Golgi apparatus

The Golgi apparatus, also known as the Golgi complex, Golgi body, or simply the Golgi, is an organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. Part of the endomembrane system in the cytoplasm, it packages proteins into membrane-bound vesicles inside the cell before the vesicles are sent to their destination. It resides at the intersection of the secretory, lysosomal, and endocytic pathways. It is of particular importance in processing proteins for secretion, containing a set of glycosylation enzymes that attach various sugar monomers to proteins as the proteins move through the apparatus.
It was identified in 1897 by the Italian scientist Camillo Golgi and was named after him in 1898.
Discovery.
Owing to its large size and distinctive structure, the Golgi apparatus was one of the first organelles to be discovered and observed in detail. It was discovered in 1898 by Italian physician Camillo Golgi during an investigation of the nervous system. After first observing it under his microscope, he termed the structure as "apparato reticolare interno" ("internal reticular apparatus"). Some doubted the discovery at first, arguing that the appearance of the structure was merely an optical illusion created by the observation technique used by Golgi. With the development of modern microscopes in the twentieth century, the discovery was confirmed. Early references to the Golgi apparatus referred to it by various names including the "Golgi–Holmgren apparatus", "Golgi–Holmgren ducts", and "Golgi–Kopsch apparatus". The term "Golgi apparatus" was used in 1910 and first appeared in the scientific literature in 1913, while "Golgi complex" was introduced in 1956.
Subcellular localization.
The subcellular localization of the Golgi apparatus varies among eukaryotes. In mammals, a single Golgi apparatus is usually located near the cell nucleus, close to the centrosome. Tubular connections are responsible for linking the stacks together. Localization and tubular connections of the Golgi apparatus are dependent on microtubules. In experiments it is seen that as microtubules are depolymerized the Golgi apparatuses lose mutual connections and become individual stacks throughout the cytoplasm. In yeast, multiple Golgi apparatuses are scattered throughout the cytoplasm (as observed in "Saccharomyces cerevisiae"). In plants, Golgi stacks are not concentrated at the centrosomal region and do not form Golgi ribbons. Organization of the plant Golgi depends on actin cables and not microtubules. The common feature among Golgi is that they are adjacent to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) exit sites.
Structure.
In most eukaryotes, the Golgi apparatus is made up of a series of compartments and is a collection of fused, flattened membrane-enclosed disks known as cisternae (singular: "cisterna", also called "dictyosomes"), originating from vesicular clusters that bud off the endoplasmic reticulum. A mammalian cell typically contains 40 to 100 stacks of cisternae. Between four and eight cisternae are usually present in a stack; however, in some protists as many as sixty cisternae have been observed. This collection of cisternae is broken down into "cis", medial, and "trans" compartments, making up two main networks: the cis Golgi network (CGN) and the trans Golgi network (TGN). The CGN is the first cisternal structure, and the TGN is the final, from which proteins are packaged into vesicles destined to lysosomes, secretory vesicles, or the cell surface. The TGN is usually positioned adjacent to the stack, but can also be separate from it. The TGN may act as an early endosome in yeast and plants.
There are structural and organizational differences in the Golgi apparatus among eukaryotes. In some yeasts, Golgi stacking is not observed. "Pichia pastoris" does have stacked Golgi, while "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" does not. In plants, the individual stacks of the Golgi apparatus seem to operate independently.
The Golgi apparatus tends to be larger and more numerous in cells that synthesize and secrete large amounts of substances; for example, the antibody-secreting plasma B cells of the immune system have prominent Golgi complexes.
In all eukaryotes, each cisternal stack has a "cis" entry face and a "trans" exit face. These faces are characterized by unique morphology and biochemistry. Within individual stacks are assortments of enzymes responsible for selectively modifying protein cargo. These modifications influence the fate of the protein. The compartmentalization of the Golgi apparatus is advantageous for separating enzymes, thereby maintaining consecutive and selective processing steps: enzymes catalyzing early modifications are gathered in the "cis" face cisternae, and enzymes catalyzing later modifications are found in "trans" face cisternae of the Golgi stacks.
Function.
The Golgi apparatus is a major collection and dispatch station of protein products received from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Proteins synthesized in the ER are packaged into vesicles, which then fuse with the Golgi apparatus. These cargo proteins are modified and destined for secretion via exocytosis or for use in the cell.
In this respect, the Golgi can be thought of as similar to a post office: it packages and labels items which it then sends to different parts of the cell or to the extracellular space. The Golgi apparatus is also involved in lipid transport and lysosome formation.
The structure and function of the Golgi apparatus are intimately linked. Individual stacks have different assortments of enzymes, allowing for progressive processing of cargo proteins as they travel from the cisternae to the trans Golgi face. Enzymatic reactions within the Golgi stacks occur exclusively near its membrane surfaces, where enzymes are anchored. This feature is in contrast to the ER, which has soluble proteins and enzymes in its lumen. Much of the enzymatic processing is post-translational modification of proteins. For example, phosphorylation of oligosaccharides on lysosomal proteins occurs in the early CGN. "Cis" cisterna are associated with the removal of mannose residues. Removal of mannose residues and addition of N-acetylglucosamine occur in medial cisternae. Addition of galactose and sialic acid occurs in the "trans" cisternae. Sulfation of tyrosines and carbohydrates occurs within the TGN. Other general post-translational modifications of proteins include the addition of carbohydrates (glycosylation) and phosphates (phosphorylation). Protein modifications may form a signal sequence that determines the final destination of the protein. For example, the Golgi apparatus adds a mannose-6-phosphate label to proteins destined for lysosomes. Another important function of the Golgi apparatus is in the formation of proteoglycans. Enzymes in the Golgi append proteins to glycosaminoglycans, thus creating proteoglycans. Glycosaminoglycans are long unbranched polysaccharide molecules present in the extracellular matrix of animals.
Vesicular transport.
The vesicles that leave the rough endoplasmic reticulum are transported to the "cis" face of the Golgi apparatus, where they fuse with the Golgi membrane and empty their contents into the lumen. Once inside the lumen, the molecules are modified, then sorted for transport to their next destinations.
Those proteins destined for areas of the cell other than either the endoplasmic reticulum or the Golgi apparatus are moved through the Golgi cisternae towards the "trans" face, to a complex network of membranes and associated vesicles known as the "trans-Golgi network" (TGN). This area of the Golgi is the point at which proteins are sorted and shipped to their intended destinations by their placement into one of at least three different types of vesicles, depending upon the signal sequence they carry.
Current models of vesicular transport and trafficking.
Model 5: Stable compartments as cisternal model progenitors.
Though there are multiple models that attempt to explain vesicular traffic throughout the Golgi, no individual model can independently explain all observations of the Golgi apparatus. Currently, the cisternal progression/maturation model is the most accepted among scientists, accommodating many observations across eukaryotes. The other models are still important in framing questions and guiding future experimentation. Among the fundamental unanswered questions are the directionality of COPI vesicles and role of Rab GTPases in modulating protein cargo traffic.
Brefeldin A.
Brefeldin A (BFA) is a fungal metabolite used experimentally to disrupt the secretion pathway as a method of testing Golgi function. BFA blocks the activation of some ADP-ribosylation factors (ARFs). ARFs are small GTPases which regulate vesicular trafficking through the binding of COPs to endosomes and the Golgi. BFA inhibits the function of several guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) that mediate GTP-binding of ARFs. Treatment of cells with BFA thus disrupts the secretion pathway, promoting disassembly of the Golgi apparatus and distributing Golgi proteins to the endosomes and ER.


Fibrocartilage

Fibrocartilage consists of a mixture of white fibrous tissue and cartilaginous tissue in various proportions. It owes its inflexibility and toughness to the former of these constituents, and its elasticity to the latter. It is the only type of cartilage that contains type I collagen in addition to the normal type II.
Structure.
The extracellular matrix of fibrocartilage is mainly made from type I collagen secreted by chondrocytes.
Function.
Repair.
If hyaline cartilage is torn all the way down to the bone, the blood supply from inside the bone is sometimes enough to start some healing inside the lesion. In cases like this, the body will form a scar in the area using a special type of cartilage called fibrocartilage. Fibrocartilage is a tough, dense, and fibrous material that helps fill in the torn part of the cartilage; however, it is not an ideal replacement for the smooth, glassy articular cartilage that normally covers the surface of joints.
Clinical significance.
Degeneration of fibrocartilage is seen in degenerative disc disease.


Botsfordioidea

Botsfordioidea is a superfamily of Discinid brachiopods.


Geodia carcinophila

Geodia carcinophila is a species of sponge in the family Geodiidae. The species was first described by Lendenfeld in 1897. It is found in the waters of the Somali Sea around the Zanzibar Archipelago.


Towhee

A towhee is any one of a number of species of birds in the genus "Pipilo" or "Melozone" within the family Passerellidae (which also includes American sparrows, and juncos).
Towhees typically have longer tails than other Passerellidae. Most species tend to avoid humans, so they are not well known, though the eastern towhee "P. erythrophthalmus" is bolder. This species, and some others, may be seen in urban parks and gardens.
There has been considerable debate over the taxonomy of the towhees in recent years. Two species complexes have been identified, the rufous-sided complex (involving "Pipilo erythrophthalmus", "P. maculatus", "P. socorroensis", "P. ocai" and "P. chlorurus"), and the brown towhee complex (involving "Melozone crissalis", "M. fuscus", "M. aberti" and "M. albicollis"). The distinction of species within these is uncertain and opinions have differed over the years. Modern authorities distinguish all four species in the brown towhee complex, though "M. fuscus" and "M. crissalis" were formerly treated as a single species. Hybrids are frequent between some of the species, particularly between the Mexican races of "P. maculatus" ("olive-backed towhee", "P. m. macronyx") and "P. ocai".
Genus Melozone:
Genus Pipilo:


Opisthopatus amaxhosa

Opisthopatus amaxhosa is a species of velvet worm in the family Peripatopsidae.


