1.
Horse
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The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior. Horses anatomy enables them to use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait, female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of two and four and they reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years. There are more than 300 breeds of horse in the world today, horses were historically used in warfare, from which a wide variety of riding and driving techniques developed, using many different styles of equipment and methods of control. Many products are derived from horses, including meat, milk, hide, hair, bone, humans provide domesticated horses with food, water and shelter, as well as attention from specialists such as veterinarians and farriers. Specific terms and specialized language are used to describe equine anatomy, different life stages, colors, depending on breed, management and environment, the modern domestic horse has a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years. Uncommonly, a few animals live into their 40s and, occasionally, the oldest verifiable record was Old Billy, a 19th-century horse that lived to the age of 62. In modern times, Sugar Puff, who had listed in Guinness World Records as the worlds oldest living pony. The exception is in endurance riding, where the age to compete is based on the animals actual calendar age. The following terminology is used to describe horses of various ages, Colt, a common terminology error is to call any young horse a colt, when the term actually only refers to young male horses. Filly, A female horse under the age of four, foal, A horse of either sex less than one year old. A nursing foal is sometimes called a suckling and a foal that has been weaned is called a weanling, most domesticated foals are weaned at five to seven months of age, although foals can be weaned at four months with no adverse physical effects. Gelding, A castrated male horse of any age, mare, A female horse four years old and older
2.
Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
3.
Chinese zodiac
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The Chinese zodiac is a classification scheme that assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating 12-year cycle. The 12-year cycle is an approximation to the 11. 86-year orbital period of Jupiter, nevertheless, there are major differences, the Chinese 12-part cycle corresponds to years, rather than months. The Chinese zodiac is represented by 12 animals, whereas some of the signs in the Western zodiac are not animals, the animals of the Chinese zodiac are not associated with constellations spanned by the ecliptic plane. The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, the following are the twelve zodiac signs in order and their characteristics. It is a misconception that the animals assigned by year are the only signs. In fact, there are also animal signs assigned by month, by day, while a person might appear to be a Dragon because they were born in the year of the Dragon, they might also be a Snake internally, an Ox truly, and a Goat secretively. A conflict between a persons zodiac sign and how they live is known as tai sui or kai sui, within the Four Pillars, the year is the pillar representing information about the persons family background and society or relationship with their grandparents. The persons age can also be deduced from the sign of the person, the current sign of the year. For example, a person who is a Tiger is either 12,24,36 or 48 years old in 2010, in 2011, the year of the Rabbit, that person is one year older. The following table shows the 60-year cycle matched up to the Western calendar for the years 1924–2043, the sexagenary cycle begins at lichun about February 4 according to some astrological sources. Within the Four Pillars, the month is the pillar representing information about the parents or childhood. Many Chinese astrologers consider the month pillar to be the most important one in determining the circumstances of ones adult life, the 12 animals are also linked to traditional Chinese agricultural calendar, which runs alongside the better known lunar calendar. Instead of months, this calendar is divided into 24 two week segments known as Solar Terms, each animal is linked to two of these solar terms for a period similar to the Western month. Again unlike the cycle of the years, which begins with the Rat. Around summer days are longer than days, because it occurs differences of perihelion and aphelion. As each sign is linked to a month of the solar year, each of the elements is also linked to a season, and the element that shares a season with a sign is known as that signs fixed element. In other words, that element is believed to some of its characteristics to the sign concerned. The fixed element of each sign applies also to the year and hour signs and it is important to note that the fixed element is separate from the cycle of elements which interact with the signs in the 60-year cycle
4.
