1.
Potato
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The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial nightshade Solanum tuberosum. The word potato may refer either to the plant itself or to the edible tuber, in the Andes, where the species is indigenous, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes were introduced to Europe in the half of the 16th century by the Spanish. It is the worlds fourth-largest food crop, following maize, wheat, the green leaves and green skins of tubers exposed to the light are toxic. Wild potato species can be throughout the Americas from the United States to southern Chile. Following centuries of breeding, there are now over a thousand different types of potatoes. However, the importance of the potato is variable and changing rapidly. As of 2007 China led the world in production, and nearly a third of the worlds potatoes were harvested in China. The English word potato comes from Spanish patata, the Spanish Royal Academy says the Spanish word is a compound of the Taíno batata and the Quechua papa. The 16th-century English herbalist John Gerard used the terms bastard potatoes and Virginia potatoes for this species, potatoes are occasionally referred to as Irish potatoes or white potatoes in the United States, to distinguish them from sweet potatoes. The name spud for a small potato comes from the digging of soil prior to the planting of potatoes, the word spud traces back to the 16th century. It subsequently transferred over to a variety of digging tools, around 1845, the name transferred to the tuber itself. It was Mario Peis 1949 The Story of Language that can be blamed for the false origin. Pei writes, the potato, for its part, was in disrepute some centuries ago, some Englishmen who did not fancy potatoes formed a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. The initials of the words in this title gave rise to spud. Like most other pre-20th century acronymic origins, this is false, Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow about 60 cm high, depending on variety, with the leaves dying back after flowering, fruiting and tuber formation. They bear white, pink, red, blue, or purple flowers with yellow stamens, in general, the tubers of varieties with white flowers have white skins, while those of varieties with colored flowers tend to have pinkish skins. Potatoes are mostly cross-pollinated by insects such as bumblebees, which carry pollen from other potato plants, tubers form in response to decreasing day length, although this tendency has been minimized in commercial varieties
2.
Reed bed
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Reed beds are natural habitats found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions, and estuaries. Reed beds are part of a succession from young reeds colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground. As reed beds age, they build up a considerable litter layer that eventually rises above the water level, artificial reed beds are used to remove pollutants from grey water. Reed beds vary in the species that they can support, depending upon water levels within the system, climate, seasonal variations. Reed swamps have 20 cm or more of water during the summer and often have high invertebrate. Reed fens have water levels at or below the surface during the summer and are often more botanically complex, reeds and similar plants do not generally grow in very acidic water, so, in these situations, reed beds are replaced by bogs and vegetation such as poor fen. Although common reeds are characteristic of reed beds, not all dominated by this species is characteristic of reed beds. It also commonly occurs in unmanaged, damp grassland and as an understorey in certain types of damp woodland, many dicotyledons also occur, such as water mint, gipsywort, skull-cap, touch-me-not balsam, brooklime and water forget-me-nots. Many animals are adapted to living in and around reed-beds, constructed wetlands are artificial swamps using reed or other marshland plants to form part of small-scale sewage treatment systems. Water trickling through the bed is cleaned by microorganisms living on the root system. These organisms utilize the sewage for growth nutrients, resulting in a clean effluent, the process is very similar to aerobic conventional sewage treatment, as the same organisms are used, except that conventional treatment systems require artificial aeration. Treatment ponds are small versions of constructed wetlands which uses reed beds or other plants to form an even smaller water treatment system. Similar to constructed wetlands, water trickling through the bed is cleaned by microorganisms living on the root system. Treatment ponds are used for the treatment of a single house or a small neighbourhood. Organisms used in water purification South Milton Ley
3.
