Hydra is a genus of small, fresh-water organisms of the phylum Cnidaria and class Hydrozoa. They are native to tropical regions. Biologists are interested in Hydra because of their regenerative ability – they do not appear to die of old age, or indeed to age at all. Hydra has a tubular, radially symmetric body up to 10 mm long when extended, secured by a simple adhesive foot called the basal disc. Gland cells in the basal disc secrete a sticky fluid. At the free end of the body is a mouth opening surrounded by one to twelve thin, mobile tentacles; each tentacle, or cnida, is clothed with specialised stinging cells called cnidocytes. Cnidocytes contain specialized structures called nematocysts, which look like miniature light bulbs with a coiled thread inside. At the narrow outer edge of the cnidocyte is a short trigger hair called a cnidocil. Upon contact with prey, the contents of the nematocyst are explosively discharged, firing a dart-like thread containing neurotoxins into whatever triggered the release.

This can paralyze the prey if many hundreds of nematocysts are fired. Hydra has two main body layers, which makes it "diploblastic"; the layers are separated by a gel-like substance. The outer layer is the epidermis, the inner layer is called the gastrodermis, because it lines the stomach; the cells making up these two body layers are simple. Hydramacin is a bactericide discovered in Hydra. A single Hydra is composed of 50,000 to 100,000 cells which consist of three specific stem cell populations that will create many different cell types; these stem. Hydras have two significant structures on their body: the "head" and the "foot"; when a Hydra is cut in half, each half will form into a small Hydra. If the Hydra is sliced into many segments the middle slices will form both a "head" and a "foot". Respiration and excretion occur by diffusion throughout the surface of the epidermis, while larger excreta are discharged through the mouth; the nervous system of Hydra is a nerve net, structurally simple compared to more derived animal nervous systems.

Hydra does not have true muscles. Nerve nets connect sensory photoreceptors and touch-sensitive nerve cells located in the body wall and tentacles; the structure of the nerve net has two levels: level 1 -- internal cells. Some have only two sheets of neurons. If Hydra are alarmed or attacked, the tentacles can be retracted to small buds, the body column itself can be retracted to a small gelatinous sphere. Hydra react in the same way regardless of the direction of the stimulus, this may be due to the simplicity of the nerve nets. Hydra are sedentary or sessile, but do move quite especially when hunting, they have two distinct methods for moving –'looping' and'somersaulting'. They do this by bending over and attaching themselves to the substrate with the mouth and tentacles and relocate the foot, which provides the usual attachment, this process is called looping. In somersaulting, the body bends over and makes a new place of attachment with the foot. By this process of "looping" or "somersaulting", a Hydra can move several inches in a day.

Hydra may move by amoeboid motion of their bases or by detaching from the substrate and floating away in the current. When food is plentiful, many Hydra reproduce asexually by producing buds in the body wall, which grow to be miniature adults and break away when they are mature; when a hydra is well fed, a new bud can form every two days. When conditions are harsh before winter or in poor feeding conditions, sexual reproduction occurs in some Hydra. Swellings in the body wall develop into either testes; the testes release free-swimming gametes into the water, these can fertilize the egg in the ovary of another individual. The fertilized eggs secrete a tough outer coating, and, as the adult dies, these resting eggs fall to the bottom of the lake or pond to await better conditions, whereupon they hatch into nymph Hydra; some Hydra species, like Hydra circumcincta and Hydra viridissima, are hermaphrodites and may produce both testes and ovaries at the same time. Many members of the Hydrozoa go through a body change from a polyp to an adult form called a medusa, the life stage where sexual reproduction occurs, but Hydra do not progress beyond the polyp phase.

Hydra feed on aquatic invertebrates such as Daphnia and Cyclops. While feeding, Hydra extend their body to maximum length and slowly extend their tentacles. Despite their simple construction, the tentacles of Hydra are extraordinarily extensible and can be four to five times the length of the body. Once extended, the tentacles are manoeuvred around waiting for contact with a suitable prey animal. Upon contact, nematocysts on the tentacle fire into the prey, the tentacle itself coils around the prey. Within 30 seconds, most of the remaining tentacles will have joined in the attack to subdue the struggling prey. Within two minutes, the tentacles will have surrounded the prey and moved it into the opened mouth aperture. Within ten minutes, the prey will have been engulfed within the body cavity, digestion will have started. Hydra are able to stretch their body wall in order to digest prey more than twice their size. After two or three days, the indigestible remains of the pre

