1.
Museum of Natural Sciences
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The Museum of Natural Sciences is a museum in the Belgian capital of Brussels dedicated to natural history. The museum is a part of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and its most important pieces are 30 fossilized Iguanodon skeletons, which were discovered in 1878 in Bernissart. The dinosaur hall of the museum is the worlds largest museum hall completely dedicated to dinosaurs, another famous piece is the Ishango bone, which was discovered in 1960 by Jean de Heinzelin de Braucourt. Like in most museums, there is a department and a public exhibit department. The museum was founded on 31 March 1846 as a descendant of the Musée de Bruxelles of 1802 and it was based on the collection established by Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, which dated from the 18th century. Bernard du Bus de Gisignies, became the first director of the museum in 1846, on this occasion he donated 2474 birds from his own collection to the museum. In 1860, during the construction of new fortifications around Antwerp, the museum also obtained the skeletons from a bowhead whale and a young blue whale, which are still on display in the museum. In 1860 the skeleton of a mammoth was found near Lier and due to the action of François-Joseph Scohy it was preserved and brought to the museum. At that time the only other skeleton of a mammoth on display was in the museum of Saint Petersburg, in 1878, the largest find of Iguanodon fossils to date occurred in a coal mine at Bernissart in Belgium. At least 38 Iguanodon individuals were uncovered, of which 30 have been on display since they were moved here from their home at the Palace of Charles of Lorraine in 1891. Since 2007, a renovated and enlarged dinosaur hall of 4580 m2 is the largest dinosaur hall in the world. The Dinosaur hall, with the world famous Iguanodon skeletons Of Men and Mammoths, about the evolution of man, the Mammal Gallery, recent and extinct mammals, including a thylacine. The North and South Pole, a view of two different worlds in a glass tunnel, the Whale Hall, skeletons of whales, dolphins, walruses, sirenians, seals. A small part of the hall is devoted to the role in the economy. The Shell Gallery houses an aquarium and a complete survey of the lower classes of invertebrates. The nearby North Sea Discovery Room takes you on a tour around beach. The entire collection consists of 9000000 specimens and is one of the three biggest shell collections in the world, a great deal was collected by Philippe Dautzenberg. The Insect Gallery, insects, spiders, crustaceans and other arthropods, the collection consists of 15000000 specimens of which ten thousands are holotypes of great scientific value
2.
Bone tool
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In archaeology, a bone tool is a tool created from bone. A bone tool can conceivably be created from almost any bone, bone tools have been documented from the advent of Homo sapiens and are also known from Homo neanderthalensis contexts or even earlier. Bone has been used for making tools by virtually all hunter-gatherer societies, any part of the skeleton can potentially be utilized, however, antlers and long bones provide some of the best working material. Long bone fragments can be shaped, by scraping against a stone, into such items as arrow and spear points, needles, awls. Bone tools had mainly been made from bone splinters or were cut into a useful shape, archaeologists are convinced that bone tools were purposefully made by deer antlers cut into shape. The bone was fashioned into tools such as spoons, knives, awls, pins, fish hooks, needles, flakers and they made musical rasps, flutes and whistles as well as toys of bone. Decoratively carved articles were made of bone such as hair combs, hair pins. Antler is much harder than bone and was used for flakers, points, knives, even the teeth and hooves did not go to waste. The teeth were drilled and used for decoration on clothing and necklaces, the hooves were also drilled and used for decoration on clothing as well as strung for rattles and bells. As an organic material, bone often does not survive in a way that is archaeologically recoverable, however, under the right conditions, bone tools do sometimes survive and many have been recovered from locations around the world representing time periods throughout history and prehistory. Also many examples have been collected ethnographically, and some peoples, as well as experimental archaeologists. The oldest excavated bone tools are from Africa, dated to about 1.5 million years ago and it is widely accepted that they appeared and developed in Africa before any other geographic region. A very famous excavation of bone tools is that of the Blombos Cave in South Africa, a collection of twenty-eight bone tools were recovered from 70 thousand year old Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave. Careful analyses of these tools reveal that production methods were used to create awls. Bone tools have been discovered in the context of Neanderthal groups as well as throughout the development of modern humans, archaeologists have long believed that Neanderthals learned how to make bone tools from modern humans and by mimicking stone tools, viewing bone as simply another raw material. Modern humans, on the hand, took advantage of the properties of bone and worked them into specific shapes. The uncovering of lissoirs at these sites is significant as they are about 51,000 years old, prior to the Industrial Revolution, many everyday tools such as needles were made from bone, such items continue to be valued today as antiques. Bone folders are used by bookbinders
3.
Upper Paleolithic
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The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity, modern humans are believed to have emerged about 195,000 years ago in Africa. Although these humans were modern in anatomy, their lifestyle changed very little from their contemporaries, such as Homo erectus, about 50,000 years ago, there was a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts. In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archeological record, between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago, this new tool technology spread with human migration to Europe. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals. The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized settlements, in the form of campsites, artistic work blossomed, with cave painting, petroglyphs, carvings and engravings on bone or ivory. The first evidence of fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. More complex social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and this probably contributed to increasing group identification or ethnicity. By 50, 000–40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia, by 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61° north latitude in Europe. By 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia above the Arctic Circle, at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed the Bering land bridge and quickly expanded throughout North and South America. Both Homo erectus and Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools, archaeologist Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic hominids as impossible to categorize. It was as if the Neanderthals made stone tools, and were not much concerned about their final forms and he argues that almost everywhere, whether Asia, Africa or Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated. These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other, the invaders, commonly referred to as the Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools, carved and engraved pieces on bone, ivory and antler, cave paintings and Venus figurines. The Neanderthals continued to use Mousterian stone tool technology and possibly Chatelperronian technology and these tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 years ago. Settlements were often located in valley bottoms, possibly associated with hunting of passing herds of animals. Hunting was important, and caribou/wild reindeer may well be the species of single greatest importance in the anthropological literature on hunting. Technological advances included significant developments in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simpler and shorter flakes, burins and racloirs were used to work bone, antler and hides. Advanced darts and harpoons also appear in period, along with the fish hook, the oil lamp, rope
4.
