Fordlândia

Fordlândia ("Ford-land") is a now-abandoned, prefabricated industrial town established in the Amazon Rainforest in 1928 by American industrialist Henry Ford for the purpose of securing a source of cultivated rubber for the automobile manufacturing operations of the Ford Motor Company in the United States. Ford had negotiated a deal with the Brazilian government granting his newly formed Companhia Industrial do Brasil a concession of 10,000 km² of land on the banks of the Rio Tapajós near the city of Santarém, Brazil, in exchange for a nine percent interest in the profits generated.

Ford intended to use Fordlândia to provide his company with a source of rubber for the tires on Ford cars, avoiding the dependence on British (Malayan) rubber. The land was hilly, rocky and infertile. None of Ford's managers had the requisite knowledge of tropical agriculture. The rubber trees, packed closely together in plantations, as opposed to being widely spaced in the jungle, were easy prey for tree blight and insects, a problem avoided by the Asian rubber plantations where transplanted Amazonian rubber trees faced no such natural predators. The mostly indigenous workers on the plantations, given unfamiliar food such as hamburgers and forced to live in American-style housing, disliked the way they were treated — they had to wear ID badges, and to work midday hours under the tropical sun — and would often refuse to work. In 1930, the native workers revolted against the managers, many of whom fled into the jungle for a few days until the Brazilian Army arrived and the revolt ended.
Ford forbade alcohol and tobacco within the town, including inside the workers' own homes. The inhabitants circumvented this prohibition by paddling out to merchant riverboats moored beyond town jurisdiction and a settlement was established five miles upstream on the "Island of Innocence" with bars, nightclubs and brothels.

Ford tried again, relocating downstream to Belterra where better weather conditions to grow rubber existed, but by 1945, synthetic rubber was developed, dampening the worldwide demand for natural rubber. Ford's investment opportunity dried up overnight without producing any rubber for Ford's tires, making Fordlândia a total disaster. In 1945, his grandson Henry Ford II sold it for a loss of over $20 million. Despite repeated invitations from residents and periodic promises to do so, Henry Ford never actually visited his ill-fated jungle city.

Vibrissae

Vibrissae, or whiskers, are specialized hairs, usually employed for tactile sensation. Vibrissae hair grow around the nostrils, above the lips, and on other parts of the face of most mammals, as well as on the forelegs and feet of some animals. Vibrissae are usually thicker and stiffer than other types of hair. The term may also refer to the thick hairs found inside human nostrils, but these have no sensorial function and only operate as an airborne particulate barrier.

Vibrissae consist of inert material and contain no nerves, but do have special sensory cells associated with them. Vibrissae are different from other hairs mainly because they are implanted in a special follicle sealed by a capsule of blood, called a blood sinus. Touching a vibrissa causes it to bend, and the blood in the sinus is pushed to one side or the other. The blood amplifies the movement and allows the mechanoreceptors at the base of the vibrissa to detect extremely small deflections.

In some mammals, the follicles of vibrissae are surrounded by a highly developed sheath of muscle tissue which can be used to move them, such as in the case of whiskers found on cats, dogs and other mammals. Whiskers can grow to be extremely long; the length of a chinchilla's whiskers can be up to a third of its body length.

Vibrissae offer an advantage to most animals that do not always have sight to rely on to navigate or to find food, or when the usefulness of non-tactile senses is limited. Some animals, such as house mice, can even detect air movements with their vibrissae.

A large part of the brain of many mammals is devoted to processing the nerve impulses from vibrissae, because this is important for survival. Information from the vibrissae is transmitted and processed through the trigeminal nerve into the brainstem and thalamus before relaying to the barrel cortex of the brain. Mammals use a great deal of energy to keep the follicles housing their whiskers warm and ready to use. Some species actively explore the environment by palpating their vibrissae, a process known as whisking, while others do not.

The arrangement of whiskers is not random: a good picture will show an ordered grid of arcs and rows of whiskers, shorter in front and longer at the rear.