At the 1904 Summer Olympics, twenty-five athletics events were contested. A total of 74 medals were awarded. Multi-event competitions, the all-around and triathlon, were introduced; the short steeplechase was lengthened from 2500 to 2590 metres, while the long steeplechase was dropped. The 5000 metre team race was replaced with the 4 mile team race. A 56-pound weight throw. In all, the 25 events featured in 1904 were 2 more than were held in 1900. 233 athletes from 10 nations competed. This figure includes the athletic triathlon event. Australia Canada Cuba Germany Great Britain Greece Hungary South Africa Switzerland United States The marathon was the most bizarre event of the Games, it was run in brutally hot weather, over dusty roads, with horses and automobiles clearing the way and creating dust clouds. The first to arrive at the finish line was Frederick Lorz, who rode the rest of the way in a car to retrieve his clothes, after dropping out after nine miles; the car broke down at the 19th mile, so he re-entered the race and jogged back to the finish line.

When the officials thought he had won the race, Lorz played along with his practical joke until he was found out shortly after the medal ceremony and was banned for a year by the AAU for this stunt winning the 1905 Boston Marathon. Thomas Hicks was the first to cross the finish-line after having received from his trainers several doses of strychnine sulfate mixed with brandy, he was supported by his trainers when he is still considered the winner. Hicks had to be carried off the track, would have died in the stadium had he not been treated by several doctors, he lost eight pounds during the course of the marathon. A Cuban postman named, he had to run in street clothes that a fellow runner cut around the legs to make them look like shorts. He stopped off in an orchard en route to have a snack on some apples; the rotten apples caused him to have to take a nap. Despite falling ill from the apples, he finished in fourth place. International Olympic Committee results database

Bill "Bull" Davidson was an American football player and coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Arkansas State University from 1971 to 1978, compiling a record of 51–32–1. Davidson coached his 1975 team to a perfect season during its first year at the NCAA Division I level and was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. Davidson attended high school at Manila, Arkansas where he played baseball and basketball since Manila did not have a football team at the time. In 1953, he went out for the football team. During his career as a player, he lettered three times as a linebacker. After graduating from college, Davidson coached high school football and earned a 28–7 record at Earle, Arkansas from 1957 to 1959 and a 28–5–1 record at Jonesboro High School from 1960 to 1962, he took the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach positions at Arkansas State in 1963. Davidson amassed a 51–32–1 record as head coach of the Arkansas State Indians, now the Red Wolves, football team from 1971 to 1978.

This record included a perfect 11–0 season in 1975. Davidson participated in an 11–0 perfect season as an assistant coach in 1970, with the team earning the NCAA College Division national championship; when head coach Bennie Ellender headed to his alma mater Tulane, Davidson was elevated to the head coaching job. ASU's record with Davidson as an assistant coach from 1963 to 1970 was 52–20–4. Davidson coached 11 All-Americans during his tenure. During Davidson's tenure, ASU gained a reputation as a physically intimidating team. In 1975, ASU moved to NCAA Division I and dominated all eleven teams they faced that year by a combined score of 355–81. Davidson's team trailed never in the fourth quarter. ASU led the nation in rushing that year at 340.5 yards per game and ranked in the national top ten in seven defensive categories. Davidson's team took. Nearly 20 of Davidson's players from the 1975 perfect team were signed by NFL teams. Davidson earned the Southland Conference Coach of the Year that year and the team established the nation's longest winning streak at the time.

The 1975 season was unimaginable for a small college in its first year at the Division I level. Davidson retired. Davidson earned the Southland Conference Coach of the Year trophy again in his last year. Davidson returned to work in the 1980s when he served as an associate athletic director for the school. Adapted from the article Bill Davidson, from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Bill Davidson at Find a Grave

Ss. Peter and Paul Church on Nikolskoë is a Protestant church in the Volkspark Glienecke in Berlin, Germany, it is administered by the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. The church is Parks of Potsdam and Berlin. King Friedrich Wilhelm III had the church built for the residents of Klein-Glienicke and Pfaueninsel on a bluff on the Havel near the Pfaueninsel and the Nikolskoë Blockhouse, it was designed by Albert Dietrich Schadow. Friedrich Wilhelm selected the Russian style to commemorate the marriage of his daughter Charlotte to the Tsar Nicholas I of Russia; the king visited them at St. Petersburg in 1818 and for a return visit a year had a Russian-style blockhouse built in the park at Glienicke, naming it Nikolskoë. In 1832, the king ordered the construction of the nearby church which took place from 1834 to 1837, it was inaugurated on August 13, 1837. Until 1961, when the Berlin Wall cut the parish into three separate parts, Ss. Peter and Paul Church was part of the Evangelical Congregation of Neubabelsberg comprising a parish in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Klein-Glienicke, Nikolskoë and Potsdam-Sacrow with the further chapel in Klein-Glienicke and the Church of the Redeemer, Sacrow.