Thallus

Thallus (plural: thalli), from Latinized Greek θαλλός ("thallos"), meaning "a green shoot" or "twig", is the undifferentiated vegetative tissue of some organisms in diverse groups such as algae, fungi, some liverworts, lichens, and the Myxogastria. Many of these organisms were previously known as the thallophytes, a polyphyletic group of distantly related organisms. An organism or structure resembling a thallus is called thalloid, thallodal, thalliform, thalline, or thallose.
A thallus usually names the entire body of a multicellular non-moving organism in which there is no organization of the tissues into organs. Even though thalli do not have organized and distinct parts (leaves, roots, and stems) as do the vascular plants, they may have analogous structures that resemble their vascular "equivalents". The analogous structures have similar function or macroscopic structure, but different microscopic structure; for example, no thallus has vascular tissue. In exceptional cases such as the Lemnoideae, where the structure of a vascular plant is in fact thallus-like, it is referred to as having a thalloid structure, or sometimes as a thalloid.
Although a thallus is largely undifferentiated in terms of its anatomy, there can be visible differences and functional differences. A kelp, for example, may have its thallus divided into three regions. The parts of a kelp thallus include the holdfast (anchor), stipe (supports the blades) and the blades (for photosynthesis).
The thallus of a fungus is usually called a mycelium. The term thallus is also commonly used to refer to the vegetative body of a lichen. In seaweed, thallus is sometimes also called 'frond'.
The gametophyte of some non-thallophyte plants – clubmosses, horsetails, and ferns is termed "prothallus".


Ciocalypta

Ciocalypta is a genus of sea sponges belonging to the family Halichondriidae.
Species.
, the World Register of Marine Species lists 27 species in the genus "Ciocalypta":


Macroperipatus valerioi

Macroperipatus valerioi is a species of velvet worm in the Peripatidae family. The type locality is in Costa Rica.


Creature from Black Lake

Creature from Black Lake (alternately known as Demon of the Lake) is a 1976 American independent horror film written and directed by Joy N. Houck Jr. and starring Jack Elam, Dub Taylor, Dennis Fimple, John David Carson, and Bill Thurman.
Plot.
After hearing a lecture on unknown, humanoid creatures such as Bigfoot and the Fouke Monster, two college students decide to spend their breaks pursuing the story and journey to the Louisiana-Arkansas border. There they begin interviewing witnesses, ranging from a family that suffered a car crash when the creature menaced them on the road to a backwoods fisherman whose friend was pulled out of a boat and killed. Eventually, the creature begins stalking them which leads to a confrontation in the dark of the swamps at night.
Release.
Home media.
"Creature from Black Lake" was released for the first time on DVD by Boulevard on July 5, 2005. It was later released by Tango Entertainment on May 4, 2006. 2015 saw the film's release by VFN and Education 2000 on July 10th, and July 16th respectively.
Reception.
TV Guide awarded the film one out of four stars, writing, "Despite its obvious handicaps, this ultra-low-budget Bigfoot movie--a subgenre that always seem to suffer from a lack of production funds--is fairly watchable." "Terror Trap.com" gave the film three out of four stars, calling it " an above average creature feature". George R. Reis from "DVD Drive-in" gave the film a negative review, calling it "dull and talky". Brett H. from "Oh, the Horror!" criticizing the film's screenplay, which lacked any sense of action or suspense.


Reticulosa

Reticulosa is an extinct order of sea sponges in the class Hexactinellida.


Jeanneney Rabearivony

Jeanneney Rabearivony is a Malagasy ecologist and herpetologist.
Life and research.
Rabearivony grew up in rural Madagascar, and spent much of his childhood in the forest. The familiarity with the forest made him keenly aware of its disappearance, and set him on the path to work in environmental conservation.
Rabearivony received his MSc in Conservation Biology from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), and a Diplome d'Etude Approffondies (DEA) in Ecology and Environmental studies from the University of Antananarivo in 1999. Thereafter he conducted his PhD on chameleon ecology and conservation at the University of Antananarivo, finishing his studies in 2013.
Rabearivony joined the WWF in July 2009 as manager of the Holistic Forest Conservation Project (PHCF) in Andapa, after being manager of humid zones for the Peregrine Fund. In this role, he works closely with local people to gain their perspectives and resource needs, helping to devise management plans that suit their requirements. He considers it imperative that the authorities managing Madagascar's forests and waters spend time in the field, in order to understand their role and the needs of the rural peoples of Madagascar, and has advocated for the coupling of local resource management with socio-economic engagement in order to improve the effectiveness of biodiversity protection.
Currently, Rabearivony is Dean of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Antsiranana.


Echiniscoidea

Echiniscoidea are an order of tardigrades, a phylum of water-dwelling, eight-legged, segmented micro-animals. It was first described by Richters in 1926.
List of families.
The order of Echiniscoidea consists of the following families:


Myostaurida

Myostaurida is a suborder of jellyfishes. It contains four families.


Platytrochozoa

The Platytrochozoa are a proposed basal clade of spiralian animals as the sister group of the Gnathifera. The Platytrochozoa were divided into the Rouphozoa and the Lophotrochozoa. A more recent study suggests that the mesozoans also belong to this group of animals, as sister of the Rouphozoa.
An alternative phylogeny was given in 2019, with a basal grouping of Mollusca and Entoprocta named Tetraneuralia, and a second grouping of Nemertea and Platyhelminthes named Parenchymia as sister of Annelida. In this proposal, Lophotrochozoa would become roughly synonymous with Platytrochozoa, and Rouphozoa would be unsupported.


Isocrania

Isocrania is an extinct genus of brachiopods found during the Upper Cretaceous. Early representatives were attached to the underground, but later species are presumed to be free living at an increasingly earlier age. This was probably an adaptation to the increasing very thick and fine sedimentation during the latest Cretaceous.
Description.
"Isocrania" is round to ovate, up to 1 cm in diameter, and has 15-65 strong ribs, that start at ±½mm from the origin of growth (or umbo). These ribs may extend beyond the edge of the valves. The umbo is not precisely in the centre of the valve. The attachment area is smaller than usual, and virtually absent in adults of later species. The dorsal valve is conical, the ventral valve flat to conical, flatter for adolescents and earlier species. The inner edge of the valves is flattened and grainy.


John Henry Gurney Jr.

John Henry Gurney Jr. (1848–1922), was a British ornithologist from the Gurney family.
Family Origins.
Gurney was born on 31 July 1848 in Easton Lodge, Easton, Norfolk, son of John Henry Gurney Sr. and his second cousin Mary Jary Gurney. He was educated at Harrow School.
Career.
For a short time he worked in Messrs. Backhouse's bank at Darlington, but he spent most of his life in Norfolk. In Norfolk he was known as a landowner and country gentleman. He took a prominent part in local religious and philanthropic work.
He was High Sheriff of Norfolk in 1894. At the time of his death he was a Justice of the Peace and a Deputy Lieutenant for Norfolk.
Ornithologist.
His father, John Henry Gurney Sr, although a politician was probably best known as an ornithologist. So John Henry junior was brought up from an early age to know and love birds.
Gurney gained an international reputation as an ornithologist. He was elected as a Fellow of the Zoological Society in 1868, a Member of the British Ornithologists' Union in 1870 and a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1885.
Gurney also took a keen interest in local ornithology. He was always a generous supporter of the local Wild Birds' Protection Societies. He was one of the original members of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society which was founded in March 1869.
Marriage and Family.
John Henry Gurney married Margaret Jane Gurney (1851-1940) on 25 October 1876 at St Marylebone church, Westminster, London. Margaret was also his second cousin, daughter of Henry Edmund Gurney (1821-1905) and Jane née Birkbeck (1828-1888). They had a son and three daughters:
Works.
Gurney's first written contribution to ornithology was a letter to "The Ibis" on swallows which was published in 1866. His most important publications include:


Halichondria agglomerans

Halichondria agglomerans is a species of sea sponge belonging to the family Halichondriidae.


George Edward Dobson

George Edward Dobson FRS FLS FZS (4 September 1848 at Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland – 26 November 1895) was an Irish zoologist, photographer and army surgeon. He took a special interest in bats, describing many new species, and some species have been named after him.
Biography.
Dobson was the eldest son of Parke Dobson and was educated at the Royal School Enniskillen and then at Trinity College, Dublin. He gained the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in 1866, Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery and Master of Surgery in 1867 and Master of Arts in 1875.
He became an army surgeon after 1867 serving in India and rose to the position of surgeon major. In 1868 he visited the Andaman Islands, collecting zoological specimens for the Indian Museum along with Wood-Mason, and in May 1872 he made ethnological and photographic studies of the Andamanese peoples.
Around 1878, he became curator of the Royal Victoria Museum at Netley.
Achievements.
Dobson was an expert on small mammals, especially bats ( the Chiroptera) and Insectivora. He was a member of several scientific societies, the Royal Society (elected 1883), the Linnean Society of London and the Zoological Society of London. He was a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and of the Biological Society of Washington.
Works.
In addition Dobson also contributed to the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica where he wrote the accounts about the vampyre bats, the moles and the shrews.


Peripatopsis stelliporata

Peripatopsis stelliporata is a species of velvet worm in the Peripatopsidae family. The type locality is in South Africa.


Holocystis

Holocystis is a genus of prehistoric stony corals.