Constructed wetland
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A constructed wetland is an artificial wetland created for the purpose of treating anthropogenic discharge such as municipal or industrial wastewater, or stormwater runoff. It may also be created for land reclamation after mining, refineries, constructed wetlands are engineered systems that use natural functions of vegetation, soil, and organisms to treat different water streams. Depending on the type of wastewater that has to be treated the system has to be adjusted accordingly which means that pre- or post-treatments might be necessary. Constructed wetlands can be designed to emulate the features of natural wetlands, some constructed wetlands may also serve as a habitat for native and migratory wildlife, although that is usually not their main purpose. The two main types of constructed wetlands are subsurface flow and surface flow wetlands, the planted vegetation plays a role in contaminant removal but the filter bed, consisting usually of a combination of sand and gravel, has an equally important role to play. Many terms are used to denote constructed wetlands, such as reed beds, soil infiltration beds, constructed treatment wetlands, treatment wetlands, beside engineered wetlands, the terms of man-made or artificial wetlands are often found as well. A biofilter has some similarities with a wetland, but is usually without plants. However, the term of constructed wetlands can also be used to describe restored and recultivated land that was destroyed in the past through draining and converting into farmland, ponds for wastewater treatment or water purification are not considered as constructed wetlands. They are referred to as ponds or treatment ponds, respectively. A constructed wetland is a sequence of water bodies designed to filter and treat waterborne pollutants found in sewage. Constructed wetlands are used for treatment or for greywater treatment. They can be used after a tank for primary treatment. Some CW designs however do not use upfront primary treatment, vegetation in a wetland provides a substrate upon which microorganisms can grow as they break down organic materials. This community of microorganisms is known as the periphyton, the periphyton and natural chemical processes are responsible for approximately 90 percent of pollutant removal and waste breakdown. The plants remove about seven to ten percent of pollutants, different species of aquatic plants have different rates of heavy metal uptake, a consideration for plant selection in a constructed wetland used for water treatment. Constructed wetlands are of two types, subsurface flow and surface flow wetlands. Many regulatory agencies list treatment wetlands as one of their recommended best management practices for controlling urban runoff, in most cases, the bottom is lined with either a polymer geomembrane, concrete or clay in order to protect the water table and surrounding grounds. The substrate can be either gravel—generally limestone or pumice/volcanic rock, depending on local availability, subsurface flow wetlands can be further classified as horizontal flow and vertical flow constructed wetlands
4.
Aaru (film)
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Aaru peersupport support is a 2005 Indian Tamil language gangster film written and directed by Hari. It stars Suriya and Trisha Krishnan in lead role, jyothika was the Original Cast as Lead actress but was replaced by Trisha Krishnan due to date clashes. The films score and soundtrack were composed by Devi Sri Prasad, the film released on 9 December 2005 and was average at the box office. The film was dubbed and released in Telugu under the same title. The movie was dubbed in Hindi as The Return of Ghajini, aarumugam aka Aaru, is a thug and dealmaker with a band of boys handpicked from the slums of Chennai. Aaru’s mentor Viswanathan protects him, because Aaru gives him the violent undercover he needs, when Vishwanthan declares war on his bitter rival Reddy, Aaru assists him. But Vishwanthan betrays him, resulting in the deaths of Aarus subordinates, Aaru thus realizes Vishwanathans true, evil nature and vows to destroy his power. There is also a subplot involving Aarus romance with the college student Mahalakshmi, director Saran made his debut as a producer in this film by floating a production house Gemini Productions. The soundtrack was composed by Devi Sri Prasad and released by Star Music in India, the album was made up of 6 tracks. The audio was launched in a soft manner, the satellite rights of the film were secured by Sun TV. The film was given an A certificate by the Indian Censor Board, the film was released on 9 December 2005 alongside Vetrivel Sakthivel, Sandakozhi. The film was given an A certificate by the Indian Censor Board due to excessive violence, sify wrote, Aaru offers neither insight nor content-just unmitigated violence. Aaru at the Internet Movie Database
5.
Egyptian mythology
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Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part of ancient Egyptian religion, Myths appear frequently in Egyptian writings and art, particularly in short stories and in religious material such as hymns, ritual texts, funerary texts, and temple decoration. These sources rarely contain an account of a myth and often describe only brief fragments. Inspired by the cycles of nature, the Egyptians saw time in the present as a series of recurring patterns, Myths are set in these earliest times, and myth sets the pattern for the cycles of the present. Present events repeat the events of myth, and in doing so renew maat, events from the present that might be regarded as myths include Ras daily journey through the world and its otherworldly counterpart, the Duat. The details of these sacred events differ greatly from one text to another, Egyptian myths are primarily metaphorical, translating the essence and behavior of deities into terms that humans can understand. Each variant of a myth represents a different symbolic perspective, enriching the Egyptians understanding of the gods and it inspired or influenced many religious rituals and provided the ideological basis for kingship. Scenes and symbols from myth appeared in art in tombs, temples, in literature, myths or elements of them were used in stories that range from humor to allegory, demonstrating that the Egyptians adapted mythology to serve a wide variety of purposes. The development of Egyptian myth is difficult to trace, Egyptologists must make educated guesses about its earliest phases, based on written sources that appeared much later. One obvious influence on myth is the Egyptians natural surroundings, thus the Egyptians saw water and the sun as symbols of life and thought of time as a series of natural cycles. This orderly pattern was at constant risk of disruption, unusually low floods resulted in famine, the hospitable Nile valley was surrounded by harsh desert, populated by peoples the Egyptians regarded as uncivilized enemies of order. For these reasons, the Egyptians saw their land as an place of stability, or maat. These themes—order, chaos, and renewal—appear repeatedly in Egyptian religious thought, another possible source for mythology is ritual. Many rituals make reference to myths and are based directly on them. But it is difficult to determine whether a cultures myths developed before rituals or vice versa, questions about this relationship between myth and ritual have spawned much discussion among Egyptologists and scholars of comparative religion in general. In ancient Egypt, the earliest evidence of religious practices predates written myths, rituals early in Egyptian history included only a few motifs from myth. For these reasons, some scholars have argued that, in Egypt, but because the early evidence is so sparse, the question may never be resolved for certain. In private rituals, which are often called magical, the myth, many of the myth-like stories that appear in the rituals texts are not found in other sources
6.