On December 22, 1941 the official German Evangelical Church called for suited actions by all Protestant church bodies to withhold baptised non-Aryans from all spheres of Protestant church life. Many German Christian-dominated congregations followed suit. However, the Evangelical Congregation of Neubabelsberg handed in a list of signatures in protest against the exclusion of the stigmatised Protestants of Jewish descent; the church has a Russian Orthodox profile, with the noteworthy difference that it has only one onion dome, instead of the five seen in Russia. Ss. Peter and Paul contains the grave of Prince Charles of Prussia; the design of its current glockenspiel is based on that of the Potsdam Garrison Church. St. Peter und Paul auf der Website Kulturführer Berlin Kirche St. Peter und Paul Evangelische Kirche St. Peter und Paul auf Nikolskoe

A Half-Breed Tract was a segment of land designated in the western states by the United States government in the 19th century for Métis of American Indian and European or European-American ancestry, at the time known as half-breeds. The government set aside such tracts in several parts of the Midwestern prairie region, including in Iowa Territory, Nebraska Territory, Kansas Territory, Minnesota Territory, Wisconsin Territory; the mixed-blood population in the Pays d'en Haut region surrounding the Great Lakes were the descendants of Native American women and White men men of French-Canadian or Scots origin, who dominated early fur trapping and trade. These men lived far from other Europeans. Others had fathers who were American traders; the children grew up in their mother's tribes, where the fathers and families were offered protection if not full membership. As relations between the United States government and the tribes became more complex, the mixed-race children were excluded from benefiting both from the federal laws governing Indians and the political rights of their fathers because of discrimination on both sides.

The tribes had their own kinship rules of descent and inheritance. For instance, the Omaha had a patrilineal system, considered mixed-race children of European or "white" fathers to be white unless formally adopted into the tribe by a man. Other tribes had matrilineal systems, children were considered born into the mother's clan and took their status from her. Due to hypodescent and the fact that many of the mixed-race children grew up in tribes on the frontier, Europeans tended to classify them as being more Indian than white; the fact that their fathers lived "outside" civilized society as mountain men contributed to this notion, as well. The Omaha and other tribal leaders advocated setting land aside for the mixed-blood descendants; the relationship between mixed-bloods and their ancestral tribes affected the descendants when the tribes ceded communal lands to the U. S. government in exchange for payment. The rights of mixed-blood descendants to payments or a part in decisionmaking were not acknowledged.

In 1830 the federal government acknowledged this problem by the Fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien, which set aside a tract of land for mixed-blood people related to the Oto, Omaha and Fox and Santee Sioux tribes. The treaty granted these "Half-Breed Tracts" as sections of land in a form similar to Indian reservations. A Half-Breed Tract was located in Iowa. An 1824 treaty between the Sauk people, the Fox tribe, the United States set aside a reservation for mixed-blood people related to the tribes. Lying between the Mississippi, Des Moines rivers and below an eastward extension of the Sullivan Line, the Tract occupied an area of 119,000 acres. Under the original treaty, the half-breed people had the right to occupy the soil, but individuals could not buy or sell the land. In 1834 Congress repealed the rule. Afterward, claim jumpers claimed much of the land; the government gave away mixed-blood peoples' claims to the land ending the provisions of the Half-Breed Tract by 1841. Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr. purchased parts of the Half-Breed Tract in 1837, from a land speculation company.