Eugene Raymond Hall

Eugene Raymond Hall (11 May 1902, Imes, Kansas – 2 April 1986, Lawrence, Kansas) was an American mammalogist.
Biology.
Hall graduated from the University of Kansas with A.B. in 1924 and from the University of California, Berkeley with M.A. in 1925 and Ph.D. in 1928. His doctoral dissertation, under the direction of Joseph Grinnell, was a taxonomic revision of the American weasels. At U.C. Berkeley, Hall was a research assistant from 1926 to 1927, curator of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology from 1927 to 1944, an assistant professor of vertebrate zoology from 1930 to 1937, and an associate professor from 1937 to 1944. At the University of Kansas he was a full professor and chair of the zoology department from 1944 to 1967, when he retired as professor emeritus. He was also the director of the University of Kansas Natural History Museum from 1944 to 1967. He persuaded Ralph Nicholson Ellis (1908–1945) to will his collection of books and papers to the University of Kansas. (In 1936 Ellis purchased most of the John Gould library.)
Hall was the author or co-author of more than 340 articles in numerous journals, including "Journal of Mammalogy", "The Auk", "The Condor", "The Wilson Bulletin", "Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington", "Canadian Field-Naturalist", "Outdoor Life", "Annals and Magazine of Natural History", "Mammalia", "The American Naturalist", "", "Journal of Dental Research", "Pacific Rural Press", and "The Great Basin Naturalist". He was the author of six books.
E. Raymond Hall and Keith R. Kelson's two-volume work "The Mammals of North America" (1959) is regarded as a classic of North American mammalian systematics and biogeography. It was revised and reissued by Hall in 1981 under sole authorship.
Hall's 1951 book "The American Weasels" taxonomically restricted North American weasel species from about 30 allegedly different species to three valid species. In addition to numerous rodent subspecies, he described the vesper bat species "Myotis elegans", the extinct skunk genus "Martinogale", (with Gilmore) the Alaska marmot ("Marmota broweri"), (with Gilmore) the Saint Lawrence Island shrew ("Sorex jacksoni"), and (with Jones) the Cuban yellow bat ("Lasiurus insularis"). Hall's monograph "Geographic Variation among Brown and Grizzly Bears (Ursus arctos) in North America" (1984) fundamentally changed the taxonomy of North American brown bears, limiting the number of taxa to eight subspecies.
Hall was a member of the American Society of Mammalogists, where he served as President from 1944 to 1946. In 1964 he was elected an honorary member.
On 9 August 1924, Hall married Mary Frances Harkey (1900–1988). The couple had three sons, William Joel (1926-2020), Hubert Handel (1928–2010), and Benjamin Downs (1932–2019).
Eugenics.
Hall published an article titled "Zoological Subspecies of Man" in a publication of the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics. In this article Hall writes "What, then, are the chances of survival of the Caucasians in North America if they permit the infiltration of the Oriental subspecies of man from the larger land mass of Asia? The Caucasians' chances would appear poor indeed." A version of this article "Zoological Subspecies of Man at the Peace Table" was also published in the Journal of Mammalogy in 1946 with the footnote "A resolution was moved, seconded, and passed by the audience at the reading of scientific papers at the joint session of the annual convention of the American Society of Mammalogists and the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 18, 1946, 'that this paper be published and that copies of it be sent to the United Nations' Representatives'."


Cytotrophoblastic shell

The cytotrophoblastic shell is the external layer of cytotrophoblasts from the fetus that is found on the maternal surface of the placenta. The cytotrophoblastic shell firmly secures the placenta to the mother's endometrium called the decidua basalis. Gaps in the cytotrophoblastic shell allow endometrial arteries and veins to reach the intervillous space.
Formation.
A cytotrophoblast cap penetrates through the fetus' syncytiotrophoblasts and reaches the maternal decidua, forming the anchoring villus. The cytotrophoblast layer spreads and contacts the cytotrophoblast layers of neighboring anchoring villi, creating a continuous layer called the cytotrophoblastic shell. The cytotrophoblast structures of the anchoring villi that spread out are called cytotrophoblastic columns. Once formation is complete, the cytotrophoblast layer from the anchoring villi disappears, leaving behind a mesoderm core surrounded by syncytial cells.


Celleporidae

The Celleporidae is a family within the bryozoan order Cheilostomatida.


Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard

Major Hesketh Vernon Prichard, later Hesketh-Prichard (17 November 1876 – 14 June 1922) was an explorer, adventurer, big-game hunter and marksman who made a significant contribution to sniping practice within the British Army during the First World War. Concerned not only with improving the quality of marksmanship, the measures he introduced to counter the threat of German snipers were credited by a contemporary with saving the lives of over 3,500 Allied soldiers.
During his lifetime, he also explored territory never seen before by a European, played cricket at first-class level, including on overseas tours, wrote short stories and novels (one of which was turned into a Douglas Fairbanks film) and was a successful newspaper correspondent and travel writer. His many activities brought him into the highest social and professional circles. Like other turn of the century hunters such as Teddy Roosevelt, he was an active campaigner for animal welfare and succeeded in seeing legal measures introduced for their protection.
Early life.
Hesketh-Prichard was born an only child on 17 November 1876 in Jhansi, North-Western Provinces, India. His father Hesketh Brodrick Prichard, an officer in the King's Own Scottish Borderers, died from typhoid six weeks before he was born, leading him to be raised alone by his mother, Kate O'Brien Ryall Prichard. She herself had come from a military family, her father being Major-General Browne William Ryall.
Hesketh-Prichard and his mother returned to Great Britain soon after, and lived for a while at her parents' house, before moving to St Helier on Jersey for several years. His nickname was "Hex", which he would bear throughout his life. They returned to the mainland that the boy might be educated at a prep school in Rugby. In 1887 he won a scholarship to Fettes College, Edinburgh; his entrance paper was an essay on "Summer Sports". He excelled at sports there, particularly cricket, at which the school magazine described him as "the best bowler we have had for a long time". He was invited to play for Scotland against South Africa, but declined as he would have been unavailable to play against Fettes' rival Loretto School. After school, he studied law privately in Horsham, West Sussex. He passed the preliminary exam, though he would never practice as a solicitor.
Writing and exploration.
First publications.
Hesketh-Prichard, then nineteen, wrote his first story "Tammer's Duel" in the summer of 1896, which his mother helped him refine, and was sold soon after to "Pall Mall Magazine" for a guinea. That year he abandoned a career in law and spent the summer travelling around southern Europe and North Africa. He spent the sea-time on the trip writing or planning plots. When back in London, he and his mother wrote together under the pseudonyms "H. Heron" and "E. Heron", and saw publication in several journals, including "Cornhill Magazine". Hesketh-Prichard's circle of literary friends widened and he became acquainted with the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle and J. M. Barrie. In 1897 Barrie introduced him to the press baron Cyril Arthur Pearson, who suggested he write a series of ghost stories for his monthly "Pearson's Magazine". Hesketh-Prichard and his mother created a series of stories around the character "Flaxman Low"', the first psychic detective of fiction, though they were disconcerted to find the tales promoted by Pearson as "real". The collected work was published as "The Experiences of Flaxman Low" in 1899.
In 1897, he and his mother worked on the plot of "A Modern Mercenary", the stories of Captain Rallywood, a dashing diplomat in Germany. It was published by Smith and Elder the following year. He travelled to South America in February 1898, seeing the construction work for the Panama Canal, but returned after developing malaria while in the Caribbean.
Commissioned trips.
In 1899 Pearson chose Hesketh-Prichard to explore and report on the relatively unknown republic of Haiti, wanting something dramatic with which to launch his forthcoming "Daily Express". His mother accompanied him as far as Jamaica; in later years she would often travel with him to remote destinations in a time when it was uncommon for a woman of her age to do so. Hesketh-Prichard travelled extensively into the uncharted interior of Haiti, narrowly avoiding death on one occasion when someone tried to poison him. No white man was believed to have crossed the island since 1803, and his trip provided the first written description of some of the secret practices of "vaudoux" (voodoo). He later wrote a vivid account of his travels in the popular book "Where Black Rules White: A Journey Across and About Hayti".
Pearson welcomed his reports, and on his return immediately commissioned him to travel to Patagonia to investigate dramatic rumours of a hairy beast roaming the land. The animal was conjectured by Natural History Museum director Ray Lankester to be a living example of the long-extinct giant ground sloth. Hesketh-Prichard's talent for descriptive narration enthralled the readers of the "Daily Express". He explored the area surrounding Lake Argentino, finding one of its feeder lakes, naming it Lake Pearson after his patron, and their connecting river Caterina after his mother. Lake Pearson was subsequently renamed Lake Anita, but the Río Caterina, known for its salmon, retains the name Hesketh-Prichard gave it. The surrounding area is now part of Los Glaciares National Park.
Although he found no traces of the creature after a year overseas and of travel, he did provide compelling descriptions of unknown areas of the country, its fauna and inhabitants. He acquired the pelt of an unknown subspecies of puma, naming it "Felis concolor pearsoni". (The puma is now considered to be a variety of the southern South American cougar "Puma concolor concolor".) The grass species "Poa prichardii" was named after Hesketh-Prichard after he brought back a specimen. He compiled the story of his travels in the well-received "Through the Heart of Patagonia".
In 2000, on the hundredth anniversary of both Hesketh-Prichard's trip and the newspaper's founding, the "Daily Express" despatched his great-grandson Charlie Jacoby to retrace his footsteps.
Labrador.
Hesketh-Prichard first visited Atlantic Canada in August 1903, travelling up the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, and donating the heads of stags he had shot to the Newfoundland Exhibition then in London. He returned in October 1904, this time with his mother, and the cricketer Teddy Wynyard.
His most ambitious trip to the region was however in July 1910, when he undertook to explore the interior of Labrador, saying "it seemed to us a pity that such a "terra incognita" should continue to exist under the British flag". This same territory had claimed the life of writer Leonidas Hubbard a few years earlier. He described his journey up the Fraser River to access Indian House Lake on George River in the popular "Through Trackless Labrador" in 1911.
His reputation was such that former president Theodore Roosevelt, a fellow writer, explorer and hunter, wrote to him, commending him on his latest book, which he described as the best that season, and asking to meet him.
Further writing.
In 1904, the mother-and-son writing team produced "The Chronicles of Don Q.", a collection of short stories featuring the fictional rogue Don Quebranta Huesos, a Spanish Robin Hood-like figure who was fierce to the evil rich but kind-hearted to the virtuous poor. A second collection, "The New Chronicles of Don Q." followed in 1906. The pair produced a full-length novel, "Don Q.'s Love Story", in 1909. "Don Q." was brought to the stage in 1921 when it was performed at the Apollo Theatre, London. In 1925, the book was reworked as a Zorro vehicle by screenwriters Jack Cunningham and Lotta Woods; the United Artists silent film "Don Q, Son of Zorro" was produced by Douglas Fairbanks, who also starred as its lead character. The "New York Times" rated the film one of its top ten movies of the year.
In 1913, writing on his own, Hesketh-Prichard created the crime-fighting figure "November Joe", a hunter and backwoodsman from the Canadian wilderness. It was broadcast as a radio play by the BBC on 23 September 1970.
Despite his reputation as a hunter, he campaigned to end the clubbing of grey seals around the coast. Aided by his friend Charles Lyell MP, he was successful in seeing the "Grey Seals (Protection) Act" passed unopposed in 1914, Britain's first legal protection for non-game mammals. His article "Slaughtered for Fashion" in the March 1914 "Pearson's Magazine" argued to protect birds from plume hunting, their large-scale slaughter for hat feathers.
Cricket.
Hesketh-Prichard was a talented cricketer, and played for a number of teams, including Hampshire, London County, and Marylebone Cricket Club. A right-arm fast bowler, he made his début in the first-class game when he played for Hampshire against Somerset in the 1900 County Championship. He was not however a strong batsman and would typically play in the tail of the batting order. He joined the short-lived London County in 1902, where he was a teammate of W. G. Grace. In 1903 he played his first of several games for The Gentlemen v The Players at Lords. He would be selected for The Gentleman three years in succession. In 1904, he joined the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), and took part in Lord Brackley's XI's tour of the West Indies in the 1904/5 season. In 1907, he toured the United States with the MCC.
A tall man, he was able to use his height and reach to his advantage when bowling. In a first-class career that lasted from 1900 to 1913, he took 339 wickets for a total of 7,586 runs. A career best was 8/32 for Hampshire against Derbyshire in July 1905. His batting average by contrast was particularly low, being only 7.46 across his first class career.
Military service.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Hesketh-Prichard tried for a commission in the Black Watch and Guards, but both turned him down because of his age, then 37. He was eventually successful obtaining a post as Assistant Press Officer at the War Office, and first sent to the front lines in France in February 1915 as an "eyewitness officer" in charge of war correspondents. By this time, open warfare on the front had ceased, and had stagnated into the trench warfare that characterised much of the conflict. He witnessed there the victims of gas attack.
Hesketh-Prichard was shocked to learn of the high attrition rate due to well-trained German snipers. It was common for British regiments to lose five men a day to snipers; he learned that one battalion lost eighteen in a single day. The German snipers could not be located, leaving them free to continue shooting from their place of concealment. He was also dismayed by the poor quality of marksmanship amongst the British troops.
He set about improving the quality of marksmanship, calibrating and correcting the few telescopic sights that the army already possessed. He borrowed more sights and hunting rifles from friends and famous hunters back home, and funded the acquisition of others from his own pocket, or donations he solicited. To investigate the quality of German armour plate, he retrieved a sample from a German trench. He discovered that their armour could only be penetrated by a heavy cartridge such as Jeffery 333, while British plate could be easily defeated by a much smaller gun such as a Mauser.
Innovations.
He recognised German skill in constructing trench parapets: by making use of an irregular top and face to the parapet, and constructing it from material of varying composition, the presence of a sniper or an observer poking his head up became much less conspicuous. In contrast, British trench practice had been to give a military-straight neat edge to the parapet top, making any movement or protrusion immediately obvious.
An observer was vulnerable to an enemy sniper firing a bullet through his loophole, but Hesketh-Prichard devised a metal-armoured double loophole that would protect him. The front loophole was fixed, but the rear was housed in a metal shutter sliding in grooves. Only when the two loopholes were lined up—a one-to-twenty chance—could an enemy shoot between them.
Another innovation was the use of a dummy head to find the location of an enemy sniper. The tempting target of a realistic papier-mâché head was raised above the parapet on a stick running in a groove on a fixed board. To increase the realism, a lit cigarette could be inserted into the dummy's mouth and be smoked by a soldier via a rubber tube. If the head was shot, it was dropped rapidly, simulating a casualty. The sniper's bullet would have made a hole in the front and back of the dummy's head. The head was then raised in the groove again, but lower than before by the vertical distance between the glasses of a trench periscope. If the lower glass of a periscope was placed before the front bullet hole, its upper glass would be at exactly the same height as the bullet had been. By looking through the rear hole in the head, through the front hole and up through the periscope, the soldier would be looking exactly along the line the bullet had taken, and so would be looking directly at the sniper, revealing his position.
Training snipers.
Hesketh-Prichard was eventually successful in gaining official support for his campaign, and in August 1915 was given permission to proceed with formalised sniper training. By November of that year, his reputation was such that he was in high demand from many units. In December he was ordered on General Allenby's request to the Third Army School of Instruction and was made a general staff officer with the rank of captain. He was Mentioned in Despatches on 1 January 1916.
In August 1916, he founded the First Army School of Sniping in the village of Linghem, Pas-de-Calais. Starting with a first-class of only six, in time he was able to lecture to large numbers of soldiers from different Allied nations, proudly proclaiming in a letter that his school was turning out snipers at three times the rate of any such other school in the world. In October of that year he was awarded the Military Cross, the citation of which read:
His friend George Gray, himself a champion shooter, told him that he had reduced sniping casualties from five a week per battalion to forty-four in three months in sixty battalions; by his reckoning, this meant that Hesketh-Prichard had saved over 3,500 lives. He was promoted to major in November 1916. By this time in the war, his contributions to sniping had been such that the former German superiority in the practice had now been reversed.
Later war years.
Hesketh-Prichard was taken ill with an undetermined infection in late 1917 and was granted leave. His health remained poor for the rest of his life, and he spent much of it convalescing. It was during this period of leave that he learned that he had been awarded the Distinguished Service Order, for his work with the First Army School of Sniping, Observation, and Scouting. For his wartime work with the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps, he was appointed a Commander of the Military Order of Avis.
He continued to write and hunt when his health permitted him. In 1920, he wrote his account of his war time activities in the critically acclaimed "" (full-text available on Wikisource and as a PDF document), which is still referenced by modern authors on the subject. The following year he wrote "Sport in Wildest Britain", in which he shared his experiences of bird shooting, particularly in the Outer Hebrides.
Family life.
In 1908, Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard married Lady Elizabeth Grimston, the daughter of James Grimston, 3rd Earl of Verulam, whom he had met through friends. They had three children: Michael (19 February 1909 – September 1988), Diana (26 March 1912 – 1970), and Alfred Cecil Giles (1916–1944), known as "Alfgar". Alfgar was recruited to the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, where he became the first head of its Czech Section, training agents to conduct the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Alfgar Hesketh-Prichard was killed by Yugoslav Partisans in Austria on 3 December 1944, for which he was posthumously awarded the MC.
Later years.
In July 1919, Hesketh-Prichard was elected Chairman of the Society of Authors, of which he had been a member for many years. Poor health forced him to resign in the following January.
Hesketh-Prichard died from sepsis on 14 June 1922, at Old Gorhambury House, the ancestral home of his wife in Hertfordshire, England. His obituarists ascribed this to an obscure form of blood poisoning brought on by gassing in the trenches during his war service. However, his ailments, including fatigue, heart–digestive–neurological disorders, appendicitis, cognitive problems, depression, anxiety — are today recognised as differential symptoms of malaria. Left untreated they sometimes lead to organ failure and death.
His body was cremated and the ashes interred in the family vault at St Michael's Church, St Albans. His mother survived him, dying in 1935.
His wife Elizabeth, later becoming Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Mary, lived until 1975.
Hesketh-Prichard's biography was written two years after his death by his friend Eric Parker, who encapsulated his many accomplishments within its title: "Hesketh Prichard D.S.O., M.C.: Explorer, Naturalist, Cricketer, Author, Soldier".


Ellen E. Strong

Ellen E. Strong is a research zoologist, curator of Mollusca, and the chair of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. She studies the diversity and the evolutionary relationships of freshwater and marine snails. Many of these snails have been affected by humans and she is part of conservation efforts by informing best how to help these species.
Life and career.
Ellen Strong grew up in northern California in a small town. She would collect shells and minerals on the beaches near her home, but she found her interest in being a malacologist in her first year of college during a geology course. This course allowed her to get a job at the University of California Museum of Paleontology. She graduated with honors from the University of California Berkeley in 1991 with a BA in Paleontology. In 2000 she received her PhD in Biology with honors from George Washington University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany from 2000 to 2001 and then the Smithsonian Institution until 2002. She was appointed as an assistant professor in the fisheries, wildlife, and conservation biology department of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. In 2004 she became a research zoologist in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the National Museum of Natural History.
Strong is an editor of the book "Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos 29" and has written many papers.


Orchesella villosa

Orchesella villosa is a species of slender springtail in the family Entomobryidae. It is found in Europe.


Deepstaria

Deepstaria is a genus of jellyfish known for their thin, sheet-like bodies. The genus is named after the Deep Star 4000, which collected the holotype of the type species, "D. enigmatica".
Description.
Characteristic features of this genus include: a large, thin umbrella, lack of tentacles, and long oral arms.
Species list.
, WoRMS recognizes two species within the genus:


Henry L. Muldrow

Henry L. Muldrow (born Henry Lowndes Muldrow; February 8, 1837 – March 1, 1905) was an American politician who served as First Assistant Secretary of the Interior in the first Cleveland administration. Prior to this he served as U.S. Representative from Mississippi's 1st congressional district, a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives and as an officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded a cavalry regiment in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.
Early life.
Henry Lowndes Muldrow was born in Lowndes County, Mississippi, on February 8, 1837, the sixth child of Simon Connell (1809–1868) and Louisa Adaline (née Cannon; 1798–1853) Muldrow. He graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1858. The next year he graduated from the law school of the same university; being admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Starkville, Mississippi, in the year after. He was appointed second lieutenant in Company C, 14th Mississippi Infantry Regiment in 1861; later attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the 11th Mississippi Cavalry Regiment. Afterwards he served as the attorney for the sixth judicial district of Mississippi and became a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1875. From 1876 to 1898 he was a trustee of his alma mater.
Later life.
Muldrow was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fifth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1877 – March 3, 1885). He also served as Chairman, Committee on Territories (Forty-sixth Congress), and on the Committee on Private Land Claims (Forty-eighth Congress). He also helped to introduce a bill that proposed that the U.S. change to use a modified version of the metric system for coinage. During the first administration of President Grover Cleveland he was appointed to the office of First Assistant Secretary of the Interior. He resigned in 1889 and resumed his law practice. In 1890 he was as delegate to Mississippi's state constitutional convention; being appointed chancellor of the first district of Mississippi in September 1899; serving until 1905. He died on March 1, 1905.
Legacy.
Muldrow, Oklahoma, is named after him.