Ancient Egyptian language
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The language spoken in ancient Egypt was a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. The earliest known complete sentence in the Egyptian language has been dated to about 2690 BCE, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the seventeenth century in the form of Coptic. The national language of modern Egypt is Egyptian Arabic, which gradually replaced Coptic as the language of life in the centuries after the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Coptic is still used as the language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It has several hundred fluent speakers today, the Egyptian language belongs to the Afroasiatic language family. Of the other Afroasiatic branches, Egyptian shows its greatest affinities with Semitic, in Egyptian, the Proto-Afroasiatic voiced consonants */d z ð/ developed into pharyngeal ⟨ꜥ⟩ /ʕ/, e. g. Eg. Afroasiatic */l/ merged with Egyptian ⟨n⟩, ⟨r⟩, ⟨ꜣ⟩, and ⟨j⟩ in the dialect on which the language was based. Original */k g ḳ/ palatalize to ⟨ṯ j ḏ⟩ in some environments and are preserved as ⟨k g q⟩ in others, Egyptian has many biradical and perhaps monoradical roots, in contrast to the Semitic preference for triradical roots. Egyptian probably is more archaic in this regard, whereas Semitic likely underwent later regularizations converting roots into the triradical pattern, scholars group the Egyptian language into six major chronological divisions, Archaic Egyptian language Old Egyptian language Middle Egyptian language, characterizing Middle Kingdom. Demotic Coptic The earliest Egyptian glyphs date back to around 3300 BC and these early texts are generally lumped together under the general term Archaic Egyptian. They record names, titles and labels, but a few of them show morphological and syntactic features familiar from later, more complete, Old Egyptian is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen and dated to around 2690 BCE. It reads, dmḏ. n. f t3wj n z3. f nswt-bjt pr-jb. snj He has united the Two Lands for his son, extensive texts appear from about 2600 BCE. Demotic first appears about 650 BCE and survived as a written language until the fifth century CE and it probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that. Bohairic Coptic is still used by the Coptic Churches, Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using hieroglyphs and hieratic. Demotic was written using a script derived from hieratic, its appearance is similar to modern Arabic script and is also written from right to left. Coptic is written using the Coptic alphabet, a form of the Greek alphabet with a number of symbols borrowed from Demotic for sounds that did not occur in ancient Greek. Arabic became the language of Egypts political administration soon after the early Muslim conquests in the seventh century, today, Coptic survives as the sacred language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Catholic Church
7.
