Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping. Furniture is used to hold objects at a convenient height for work, or to store things. Furniture is considered a form of decorative art. In addition to furniture's functional role, it can serve a religious purpose, it can be made from many materials, including metal and wood. Furniture can be made using a variety of woodworking joints which reflect the local culture. People have been using natural objects, such as tree stumps and moss, as furniture since the beginning of human civilisation. Archaeological research shows that from around 30,000 years ago, people began constructing and carving their own furniture, using wood and animal bones. Early furniture from this period is known from artwork such as a Venus figurine found in Russia, depicting the goddess on a throne; the first surviving extant furniture is in the homes of Skara Brae in Scotland, includes cupboards and beds all constructed from stone.

Complex construction techniques such as joinery began in the early dynastic period of ancient Egypt. This era saw constructed wooden pieces, including stools and tables, sometimes decorated with valuable metals or ivory; the evolution of furniture design continued in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, with thrones being commonplace as well as the klinai, multipurpose couches used for relaxing and sleeping. The furniture of the Middle Ages was heavy and ornamented. Furniture design expanded during the Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century; the seventeenth century, in both Southern and Northern Europe, was characterized by opulent gilded Baroque designs. The nineteenth century is defined by revival styles; the first three-quarters of the twentieth century are seen as the march towards Modernism. One unique outgrowth of post-modern furniture design is a return to natural textures; the English word furniture is derived from the French word fourniture, the noun form of fournir, which means to supply or provide.

Thus fourniture in French means provisions. The English usage, referring to household objects, is specific to that language; the practice of using natural objects as rudimentary pieces of furniture dates to the beginning of human civilisation. Early humans are to have used tree stumps as seats, rocks as rudimentary tables, mossy areas for sleeping. During the late palaeolithic or early neolithic period, from around 30,000 years ago, people began constructing and carving their own furniture, using wood and animal bones; the earliest evidence for the existence of constructed furniture is a Venus figurine found at the Gagarino site in Russia, which depicts the goddess in a sitting position, on a throne. A similar statue of a Mother Goddess was found in Catal Huyuk in Turkey, dating to between 6000 and 5500 BCE; the inclusion of such a seat in the figurines implies that these were common artefacts of that age. A range of unique stone furniture has been excavated in Skara Brae, a Neolithic village in Orkney, Scotland.

The site dates from 3100–2500 BCE and due to a shortage of wood in Orkney, the people of Skara Brae were forced to build with stone, a available material that could be worked and turned into items for use within the household. Each house shows a high degree of sophistication and was equipped with an extensive assortment of stone furniture, ranging from cupboards and beds to shelves, stone seats, limpet tanks; the stone dresser was regarded as the most important as it symbolically faces the entrance in each house and is therefore the first item seen when entering displaying symbolic objects, including decorative artwork such as several Neolithic Carved Stone Balls found at the site. Ancient furniture has been excavated from the 8th-century BCE Phrygian tumulus, the Midas Mound, in Gordion, Turkey. Pieces found here inlaid serving stands. There are surviving works from the 9th-8th-century BCE Assyrian palace of Nimrud; the earliest surviving carpet, the Pazyryk Carpet was discovered in a frozen tomb in Siberia and has been dated between the 6th and 3rd century BCE.

Civilisation in ancient Egypt began with the clearance and irrigation of land along the banks of the River Nile, which began in about 6000 BCE. By that time, society in the Nile Valley was engaged in organized agriculture and the construction of large buildings. At this period, Egyptians in the southwestern corner of Egypt were herding cattle and constructing large buildings. Mortar was in use by around 4000 BCE The inhabitants of the Nile Valley and delta were self-sufficient and were raising barley and emmer and stored it in pits lined with reed mats, they raised cattle and pigs and they wove linens and baskets. Evidence of furniture from the predynastic period is scarce, but samples from First Dynasty tombs indicate an advanced use of furnishings in the houses of the age. During the dynastic period, which began in around 3200 BCE, Egyptian art developed and this included furniture design. Egyptian furniture was constructed using wood, but other materials were sometimes used, such as leather, pieces were adorned with gold, silver and ebony, for decoration.

Wood found in Egypt was not suitable for furniture construction

This is a list of properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey. There are more than 1,700 listed sites in New Jersey. All 21 counties in New Jersey have listings on the National Register; this National Park Service list is complete through NPS recent listings posted February 28, 2020. The following are approximate tallies of current listings in New Jersey on the National Register of Historic Places; these counts are based on entries in the National Register Information Database as of April 24, 2008 and new weekly listings posted since on the National Register of Historic Places web site. There are frequent additions to the listings and occasional delistings and the counts here are approximate and not official. New entries are added to the official Register on a weekly basis; the counts in this table exclude boundary increase and decrease listings which modify the area covered by an existing property or district and which carry a separate National Register reference number.