Chinese culture
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Chinese culture is one of the worlds oldest cultures, tracing back to thousands of years ago. The area in which the culture is dominant covers a geographical region in eastern Asia with customs. Important components of Chinese culture include ceramics, architecture, music, literature, martial arts, cuisine, visual arts, philosophy, there are 56 officially labelled ethnic groups in China. In terms of numbers however, Han Chinese is by far the largest group, throughout history, many groups have merged into neighboring ethnicities or disappeared. At the same time, many within the Han identity have maintained distinct linguistic, the term Zhonghua Minzu has been used to describe the notion of Chinese nationalism in general. Much of the traditional identity within the community has to do with distinguishing the family name and they were located on the Yellow and Yangtze River. Traditional Chinese Culture covers large geographical territories, where region is usually divided into distinct sub-cultures. Each region is represented by three ancestral items. For example, Guangdong is represented by chenpi, aged ginger, others include ancient cities like Linan, which include tea leaf, bamboo shoot trunk, and hickory nut. Such distinctions give rise to the old Chinese proverb, 十里不同風, 百里不同俗/十里不同风, 百里不同俗, literally the praxis vary within ten li, since the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors period, some form of Chinese monarch has been the main ruler above all. Different periods of history have different names for the various positions within society, conceptually each imperial or feudal period is similar, with the government and military officials ranking high in the hierarchy, and the rest of the population under regular Chinese law. From the late Zhou Dynasty onwards, traditional Chinese society was organized into a system of socio-economic classes known as the four occupations. However, this system did not cover all groups while the distinctions between all groups became blurred ever since the commercialization of Chinese culture in the Song Dynasty. This led to the creation of a meritocracy, although success was only to males who could afford test preparation. Imperial examinations required applicants to write essays and demonstrate mastery of the Confucian classics and those who passed the highest level of the exam became elite scholar-officials known as jinshi, a highly esteemed socio-economic position. A major mythological structure developed around the topic of the mythology of the imperial exams, trades and crafts were usually taught by a shifu. The female historian Ban Zhao wrote the Lessons for Women in the Han Dynasty and outlined the four women must abide to, while scholars such as Zhu Xi. Chinese marriage and Taoist sexual practices are some of the rituals, most social values are derived from Confucianism and Taoism
5.
Horse in Chinese mythology
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Horses are an important motif in Chinese mythology. There are many myths about the horse or horses, or horse-like beings, Chinese mythology refers to those myths found in the historical geographic area of China. This includes myths in Chinese and other languages, as transmitted by Han Chinese as well as ethnic groups. There are various motifs of horses in Chinese mythology, according to a cyclical Chinese calendar system, the time period of 31 January 2014 -18 February 2015 falls under the category of the Wood Horse. This is also true of some related to mythological horses in China. Horses are real creatures, of the family Equidae—quick-paced, hoofed quadrupeds, existing now and historically, in China, one role of the horse, in China, has been important in society and culture, a role sometimes existing in the realm of myth and legend. The donkey is also an equid, generally smaller in stature, however, certain holy persons were well known for choosing to ride on donkey, for example Immortal Zhang Guolao had a magic donkey. The Chinese zodiac consists of a cycle, each year being associated with a certain creature. The seventh in the cycle is the Horse, the race was run, and swum, the finishing line being across a great river. The Rat and the Ox crossed easily enough and those powerful swimmers, Tiger and Dragon had little problem, nor did Rabbit, with a little help from the Dragon. Thus, it is said, despite the animals general swiftness, the Horse finished the race only in the rank of the seventh position. The story is told of a time in China, a time ago, when men were liable to be conscripted into military service. A girls father was forced into the army and sent off, missing her father very much, she then promised the family horse that she would marry him, if he went and found her father, and brought him back home. Surprisingly enough, the horse ran off, and eventually returned with the father, the skin was then hung up in the courtyard to dry for tanning. However, one day, when the daughter was out playing, the wind blew, the horsehide flew, wrapped around the daughter, and off they disappeared. After days of searching for his daughter in the horsehide, eventually her father found that she had transformed into a silkworm in a mulberry tree. This was the origin, it was told, of the Horse-Head Lady, goddess, often in mythology the horse appears in a biologically non-exact way, often creatures in stories do not match a rigorous scientific, or even common sense descriptions of actual animals. Historically, actual exotic animals, such as the Ferghana horse, were described in semi-mythic terms
6.
Chinese characters
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Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and some other Asian languages. In Standard Chinese, and sometimes also in English, they are called hànzì. They have been adapted to write a number of languages including, Japanese, where they are known as kanji, Korean, where they are known as hanja. Collectively, they are known as CJK characters, in English, they are sometimes called Han characters. Chinese characters constitute the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world, Chinese characters number in the tens of thousands, though most of them are minor graphic variants encountered only in historical texts. Studies in China have shown that literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters. In Japan,2,136 are taught through secondary school, the characters used in Japan are distinct from those used in China in many respects. There are various national standard lists of characters, forms, in South Korea, when Chinese characters are used they are of the traditional variant and are almost identical to those used in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Old Chinese, most words were monosyllabic and there was a correspondence between characters and words. Rather, a character almost always corresponds to a syllable that is also a morpheme. However, there are a few exceptions to this correspondence, including bisyllabic morphemes. Modern Chinese has many homophones, thus the same syllable may be represented by many characters. A single character may also have a range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings, cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally written with the same character. They typically have similar meanings, but often quite different pronunciations and these foreign adaptations of Chinese pronunciation are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations, and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese. When the script was first used in the late 2nd millennium BC, words of Old Chinese were generally monosyllabic, increasing numbers of polysyllabic words have entered the language from the Western Zhou period to the present day. The process has accelerated over the centuries as phonetic change has increased the number of homophones and it has been estimated that over two thirds of the 3,000 most common words in modern Standard Chinese are polysyllables, the vast majority of those being disyllables. The most common process has been to form compounds of existing words, words have also been created by adding affixes, reduplication and borrowing from other languages. Polysyllabic words are written with one character per syllable
7.