Typha
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Typha /ˈtaɪfə/ is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. Other taxa of plants may be known as bulrush, including some sedges in Scirpus, the genus is largely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, where it is found in a variety of wetland habitats. Evidence of preserved starch grains on grinding stones suggests they were eaten in Europe 30,000 years ago. Typha are aquatic or semi-aquatic, rhizomatous, herbaceous perennial plants, the leaves are glabrous, linear, alternate and mostly basal on a simple, jointless stem that bears the flowering spikes. The plants are monoecious, with flowers that develop in dense racemes. The numerous male flowers form a spike at the top of the vertical stem. Each male flower is reduced to a pair of stamens and hairs, large numbers of tiny female flowers form a dense, sausage-shaped spike on the stem below the male spike. In larger species this can be up to 30 centimetres long and 1 to 4 centimetres thick, the seeds are minute,0.2 millimetres long, and attached to fine hairs. When ripe, the heads disintegrate into a cottony fluff from which the seeds disperse by wind, Typha are often among the first wetland plants to colonize areas of newly exposed wet mud, with their abundant wind dispersed seeds. Buried seeds can survive in the soil for long periods of time and they germinate best with sunlight and fluctuating temperatures, which is typical of many wetland plants that regenerate on mud flats. The plants also spread by rhizomes, forming large, interconnected stands, Typha are considered to be dominant competitors in wetlands in many areas, and they often exclude other plants with their dense canopy. In the bays of the Great Lakes, for example, they are among the most abundant wetland plants, different species of cattails are adapted to different water depths. Well-developed aerenchyma make the plants tolerant of submersion, even the dead stalks are capable of transmitting oxygen to the rooting zone. Although Typha are native plants, they can be aggressive in their competition with other native species. They have been problematic in regions in North America, from the Great Lakes to the Everglades. Native sedges are displaced and wet meadows shrink, likely as a response to altered hydrology of the wetlands, an introduced or hybrid species may be contributing to the problem. The most successful strategy appears to be mowing or burning to remove the aerenchymous stalks and it may be more important to prevent invasion by preserving water level fluctuations, including periods of drought, and to maintain infertile conditions. Typha are frequently eaten by mammals such as muskrats, that also use them to construct feeding platforms and dens
8.
Paradise
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Paradise is the term for a place of timeless harmony. Paradise is a place of contentment, a land of luxury, Paradise is often described as a higher place, the holiest place, in contrast to this world, or underworlds such as Hell. In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead, in Christian and Islamic understanding, Heaven is a paradisaical relief. In old Egyptian beliefs, the otherworld is Aaru, the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the dead lived after judgment, for the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a land of plenty where the heroic. The Vedic Indians held that the body was destroyed by fire. In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the Best Existence and the House of Song are places of the righteous dead, on the other hand, in cosmological contexts paradise describes the world before it was tainted by evil. The concept is a theme in art and literature, particularly of the pre-Enlightenment era, the word paradise entered English from the French paradis, inherited from the Latin paradisus, from Greek parádeisos, from an Old Iranian *paridayda- walled enclosure. By the 6th/5th century BCE, the Old Iranian word had been adopted as Assyrian pardesu domain and it subsequently came to indicate the expansive walled gardens of the First Persian Empire. The term eventually appeared in Greek as parádeisos park for animals in the Anabasis of the early 4th century BCE Athenian Xenophon, aramaic pardaysa similarly reflects royal park. Hebrew פרדס appears thrice in the Tanakh, in the Song of Solomon 4,13, Ecclesiastes 2,5, in those contexts it could be interpreted as an orchard or a fruit garden. In the Septuagint, Greek παράδεισος parádeisos was used to translate both Hebrew pardes and Hebrew gan, garden, it is from this usage that the use of paradise to refer to the Garden of Eden derives. The same usage appears in Arabic and in the Quran as firdaws فردوس. The words etymology is derived from a PIE root *dheigʷ to stick. It is reflected in Avestan as pairi-daêza-, the literal meaning of this Eastern Old Iranian language word is walled, from pairi- around and -diz to make, form, build. The word is not attested in other Old Iranian languages, the idea of a walled enclosure was not preserved in most Iranian usage, and generally came to refer to a plantation or other cultivated area, not necessarily walled. For example, the Old Iranian word survives as Pardis in New Persian as well as its derivative pālīz, later in Second Temple era Judaism paradise came to be associated with the Garden of Eden and prophesies of restoration of Eden, and transferred to heaven. The Septuagint uses the word around 30 times, both of Eden, and of Eden restored, in the Apocalypse of Moses, Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise after having been tricked by the serpent
9.