Magdeburg Hemispheres

The Magdeburg hemispheres were a pair of large copper hemispheres with mating rims. When the rims were sealed with grease and the air was pumped out, the sphere contained a vacuum and could not be pulled apart by teams of horses. The Magdeburg hemispheres were designed by German scientist and mayor of Magdeburg, Otto von Guericke in 1650 to demonstrate the air pump which he had invented, and the concept of atmospheric pressure.

The first artificial vacuum had been produced a few years earlier by Evangelista Torricelli, and had inspired von Guericke to design the world's first vacuum pump, which consisted of a piston and cylinder with one-way flap valves.

Von Guericke's demonstration was performed on 8 May 1654 in front of the Reichstag and the Emperor Ferdinand III in Regensburg. Thirty horses, in two teams of 15, could not separate the hemispheres until the valve was opened to release the vacuum. In 1656 he repeated the demonstration with 16 horses (2 teams of 8) in his hometown of Magdeburg, where he was mayor. In 1663 the demonstration was given in Berlin before Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg with 24 horses.

The hemispheres became popular in physics lectures as an illustration of the power of air pressure, and are still used in education. The original hemispheres are preserved in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

Jor-El

Jor-El is a fictional character, an extraterrestrial in the DC Comics Universe. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, he first appeared in Action Comics #1 as Superman's biological father.

Jor-El is a Kryptonian, and the husband of Lara. He was a scientist on the planet Krypton before its destruction. Jor-El foresaw the planet's fate, but was unable to convince his colleagues in time to save their race after his appeals. He was able to save his infant son, Kal-El (Superman), sending him in a homemade rocketship to Earth just moments before Krypton's demise. After constructing his Fortress of Solitude, Superman honored his deceased biological parents with a statue of Jor-El and Lara holding up a globe of Krypton.

Jor-El is usually portrayed as closely resembling the later appearance of Kal-El as the adult Superman.

Soma

Soma was a ritual drink of importance among the early Indo-Iranians, and the later Vedic and greater Persian cultures. It is frequently mentioned in the Rigveda, whose Soma Mandala contains many hymns praising its energizing qualities.

It is described as prepared by extracting juice from the stalks of a certain plant. In both Vedic and Zoroastrian tradition, the drink is identified with the plant, and also personified as a divinity, the three forming a religious or mythological unity.

There has been much speculation concerning what is most likely to have been the identity of the original plant. There is no solid consensus on the question, although most experts now seem to favour a species of Ephedra, perhaps Ephedra sinica.

In the Vedas, Soma is portrayed as sacred and as a god (deva). The god, the drink and the plant probably referred to the same entity, or at least the differentiation was ambiguous. Two holy drinks exist: Soma for the immortal soul and Amrita for the immortal body. In this aspect, Amrita is similar to the Greek ambrosia; both is what the gods drink, and what made them deities. Indra and Agni are portrayed as consuming Soma in copious quantities. The consumption of Soma by human beings is probably under the belief that it bestows divine qualities on them.

The Ninth Mandala of the Rigveda is known as the Soma Mandala. It consists entirely of hymns addressed to Soma Pavamana ("purified Soma"). The drink Soma was kept and distributed by the Gandharvas. The Rigveda associates the Sushoma, Arjikiya and other regions with Soma. Sharyanavat was possibly the name of a pond or lake on the banks of which Soma could be found. It is described as "green-tinted" and "bright-shining" in the RigVeda.

The plant is sometimes described as growing in the mountains (giristha, cf. Orestes), with long stalks, and of yellow or tawny (hari) colour. The drink is prepared by priests pounding the plants with stones, an occupation that creates tapas (literally "heat"). The juice so gathered is heated, filtered through lamb's wool, and mixed with other ingredients (including milk, represented by cows) before it is drunk. It is said to "roar" and unify or tame the senses, represented by horses. It is said to be the place or bringer of the gods.

There has been much speculation as to the original Proto-Indo-Iranian Sauma plant. It was generally assumed to be hallucinogenic, based on RV 8.48 cited above. But typical description of Soma is associated with excitation and tapas, not hallucination. Soma is associated with the warrior-god Indra, and appears to have been drunk before battle.