Nature
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Nature, in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, or material world or universe. Nature can refer to the phenomena of the world. The study of nature is a part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or essential qualities, innate disposition, and in ancient times, literally meant birth. Natura is a Latin translation of the Greek word physis, which related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals. This usage continued during the advent of scientific method in the last several centuries. Within the various uses of the word today, nature often refers to geology, for example, manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, human nature or the whole of nature. Depending on the context, the term natural might also be distinguished from the unnatural or the supernatural. Earth is the planet known to support life, and its natural features are the subject of many fields of scientific research. Within the solar system, it is third closest to the sun, it is the largest terrestrial planet and its most prominent climatic features are its two large polar regions, two relatively narrow temperate zones, and a wide equatorial tropical to subtropical region. Precipitation varies widely with location, from several metres of water per year to less than a millimetre,71 percent of the Earths surface is covered by salt-water oceans. The remainder consists of continents and islands, with most of the land in the Northern Hemisphere. Earth has evolved through geological and biological processes that have left traces of the original conditions, the outer surface is divided into several gradually migrating tectonic plates. The interior remains active, with a layer of plastic mantle. This iron core is composed of a solid phase. Convective motion in the core generates electric currents through dynamo action, the atmospheric conditions have been significantly altered from the original conditions by the presence of life-forms, which create an ecological balance that stabilizes the surface conditions. Geology is the science and study of the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth, the geology of an area evolves through time as rock units are deposited and inserted and deformational processes change their shapes and locations
8.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
9.
Snake (zodiac)
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The Snake is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and related to the Chinese calendar, as well as in related East Asian zodiacal or calendrical systems. The Year of the Snake is associated with the Earthly Branch symbol 巳, according to one mythical legend, there is a reason for the order of the 12 animals in the 12-year cycle. The story goes that a race was held to cross a river. The same 12 animals are used to symbolize the cycle of hours in the day. The hour of the Snake is 9,00 to 11,00 a. m. the time when the sun warms up the earth, the month of the Snake is May 5 to June 5. In Chinese symbology, Snakes are regarded as intelligent, but with a tendency to be somewhat unscrupulous, the Snake is the 6th of the 12 signs and belongs to the Second Trine, together with the Ox and the Rooster, with which it is most compatible. Depictions of zodiacal Snakes either solo or in context with the other eleven zodiacal creatures shows how they have been imagined in the calendrical context. Snakes in Chinese mythology Snakes in mythology Serpent Eberhard, Wolfram, A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols, Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought
10.
Helianthus
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Helianthus or sunflowers L. /ˌhiːliˈænθəs/ is a genus of plants comprising about 70 species in the family Asteraceae. The genus is one of many in the Asteraceae that are known as sunflowers, except for three species in South America, all Helianthus species are native to North America. The common name, sunflower, typically refers to the annual species Helianthus annuus, or the common sunflower. This and other species, notably Jerusalem artichoke, are cultivated in regions as food crops. The largest sunflower field is located in Tuscany, Italy, the domesticated sunflower, H. annuus, is the most familiar species. Perennial sunflower species are not as popular for gardens due to their tendency to spread rapidly and become invasive. Whorled sunflowers, H. verticillatus, were listed as a species in 2014 when the U. S. Fish. The primary threats are industrial forestry and pine plantations in Alabama, Georgia and they grow to 1.8 m and are primarily found in woodlands, adjacent to creeks and moist, prairie-like areas. Sunflowers are usually annual or perennial plants that grow to a height of 300 centimetres or more. They bear one or more wide, terminal capitula, with yellow ray florets at the outside. Several ornamental cultivars of Helianthus annuus have red-colored ray florets, all of them stem from a single original mutant, during growth, sunflowers tilt during the day to face the sun, but stop once they begin blooming. This tracking of the sun in young sunflower heads is called heliotropism, by the time they are mature, sunflowers generally face east. The rough and hairy stem is branched in the part in wild plants but is usually unbranched in domesticated cultivars. The petiolate leaves are dentate and often sticky, the lower leaves are opposite, ovate or often heart-shaped. They are distinguished technically by the fact that the ray florets are sterile, some species also have additional shorter scales in the pappus, and there is one species that lacks a pappus entirely. Another technical feature that distinguishes the genus more reliably, but requires a microscope to see, is the presence of a prominent, sunflowers are especially well known for their symmetry based on Fibonacci numbers and the Golden angle. There is quite a bit of variability among the species that make up the bulk of the species in the genus. Some have most or all of the leaves in a rosette at the base of the plant
11.