Baboon
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Baboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The five species are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the order, only the mandrill. Previously, the closely related gelada and the two species of genus Mandrillus were grouped in the genus, and these Old World monkeys are still often referred to as baboons in everyday speech. They range in size and weight depending on species, the Guinea baboon is 50 cm and weighs only 14 kg, while the largest chacma baboon can be 120 cm and weigh 40 kg. Five species of Papio are commonly recognized, although there is disagreement about whether they are really full species or subspecies. They are P. ursinus, P. papio, P. hamadryas, P. anubis, many authors distinguish P. hamadryas as a full species, but regard all the others as subspecies of P. cynocephalus and refer to them collectively as savanna baboons. However, recent morphological and genetic studies of Papio show the hamadryas baboon to be closely related to the northern baboon species than to the southern species. In 2015 researchers found the oldest baboon fossil dating 2 million years ago, the traditional five-form classification probably under-represents the variation within Papio. However, current knowledge of the morphological, genetic, and behavioral diversity within Papio is too poor to make any final and these calluses are nerveless, hairless pads of skin that provide for the sitting comfort of the baboon. All baboon species exhibit pronounced sexual dimorphism, usually in size, males of the hamadryas baboon species also have large white manes. Baboons are terrestrial and are found in savannah, open woodland. Their diets are omnivorous, but mostly herbivorous, yet they eat insects and occasionally prey on fish, trout and salmon if available, shellfish, hares, birds, vervet monkeys and they are foragers and are active at irregular times throughout the day and night. They can raid human dwellings, and in South Africa, they have known to prey on sheep. Baboons in captivity have been known to live up to 45 years, baboons are able to acquire orthographic processing skills, which form part of the ability to read. Their principal predators are Nile crocodiles, lions, spotted and striped hyenas, leopards and they are considered a difficult prey for the leopard, though, which is mostly a threat to young baboons. Large males will often confront them by flashing their eyelids, showing their teeth by yawning, screeching, making gestures, although they are not a prey species, baboons have been killed by the black mamba. This usually occurs when a baboon accidentally rouses the snake, most baboons live in hierarchical troops. Group sizes vary between five and 250 animals, depending on circumstances, especially species and time of year
5.
Quartz
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Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in Earths continental crust, behind feldspar. There are many different varieties of quartz, several of which are semi-precious gemstones, since antiquity, varieties of quartz have been the most commonly used minerals in the making of jewelry and hardstone carvings, especially in Eurasia. The word quartz is derived from the German word Quarz and its Middle High German ancestor twarc, the Ancient Greeks referred to quartz as κρύσταλλος derived from the Ancient Greek κρύος meaning icy cold, because some philosophers apparently believed the mineral to be a form of supercooled ice. Today, the rock crystal is sometimes used as an alternative name for the purest form of quartz. Quartz belongs to the crystal system. The ideal crystal shape is a six-sided prism terminating with six-sided pyramids at each end, well-formed crystals typically form in a bed that has unconstrained growth into a void, usually the crystals are attached at the other end to a matrix and only one termination pyramid is present. However, doubly terminated crystals do occur where they develop freely without attachment, a quartz geode is such a situation where the void is approximately spherical in shape, lined with a bed of crystals pointing inward. α-quartz crystallizes in the crystal system, space group P3121 and P3221 respectively. β-quartz belongs to the system, space group P6222 and P6422. These space groups are truly chiral, both α-quartz and β-quartz are examples of chiral crystal structures composed of achiral building blocks. The transformation between α- and β-quartz only involves a comparatively minor rotation of the tetrahedra with respect to one another, although many of the varietal names historically arose from the color of the mineral, current scientific naming schemes refer primarily to the microstructure of the mineral. Color is an identifier for the cryptocrystalline minerals, although it is a primary identifier for the macrocrystalline varieties. Pure quartz, traditionally called rock crystal or clear quartz, is colorless and transparent or translucent, common colored varieties include citrine, rose quartz, amethyst, smoky quartz, milky quartz, and others. The most important distinction between types of quartz is that of macrocrystalline and the microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline varieties, the cryptocrystalline varieties are either translucent or mostly opaque, while the transparent varieties tend to be macrocrystalline. Chalcedony is a form of silica consisting of fine intergrowths of both quartz, and its monoclinic polymorph moganite. Other opaque gemstone varieties of quartz, or mixed rocks including quartz, often including contrasting bands or patterns of color, are agate, carnelian or sard, onyx, heliotrope, amethyst is a form of quartz that ranges from a bright to dark or dull purple color. The worlds largest deposits of amethysts can be found in Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Russia, France, Namibia, sometimes amethyst and citrine are found growing in the same crystal. It is then referred to as ametrine, an amethyst is formed when there is iron in the area where it was formed
6.
Tally stick
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A tally stick was an ancient memory aid device used to record and document numbers, quantities, or even messages. Tally sticks first appear as animal bones carved with notches during the Upper Paleolithic, historical reference is made by Pliny the Elder about the best wood to use for tallies, and by Marco Polo who mentions the use of the tally in China. Tallies have been used for purposes such as messaging and scheduling. Principally, there are two different kinds of sticks, the single tally and the split tally. A common form of the kind of primitive counting device is seen in various kinds of prayer beads. A number of artefacts have been conjectured to be tally sticks. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon and it has a series of tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the tool. It was found in 1960 in Belgian Congo, the Lebombo Bone is a baboons fibula with 29 distinct notches, discovered within the Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains of Swaziland. The so-called Wolf bone is a prehistoric artefact discovered in 1937 in Czechoslovakia during excavations at Vestonice, Moravia, dated to the Aurignacian, approximately 30,000 years ago, the bone is marked with 55 marks which some believe to be tally marks. The head of an ivory Venus figurine was excavated close to the bone, the single tally stick was an elongated piece of bone, ivory, wood, or stone which is marked with a system of notches. The single tally stick serves predominantly mnemonic purposes, related to the single tally concept are messenger sticks, the knotted cords, khipus or quipus, as used by the Inca. Herodotus reported the use of a knotted cord by Darius I of Persia, the split tally was a technique which became common in medieval Europe, which was constantly short of money and predominantly illiterate, in order to record bilateral exchange and debts. A stick was marked with a system of notches and then split lengthwise and this way the two halves both record the same notches and each party to the transaction received one half of the marked stick as proof. Later this technique was refined in ways and became virtually tamper proof. One of the refinements was to make the two halves of the stick of different lengths, the longer part was called stock and was given to the party which had advanced money to the receiver. The shorter portion of the stick was called foil and was given to the party which had received the funds or goods, using this technique each of the parties had an identifiable record of the transaction. If one party tried to change the value of his half of the tally stick by adding more notches. The split tally was accepted as proof in medieval courts
7.