Xaniopyramis

Xaniopyramis is an extinct genus of xiphosuran, related to the modern horseshoe crab. It lived in the early Carboniferous.


Muscular process of arytenoid cartilage

The lateral angle of the base of the arytenoid cartilage is short, rounded, and prominent; it projects backward and lateralward, and is termed the muscular process; it gives insertion to the posterior cricoarytenoid muscles behind, and to the lateral cricoarytenoid muscles in front.


Helicine arteries of penis

The helicine arteries of penis are arteries in the penis. They are found in the corpora cavernosa penis.
They are involved in the process of erection.
Anatomy.
On entering the cavernous structure from the deep artery of the penis the arteries divide into branches, which are supported and enclosed by the trabeculae. Some of these arteries end in a capillary net-work, the branches of which open directly into the cavernous spaces; others assume a tendril-like appearance, and form convoluted and somewhat dilated vessels, which were named by Rosenmüller "helicine arteries".
Clinical significance.
These arteries have two unique features: an intimal cushion and valves. Sympathetic stimulation maintains a tonic contractile state of the intimal cushion, smooth muscle lying in the center of the artery. This keeps the artery coiled and little blood flow occurs, instead routing to arteriovenous shunts to the deep dorsal vein. Parasympathetic stimulation removes the tonic state and allows vasodilation of the intimal cushion. Blood now pools in the corpora cavernosa, resulting in erection. The valves prevent backflow in the now-tortuous route through the cavernosa.
This parasympathetic relaxation response is mediated by a release of nitric oxide (NO). NO binds to the enzyme guanylate cyclase, which results in increased levels of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP). cGMP in turn triggers relaxation of the smooth muscle and results in dilation of blood vessels. This signal is terminated when cGMP is broken down by the enzyme cGMP specific phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5), the enzyme that is targeted by sildenafil and other drugs that treat erectile dysfunction. By preventing PDE5 from breaking down cGMP, the effects of NO are amplified and vasodilation occurs, thus resulting in increased penile erection.


Orthotheca

Orthotheca is a genus of sessile bottom-dwelling hyolith.


Briareum

Briareum is a genus of soft corals in the family Briareidae. The coral is cultivated by aquarium owners for its fluorescing polyps, which reveal themselves under actinic light. The genus is in need of extensive examination, as many specimens sold by marketers display unique and similar characteristics, but are often labeled as one species, "Pachyclavularia violacea".
Species.
The following species are recognized within the genus:


Guancha apicalis

Guancha apicalis was thought to be a species of calcareous sponge in the genus "Guancha" from Antarctica. It actually never existed.


Inferior laryngeal vein

The inferior laryngeal vein is a vein which drains the larynx. It runs parallel to the laryngeal arteries.


Lumbriculus illex

Lumbriculus illex is a fresh-water worm, the most recently described member of the genus (Timm & Rodriguez, 1994), and is known only from 3 individuals found in Komarovka stream, north of Vladivostok. In most regards, this species is probably similar to "Lumbriculus variegatus", but it can be told apart from this species by its one-pointed setae (other "Lumbriculus" have two-pointed setae). Its closest relative is probably "L. sachalinus" or "L. olgae". Mature Lumbriculus can also easily be told apart by a number of genital characters, but as few of the species in the genus ever become sexually mature, this method of identification is often useless.


Sycon ciliatum

Sycon ciliatum is a species of calcareous sponge belonging to the family Sycettidaephylum.
Description.
This small purse sponge grows singly or in small groups from a single holdfast. It is up to five centimetres long, fairly stiff, greyish-white and spindle-shaped. The osculum at the tip is fringed with fine spicules. The surface of the sponge appears furry from its covering of fine papillae. The skeleton consists of a tangential layer of triactines and another of tetractines. This species can be distinguished from the rather similar "Sycon raphanus" by the fact that the choanocyte chambers are not fused but are free from each other.
Distribution and habitat.
"Sycon ciliatum" is common along the coasts of Europe and occurs on the eastern fringes of the Atlantic Ocean from Scandinavia south to Portugal. It is found low down on the shore and in the neritic zone, amongst seaweed, under stones or in rock pools in areas without strong wave action.


The Rival Monster

The Rival Monster is a 1952 comedy novel by the British writer Compton Mackenzie. It includes characters from two earlier hit novels by Mackenzie "Whisky Galore" and "The Monarch of the Glen".
After the Loch Ness Monster is apparently killed in a collision with a flying saucer, a new monster is spotted at the remote island of Little Todday in the Outer Hebrides, leading to tourists to flock to the area.


Vestibular fold

The vestibular fold (ventricular fold, superior or false vocal cord) is one of two thick folds of mucous membrane, each enclosing a narrow band of fibrous tissue, the vestibular ligament, which is attached in front to the angle of the thyroid cartilage immediately below the attachment of the epiglottis, and behind to the antero-lateral surface of the arytenoid cartilage, a short distance above the vocal process.
The lower border of this ligament, enclosed in mucous membrane, forms a free crescentic margin, which constitutes the upper boundary of the ventricle of the larynx.
They are lined with respiratory epithelium, while true vocal cords have stratified squamous epithelium.
Function.
The vestibular folds of the larynx play a significant role in the maintenance of the laryngeal functions of breathing and preventing food and drink from entering the airway during swallowing. They aid phonation (speech) by suppressing dysphonia. In some ethnic singing and chanting styles, such as in Tuva, Sardinia, Mongolia, South Africa and Tibet(...) the vestibular folds may be used in co-oscillation with the vocal folds, producing very low or high pitched sounds(most of the time, one octave higher).
Conversely, people who have had their epiglottis removed because of cancer do not choke any more than when it was present.
Society and culture.
They have a minimal role in normal phonation, but are often used to produce deep sonorous tones in Tuvan throat singing, as well as in musical screaming and the death growl singing style used in various forms of metal. Simultaneous voicing with the vocal and vestibular folds is diplophonia. Some voice actors occasionally employ small amounts of this phonation for its dark, growling quality while portraying a "villainous" or antagonistic voice.


Clavipectoral fascia

The clavipectoral fascia (costocoracoid membrane; coracoclavicular fascia) is a strong fascia situated under cover of the clavicular portion of the pectoralis major.
It occupies the interval between the pectoralis minor and subclavius, and protects the axillary vein and artery, and axillary nerve.
Traced upward, it splits to enclose the subclavius, and its two layers are attached to the clavicle, one in front of and the other behind the muscle; the deep layer fuses with the deep cervical fascia and with the sheath of the axillary vessels.
Medially, it blends with the fascia covering the first two intercostal spaces, and is attached also to the first rib medial to the origin of the subclavius.
Laterally, it is very thick and dense, and is attached to the coracoid process.
The portion extending from the first rib to the coracoid process is often whiter and denser than the rest, and is sometimes called the costocoracoid membrane.
Below this it is thin, and at the upper border of the pectoralis minor it splits into two layers to invest the muscle; from the lower border of the pectoralis minor it is continued downward to join the axillary fascia, and lateralward to join the fascia over the short head of the biceps brachii.
The clavipectoral fascia is pierced by the cephalic vein, thoracoacromial artery and vein, lymphatics and lateral pectoral nerve.


Peripatus lachauxensis

Peripatus lachauxensis is a species of velvet worm in the Peripatidae family. The type locality is in Haiti.


Pandro S. Berman

Pandro Samuel Berman (March 28, 1905July 13, 1996), also known as Pan Berman, was an American film producer.
Early life.
Pandro Berman was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh in 1905. His father Henry Berman was general manager of Universal Pictures during Hollywood's formative years.
Career.
Pandro was an assistant director during the 1920s under Mal St. Clair and Ralph Ince. In 1930, Berman was hired as a film editor at RKO Radio Pictures, then became an assistant producer. When RKO supervising producer Henry Hobart walked out during production of the ill-fated "The Gay Diplomat" (1931), Berman took over Hobart's responsibilities, remaining in the post until 1939.
After David O. Selznick became chief of production at RKO in October 1931, Berman managed to survive Selznick's general firing of most of the staff. Selznick named Berman producer for the adaptation of Fannie Hurst's short story "Night Bell", a tale of a Jewish doctor's rise out of the Lower East Side ghetto to the height of becoming a Park Avenue physician, which Selznick personally retitled "Symphony of Six Million". He ordered Berman to have references to ethnic life in the Jewish ghetto restored. The movie was a box-office and critical success. Both Selznick and Berman were proud of the picture, with Berman later saying it was the "first good movie" he had produced.
The Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musicals were in production during the Berman regime, Katharine Hepburn rose to prominence, and such RKO classics as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Gunga Din" (both 1939) were completed.
His brother Henry, a film editor, became his assistant at RKO.
MGM.
Upset when an RKO power-play diminished his authority, Berman left for MGM in 1940, where he oversaw such productions as "Ziegfeld Girl" (1941), "National Velvet" (1944), "The Bribe" (1949), "Father of the Bride" (1950), "Blackboard Jungle" (1955) and "BUtterfield 8" (1960). His brother Henry also moved to MGM to continue to work with him.
He had a partnership with director Richard Thorpe in the 1950s, with whom he made several films, including "Ivanhoe" (1952), "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1952), "Knights of the Round Table" (1953), "All the Brothers Were Valiant" (1953) and "The Adventures of Quentin Durward" (1955).
He survived several executive shake-ups at MGM and remained there until 1963, then went into independent production, closing out his career with the unsuccessful "Move" (1970).
Awards.
Berman was the winner of the 1976 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. Six of his films were nominated for Academy Award for Best Picture: "The Gay Divorcee" (1934), "Alice Adams" and "Top Hat" (both 1935), "Stage Door" (1937), "Father of the Bride" (1950), and "Ivanhoe" (1952).
Personal life and death.
In 1937, Berman and his wife, Viola, hired architect Roland Coate to design a house for them in Beverly Hills, California. The sixteen-room, Cape Cod-inspired mansion cost $50,000 to build and included a screening room. Berman had three children with his first wife Viola - Susan Berman Moshay, Cynthia Berman Schaffel, and Michael Berman. His marriage to Viola ended in divorce. In 1960, Berman married Kathryn Hereford.
Berman died of congestive heart failure on July 13, 1996 in his Beverly Hills home, aged 91. He was buried at the Hillside Memorial Park, Culver City, California.