The numbers of NRHP listings in each county are documented by tables in each of the individual county list-articles. Operating Passenger Railroad Stations Thematic Resource List of National Historic Landmarks in New Jersey List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey

Mycoplasma is a genus of bacteria that lack a cell wall around their cell membranes. This characteristic makes them resistant to antibiotics that target cell wall synthesis, they can be saprotrophic. Several species are pathogenic in humans, including M. pneumoniae, an important cause of "walking" pneumonia and other respiratory disorders, M. genitalium, believed to be involved in pelvic inflammatory diseases. Mycoplasma species are the smallest bacterial cells yet discovered, can survive without oxygen, come in various shapes. For example, M. genitalium is flask-shaped. Hundreds of mycoplasma species infect animals; the term mycoplasma, from the Greek μύκης, mykes and πλάσμα, was first used by Albert Bernhard Frank in 1889 to describe an altered state of plant cell cytoplasm resulting from infiltration by fungus-like microorganisms. Julian Nowak proposed the genus name Mycoplasma for certain filamentous microorganisms imagined to have both cellular and acellular stages in their lifecycles, which could explain how they were visible with a microscope, but passed through filters impermeable to other bacteria.

The name for Mycoplasma was pleuropneumonia-like organisms, broadly referring to organisms similar in colonial morphology and filterability to the causative agent of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia. Other species of Mycoplasma other than those listed below have been recovered from humans, but are assumed to have been contracted from animals; these use humans as the primary host: Mycoplasma species have been isolated from women with bacterial vaginosis. M. genitalium is found in women with pelvic inflammatory disease. In addition, infection is associated with increased risk of cervicitis, preterm birth and spontaneous abortion, infertility. Mycoplasma genitalium has developed resistance to some antibiotics. Mycoplasmae are associated with fetal respiratory distress syndrome, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, intraventricular hemorrhage in preterm infants. Over 100 species have been included in the genus Mycoplasma. Microbes of the class Mollicutes, to which Mycoplasma belongs, are parasites or commensals of humans and plants.

The genus Mycoplasma uses arthropod hosts. Dietary nitrogen availability has been shown to alter codon bias and genome evolution in Mycoplasma and Phytoplasma. Mycoplasmal bacteria are known as mollicutes, they are the smallest free-living prokaryotes. Mycoplasmal bacteria have been found in the pleural cavities of cattle suffering from pleuropneumonia; these organisms are called MLO or PPLO. Cell wall is absent and plasma membrane forms the outer boundary of the cell. Due to the absence of cell wall these organisms are pleomorphic. Lack of nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. Genetic material is naked. Ribosomes are 70S type. Possess a replicating disc at one end which assist replication process and the separation of the genetic materials. Heterotrophic nutrition; some live as saprophytes but the majority are parasites of plants and animals. The parasitic nature is due to the inability of mycoplasmal bacteria to synthesise the required growth factor. Due to the lack of a rigid cell wall, Mycoplasmataceae can contort into a broad range of shapes, from round to oblong.

They therefore can not be classified as cocci or spirochetes. Mycoplasma species are found in research laboratories as contaminants in cell culture. Mycoplasmal cell culture contamination occurs due to contamination from individuals or contaminated cell culture medium ingredients. Mycoplasma cells are physically small – less than 1 µm, so are difficult to detect with a conventional microscope. Mycoplasmae may induce cellular changes, including chromosome aberrations, changes in metabolism and cell growth. Severe Mycoplasma infections may destroy a cell line. Detection techniques include DNA probe, enzyme immunoassays, PCR, plating on sensitive agar and staining with a DNA stain including DAPI or Hoechst. An estimated 11 to 15% of U. S. laboratory cell cultures are contaminated with mycoplasma. A Corning study showed that half of U. S. scientists did not test for Mycoplasma contamination in their cell cultures. The study stated that, in former Czechoslovakia, 100% of cell cultures that were not tested were contaminated while only 2% of those tested were contaminated.

Since the U. S. contamination rate was based on a study of companies that checked for Mycoplasma, the actual contamination rate may be higher. European contamination rates are higher and that of other countries are higher still. About 1% of published Gene Expression Omnibus data may have been compromised. Several antibiotic-containing formulations of antimycoplasmal reagents have been developed over the years. A chemically synthesized genome of a mycoplasmal cell based on synthetic DNA which can self-replicate has been referred to as Mycoplasma laboratorium; the P1 antigen is the primary virulence factor of mycoplasma. P1 is a membrane associated protein; the P1 receptor is expressed on erythrocytes which can lead to autoantibody agglutination from mycobacteria infection. Several Mycoplasma species can cause disease, including M. pneumoniae, an important cause of atypical pneumonia, M. genitalium, associated with pelvic inflammatory diseases. Mycoplasma infections in humans are associated with skin eruptions in 17% of ca