Tally marks
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Tally marks, also called hash marks, are a unary numeral system. They are a form of used for counting. They are most useful in counting or tallying ongoing results, such as the score in a game or sport, however, because of the length of large numbers, tallies are not commonly used for static text. Notched sticks, known as tally sticks, were historically used for this purpose. Counting aids other than body parts appear in the Upper Paleolithic, the oldest tally sticks date to between 35,000 and 25,000 years ago, in the form of notched bones found in the context of the European Aurignacian to Gravettian and in Africas Late Stone Age. The so-called Wolf bone is an artifact discovered in 1937 in Czechoslovakia during excavations at Vestonice, Moravia. Dated to the Aurignacian, approximately 30,000 years ago, the head of an ivory Venus figurine was excavated close to the bone. The Ishango bone, found in the Ishango region of the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo, is dated to over 20,000 years old, upon discovery, it was thought to portray a series of prime numbers. He also writes that no attempt has been made to explain why a tally of something should exhibit multiples of two, prime numbers between 10 and 20, and some numbers that are almost multiples of 10. Alexander Marshack examined the Ishango bone microscopically, and concluded that it may represent a lunar calendar. Tally marks are typically clustered in groups of five for legibility, roman numerals, the Chinese numerals for one through three, and rod numerals were derived from tally marks, as possibly was the ogham script
8.
Belgian Congo
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The Belgian Congo was a Belgian colony in Central Africa between 1908 and 1960 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century, King Leopold II of the Belgians persuaded the government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopolds creating a colony on his own account, with support from a number of Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition for a personal colony, the Congo Free State, in 1885. Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the trinity of state, missionary. The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo, the country was split into nesting, hierarchically organised administrative subdivisions, and run uniformly according to a set native policy. This was in contrast to the British and the French, who favoured the system of indirect rule whereby traditional leaders were retained in positions of authority under colonial oversight. The Congo had a degree of racial segregation. The large numbers of immigrants who moved to the Congo after the end of World War II came from across the social spectrum. During the 1940s and 1950s, the Congo had extensive urbanisation, one of the results was the development of a new middle class of Europeanised African évolués in the cities. By the 1950s the Congo had a labour force twice as large as that in any other African colony. This ended with the seizure of power by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, until the later part of the 19th century, few Europeans had ventured into the Congo basin. The rainforest, swamps and accompanying malaria and other diseases, such as sleeping sickness. After Henry Morton Stanley had explored the region in a journey that ended in 1878, Leopold courted the explorer, Leopold II had been keen to acquire a colony for Belgium even before he ascended to the throne in 1865. The Belgian civil government showed little interest in its monarchs dreams of empire-building, ambitious and stubborn, Leopold decided to pursue the matter on his own account. European rivalry in Central Africa led to tensions, in particular with regard to the largely unclaimed Congo River basin. In November 1884 Otto von Bismarck convened a 14-nation conference to find a resolution to the Congo crisis. The rules recognised the Congo basin as a free-trade zone, but Leopold II emerged triumphant from the Berlin Conference and his single-shareholder philanthropic organization received a large share of territory to be organized as the Congo Free State. The Congo Free State operated as a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization, the state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the government of Belgium annexed the area
9.
Semliki River
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Semliki River is a major river,140 kilometres long, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda in Central and East Africa. It flows north from Lake Edward to Lake Albert in the Albertine Rift west of the Rwenzori Mountains, along its lower reaches, it forms part of the international border between the DRC and the western Ugandan district of Bundibugyo, near the Semuliki National Park. It empties into Lake Albert slightly west of the border in Orientale Province of the DRC, increasing snowmelt from the Rwenzoris, overgrazing, and other alterations to the watershed have caused bank erosion and frequent changes to the course of the meandering lower reaches of the river. In some places, Uganda is losing up to 10 metres of land per year on its side of the river to erosion, in other places, it is the DRC that is losing territory as the changing river course alters the apparent location of the border. The Semliki begins near Ishango, DRC, at the end of Lake Edward and soon enters Virunga National Park. The A-109 road between Mpondwe, Uganda, and Beni, DRC, is on the right, sometimes nearby and sometimes at a distance, slightly southeast of Beni, the river passes under the A-109 road and continues north. At this point, the stream is west of Mount Baker in Rwenzori Mountains National Park in Uganda. Before leaving the park, the river passes under another road linking the DRC settlement of Oicha to settlements in the Semliki Valley west of the DRC–Uganda border and the Uganda town of Bundibugyo. Downstream of the crossing, the river leaves the Virunga Park and runs along the west edge of Semuliki National Park. Here the river becomes the border between the DRC and Uganda, and it remains the border for most of the rest of the rivers course, as the river leaves Semuliki Park, it nears Sempaya National Park and the Toro Game Reserve, both in Uganda. Over its last reach, the river flows west of the border and enters the southern end of Lake Albert at a point southeast of Bunia. The two main groups in the region are the Amba people and the Bakonjo. People in the Semliki Valley include Batuku, pastoral cattle keepers whose herds graze on grasslands along the river, small populations of Batwa, who have traditionally been forest hunter-gatherers, also live in the valley. In Semuliki National Park, the forest resembles that of the Congo River basin, cynometra alexandri, a tropical tree species, dominates but is interspersed with other trees and swamp flora. Annual rainfall in tropical forest averages 1,500 millimetres. More than 400 bird species, including the forest ground-thrush, Sassis olive greenbul, among the mammals in the park are elephants, buffalo, hippopotami, duikers, and pygmy flying squirrels
10.