Deeds to most of the land could not be held. This left the church including a town called Commerce in Illinois; the Mormons moved to this Illinois site from Far West, Missouri, to escape the Missouri Executive Order 44 issued by Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs. The Nemaha Half-Breed Reservation was established on July 15, 1830; the tract's eastern border was the Missouri River, the property extended inland for 10 miles. The north/south borders were between the Little Nemaha River to the north and the Great Nemaha River, near Falls City to the south. Owners were never required to live on their property and many sold their lands to whites. Nebraska's Half-Breed Tract vanished as a legal entity by 1861. An 1825 treaty with the Kaw Indians reserved land of 1 square mile for each of twenty-three Kaw mixed bloods; the tracts were located on the north bank of the Kansas River from present day Topeka to Williamstown. The purpose of granting the land to the mixed-bloods was to gain their support for the treaty in which the Kaw ceded a large amount of land to the United States in exchange for annuities.

Indian Superintendent William Clark said, "Reserves of this kind... have a good effect in promoting civilization... an idea of separate property is imparted without which it is vain to think of improving the minds and morals of the Indian."Several of the Kaw half-breed tracts were to become important sites in Kansas history. In 1827 the Kaw Agency was founded on Tract number 23, allotted to Joseph James, Jr.. Here lived the Government Agent to the Kaw. S. government as the head chief of the Kaw. Tract number three, located on the site of Topeka, was to become the site of the Pappan Ferry in the 1840s, a crossing of the Kansas River used by pioneers heading west on the Oregon Trail. Tract four was allotted to Julie Gonville, the maternal grandmother of Charles Curtis elected U. S. Senator from Kansas and the Vice President of the United States

"If This Be My Destiny...!" is a story arc from The Amazing Spider-Man #31–33, with plots and art by Steve Ditko and scripts by Stan Lee, most well known for the introduction of supporting characters Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy as well as the mysterious villain the Master Planner. It was published in 1965 by Marvel Comics. Peter Parker attends his first day at Empire State University meeting classmates Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy, while Aunt May succumbs to a mysterious and life-threatening illness and a new evil mastermind named The Master Planner begins his crimes by stealing various technological devices. After a fateful battle, the Master Planner is revealed to be Doctor Octopus who has stolen a rare isotope that could be the only means to save Aunt May's life. Trapped under heavy machinery, Spider-Man musters enough strength to free himself by sheer force of will in order to save her life; the storyline ran in The Amazing Spider-Man #31 through #33, with a single interconnected story arc, being one of the first of its kind in Spider-Man's history.

Lee recounted that he and Ditko jointly plotted the acclaimed sequence in which Spider-Man lifts the heavy machinery off of him, but that stretching the sequence out for several pages was purely Ditko's idea. Having anticipated that Ditko would spend just two or three panels on this plot point, Lee said that when he saw the art for the scene "I shouted in triumph."In the letters section of the September-October 1998 issue of Comic Book Marketplace, Ditko pointed out that he was credited as sole plotter of series starting with issue 26, that the sequence in question was in issue 33. He further stated that Stan Lee never knew what was in Ditko's plotted stories until he saw the artwork. One of the most celebrated issues of the Lee-Ditko run is #33, the third part of the story arc "If This Be My Destiny", featuring the dramatic scene of Spider-Man, through force of will and thoughts of family, escaping from being pinned by heavy machinery. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "Steve Ditko squeezes every ounce of anguish out of Spider-Man's predicament, complete with visions of the uncle he failed and the aunt he has sworn to save."

Peter David observed that "After his origin, this two-page sequence from Amazing Spider-Man #33 is the best-loved sequence from the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko era." Steve Saffel stated the "full page Ditko image from The Amazing Spider-Man #33 is one of the most powerful to appear in the series and influenced writers and artists for many years to come." And Matthew K. Manning wrote that "Ditko's illustrations for the first few pages of this Lee story included what would become one of the most iconic scenes in Spider-Man's history." The story was chosen as #15 in the 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time poll of Marvel's readers in 2001. Editor Robert Greenberger wrote in his introduction to the story that "These first five pages are a modern-day equivalent to Shakespeare as Parker's soliloquy sets the stage for his next action, and with dramatic pacing and storytelling, Ditko delivers one of the great sequences in all comics." The story and the iconic lifting scene from The Amazing Spider-Man #33 were recreated in The Spectacular Spider-Man episode "Shear Strength."

The iconic lifting scene from The Amazing Spider-Man #33 was recreated in the 2017 film Spider-Man: Homecoming when the Vulture destroys the support beams in his secret lair, pinning Spider-Man under the debris. Marvel Masterworks #16 The Essential Spider-Man volume 2 Marvel Visionaries: Steve Ditko The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus volume 1 The Amazing Spider-Man - #31 "If This Be My Destiny...!" at the Comic Book DB