Jasmine
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Jasmine is a genus of shrubs and vines in the olive family. It contains around 200 species native to tropical and warm regions of Eurasia, Australasia and Oceania. Jasmines are widely cultivated for the fragrance of their flowers. A number of unrelated plants contain the word Jasmine in their common names, Jasmine can be either deciduous or evergreen, and can be erect, spreading, or climbing shrubs and vines. Their leaves are borne, opposite or alternate and they can be simple, trifoliate, or pinnate. The flowers are typically around 2.5 cm in diameter and they are white or yellow in color, although in rare instances they can be slightly reddish. The flowers are borne in clusters with a minimum of three flowers, though they can also be solitary on the ends of branchlets. Each flower has four to nine petals, two locules, and one to four ovules. They have two stamens with very short filaments, the bracts are linear or ovate. The fruits of jasmines are berries that turn black when ripe, the basic chromosome number of the genus is 13, and most species are diploid. However, natural polyploidy exists, particularly in Jasminum sambac, Jasminum flexile, Jasminum mesnyi, jasmines are native to tropical and subtropical regions of Eurasia, Australasia and Oceania, although only one of the 200 species is native to Europe. Their center of diversity is in South Asia and Southeast Asia, a number of jasmine species have become naturalized in Mediterranean Europe. For example, the so-called Spanish jasmine was originally from Iran and western South Asia, Jasminum fluminense and Jasminum dichotomum are invasive species in Hawaii and Florida. Jasminum polyanthum, also known as White Jasmine, is a weed in Australia. Species belonging to genus Jasminum are classified under the tribe Jasmineae of the olive family, Jasminum is divided into five sections—Alternifolia, Jasminum, Primulina, Trifoliolata, and Unifoliolata. The genus name is derived from the Persian Yasameen through Arabic, species include, Widely cultivated for its flowers, jasmine is enjoyed in the garden, as a house plant, and as cut flowers. The flowers are worn by women in their hair in southern, Jasmine tea is often consumed in China, where it is called jasmine-flower tea. Jasminum sambac flowers are used to make jasmine tea, which often has a base of green tea or white tea
12.
Gemini (astrology)
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Gemini is the third astrological sign in the zodiac, originating from the constellation of Gemini. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this sign between May 21 and June 21, Gemini is represented by The Twins Castor and Pollux. The symbol of the twins is based on the Dioscuri, two mortals that were granted shared godhood after death, Geminis are considered to hold mysteriously unique artistic and creative abilities unlike other signs. Often considered to be very intelligent individuals, they have an appreciation for the arts, philosophy, history. They do not like boring people or routine procedures and therefore struggle to deal with authoritative figures and they are enlightened to talk about any subject which they find interesting and where they can stimulate their naturally intellectual personalities. Geminis are noted to be drastic and hasty yet very responsible and they are considered to be the most misunderstood of all signs due to their dual personality expressed by the twins of their sign. Because of this, dont be surprised to often find Geminis in different moods and this makes them quite philosophical people. Geminis are sensitive as well but use their intelligence to counter anything that upsets them. Geminis usually get very well with Leos, Aries and Sagittariuses. They do not see eye to eye with Pisces, Cancers, Gemini are best suited for people of Aquarius and Libra signs but also go well with Capricorns, and Taurus signs. Longitude of Sun, apparent geocentric ecliptic of date, interpolated to find time of crossing 0°, 30°, atsma, Aaron J. DIOSCURI, Greek Gods of Horsemanship, Protectors of Sailors | Mythology, Dioskouroi, w/ pictures. The dictionary definition of Gemini at Wiktionary Media related to Gemini at Wikimedia Commons Warburg Institute Iconographic Database