Lake Edward
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Lake Edward, Rutanzige or Edward Nyanza is the smallest of the African Great Lakes. Henry Morton Stanley first saw the lake in 1888, during the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, the lake was named in honour of Prince Albert Edward, The Prince of Wales, son of then British-monarch Queen Victoria, and later to become King Edward VII. In 1973, Uganda and Zaire renamed it Lake Idi Amin or Lake Idi Amin Dada after Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, after his overthrow in 1979, it recovered its original name. The lake is fed by the Nyamugasani River, the Ishasha River, the Rutshuru River, the Ntungwe River, Lake George to the northeast empties into it via the Kazinga Channel. Lake Edward empties to the north via the Semliki River into Lake Albert, the western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley towers up to 2,000 metres above the western shore of the lake. The southern and eastern shores are flat lava plains, the Ruwenzori Mountains are 20 kilometres north of the lake. The region shows evidence of volcanic activity over the last 5000 years. The Katwe-Kikorongo and Bunyaruguru Volcanic Fields, with cones and craters. The Katwe-Kikorongo field features dozens of large craters and cones covering an area of 30 kilometres by 15 kilometres between lakes Edward and George, and includes seven crater lakes. The largest of these, the 2.5 kilometres long Lake Katwe, the crater is about 100 metres deep, and Lake Katwes surface is about 40 metres lower than Lake Edwards. It is remarkable that the origin of this area southeast of the Ruwenzoris was not known until it was reported by G. F. Scott Elliot in 1894. Stanley visited Lake Katwe in 1889 and noted the depression, the salinity of the lake, and a spring of sulphurous water nearby. The similarly-sized Bunyaruguru field on the side of the Kazinga Channel contains about 30 crater lakes. About two-thirds of its waters are in the DRC and one third in Uganda, the nearest cities are Kasese in Uganda to the northeast and Butembo in the DRC to the northwest, which are respectively about 50 kilometres and 150 kilometres distant by road. Fishing is an important activity among local residents, fauna living on the banks of the lake – including chimpanzees, elephants, crocodiles, and lions – are protected by the national parks. The area is home to many perennial and migratory bird species. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations World Lake Database
11.
Nile
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The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It is generally regarded as the longest river in the world, in particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan. The Nile has two tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself, the Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and it flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast, the two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta, Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, in the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥpī or Iteru, meaning river. In Coptic, the words piaro or phiaro meaning the river come from the ancient name. The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος, beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed. One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning river, the standard English names White Nile and Blue Nile, to refer to the rivers source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum. Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, at Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia, both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers, the source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, the two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border. Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the water of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop. The Nile leaves Lake Nyanza at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda and it flows north for some 130 kilometers, to Lake Kyoga. For the remaining part it flows westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta
12.
Uganda
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Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, Uganda is the worlds second most populous landlocked country after Ethiopia. The southern part of the country includes a portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya. Uganda is in the African Great Lakes region, Uganda also lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied but generally a modified equatorial climate. Uganda takes its name from the Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a portion of the south of the country. The people of Uganda were hunter-gatherers until 1,700 to 2,300 years ago, beginning in 1894, the area was ruled as a protectorate by the British, who established administrative law across the territory. Uganda gained independence from Britain on 9 October 1962, luganda, a central language, is widely spoken across the country, and several other languages are also spoken including Runyoro, Runyankole, Rukiga, and Luo. The president of Uganda is Yoweri Museveni, who came to power in January 1986 after a protracted guerrilla war. The ancestors of the Ugandans were hunter-gatherers until 1, 700-2,300 years ago, Bantu-speaking populations, who were probably from central Africa, migrated to the southern parts of the country. According to oral tradition, the Empire of Kitara covered an important part of the lakes area, from the northern lakes Albert and Kyoga to the southern lakes Victoria. Bunyoro-Kitara is claimed as the antecedent of the Buganda, Toro, Ankole, some Luo invaded the area of Bunyoro and assimilated with the Bantu there, establishing the Babiito dynasty of the current Omukama of Bunyoro-Kitara. Arab traders moved inland from the Indian Ocean coast of East Africa in the 1830s and they were followed in the 1860s by British explorers searching for the source of the Nile. British Anglican missionaries arrived in the kingdom of Buganda in 1877 and were followed by French Catholic missionaries in 1879, the British government chartered the Imperial British East Africa Company to negotiate trade agreements in the region beginning in 1888. From 1886, there were a series of wars in Buganda. Because of civil unrest and financial burdens, IBEAC claimed that it was unable to maintain their occupation in the region, in the 1890s,32,000 labourers from British India were recruited to East Africa under indentured labour contracts to construct the Uganda Railway. Most of the surviving Indians returned home, but 6,724 decided to remain in East Africa after the lines completion, subsequently, some became traders and took control of cotton ginning and sartorial retail. British naval ships unknowingly carried rats that contained the bubonic plague and these rats spread the disease throughout Uganda. From 1900 to 1920, a sleeping sickness epidemic in the part of Uganda, along the north shores of Lake Victoria
13.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as DR Congo, DRC, DROC, East Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo is a country located in Central Africa. From 1971 to 1997 it was named, and is still called, Zaire. It is the second-largest country in Africa by area and eleventh largest in the world, the Congolese Civil Wars, which began in 1996, brought about the end of Mobutu Sese Sekos 32-year reign and devastated the country. These wars ultimately involved nine African nations, multiple groups of UN peacekeepers and twenty armed groups, besides the capital, Kinshasa, the other major cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. DR Congos largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of DRCs exports in 2012, as of 2015, according to the Human Development Index, DR Congo has a low level of human development, ranking 176 out of 187 countries. The country was known officially as the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 27 October 1971, in 1992, the Sovereign National Conference voted to change the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the change was not put into practice. The countrys name was restored by former president Laurent-Désiré Kabila following the fall of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, some historians think that Bantu peoples began settling in the extreme northwest of Central Africa at the beginning of the 5th century and then gradually started to expand southward. Their propagation was accelerated by the transition from Stone Age to Iron Age techniques, the people living in the south and southwest were mostly San Bushmen and hunter-gatherer groups, whose technology involved only minimal use of metal technologies. The development of tools during this time period revolutionized agriculture. This led to the displacement of the groups in the east and southeast. The 10th century marked the expansion of the Bantu in West-Central Africa. Rising populations soon made intricate local, regional and foreign commercial networks that traded mostly in salt, iron. Belgian exploration and administration took place from the 1870s until the 1920s and it was first led by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, who undertook his explorations under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium. The eastern regions of the precolonial Congo were heavily disrupted by constant slave raiding, mainly from Arab–Swahili slave traders such as the infamous Tippu Tip, Leopold had designs on what was to become the Congo as a colony. Leopold formally acquired rights to the Congo territory at the Conference of Berlin in 1885 and he named it the Congo Free State. Leopolds rėgime began various infrastructure projects, such as construction of the railway ran from the coast to the capital of Leopoldville. Nearly all such projects were aimed at making it easier to increase the assets which Leopold. In the Free State, colonists brutalized the local population into producing rubber, for which the spread of automobiles, rubber sales made a fortune for Leopold, who built several buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country
14.