The Mysterious Monsters

The Mysterious Monsters (also known as Bigfoot: The Mysterious Monster) is a 1976 documentary film written and directed by Robert Guenette about the cryptids Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Yeti. It contained content from Guenette’s made-for-TV movie "Monsters! Mysteries or Myths?" that aired on CBS on November 25, 1974. This version had been produced by David L. Wolper in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution and was narrated by Rod Serling.
"The Mysterious Monsters" was one of the first theatrical releases produced by Sunn Classic Pictures. It was narrated by actor Peter Graves. The film investigated not only the possibility of Bigfoot's existence but also of the Loch Ness Monster and the Yeti (the Abominable Snowman). It featured dramatic reenactments of various reported Bigfoot sightings. The film showed one witness being given a lie detector test, another being placed under hypnosis. "The Mysterious Monsters" was the first movie to feature the home movie taken by Roger Patterson in 1967 reported to show a Bigfoot. Anthropologist Grover Krantz was interviewed and said he believed the film to be authentic. Famed Bigfoot hunter Peter Byrne was also featured and gave insights on the hunt. In discussing the Loch Ness Monster, the film showed a 1934 photograph that was said to be of the creature. In 1994, however, this photo was proven to be a hoax.
Robert and Frances Guenette are credited as the authors of a 160-page book adaption of the film.
The film was later featured in an episode of "Cinema Insomnia".
DVD release.
On September 22, 2009, Cheezy Flicks released the film on DVD. In 2010, Apprehensive Films made the "Cinema Insomnia" version available also on DVD. The DVD cover is a visual reference to the 1978 Marvel "Star Wars" comic "".


Somite

The somites (outdated term: primitive segments) are a set of bilaterally paired blocks of paraxial mesoderm that form in the embryonic stage of somitogenesis, along the head-to-tail axis in segmented animals. In vertebrates, somites subdivide into the sclerotomes, myotomes, syndetomes and dermatomes that give rise to the vertebrae of the vertebral column, rib cage and part of the occipital bone; skeletal muscle, cartilage, tendons, and skin (of the back).
The word "somite" is sometimes also used in place of the word "metamere". In this definition, the somite is a homologously-paired structure in an animal body plan, such as is visible in annelids and arthropods.
Development.
The mesoderm forms at the same time as the other two germ layers, the ectoderm and endoderm. The mesoderm at either side of the neural tube is called paraxial mesoderm. It is distinct from the mesoderm underneath the neural tube which is called the chordamesoderm that becomes the notochord. The paraxial mesoderm is initially called the “segmental plate” in the chick embryo or the “unsegmented mesoderm” in other vertebrates. As the primitive streak regresses and neural folds gather (to eventually become the neural tube), the paraxial mesoderm separates into blocks called somites.
Formation.
The pre-somitic mesoderm commits to the somitic fate before mesoderm becomes capable of forming somites. The cells within each somite are specified based on their location within the somite. Additionally, they retain the ability to become any kind of somite-derived structure until relatively late in the process of somitogenesis.
The development of the somites depends on a clock mechanism as described by the clock and wavefront model. In one description of the model, oscillating Notch and Wnt signals provide the clock. The wave is a gradient of the FGF protein that is rostral to caudal (nose to tail gradient). Somites form one after the other down the length of the embryo from the head to the tail, with each new somite forming on the caudal (tail) side of the previous one.
The timing of the interval is not universal. Different species have different interval timing. In the chick embryo somites are formed every 90 minutes. In the mouse the interval is variable.
For some species, the number of somites may be used to determine the stage of embryonic development more reliably than the number of hours post-fertilization because rate of development can be affected by temperature or other environmental factors. The somites appear on both sides of the neural tube simultaneously. Experimental manipulation of the developing somites will not alter the rostral/caudal orientation of the somites, as the cell fates have been determined prior to somitogenesis. Somite formation can be induced by "Noggin"-secreting cells. The number of somites is species dependent and independent of embryo size (for example, if modified via surgery or genetic engineering). Chicken embryos have 50 somites; mice have 65, while snakes have 500.
As cells within the paraxial mesoderm begin to come together, they are termed somitomeres, indicating a lack of complete separation between segments. The outer cells undergo a mesenchymal–epithelial transition to form an epithelium around each somite. The inner cells remain as mesenchyme.
"Notch" signalling.
The "Notch" system, as part of the clock and wavefront model, forms the boundaries of the somites. "DLL1" and "DLL3" are "Notch" ligands, mutations of which cause various defects. Notch regulates "HES1", which sets up the caudal half of the somite. "Notch" activation turns on "LFNG" which in turn inhibits the "Notch" receptor. "Notch" activation also turns on the "HES1 gene" which inactivates "LFNG", re-enabling the "Notch" receptor, and thus accounting for the oscillating clock model. "MESP2" induces the "EPHA4" gene, which causes repulsive interaction that separates somites by causing segmentation. "EPHA4" is restricted to the boundaries of somites. "EPHB2" is also important for boundaries.
Mesenchymal-epithelial transition.
Fibronectin and N-cadherin are key to the mesenchymal-epithelial transition process in the developing embryo. The process is probably regulated by paraxis and "MESP2". In turn, "MESP2" is regulated by "Notch" signaling. Paraxis is regulated by processes involving the cytoskeleton.
Specification.
The Hox genes specify somites as a whole based on their position along the anterior-posterior axis through specifying the pre-somitic mesoderm before somitogenesis occurs. After somites are made, their identity as a whole has already been determined, as is shown by the fact that transplantation of somites from one region to a completely different region results in the formation of structures usually observed in the original region. In contrast, the cells within each somite retain plasticity (the ability to form any kind of structure) until relatively late in somitic development.
Derivatives.
In the developing vertebrate embryo, somites split to form dermatomes, skeletal muscle (myotomes), tendons and cartilage (syndetomes) and bone (sclerotomes).
Because the sclerotome differentiates before the dermatome and the myotome, the term "dermomyotome" refers to the combined dermatome and myotome before they separate out.
Dermatome.
The dermatome is the dorsal portion of the paraxial mesoderm somite which gives rise to the skin (dermis). In the human embryo it arises in the third week of embryogenesis. It is formed when a dermamyotome (the remaining part of the somite left when the sclerotome migrates), splits to form the dermatome and the myotome. The dermatomes contribute to the skin, fat and connective tissue of the neck and of the trunk, though most of the skin is derived from lateral plate mesoderm.
Myotome.
The myotome is that part of a somite that forms the muscles of the animal. Each myotome divides into an epaxial part ("epimere"), at the back, and a hypaxial part ("hypomere") at the front. The myoblasts from the hypaxial division form the muscles of the thoracic and anterior abdominal walls. The epaxial muscle mass loses its segmental character to form the extensor muscles of the neck and trunk of mammals.
In fishes, salamanders, caecilians, and reptiles, the body musculature remains segmented as in the embryo, though it often becomes folded and overlapping, with epaxial and hypaxial masses divided into several distinct muscle groups.
Sclerotome.
The sclerotome forms the vertebrae and the rib cartilage and part of the occipital bone; the myotome forms the musculature of the back, the ribs and the limbs; the syndetome forms the tendons and the dermatome forms the skin on the back. In addition, the somites specify the migration paths of neural crest cells and the axons of spinal nerves. From their initial location within the somite, the sclerotome cells migrate medially towards the notochord. These cells meet the sclerotome cells from the other side to form the vertebral body. The lower half of one sclerotome fuses with the upper half of the adjacent one to form each vertebral body. From this vertebral body, sclerotome cells move dorsally and surround the developing spinal cord, forming the vertebral arch. Other cells move distally to the costal processes of thoracic vertebrae to form the ribs.
In arthropods.
In crustacean development, a somite is a segment of the hypothetical primitive crustacean body plan. In current crustaceans, several of those somites may be fused.


Hadranax

Hadranax augustus is a xenusiid lobopod known from the lower Cambrian Sirius Passet "Lagerstätte".