Candidates that have been suggested include honey, and fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), which was widely used as a brew of sorts among Siberian shamans for its hallucinogenic and entheogenic properties. Several texts like the Atharvaveda extol the medicinal properties of Soma and he is regarded as the king of medicinal herbs (and also of the Brahmana class).

From the late 1960s onwards, several studies attempted to establish soma as a psychoactive substance. A number of proposals were made, including an important one in 1968 by the American banker R. Gordon Wasson, an amateur ethnomycologist, who asserted that soma was an inebriant, and suggested fly-agaric mushroom, Amanita muscaria, as the likely candidate. Since its introduction in 1968, this theory has gained both detractors and followers in the anthropological literature.

The Lounge Lizards

The Lounge Lizards are a jazz group formed in 1978 by saxophone player John Lurie.

Initially a tongue in cheek "fake jazz" combo, drawing on punk rock and no wave as much as jazz, The Lounge Lizards have since become respected for their creative and distinctive sound.

The first line-up was John Lurie, his brother Evan (piano and organ), Arto Lindsay (guitar), Steve Piccolo (bass guitar), and Anton Fier (drums). This ensemble recorded the group's self-titled debut, which contained two Thelonious Monk songs and was produced by Teo Macero, famed for his work with Miles Davis. The record received positive reviews, with one scribe noting "while there's definitely great respect shown here for the jazz tradition, the members are obviously coming at it from different backgrounds." Especially notable is Lindsay's noisy guitar: He had earlier honed his distinctive, untutored and unconventional technique with the band DNA.

After this line-up dissolved, the Lurie brothers formed a new group, which has been described as "less compelling" than the earlier ensemble. Their sole record, 1983's Live from the Drunken Boat, remains the only Lounge Lizards album never to have been issued on compact disc.

In the years following their inception, they lost the moniker of "fake" almost completely and comprised some of the best musicians from the avant-garde New York jazz scene: Roy Nathanson (saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Marc Ribot (guitar), and Erik Sanko (of Skeleton Key) (bass guitar), Dougie Bowne and EJ Rodriguez on drums and percussion. (Fowlkes and Nathanson would pursue duo performances, which metamorphosed into The Jazz Passengers).

This edition of the Lounge Lizards recorded three albums in two years, and demonstrated John Lurie's increasingly sophisticated and multi-layered compositions that often stray rather far from conventional jazz: He was able to integrate elements of various world musics (he often favors tango-inspired passages in his songs), which retain a distinctive flavor, but avoid gimmickry. One critic notes traces of "Erik Satie and Kurt Weill".

The Luries formed a new version of the Lounge Lizards in the early 1990s; prominent members included Steven Bernstein (trumpet), Michael Blake (saxophone), Oren Bloedow (bass guitar), David Tronzo (guitar), Calvin Weston (drums) and Billy Martin (percussion).

Recent years have found the Lounge Lizards less active; John Lurie has been increasingly occupied with writing music for motion picture soundtracks, while Evan Lurie has worked on The Backyardigans, a children's show that highlights multiple musical genres.

Cuchifritos

Cuchifritos refers to various fried foods prepared principally of pork, in Puerto Rican cuisine. They include a variety of dishes including but not limited to morcilla (blood sausage), papas rellenas (fried potato balls stuffed with meat), chicharron (fried pork skin), and various other parts of the pig prepared in different ways. Cuchifritos vendors also typically serve juices and drinks such as passionfruit, pineapple, and coconut juice, as well as ajonjolí, a drink made from sesame seeds.

In New York City, vendors advertising cuchifritos are particularly notable because they tend to make use of colorful external lighting and big flashy signs that quickly catch the eyes of passersby. These establishments have dotted the Puerto Rican and Dominican areas of New York City for the past fifty years, particularly Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, South Bronx, Brooklyn, and other primarily Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhoods.

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies (1824) by Alexander Pushkin. Mérimée had read the poem in Russian by 1840 and translated it into French in 1852.

