale book.
The Sphinx has the function of a chorus and narrator of a long story.
Various scenes are projected onto the pyramids, one pyramid at a time.
The South Shetlands, which were discovered in 1819, are claimed by more than one nation and have the most bases with 16 active in 2020.
The archipelago is located 120 km north of the mainland. The largest is King George Island with the settlement of Villa Las Estrellas.
Others include Livingstone Island and Deception Island, where a ruined caldera still provides evidence of an active volcano, and a magnificent natural harbour.
Ellsworth Land is the region south of the peninsula, surrounded by the Bellingshausen Sea.
The peninsula's mountains meet here to form a plateau, and then re-emerge to form the 360 km (220 mi) long Ellsworth Range, which is divided in the middle by the Minnesota Glacier.
The highest mountain in Antarctica, the Vinson Massif, lies at the northwest end of the Sentinel Range, at 4,892 metres (16,050 ft).
In remote locations without cell coverage, a satellite phone may be your only option.
A satellite phone is not a general replacement for a mobile phone, because to make a call you have to be outdoors without any obstructions between you and the satellite.
This service is often used by the shipping industry, including recreational boats and expeditions that need to access remote data.
Your local telephone service provider should be able to provide you with more information on how to connect to this service.
Travelling and learning is becoming an increasingly popular option for those who want to take a year out.
It is particularly popular among those leaving school, as it allows them to take a year out before going to university without putting their education at risk.
In many cases, taking a course abroad after high school may improve your chances of pursuing higher education in your home country.
Tuition is usually charged for enrollment in these educational programs.
Finland is an excellent destination for boat trips. "The land of a thousand lakes" includes thousands of islands in its lakes and coastal archipelagos.
A yacht is not absolutely necessary in the archipelagos and lakes.
Although the coastal archipelago and largest lakes are more than big enough for any yacht, smaller boats or even kayaks will offer a different experience.
Boating is a national pastime in Finland, with one boat for every seven to eight people.
Similarly in Norway, Sweden and New Zealand, but otherwise completely unique (e.g. in the Netherlands it is number one for forty).
Most Baltic Sea cruises include an extended stay in Russia's St. Petersburg.
This means that you can visit this historic city for several full days and return to the ship overnight.
If you disembark only as part of a cruise, you will not need a separate visa (since 2009).
Some of the trips in the brochure include a visit to German Berlin. As can be seen on the map above, Berlin is not near the sea and a visit to the city is not included in the price of the trip.
Flying can be daunting for people of all ages and backgrounds, especially if it is their first flight or if they have had a traumatic experience.
It's not something to be ashamed of: it's not any more different from personal fears and aversions to other things that a lot of people have.
For some people, understanding how planes work and what goes on during a flight can help overcome a fear of the unknown or feeling out of control.
Courier companies are well paid to deliver goods quickly. Time is often a very important factor for business documents, goods or spare parts for urgent repair.
On some routes, larger companies have their own planes, but on other routes and for smaller companies there has been a problem.
If they were sent by air freight, it could take several days for them to go through customs and clearance.
The only way to do this more quickly is to send the item as checked baggage. Airline regulations do not allow baggage to be sent without a passenger, so here you come in.
The most common way to fly in First or Business Class is to pull out a fat wad of cash (even better, get your company to do it for you).
However, this is not cheap: you can expect to pay up to four times the price of a regular economy class ticket and eleven times the price of a first class ticket!
In general, it is not worth looking for discounts on flights from point A to point B for first or business class.
Airlines know full well that there is a certain key group of travellers who are willing to pay a premium to get somewhere quickly and comfortably, and they price accordingly.
The capital of Moldova is Chișinău. The local language is Romanian, but Russian is also widely spoken.
Moldova is a multiethnic republic that has been plagued by various ethnic conflicts.
This conflict led to the creation of the self-declared Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic in eastern Moldova in 1994, which has its own government and currency but is not recognized by any UN member.
Despite the failure of political negotiations, economic relations between the two parts of Moldova were restored.
The main religion in Moldova is Orthodox Christianity.
İzmir is Turkey's third largest city with around 3.7 million inhabitants, after Istanbul and Ankara, the second largest port after Istanbul and an important transportation hub.
What was once an ancient city, Smyrna is now a modern, developed and busy commercial centre situated around a large bay and surrounded by mountains.
Wide boulevards, glass skyscrapers and modern shopping malls are interspersed with traditional red-tiled roofs, 18th-century bazaars and old mosques and churches, although the city has more of a Mediterranean European feel than a traditional Turkish one.
The village of Haldarsvik offers views of the nearby island of Eysturoy and an unusual octagonal church.
Interesting marble doves adorn some of the tombs in the cemetery.
A half-hour stroll through this interesting village is well worth it.
To the north and within easy reach is the romantic and fascinating town of Sintra, made famous by Lord Byron's descriptions of its beauty.
Scotturb network bus 403 goes to Sintra and stops at Cabo da Roca.
Also in the north, visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima (Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima), a world-renowned site of Marian apparitions.
Please remember that you are essentially visiting a mass burial ground and also a site that has almost incalculable significance for a large part of the world's population.
To this day, many men and women still live who survived internment at this site, and there are many more whose loved ones were murdered or died of exhaustion from forced labor, Jews and non-Jews alike.
Please act with all the dignity, seriousness and respect that it deserves. Do not joke about the Holocaust or the Nazis.
Don't deface the place with tags or scratching graffiti into structures.
The official language of Barcelona is Catalan and Spanish. About half of the population prefers Catalan, most understand it and virtually everyone is able to speak Spanish.