Volcano
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A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. Earths volcanoes occur because its crust is broken into 17 major, therefore, on Earth, volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. This type of volcanism falls under the umbrella of plate hypothesis volcanism, Volcanism away from plate boundaries has also been explained as mantle plumes. These so-called hotspots, for example Hawaii, are postulated to arise from upwelling diapirs with magma from the boundary,3,000 km deep in the Earth. Volcanoes are usually not created where two plates slide past one another. Erupting volcanoes can pose hazards, not only in the immediate vicinity of the eruption. Historically, so-called volcanic winters have caused catastrophic famines, the word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano, a volcanic island in the Aeolian Islands of Italy whose name in turn comes from Vulcan, the god of fire in Roman mythology. The study of volcanoes is called volcanology, sometimes spelled vulcanology, at the mid-oceanic ridges, two tectonic plates diverge from one another as new oceanic crust is formed by the cooling and solidifying of hot molten rock. Most divergent plate boundaries are at the bottom of the oceans, therefore, most volcanic activity is submarine, black smokers are evidence of this kind of volcanic activity. Where the mid-oceanic ridge is above sea-level, volcanic islands are formed, for example, subduction zones are places where two plates, usually an oceanic plate and a continental plate, collide. In this case, the plate subducts, or submerges under the continental plate forming a deep ocean trench just offshore. In a process called flux melting, water released from the subducting plate lowers the temperature of the overlying mantle wedge. This magma tends to be very viscous due to its high content, so it often does not reach the surface. When it does reach the surface, a volcano is formed, typical examples of this kind of volcano are Mount Etna and the volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire. Because tectonic plates move across them, each volcano becomes dormant and is eventually re-formed as the plate advances over the postulated plume and this theory is currently under criticism, however. The most common perception of a volcano is of a mountain, spewing lava and poisonous gases from a crater at its summit, however. The features of volcanoes are more complicated and their structure. Some volcanoes have rugged peaks formed by lava domes rather than a summit crater while others have features such as massive plateaus
15.
Brussels
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Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the region of Flanders or Wallonia. The region has a population of 1.2 million and an area with a population of over 1.8 million. Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions, the secretariat of the Benelux and the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are also located in Brussels. Today, it is considered an Alpha global city, historically a Dutch-speaking city, Brussels has seen a language shift to French from the late 19th century onwards. Today, the majority language is French, and the Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. All road signs, street names, and many advertisements and services are shown in both languages, Brussels is increasingly becoming multilingual with increasing numbers of migrants, expatriates and minority groups speaking their own languages. The most common theory of the origin of Brussels name is that it derives from the Old Dutch Broekzele or Broeksel, meaning marsh, Saint Vindicianus, the bishop of Cambrai made the first recorded reference to the place Brosella in 695 when it was still a hamlet. The origin of the settlement that was to become Brussels lies in Saint Gaugericus construction of a chapel on an island in the river Senne around 580. The official founding of Brussels is usually situated around 979, when Duke Charles of Lower Lotharingia transferred the relics of Saint Gudula from Moorsel to the Saint Gaugericus chapel, Charles would construct the first permanent fortification in the city, doing so on that same island. Lambert I of Leuven, Count of Leuven gained the County of Brussels around 1000 by marrying Charles daughter, as it grew to a population of around 30,000, the surrounding marshes were drained to allow for further expansion. The Counts of Leuven became Dukes of Brabant at about this time, in the 13th century, the city got its first walls. After the construction of the city walls in the early 13th century, to let the city expand, a second set of walls was erected between 1356 and 1383. Today, traces of it can still be seen, mostly because the small ring, Brabant had lost its independence, but Brussels became the Princely Capital of the prosperous Low Countries, and flourished. In 1516 Charles V, who had been heir of the Low Countries since 1506, was declared King of Spain in St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral in Brussels. Upon the death of his grandfather, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 and it was in the Palace complex at Coudenberg that Charles V abdicated in 1555. This impressive palace, famous all over Europe, had expanded since it had first become the seat of the Dukes of Brabant. In 1695, during the Nine Years War, King Louis XIV of France sent troops to bombard Brussels with artillery, together with the resulting fire, it was the most destructive event in the entire history of Brussels
16.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
17.
Asymmetry
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Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry. Symmetry is an important property of physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in precise terms or in more aesthetic terms. The absence of or violation of symmetry that are expected or desired can have important consequences for a system. Due to how cells divide in organisms, asymmetry in organisms is fairly usual in at least one dimension, louis Pasteur proposed that biological molecules are asymmetric because the cosmic forces that preside over their formation are themselves asymmetric. While at his time, and even now, the symmetry of physical processes are highlighted, it is known there are fundamental physical asymmetries. Asymmetry is an important and widespread trait, having evolved numerous times in many organisms, in other examples, division of function between the right and left half may have been beneficial and has driven the asymmetry to become stronger. Such an explanation is given for mammal hand or paw preference. Training the neural pathways in a skill with one hand may take less effort than doing the same with both hands, nature also provides several examples of handedness in traits that are usually symmetric. The following are examples of animals with obvious left-right asymmetries, Fiddler crabs have one big claw, the narwhals tusk is a left incisor which can grow up to 10 feet in length and forms a left-handed helix. Flatfish have evolved to swim with one side upward, and as a result have both eyes on one side of their heads, several species of owls exhibit asymmetries in the size and positioning of their ears, which is thought to help locate prey. Many animals have asymmetric male genitalia, the evolutionary cause behind this is, in most cases, still a mystery. Certain disturbances during the development of the organism, resulting in birth defects, injuries after cell division that cannot be biologically repaired, such as a lost limb from an accident. Since birth defects and injuries are likely to indicate poor health of the organism, in particular, a degree of facial symmetry is associated with physical attractiveness, but complete symmetry is both impossible and probably unattractive. Pre-modern architectural styles tended to place an emphasis on symmetry, except where extreme conditions or historical developments lead away from this classical ideal. To the contrary, modernist and postmodern architects became more free to use asymmetry as a design element. Some asymmetrical structures There are no a and b such that a < b and b < a and this form of asymmetry is an asymmetrical relation. Certain molecules are chiral, that is, they cannot be superposed upon their mirror image, chemically identical molecules with different chirality are called enantiomers, this difference in orientation can lead to different properties in the way they react with biological systems. Asymmetry arises in physics in a number of different realms, the original non-statistical formulation of thermodynamics was asymmetrical in time, it claimed that the entropy in a closed system can only increase with time
18.