The story is set in Seville, Spain, c. 1830, and concerns the eponymous Carmen, a beautiful Gypsy with a fiery temper. Free with her love, she woos the corporal Don José, an inexperienced soldier. Their relationship leads to his rejection of his former love, mutiny against his superior, and joining a gang of smugglers. His jealousy when she turns from him to the bullfighter Escamillo leads him to murder Carmen.

The opera premiered at the Opéra-Comique of Paris on 3 March 1875, but its opening run was denounced by the majority of critics. It was almost withdrawn after its fourth or fifth performance, and although this was avoided, ultimately having 48 performances in its first run, it did little to bolster sagging receipts at the Opéra-Comique. Near the end of this run, the theatre was giving tickets away in order to stimulate attendance. Bizet died of a heart attack, aged 36, on 3 June 1875, never knowing how popular Carmen would become. In October 1875 it was produced in Vienna, to critical and popular success, which began its path to worldwide popularity. It was not staged again at the Opéra Comique until 1883.

Since the 1880s it has been one of the world's most performed operas and a staple of the operatic repertoire. Carmen appears as number four on Opera America's list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America.

Bizet's final opera not only transformed the opéra comique genre that had been static for half a century, it virtually killed it. Within a few years, the traditional distinction between opera (serious, heroic and declamatory) and opéra comique (light-hearted, bourgeois and conversational with spoken dialogue) disappeared. Moreover, Carmen nourished a movement that was to win both celebrity and notoriety first in Italy and then elsewhere: the cult of realism known as verismo.

Przewalski's Horse

Przewalski's Horse, or Dzungarian Horse, is a rare and endangered subspecies of wild horse (Equus ferus) native to the steppes of central Asia, specifically China and Mongolia. At one time extinct in the wild, it has been reintroduced to its native habitat in Mongolia at the Khustain Nuruu National Park, Takhin Tal Nature Reserve and Khomiin Tal. The taxonomic position is still debated, and some taxonomists treat Przewalski's Horse as a species, Equus przewalskii. In China, the last wild Przewalski's horses were seen in 1966. The Przewalski's Horse Reintroduction Project of China was initiated in 1985 with the creation of the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Center.

Common names for this equine include Asian Wild Horse and Mongolian Wild Horse. Historical but obsolete names include true tarpan and Mongolian tarpan. The horse is named after the Russian geographer and explorer Nikolai Przhewalski.

Most "wild" horses today, such as the American Mustang or the Australian Brumby, are actually feral horses descended from domesticated animals that escaped and adapted to life in the wild. In contrast, Przewalski's Horse has never been successfully domesticated and remains a truly wild animal today. Przewalski's Horse is one of two known subspecies of Equus ferus, the other being the extinct Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus). The Przewalski's Horse is considered the only remaining truly wild "horse" in the world and may be the closest living wild relative of the domesticated horse, Equus caballus. There are still a number of other wild equines, including three species of zebra and various subspecies of the African wild ass, onager and kiang.

Prince Rupert's Drops

Prince Rupert's Drops are a glass curiosity created by dripping hot molten glass into cold water. The glass cools into a tadpole-shaped droplet with a long, thin, tail. The water rapidly cools the molten glass on the outside of the drop, while the inner portion of the drop remains significantly hotter. When the glass on the inside eventually cools, it contracts inside the already-solid outer part. This contraction sets up very large compressive stresses on the exterior, while the core of the drop is in a state of tensile stress. It can be said to be a kind of tempered glass.

The very high residual stress within the drop gives rise to unusual qualities, such as the ability to withstand a blow from a hammer on the bulbous end without breaking, while the drops will disintegrate explosively if the tail end is even slightly damaged.

When the tail end is damaged, the large amount of potential energy stored in the drop's crystalline or amorphous atomic structure is released, causing fractures to propagate through the material at very high speed. Recently an examination of the shattering of Prince Rupert's Drops by the use of extremely high speed video made by Dr. Srinivasan Chandrasekar at Purdue University has revealed that the "crack front" which is initiated at the tail end propagates in a disintegrating drop within the tensile zone towards the drop's head at a very high velocity (~ 1450-1900 m/s, or up to ~4,200 miles per hour, a number that in air would be Mach 5.5).