Eruciform

Eruciform (literally: "caterpillar-shaped") is the entomological term describing a certain class of shapes of insect larvae.
Origin and application.
The word "eruciform" literally means "caterpillar-shaped" (from Latin "eruca", a caterpillar — confusingly, in Latin "Eruca" also was used as the name for a rape-like plant, but that has no clear connection to the current context).
One should not take the "caterpillar-shaped" description too seriously; there are many shapes of caterpillars besides the typical silkworm larva, and insect larvae of many shapes, not obviously caterpillar-like, are described as eruciform. Some, for example, are in fact shaped like certain other, straight, eruciform larvae, except that they are curved into a C-shape. These are called "scarabaeiform" because it is the typical form of the larvae of the Scarabaeidae—the scarab beetles and their relatives. In contrast, larvae of the Curculionidae — the weevils — are also called "apodous eruciform", (literally meaning legless caterpillar-shaped; unlike scarab larvae, they do not have legs). This seems rather inconsistent, because commonly weevil larvae are almost as C-shaped as scarab larvae.
Variations and implications.
Some larvae, such as those of most beetles in the family Chrysomelidae, are described as eruciform, although they are short, have swollen abdomens, and have no true "prolegs" such as caterpillars have. Typically they walk freely on leaves and similar surfaces, using the "true" six legs on the three thoracic segments just behind the head. The abdomen is carried behind as a more or less swollen, hump-backed rear end.
In contrast, larvae of the Cerambycidae (Longhorn beetles) are generally straight and could fairly be described as "apodous eruciform". They live in tunnels, typically in wood, where a distended abdomen would be a liability and legs are not the only option for locomotion. Instead of using legs Cerambycid larvae press fleshy bulges against the walls of their tunnels.
Arguably the most typically eruciform larvae, prolegs and all, are to be found among the butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera), caddis larvae (Trichoptera), and sawflies (Symphyta)


Sphincter

A sphincter is a circular muscle that normally maintains constriction of a natural body passage or orifice and which relaxes as required by normal physiological functioning. Sphincters are found in many animals. There are over 60 types in the human body, some microscopically small, in particular the millions of precapillary sphincters. Sphincters relax at death, often releasing fluids and faeces.
Functions.
Sphincters control the passage of liquids, solids, and gases. This is evident, for example, in the blowholes of numerous marine mammals.
Many sphincters are used every day in the normal course of digestion. For example, the lower oesophageal sphincter (or cardiac sphincter), which resides at the top of the stomach, keep stomach acids and other stomach contents from pushing up and into the oesophagus. During contraction of sphincter/circular muscles, the lumen (opening) associated with the sphincter constricts (closes). This constriction is caused by the shortening of the sphincter muscle. Relaxation of a sphincter muscle causes it to lengthen, opening the lumen.
Classifications.
Sphincters can be further classified into functional and anatomical sphincters:
Sphincters can also be voluntarily or involuntarily controlled:


Orthis striatula

Orthis striatula is an extinct species of brachiopods. The fossils are present in the middle Devonian.


Indian Fantail

The Indian Fantail is a breed of fancy pigeon developed over many years of selective breeding. Indian Fantails, along with other varieties of domesticated pigeons are all descendants of the rock dove ("Columba livia").
Description.
The Indian Fantail pigeon is a breed of fancy pigeon; it originated in India.
They have a distinct fan shaped tail, and are bigger than the English Fantail pigeon. Indian Fantail pigeons are most commonly white with light tan spots, although breeders have introduced more new colours. Their feet are covered in feathers, and the birds walk on their toes. Their average weight is 13 ounces (369 g) and their average length is 11 inches (28 cm). The Indian fantail stands upright, unlike the english fantail whose chest is carried upright so that it is higher than the bird's head, which rests back on the cushion formed by the tail feathers.
Indian Fantail pigeons usually lay 2 or 3 eggs in a clutch. Hatched fledglings take at least 4 to 6 weeks to fly and leave their home. Usually a breeding pair can lay eggs around or after 21 days from the first hatch.


Amphidiscosida

Amphidiscosida is an order of hexactinellid sponges characterized by amphidisc spicules, that is, spicules having a stellate disk at each end. They are in the class Hexactinellida and are the only order classified in the monotypic subclass Amphidiscophora. Species of the order Amphidiscosida have existed since the Ordovician period, and still flourish today.


Corallium occultum

Corallium occultum, formerly "Corallium illiandinnum", is a species of coral in the family Coralliidae.


Chipmunk

Chipmunks are small, striped rodents of the family Sciuridae. Chipmunks are found in North America, with the exception of the Siberian chipmunk which is found primarily in Asia.
Taxonomy and systematics.
Chipmunks may be classified either as a single genus, "Tamias", or as three genera: "Tamias", of which the eastern chipmunk ("T. striatus") is the only living member; "Eutamias", of which the Siberian chipmunk ("E. sibiricus") is the only living member; and "Neotamias", which includes the 23 remaining, mostly western, species. These classifications were treated as subgenera due to the chipmunks' morphological similarities.
As a result, most taxonomies over the twentieth century have placed the chipmunks into a single genus. However, studies of mitochondrial DNA show that the divergence between each of the three chipmunk groups is comparable to the genetic differences between "Marmota" and "Spermophilus", so the three genera classifications have been adopted here.
The common name originally may have been spelled "chitmunk", from the native Odawa (Ottawa) word "jidmoonh", meaning "red squirrel" ("cf." Ojibwe, "ajidamoo"). The earliest form cited in the "Oxford English Dictionary" (from 1842) is "chipmonk", but "chipmunk" appears in several books from the 1820s and 1830s. Other early forms include "chipmuck" and "chipminck", and in the 1830s they were also referred to as "chip squirrels", probably in reference to the sound they make. In the mid-19th century, John James Audubon and his sons included a lithograph of the chipmunk in their "Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America", calling it the "chipping squirrel [or] hackee". Chipmunks have also been referred to as "striped squirrels", "timber tigers", "minibears", and "ground squirrels" (although the name "ground squirrel" usually refers to other squirrels, such as those of the genus "Spermophilus").
Diet.
Chipmunks have an omnivorous diet primarily consisting of seeds, nuts and other fruits, and buds. They also commonly eat grass, shoots, and many other forms of plant matter, as well as fungi, insects and other arthropods, small frogs, worms, and bird eggs. They will also occasionally eat newly hatched baby birds. Around humans, chipmunks can eat cultivated grains and vegetables, and other plants from farms and gardens, so they are sometimes considered pests. Chipmunks mostly forage on the ground, but they climb trees to obtain nuts such as hazelnuts and acorns. At the beginning of autumn, many species of chipmunk begin to stockpile nonperishable foods for winter. They mostly cache their foods in a larder in their burrows and remain in their nests until spring, unlike some other species which make multiple small caches of food. Cheek pouches allow chipmunks to carry food items to their burrows for either storage or consumption.
Ecology and life history.
Eastern chipmunks mate in early spring and again in early summer, producing litters of four or five young twice each year. Western chipmunks breed only once a year. The young emerge from the burrow after about six weeks and strike out on their own within the next two weeks.
These small mammals fulfill several important functions in forest ecosystems. Their activities harvesting and hoarding tree seeds play a crucial role in seedling establishment. They consume many different kinds of fungi, including those involved in symbiotic mycorrhizal associations with trees, and are an important vector for dispersal of the spores of subterranean sporocarps (truffles) which have co-evolved with these and other mycophagous mammals and thus lost the ability to disperse their spores through the air.
Chipmunks construct extensive burrows which can be more than in length with several well-concealed entrances. The sleeping quarters are kept clear of shells, and feces are stored in refuse tunnels.
The eastern chipmunk hibernates in the winter, while western chipmunks do not, relying on the stores in their burrows.
Chipmunks play an important role as prey for various predatory mammals and birds but are also opportunistic predators themselves, particularly with regard to bird eggs and nestlings, as in the case of eastern chipmunks and mountain bluebirds ("Siala currucoides").
Chipmunks typically live about three years although some have been observed living to nine years in captivity.
Chipmunks are diurnal. In captivity, they are said to sleep for an average of about 15 hours a day. It is thought that mammals which can sleep in hiding, such as rodents and bats, tend to sleep longer than those that must remain on alert.
Genera.
Genus "Eutamias"
Genus "Tamias"
Genus "Neotamias", sometimes considered subgenus


Cryptophragmus

Cryptophragmus is an extinct genus of sponges in the extinct family Aulaceratidae. Species are from the Ordovician of Australia, Canada (Ontario), China and the United States (Georgia, Virginia).


Psiloteredo megotara

Psiloteredo megotara is a species of saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusc in the family "Teredinidae", the shipworms.
Distribution.
North Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea.


Seisonidae

Seisonidae is a family of rotifers, found on the gills of "Nebalia", a marine crustacean. Peculiar among rotifers, males and females are both present and equal in size. Males and females are similar with paired gonads. It is considered to have diverged from the other rotifers early on, and in one treatment is placed in a separate class Seisonoidea. They have a large and elongate body with reduced corona.
Their muscular system is similar to that of other rotifers: They have longitudinal muscles as well as open annular muscles.
Species.
Two genera with total three species belong to Seisonidae:


Eunoe tuerkayi

Eunoe tuerkayi is a scale worm described from the Mediterranean Sea at depths of about 30m.
Description.
Number of segments 40; elytra 15 pairs. Prostomium anterior margin comprising a pair of acute anterior projections. Lateral antennae inserted ventrally (beneath prostomium and median antenna). Elytra marginal fringe of papillae present. Notochaetae distinctly thicker than neurochaetae. Bidentate neurochaetae absent.


Pharidae

Pharidae is a taxonomic family of saltwater clams, marine bivalve molluscs in the order Adapedonta. This family of clams is related to the razor shells (Solenidae), a family which is considered to include Pharidae by some authorities.
Genera.
Genera within the family Pharidae include:


Expedition Everest

Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain is a steel roller coaster built by Vekoma at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The ride is themed around the Yeti protecting the Forbidden Mountain next to Mount Everest. It is the fastest roller coaster at Disney's Animal Kingdom, the tallest roller coaster at any Disney theme park. The 2011 edition of Guinness World Records lists Expedition Everest as the most expensive roller coaster in the world. Including sets and extras, its total cost was reported to be US$100 million for six years of planning and construction. It held this record up until 2019 when the $300M Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure opened at Universal's Islands of Adventure. It is the tallest artificial mountain in all of the Walt Disney Parks, and Disney's 18th mountain-themed attraction.
History.
The attraction was announced publicly on April 22, 2003, during an event to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Disney's Animal Kingdom. Its construction took three years and required more than of rebar; 5,000 tons of structural steel; and 10,000 tons of concrete. Expedition Everest opened for previews on January 26, 2006, and had its grand opening on April 7, 2006, in ceremonies led by Disney CEO Bob Iger and theme parks chairman Jay Rasulo. At , it is the tallest attraction at Walt Disney World, beating "The Twilight Zone" Tower of Terror by . Disney keeps all of its attraction buildings under because aviation laws require structures of that height and taller to have a blinking red light beacons for low-flying aircraft, which would take away the theming in their attraction.
Ride experience.
Queue.
The attraction features a stand-by, Fastpass+, and a single-rider line. The queue starts at the office of the fictional "Himalayan Escapes" travel agency, progressing to a replica temple with little holy figures. Visitors next enter a tea garden, followed by a room with equipment from a successful expedition, and then the "Yeti Museum", which contains information on the Yeti and a moulding of a Yeti footprint. There are also about 8,000 artifacts brought from the Nepal trip in the museum. The single-rider line skips all of the exhibits.
Ride.
The riders board the roller coaster in the model village of Serka Zong, to begin a speedy route through the Himalayas to the base of Mount Everest.
The train departs the station to the right and climbs a small lift leading to a short drop, then circles around to the lift hill, carrying the riders into the mountain. On the way up it passes through a ransacked temple with murals of the yeti, warning the riders that the mountain is his territory. At the top of the mountain the train curves around the main peak and goes through a cave. When it emerges, it draws to a halt in front of track that has been torn apart, presumably by the yeti. The train itself is held in place by a series of rubber tires while an automatic switch rotates the piece of track directly behind the train. The train then rolls backwards along a new route that spirals down through the mountain. It eventually comes to a halt in a large cave, where riders see the yeti's shadow on the wall as he tears up more track. This effect distracts riders from noticing another automatic track switch in front of them. As the shadow moves away, the train rolls forward out of the mountain and down the main drop. It enters a 250° turn and speeds back up through another cave in the mountain, where the roars of the yeti are heard once more. The train exits from the rear of the mountain and enters a large helix before being lifted back into the mountain a final time. The train drops through a cave, where the yeti is reaching down toward it. On reaching the bottom of this drop, riders return to the unloading dock and depart into a gift shop. The ride lasts 2 minutes and 50 seconds.
Trains.
Expedition Everest has six steam-like trains, each with six cars. Each train has 17 rows seating two abreast, for a total of 34 riders per train. The trains are themed as the "Anandapur Rail Service" and are made to look old and rusty. Riders must be at least tall and are secured by a lap bar. The "locomotive" itself is designed to resemble a vertical boiler configuration and is placed at the rear of the train rather than the front, so not to obstruct the riders' view. Up to five trains usually operate at once, but fewer can be used if guest demand is low. To create the illusion of a "steam powered" train, engineers placed vents under the station. When a train comes into the station, steam comes up through the vents and enters the loading platform.
Track.
The steel track is long and the lift is about high. Expedition Everest is the first ride to use Vekoma's newest track system, which places the rails on the outside of the ties rather than on the inside. This was the first large-scale installation of such a system.
Facts and details.
Although moderate in height and length by contemporary standards, Expedition Everest was the first ride for Disney to have its trains travel both forward and backward. This is accomplished through two sets of track switches, one before the rear segment and one after. This was the second Disney roller coaster to run backwards, the first being Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril: Backwards! at Disneyland Resort Paris (2000–2004). Expedition Everest, however, was the first Disney roller coaster to switch between forward and backward sections during the same ride.
The mountain façade, the Yeti audio-animatronic, and the roller coaster are three independent structures. Each structure reaches the ground-level and does not touch the other two structures. This was achieved via a 4-D scheduling software that provided the exact details on how to construct it.
The Mountain.
Expedition Everest is often compared to the 1959 Matterhorn Bobsleds roller coaster at Disneyland, which also features a snowy mountain setting and an "abominable snowman" figure throughout the ride. Expedition Everest's mountain is made from 1,800 tons of steel and painted with 2,000 gallons of paint. It is the tallest artificial mountain in the world, but not, as occasionally cited, the tallest point in Florida. It is Disney's 18th mountain-themed attraction.
The artificial mountain is not a model of Mount Everest, but rather of the fictional "forbidden mountain" guarded by the yeti in the story created for the attraction by Walt Disney Imagineering. Everest is represented by the barren background peak on the far right, which is made to seem far in the distance (an example of forced perspective).
The Yeti.
The yeti is the largest and most complex audio-animatronic figure ever built by Walt Disney Imagineering. It is tall. Its "skin" measures , and is held in place by 1,000 snaps and 250 zippers. Its movement is controlled by 19 actuators when functioning in "A-mode", its full mode of operation. In "A-mode," it can move horizontally and vertically. The yeti's roars are provided by voice actor Fred Tatasciore, famous for his work as the Hulk in numerous animated shows and films.
A few months after the ride opened in 2006, the yeti figure's framing split, threatening catastrophic malfunction if it were to be operated further in "A-mode". Since then it has been operated only in the alternative "B-mode", in which a strobe-light effect is used to give the appearance of movement, earning it the nickname "Disco Yeti" from some fans. It is speculated that the problem was caused by damage to the yeti's concrete base structure, which is unlikely to be repaired until a major refurbishment in the distant future, because the design limits access to the yeti without major disassembly of the superstructure. The problem with the concrete is rumored to have occurred due to a glitch in the 4-D scheduling software that prevented adequate curing of a portion of the Yeti's foundation before the fabrication of mountain elements and roller coaster track.
Joe Rohde, the Imagineer in charge of building the attraction and Animal Kingdom, was asked about the yeti at the 2013 D23 Expo. Rohde responded, "You have to understand, it's a giant complicated machine sitting on top of, like, a 46-foot tall tower in the middle of a finished building. So, it's really hard to fix, but we are working on it. And we continue to work on it. We have tried several 'things', none of them quite get to the key, turning of the 40-foot tower inside of a finished building, but we are working on it... I will fix the Yeti someday, I swear."
Promotions.
Discovery Networks.
In 2005, Disney, Discovery Networks, and Conservation International conducted expeditions to Nepal as part of the promotion for Expedition Everest. The purpose was to conduct scientific and cultural research in remote areas of the Himalayas, the location of the yeti legend. Participants included Joe Rohde from Walt Disney Imagineering and scientists from Conservation International and Disney's Animal Kingdom.
The expeditions and the making of the attraction were chronicled in three documentaries broadcast on Discovery's cable television channels in April 2006. The first was "Expedition Everest: Journey to Sacred Lands", broadcast on the Travel Channel on April 9 to coincide with the attraction's grand opening. The second, "Building A Thrill Ride: Expedition Everest", was aired on April 10 on the Science Channel and on April 12 on the Discovery Channel. It detailed the planning and construction of the ride, along with some of the ideas that made it possible. (During construction, for example, instead of traditional scaffolding the Imagineers used interior poles that poked through the outside of the mountain and were connected by wooden platforms.) This documentary also featured survival tips from Les Stroud. The third, "Corwin's Quest: Realm of the Yeti", was broadcast on Animal Planet on April 15 and featured American animal and nature conservationist Jeff Corwin.
Everest in the City.
On February 15, 2006, Disney staged an elaborate publicity stunt called "Everest in the City" in New York City's Times Square. They draped large billboards over the sides of several buildings, depicting Everest with a coaster car careening down the mountainside and the yeti looking on from another peak, its eyes glowing red and flashing when the text message "Disney” was sent to “4Yeti” as provided by Disney.
Awards and records.
The 2011 book of Guinness World Records lists Expedition Everest as the most expensive roller coaster in the world. Including sets and extras, the total cost of the ride was reported to be US$100 million over six years of planning and construction. In 2019, this record was surpassed by Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at $300m.
Expedition Everest won the 2006 Theme Park Insider Award for the "World's Best New Theme Park Attraction". It has also been ranked in the Golden Ticket Awards and the Best Roller Coaster Poll. It was ranked 2nd for "Best New Ride For 2006" in the Golden Ticket Awards.


Faint little ball

Faint little ball (flb) is a "Drosophila" gene that encodes the "Drosophila" epidermal growth factor receptor (DER) homolog. The gene is also called "torpedo" and "Ellipse". The gene is located at 3-26 of the "Drosophila melanogaster" genome. It is named "faint little ball" because when the gene is mutated the embryo forms a ball of dorsal hypoderm. "flb" is necessary for several processes to occur during embryonic development, specifically in central nervous system development. It is expressed as quickly as 4 hours after fertilization of the egg. The peak of expression of the "flb" gene is between 4–8 hours into development. In all processes that are facilitated by "flb" the same signal transduction pathway is used. "Drosophila" EGF receptor is involved in the development of embryos as well as larvae/pupae's wings, eyes, legs and ovaries.
Interactions.
Whether looking at development in embryos or larvae/pupae, DER relies on several ligands to carry out its function. These are called SPITZ, ARGOS and Gurken. The efficiency of DER corresponds with the sum of these three ligands. As of yet the exact purpose of these ligands in the pathway of DER is unknown, but when expression of these ligands is altered from normal, aberrant phenotypes of the embryos can be observed. When DER is over utilized in the cell because of increases in ligand, phenotypic abnormalities can be visualized such as hyperplasia of the head midline structures. The "flb" gene also has interactions with the proteins Rhomboid and Star. Rhomboid is a protease that cleaves ligands such as Spitz so that they can come into contact with receptors such as DER and begin activate a signal trasduction pathway.
Function.
Expression of the "flb" gene can be seen as early as four hours into the development of "Drosophila melanogaster". At four hours the gene is facilitating the retraction of the germ band as well as structuring the beginnings of the CNS. At six hours the gene is used to differentiate epidermal cells to secrete denticle belts which begin segmentation of the larva. At nine hours the gene is used for the differentiation of midline glial cells. When this gene is mutated or any of its interactions are altered phenotypes such as fused commissures can be seen as a result of improper segregation.
Mutation.
When the "flb" gene is mutated, several phenotypic abnormalities during development can be viewed. The first is that the embryo will form a ball of dorsal hypoderm. This is because "flb" is responsible for the formation of the ventral cuticle. Without the complete formation of the ventral cuticle only dorsal structures will be present. Since "flb" plays a role in the formation of the CNS and the eye, head structures will be underdeveloped or not present at all. Another function of the gene is to retract the germ band. This will not occur if the "flb" is mutated. There are other hypomorphic alleles that also contribute to the retraction of the germ-band, which allow for a spectrum of severity in the phenotype of embryos but they will not recover the Wild Type phenotype completely. This gene is necessary for the development of embryos and if it is not expressed in the appropriate way, it is lethal to the embryo.