Numeral system
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A numeral system is a writing system for expressing numbers, that is, a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using digits or other symbols in a consistent manner. It can be seen as the context that allows the symbols 11 to be interpreted as the symbol for three, the decimal symbol for eleven, or a symbol for other numbers in different bases. The number the numeral represents is called its value, ideally, a numeral system will, Represent a useful set of numbers Give every number represented a unique representation Reflect the algebraic and arithmetic structure of the numbers. For example, the decimal representation of whole numbers gives every nonzero whole number a unique representation as a finite sequence of digits. Etc. all of which have the same meaning except for some scientific, such systems are, however, not the topic of this article. The most commonly used system of numerals is the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, two Indian mathematicians are credited with developing it. Aryabhata of Kusumapura developed the notation in the 5th century. The numeral system and the concept, developed by the Hindus in India, slowly spread to other surrounding countries due to their commercial. The Arabs adopted and modified it, even today, the Arabs call the numerals which they use Rakam Al-Hind or the Hindu numeral system. The Arabs translated Hindu texts on numerology and spread them to the world due to their trade links with them. The Western world modified them and called them the Arabic numerals, hence the current western numeral system is the modified version of the Hindu numeral system developed in India. It also exhibits a great similarity to the Sanskrit–Devanagari notation, which is used in India. The simplest numeral system is the numeral system, in which every natural number is represented by a corresponding number of symbols. If the symbol / is chosen, for example, then the seven would be represented by ///////. Tally marks represent one such system still in common use, the unary system is only useful for small numbers, although it plays an important role in theoretical computer science. Elias gamma coding, which is used in data compression. The unary notation can be abbreviated by introducing different symbols for new values. The ancient Egyptian numeral system was of type, and the Roman numeral system was a modification of this idea
19.
Lunar calendar
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A lunar calendar is a calendar based upon cycles of the Moons phases, in contrast to solar calendars based solely upon the solar year. A purely lunar calendar is also distinguished from lunisolar calendars whose lunar months are brought into alignment with the year through some process of intercalation. The details of when months begin varies from calendar to calendar, with using new, full, or crescent moons. Because each lunation is a less than 29 days,12 hours,44 minutes. Such holidays include Ramadan, the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mongolian New Year, the Nepali New Year, the Mid-Autumn Festival and Chuseok, Loi Krathong, and Diwali. The earliest known lunar calendar was found at Warren Field in Scotland and has dated to c. 8000 BC. Some scholars argue for lunar calendars still further back—Rappenglück in the marks on a c. 17, 000-year-old cave painting at Lascaux and Marshack in the marks on a c. 27, most calendars referred to as lunar calendars are in fact lunisolar calendars. Their months are based on observations of the cycle, with intercalation being used to bring them into general agreement with the solar year. The solar civic calendar of ancient Egypt showed traces of its origin in the lunar calendar. Present-day lunisolar calendars include the Chinese, Hindu, and Thai calendars, synodic months are 29 or 30 days in length, making a lunar year of 12 months about 11 days shorter than a solar year. Some lunar calendars do not use intercalation, such as most Islamic calendars, for those that do, such as the Hebrew calendar, the most common form of intercalation is to add an additional month every second or third year. Some lunisolar calendars are also calibrated by annual natural events which are affected by lunar cycles as well as the solar cycle, an example of this is the lunar calendar of the Banks Islands, which includes three months in which the edible palolo worm mass on the beaches. These events occur at the last quarter of the lunar month, lunar and lunisolar calendars differ as to which day is the first day of the month. In some lunisolar calendars, such as the Chinese calendar, the first day of a month is the day when a new moon occurs in a particular time zone. In others, such as some Hindu calendars, each month begins on the day after the moon or the new moon. Others were based in the past on the first sighting of a lunar crescent, the length of each lunar cycle varies slightly from the average value. In addition, observations are subject to uncertainty and weather conditions, thus to avoid uncertainty about the calendar, there have been attempts to create fixed arithmetical rules to determine the start of each calendar month. The average length of the month is 29.530589 days
20.
Lunar phase
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The lunar phase or phase of the moon is the shape of the illuminated portion of the Moon as seen by an observer on Earth. The lunar phases change cyclically as the Moon orbits the Earth, according to the positions of the Moon. The Moons rotation is locked by the Earths gravity, therefore the same lunar surface always faces Earth. This face is variously sunlit depending on the position of the Moon in its orbit, therefore, the portion of this hemisphere that is visible to an observer on Earth can vary from about 100% to 0%. The lunar terminator is the boundary between the illuminated and darkened hemispheres, each of the four intermediate lunar phases is roughly seven days but this varies slightly due to the elliptical shape of the Moons orbit. Aside from some craters near the lunar poles such as Shoemaker, all parts of the Moon see around 14.77 days of sunlight, in Western culture, the four principal lunar phases are new moon, first quarter, full moon, and third quarter. These are the instants when the Moons apparent geocentric celestial longitude minus the Suns apparent geocentric longitude is 0°, 90°, 180° and 270°. Each of these phases is instantaneous, lasting theoretically zero time, during the intervals between principal phases, the Moon appears either crescent-shaped or gibbous. These shapes, and the periods of time when the Moon shows them, are called the intermediate phases. They last, on average, one-quarter of a month, roughly 7.38 days, but their durations vary slightly because the Moons orbit is slightly elliptical. The descriptor waxing is used for a phase when the Moons apparent size is increasing, from new moon toward full moon. As the moon waxes, the lunar phases progress through new moon, crescent moon, first-quarter moon, gibbous moon, the moon is then said to wane as it passes through the gibbous moon, third-quarter moon, crescent moon and back to new moon. The terms old moon and new moon are not interchangeable, the old moon is a waning sliver until the moment it aligns with the sun and begins to wax, at which point it becomes new again. Half moon is used to mean the first- and third-quarter moons, while the term quarter refers to the extent of the moons cycle around the Earth. When a crescent Moon occurs, the phenomenon of earthshine may be apparent, in the Northern Hemisphere, if the left side of the Moon is dark then the light part is growing, and the Moon is referred to as waxing. If the right side of the Moon is dark then the part is shrinking. Assuming that the viewer is in the hemisphere, the right portion of the Moon is the part that is always growing. Nearer the Equator the Moon with its terminator will appear apparently horizontal during the morning and evening, the crescent Moon can open upward or downward, with the horns of the crescent pointing up or down, respectively
21.