However, most signs and notices are only in Catalan, as it is the only official language.
However, Spanish is commonly spoken in public transportation and other facilities.
Regular announcements on the metro are only in Catalan, but unplanned disruptions are announced in many different languages - Spanish, English, French, Arabic and Japanese.
Parisians have the reputation of being selfish, rude and arrogant people.
Although often a misconception, the best way to get along with the Parisians is to behave as well as possible, i.e. to act like someone who is "bien élevé" (well-mannered). Your every move will be greatly facilitated.
The initial impression that the Parisians are a bit brash will quickly dissipate if you at least show some basic courtesy.
The Plitvice Lakes National Park is heavily forested, mainly with beech, spruce and fir, and offers a mix of Alpine and Mediterranean vegetation.
Due to its diverse microclimate, varied soils and differing altitudes, it supports a wide range of plant communities.
The area is also home to a very wide range of mammals and birds.
Besides many of the more common species, rare fauna such as brown bear, wolf, eagle, owl, lynx, wild cat and reindeer can be found here.
When visiting monasteries, women are required to wear skirts that cover their knees and have their shoulders covered as well.
Most of the monasteries provide blankets for women who come unprepared, but if you bring your own, especially a colorful one, you will get a smile from the monk or nun at the entrance.
Similarly, men are required to wear trousers that cover their knees.
Even this can be borrowed from the stock at the entrance, but this clothing is not washed after every use, so you don't have to feel comfortable wearing these skirts. For men, there is only one size!
Mallorquin cuisine, like that of similar areas of the Mediterranean Sea, is based on bread, vegetables and meat (especially pork) and often uses olive oil.
A simple and popular dish, especially in summer, is called Pa amb Oli: bread with olive oil, tomatoes and any available toppings, such as cheese, tuna, etc.
All nouns and the word Sie (you) are always written with a capital letter at the beginning and even in the middle of a sentence.
This is an important way to distinguish between some verbs and nouns.
It probably also makes reading easier, though it is slightly complicated by the need to determine whether a verb or adjective is being used in a substantivized form.
Italian is relatively easy to pronounce since most words are pronounced exactly as they are spelled.
The main vowels to be careful of are C and G, as they are pronounced differently depending on the vowel that follows them.
Also, beware of the different pronunciations of the letters "r" and "rr": "caro" means "dear", while "carro" means "car".
Persian has relatively easy and mostly regular grammar.
So if you read these basics of Persian grammar, you will learn a lot about Persian grammar and better understand the individual phrases.
It goes without saying that if you already know one of the Romance languages, learning Portuguese will be easier for you.
However, people who are a little bit fluent in Spanish may quickly come to the conclusion that Portuguese is so similar that it need not be studied separately.
Most modern-day observatories are now out of date and serve as museums or educational centers.
Since light pollution at their peak was not as much of a problem as it is today, they are usually located in towns or campuses, which are easier to access than those built in modern times.
Most modern research telescopes are huge instruments in remote locations with favorable atmospheric conditions.
The practice of viewing cherry blossoms, known as hanami, is a Japanese tradition dating back to the 8th century.
This concept comes from China, where peach blossoms were a popular flower.
In Japan, the first cherry blossom celebrations were only held by the emperor for himself and other members of the aristocracy at the imperial court.
Plants look best in their natural habitat, so resist the temptation to take even "just one" specimen.
If you visit a formally-arranged garden, they will turf you out without a second thought if they catch you picking "samples".
Singapore is an extremely safe country to visit in general. It is also very easy to navigate and you can buy almost anything once you arrive.
However, since it is located in the "true tropics" just a few degrees north of the equator, you will have to contend with heat (always) and high humidity (often).
Some buses also go north to Hebron, the traditional burial site of the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their wives.
Check that the bus you intend to take is going to Hebron and not just the nearby Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba.
Inland waterways can be an interesting place to go for a holiday.
For example, a visit to the castles of the Loire and Rhine valleys or a round trip to interesting towns on the Danube or a cruise on the Erie Canal.
They also determine the routes of popular hiking and cycling trails.
Christmas is one of the most important holidays in Christianity and celebrates the birth of Jesus.
Many of the traditions surrounding the holiday have been adopted by non-Christians in Christian countries and by non-Christians around the world.
There is a tradition of staying up all night on Easter Eve to see the first rays of the rising sun.
Of course, there are Christian theological explanations for this tradition, but it could just as easily be pre-Christian spring and fertility festivals.
Traditional churches often hold an Easter Vigil service on the Saturday night of the Easter weekend, when the congregation often breaks into song at midnight to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.
All the animals that originally came to the islands swam, flew, or were blown or carried by currents to the islands.
Due to the lack of a continental land bridge, mammals were unable to cross the distance and as a result the giant tortoise became the main herbivore on the Galapagos.
A number of mammals have been introduced to the Galapagos since humans first arrived, including goats, horses, cows, rats, cats, and dogs.
If you visit the Arctic or Antarctic in winter, you will experience a polar night, when the sun never rises above the horizon.
This offers a good opportunity to observe the Northern Lights as the sky will be fairly dark most of the time.
Because these areas are so sparsely populated and light pollution is usually not a problem, you will be able to enjoy the stars.
Japanese working culture is more hierarchical and formal than what Western people are used to.
A suit is standard business wear, and colleagues often address each other by their surnames or job titles.
Workplace harmony is key, rather than celebrating individual successes, emphasis is placed on group endeavour.
Employees must get approval from their supervisors for every decision they make, and they are expected to follow the instructions of their supervisors without question.