Osiris
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Osiris was an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld, and the dead, but more appropriately as the god of transition, resurrection, and regeneration. He was also associated with the epithet Khenti-Amentiu, meaning Foremost of the Westerners, as ruler of the dead, Osiris was also sometimes called king of the living, ancient Egyptians considered the blessed dead the living ones. Osiris was considered the brother of Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder and he was described as the Lord of love, He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful and the Lord of Silence. The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death – as Osiris rose from the dead they would, in union with him, inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic. By the New Kingdom all people, not just pharaohs, were believed to be associated with Osiris at death, Osiris was widely worshipped as Lord of the Dead until the suppression of the Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Osiris is a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek Ὄσιρις IPA, in Egyptian hieroglyphs the name is appears as wsjr or jsjrt. Since hieroglyphic writing lacks vowels, Egyptologists have vocalized the name in various ways as Asar, Yasar, Aser, Asaru, Ausar, Ausir, Wesir, Usir, several proposals have been made for the etymology and meaning of the original name wsjr. John Gwyn Griffiths proposed a derivation from wsr signifying the powerful, moreover, one of the oldest attestations of the god Osiris appears in the mastaba of the deceased Netjer-wser. David Lorton proposed that Wsjr is composed by the morphemes set-jret signifying ritual activity, wolfhart Westendorf proposed an etymology from Waset-jret she who bears the eye. He also carries the crook and flail, the crook is thought to represent Osiris as a shepherd god. The symbolism of the flail is more uncertain with shepherds whip, fly-whisk and he was commonly depicted as a pharaoh with a complexion of either green or black in mummiform. The Pyramid Texts describe early conceptions of an afterlife in terms of travelling with the sun god amongst the stars. Amongst these mortuary texts, at the beginning of the 4th dynasty, is found, An offering the king gives, by the end of the 5th dynasty, the formula in all tombs becomes An offering the king gives and Osiris. Osiris is the father of the god Horus, whose conception is described in the Osiris myth. The myth described Osiris as having been killed by his brother Set, Isis joined the fragmented pieces of Osiris, but the only body part missing was the phallus. Isis fashioned a golden phallus, and briefly brought Osiris back to life by use of a spell that she learned from her father and this spell gave her time to become pregnant by Osiris before he again died. Isis later gave birth to Horus, as such, since Horus was born after Osiris resurrection, Horus became thought of as a representation of new beginnings and the vanquisher of the evil Set. Ptah-Seker thus gradually became identified with Osiris, the two becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris, Osiris soul, or rather his Ba, was occasionally worshipped in its own right, almost as if it were a distinct god, especially in the Delta city of Mendes
10.
Anubis
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Anubis or Anpu is the Greek name of a god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head. Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts, depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty, Anubis was also an embalmer. By the Middle Kingdom he was replaced by Osiris in his role as lord of the underworld, one of his prominent roles was as a god who ushered souls into the afterlife. He attended the weighing scale during the Weighing of the Heart, despite being one of the most ancient and one of the most frequently depicted and mentioned gods in the Egyptian pantheon, Anubis played almost no role in Egyptian myths. Anubis was depicted in black, a color that symbolized both rebirth and the discoloration of the corpse after embalming, Anubis is associated with Wepwawet, another Egyptian god portrayed with a dogs head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur. Historians assume that the two figures were eventually combined and his daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet. Anubis is a Greek rendering of this gods Egyptian name, in Egypts Early Dynastic period, Anubis was portrayed in full animal form, with a jackal head and body. A jackal god, probably Anubis, is depicted in stone inscriptions from the reigns of Hor-Aha, Djer, the oldest known textual mention of Anubis is in the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom, where he is associated with the burial of the pharaoh. In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the most important god of the dead and he was replaced in that role by Osiris during the Middle Kingdom. In the Roman era, which started in 30 BC, tomb paintings depict him holding the hand of deceased persons to them to Osiris. The parentage of Anubis varied between myths, times and sources, in early mythology, he was portrayed as a son of Ra. In the Coffin Texts, which were written in the First Intermediate Period, another tradition depicted him as the son of his father Ra and mother Nephthys. George Hart sees this story as an attempt to incorporate the independent deity Anubis into the Osirian pantheon, an Egyptian papyrus from the Roman period simply called Anubis the son of Isis. In the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom ruled by Greek pharaohs, Anubis was merged with the Greek god Hermes, the two gods were considered similar because they both guided souls to the afterlife. The center of this cult was in uten-ha/Sa-ka/ Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name means city of dogs, in Book XI of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, there is evidence that the worship of this god was continued in Rome through at least the 2nd century. Indeed, Hermanubis also appears in the alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages, in contrast to real wolves, Anubis was a protector of graves and cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name in Egyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role, the Jumilhac papyrus recounts another tale where Anubis protected the body of Osiris from Set. Set attempted to attack the body of Osiris by transforming himself into a leopard, Anubis stopped and subdued Set, however, and he branded Sets skin with a hot iron rod