Menstrual cycle
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The menstrual cycle is the regular natural change that occurs in the female reproductive system that makes pregnancy possible. The cycle is required for the production of ovocytes, and for the preparation of the uterus for pregnancy, up to 80% of women report having some symptoms during the one to two weeks prior to menstruation. Common symptoms include acne, tender breasts, bloating, feeling tired, irritability and these symptoms interfere with normal life and therefore qualify as premenstrual syndrome in 20 to 30% of women. In 3 to 8%, they are severe, the first period usually begins between twelve and fifteen years of age, a point in time known as menarche. They may occasionally start as early as eight, and this onset may still be normal, the average age of the first period is generally later in the developing world and earlier in developed world. The typical length of time between the first day of one period and the first day of the next is 21 to 45 days in young women and 21 to 35 days in adults, menstruation stops occurring after menopause which usually occurs between 45 and 55 years of age. Bleeding usually lasts around 2 to 7 days, the menstrual cycle is governed by hormonal changes. These changes can be altered by using hormonal birth control to prevent pregnancy, each cycle can be divided into three phases based on events in the ovary or in the uterus. The ovarian cycle consists of the phase, ovulation, and luteal phase whereas the uterine cycle is divided into menstruation, proliferative phase. Stimulated by gradually increasing amounts of estrogen in the phase, discharges of blood flow stop. Follicles in the ovary begin developing under the influence of an interplay of hormones. Approximately mid-cycle, 24–36 hours after the luteinizing hormone surges, the dominant follicle releases an ovocyte, under the influence of progesterone, the uterine lining changes to prepare for potential implantation of an embryo to establish a pregnancy. If implantation does not occur within two weeks, the corpus luteum will involute, causing a sharp drop in levels of both progesterone and estrogen. The hormone drop causes the uterus to shed its lining in a process termed menstruation, menstruation also occurs in some other animals including shrews, bats, and other primates such as apes and monkeys. The average age of menarche is 12–15 and they may occasionally start as early as eight, and this onset may still be normal. This first period occurs later in the developing world than the developed world. The average age of menarche is approximately 12.5 years in the United States,12.7 in Canada,12.9 in the UK and 13.1 years in Iceland, factors such as genetics, diet and overall health can affect timing. The cessation of menstrual cycles at the end of a reproductive period is termed menopause
22.
History of mathematics
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Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments have come to light only in a few locales. The most ancient mathematical texts available are Plimpton 322, the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, All of these texts concern the so-called Pythagorean theorem, which seems to be the most ancient and widespread mathematical development after basic arithmetic and geometry. Greek mathematics greatly refined the methods and expanded the subject matter of mathematics, Chinese mathematics made early contributions, including a place value system. Islamic mathematics, in turn, developed and expanded the known to these civilizations. Many Greek and Arabic texts on mathematics were then translated into Latin, from ancient times through the Middle Ages, periods of mathematical discovery were often followed by centuries of stagnation. Beginning in Renaissance Italy in the 16th century, new mathematical developments, the origins of mathematical thought lie in the concepts of number, magnitude, and form. Modern studies of cognition have shown that these concepts are not unique to humans. Such concepts would have part of everyday life in hunter-gatherer societies. The idea of the number concept evolving gradually over time is supported by the existence of languages which preserve the distinction between one, two, and many, but not of numbers larger than two. Prehistoric artifacts discovered in Africa, dated 20,000 years old or more suggest early attempts to quantify time. The Ishango bone, found near the headwaters of the Nile river, may be more than 20,000 years old, common interpretations are that the Ishango bone shows either the earliest known demonstration of sequences of prime numbers or a six-month lunar calendar. He also writes that no attempt has been made to explain why a tally of something should exhibit multiples of two, prime numbers between 10 and 20, and some numbers that are almost multiples of 10, predynastic Egyptians of the 5th millennium BC pictorially represented geometric designs. All of the above are disputed however, and the currently oldest undisputed mathematical documents are from Babylonian, Babylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics of the peoples of Mesopotamia from the days of the early Sumerians through the Hellenistic period almost to the dawn of Christianity. The majority of Babylonian mathematical work comes from two widely separated periods, The first few hundred years of the second millennium BC, and it is named Babylonian mathematics due to the central role of Babylon as a place of study. Later under the Arab Empire, Mesopotamia, especially Baghdad, once again became an important center of study for Islamic mathematics, in contrast to the sparsity of sources in Egyptian mathematics, our knowledge of Babylonian mathematics is derived from more than 400 clay tablets unearthed since the 1850s. Written in Cuneiform script, tablets were inscribed whilst the clay was moist, Some of these appear to be graded homework. The earliest evidence of written mathematics dates back to the ancient Sumerians and they developed a complex system of metrology from 3000 BC. From around 2500 BC onwards, the Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises, the earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date back to this period
23.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
24.
University of Western Australia
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It is the oldest university in the state of Western Australia. It is colloquially known as a sandstone university and it is also a member of the Group of Eight. UWA was established under and is governed by the University of Western Australia Act 1911, to date, the university has produced 100 Rhodes Scholars, one Nobel Prize laureate and one Australian Prime Minister. In 2010 UWA joined the Matariki Network of Universities as the youngest member, the university was established in 1911 following the tabling of proposals by a royal commission in September 1910. Irwin Street was also known as Tin Pan Alley as many buildings featured corrugated iron roofs and these buildings served as the university campus until 1932, when the campus relocated to its present-day site in Crawley. This allowed the construction of the main buildings, many buildings and landmarks within the university bear his name, including Winthrop Hall and Hackett Hall. In addition, his bequest funded many scholarships, because he did not wish eager students to be deterred from studying because they could not afford to do so. During UWAs first decade there was controversy whether the policy of free education was compatible with high expenditure on professorial chairs. An old student publicised his concern in 1921 that there were 13 faculties serving only 280 students, a remnant of the original buildings survives to this day in the form of the Irwin Street Building, so called after its former location. In the 1930s it was transported to the new campus and served a number of uses till its 1987 restoration, recently, the building has served as the Senate meeting room and is currently in use as a cricket pavilion and office of the university archives. The building has been heritage-listed by both the National Trust and the Australian Heritage Council, UWA is one of the largest landowners in Perth as a result of government and private bequests, and is constantly expanding its infrastructure. Recent developments include the $22 million University Club, opened in June 2005, in addition, in September 2005 UWA opened its $64 million Molecular and Chemical Sciences building as part of a commitment to nurturing and developing high quality research and development. In May 2008, a $31 million Business School building opened, in August 2014 a $9 million new CO2 research facility was completed, providing modern facilities for carbon research. A current expansion project is underway to introduce a multimillion-dollar Indian Ocean Marine Research Centre, the 65-hectare Crawley campus sits on the Swan River, about five kilometres west of the Perth central business district. Many of the buildings are coastal limestone and Donnybrook sandstone, including the large and these buildings are dotted amongst expansive lawns and thickets of trees, such as the Sunken Garden and the Tropical Grove. The beauty of the grounds and rich history of the make it a popular spot for weddings. The Arts Faculty building encompasses the New Fortune Theatre, the venue is also home to a family of peafowl donated to the University by the Perth Zoo in 1975 after a gift by Sir Laurence Brodie-Hall. Its Asian and Melanesian collections are also of strong interest, st Catherines College also offers short stays for non-student visitors
25.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
26.
Scientific American
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Scientific American is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein, have contributed articles in the past 170 years and it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States. Scientific American was founded by inventor and publisher Rufus M. Porter in 1845 as a weekly newspaper. Throughout its early years, much emphasis was placed on reports of what was going on at the U. S, current issues include a this date in history section, featuring excerpts from articles originally published 50,100, and 150 years earlier. Topics include humorous incidents, wrong-headed theories, and noteworthy advances in the history of science, Porter sold the publication to Alfred Ely Beach and Orson Desaix Munn a mere ten months after founding it. Until 1948, it remained owned by Munn & Company, under Munns grandson, Orson Desaix Munn III, it had evolved into something of a workbench publication, similar to the twentieth-century incarnation of Popular Science. In the years after World War II, the fell into decline. Thus the partners—publisher Gerard Piel, editor Dennis Flanagan, and general manager Donald H. Miller, Miller retired in 1979, Flanagan and Piel in 1984, when Gerard Piels son Jonathan became president and editor, circulation had grown fifteen-fold since 1948. In 1986, it was sold to the Holtzbrinck group of Germany, in the fall of 2008, Scientific American was put under the control of Nature Publishing Group, a division of Holtzbrinck. Donald Miller died in December 1998, Gerard Piel in September 2004, Mariette DiChristina is the current editor-in-chief, after John Rennie stepped down in June 2009. Scientific American published its first foreign edition in 1890, the Spanish-language La America Cientifica, a Russian edition V Mire Nauki was launched in the Soviet Union in 1983, and continues in the present-day Russian Federation. Kexue, a simplified Chinese edition launched in 1979, was the first Western magazine published in the Peoples Republic of China, founded in Chongqing, the simplified Chinese magazine was transferred to Beijing in 2001. Later in 2005, an edition, Global Science, was published instead of Kexue. A traditional Chinese edition, known as 科學人, was introduced to Taiwan in 2002, the Hungarian edition Tudomány existed between 1984 and 1992. In 1986, an Arabic edition, Oloom magazine, was published, in 2002, a Portuguese edition was launched in Brazil. From 1902 to 1911, Scientific American supervised the publication of the Encyclopedia Americana and it originally styled itself The Advocate of Industry and Enterprise and Journal of Mechanical and other Improvements. On the front page of the first issue was the engraving of Improved Rail-Road Cars, the masthead had a commentary as follows, Scientific American published every Thursday morning at No.11 Spruce Street, New York, No.16 State Street, Boston, and No. 2l Arcade Philadelphia, by Rufus Porter, five copies will be sent to one address six months for four dollars in advance
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University at Buffalo
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The State University of New York at Buffalo is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. It is commonly referred to as the University at Buffalo or SUNY Buffalo, the university was founded in 1846 as a private college, but in 1962 merged with the State University of New York system. By enrollment, UB is the largest in the SUNY system, UB also has the largest endowment and research funding, as a comprehensive university center in the SUNY system. As of 2017, the university enrolls 29,806 students in 13 colleges, the university offers over 100 bachelors,205 masters,84 doctoral, and 10 professional areas of study. According to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, the University at Buffalo is a Doctoral University with the Highest research activity. In 1989, UB was elected to the Association of American Universities, the university was founded by U. S. President and U. S. Vice President, Millard Fillmore, who served as the schools first chancellor, in the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education 2017 inaugural ranking, UB was ranked as the #1 public university in New York and #28 in the nation. Buffalo has consistently placed in the top cluster of U. S, U. S. News and World Reports 2017 edition of Americas Best Colleges ranked UB 99th on their list of best national universities and 43rd among public universities. City leaders of Buffalo sought to establish a university in the city from the earliest days of Buffalo and this university was chartered by the state on April 8,1836. However, the collapsed and no classes were ever offered. James Platt White was instrumental in obtaining a charter for the University of Buffalo from the legislature in 1846. He also taught the first class of 89 men in obstetrics, State Assemblyman Nathan K. Hall was also particularly active in procuring the charter. The doors first opened to students in 1847 and after associating with a hospital for teaching purposes, founder Millard Fillmore served as the schools first chancellor. Upon his ascension to the presidency after President Taylors death, Fillmore stayed on as part-time chancellor, the first lectures were delivered in a wooden building over the old post office, corner of Seneca and Washington streets. The first building built for the university was a stone building at the corner of Main and Virginia streets, built in 1849–50, through donations, public subscription. There were continuous expansions to the medical programs, including a separate pharmacy division. In 1887, a law school was organized in Buffalo, which became associated with Niagara University just to the north of Buffalo. After four years, in 1891, the law school was acquired by the University of Buffalo as the University of Buffalo Law School, the establishment may have been influenced by the 1910 Flexner Report which criticized the preparation of the medical students at the university
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UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
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W. W. Norton & Company
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W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. It has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s, the company is known for its Norton Anthologies and its texts in the Norton Critical Editions series, the latter of which are frequently assigned in university literature courses. The roots of the date back to 1923, when William Warder Norton founded the firm with his wife Mary Norton. Storer D. Lunt took over in 1945 after Nortons death, and was succeeded by George Brockway, Donald S. Lamm, and now W. Drake McFeely. W. W. Norton & Company is a publisher in the United States, which publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, college textbooks, cookbooks, art books. Norton Anthologies Norton Critical Editions Oxford Worlds Classics Verso Books Radical Thinkers Official website Making the Cut - Chronicle of Higher Education
