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Cyathus is a genus of fungi in the Nidulariaceae, a family collectively known as the bird's nest fungi. They are given this name since they resemble tiny bird's nests filled with "eggs", structures large enough to have been mistaken in the past for seeds. However, these are now known to be reproductive structures containing spores. The "eggs", or peridioles, are firmly attached to the inner surface of this fruit body by an elastic cord of mycelia known as a funiculus. The 45 species are widely distributed throughout the world and some are found in most countries, although a few exist in only one or two locales. Cyathus stercoreus is considered endangered in a number of European countries. Species of Cyathus are also known as splash cups, which refers to the fact that falling raindrops can knock the peridioles out of the open-cup fruit body. The internal and external surfaces of this cup may be ridged longitudinally (referred to as plicate or striate); this is one example of a taxonomic characteristic that has traditionally served to distinguish between species.
Generally considered inedible, Cyathus species are saprobic, since they obtain nutrients from decomposing organic matter. They usually grow on decaying wood or woody debris, on cow and horse dung, or directly on humus-rich soil. The life cycle of this genus allows it to reproduce both sexually, with meiosis, and asexually via spores. Several Cyathus species produce bioactive compounds, some with medicinal properties, and several lignin-degrading enzymes from the genus may be useful in bioremediation and agriculture. Phylogenetic analysis is providing new insights into the evolutionary relationships between the various species in Cyathus, and has cast doubt on the validity of the older classification systems that are based on traditional taxonomic characteristics
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Li Rui (simplified Chinese: 李锐; traditional Chinese: 李銳; pinyin: Lǐ Ruì; April 13, 1917 – February 16, 2019) was a Chinese politician, historian and dissident Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member.
As a young student activist, Li joined the communists in 1937 during the Chinese Civil War. By 1958, he had become the vice-minister of the Ministry of Water Resources. His vocal opposition to the proposed Three Gorges Dam brought him to the attention of the Chairman of the CCP, Mao Zedong. Li impressed Mao, who made him his personal secretary for industrial affairs. However, Li was known for his independence of thought, and defied Mao at the 1959 Lushan Conference. Li was expelled from the party and sent to a prison camp, beginning nearly twenty years of political exile. Denounced by his family for anti-Mao activities during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, he spent eight years in solitary confinement at the Qincheng Prison.
After Mao's death, Li's party membership was restored. He regained an influential position in the CCP but, after only a few years, was forced to resign because he was unwilling to give preference to the children of influential party members. From the mid-1980s, shut out of formal power, Li wrote and commentated extensively, calling for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and democracy within a socialist framework. He also wrote five books on Mao and early Communist Party history. Li remained a party member until his death, respected but isolated; his views were formally denounced and he was censored in the Chinese press. Li died in 2019, aged 101. He was described by The Guardian in 2005 as living a life "filled with rebellions, often at great personal cost, against those who abused their power."[1]
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Albert Levitt (March 14, 1887 – June 18, 1968) was an American judge, law professor, Unitarian minister, attorney and government official. He unsuccessfully ran many times for public office in Connecticut, California and New Hampshire, generally receiving only a small percentage of the vote. While a judge of the District Court of the Virgin Islands in 1935, he ordered that women there must be allowed to register and vote.
Born in Maryland, Levitt joined the U.S. Army at age 17. He then went to seminary and spent several years as a student, eventually gaining degrees from three Ivy League universities. After World War I broke out, he twice served—once in the ambulance corps for the French, and once as a chaplain in the U.S. Army. In the latter capacity, he was wounded and gassed.
After the war, Levitt became a lawyer. While at Harvard Law School, he was instrumental in the drafting of the Equal Rights Amendment. He then began a series of short-term positions teaching law. Eventually, he settled with his wife, the suffragist Elsie Hill, in Connecticut, and involved himself in politics. Though he was never elected to office, the small faction he led affected the outcome in several races, helping to elect Democrat Wilbur Cross as governor in 1930, and helping to defeat him in 1938. In general, his actions aided the Democrats against the Republicans, and he was rewarded for this with a position in the Justice Department under Franklin Delano Roosevelt beginning in 1933. Attorney General Homer Cummings appointed him a judge in 1935, and arranged for him to resume his work at the Justice Department after he resigned from that position the following year. He publicly broke with the Roosevelt administration in 1937, and lost his government job.
After leaving the Justice Department, Levitt challenged the appointment of Hugo Black to the United States Supreme Court under the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution; in its decision, Ex parte Levitt, the court refused to consider his claims, stating that he lacked legal standing to bring them to court. In the early 1940s, he moved to California, and began to run as a fringe candidate in Republican primaries, including in the 1950 United States Senate election in California, finishing sixth out of six, behind the winner, Richard Nixon. He also formed the belief that the Roman Catholic Church was a great danger to American democracy and, in his campaigns, warned against its influence. He died in 1968.
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Gather Together in My Name (1974) is a memoir by American writer and poet Maya Angelou. It is the second book in Angelou's series of seven autobiographies. The book begins immediately following the events described in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and follows Angelou, called Rita, from the ages of 17 to 19. Written three years after Caged Bird, the book "depicts a single mother's slide down the social ladder into poverty and crime".[1] The title of the book is taken from the Bible, but it also conveys how one Black female lived in the white-dominated society of the U.S. following World War II.
Angelou expands upon many themes that she started discussing in her first autobiography, including motherhood and family, racism, identity, education and literacy. Rita becomes closer to her mother in this book, and goes through a variety of jobs and relationships as she tries to provide for her young son and find her place in the world. Angelou continues to discuss racism in Gather Together, but moves from speaking for all Black women to describing how one young woman dealt with it. The book exhibits the narcissism of young people, but describes how Rita discovers her identity. Like many of Angelou's autobiographies, Gather Together is concerned with Angelou's on-going self-education.
Gather Together was not as critically acclaimed as Angelou's first autobiography, but received mostly positive reviews and was recognized as being better written than its predecessor. The book's structure, consisting of a series of episodes tied together by theme and content, parallels the chaos of adolescence, which some critics feel makes it an unsatisfactory sequel to Caged Bird. Rita's many physical movements throughout the book, which affects the book's organization and quality, has caused at least one critic to call it a travel narrative.
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The North East Line (NEL) is a high-capacity Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line in Singapore. Operated by SBS Transit, the 20-kilometre (12 mi) line is the MRT's shortest.[b] It runs from HarbourFront station in southern Singapore to Punggol station in the northeast, serving 16 stations via Chinatown, Little India, Serangoon and Hougang. Coloured purple on official maps, it is Singapore's third MRT line and the world’s first fully-automated underground driverless heavy rail line.
The NEL was planned during the 1980s to alleviate traffic congestion on roads leading to the northeast suburbs of the country. However, the project was deemed inconsequential for a few years due to the lack of demand at the time. After the government's decision to eventually go ahead with the project, its alignment and stations were finalised in 1996 and construction began the year after. Completed at a cost of S$5 billion, the line began operations on 20 June 2003. Two mid-line stations initially did not open with the rest of the line; Buangkok station opened on 15 January 2006, and Woodleigh station began operations on 20 June 2011. A one-station extension to Punggol Coast station, under construction, is expected to be completed in 2024.
The driverless line uses the moving-block Alstom Urbalis 300 CBTC signalling system. Alstom rolling stock – C751A and C751C – runs on the NEL, which is powered by an overhead line. The NEL is Singapore's first Art-in-Transit line, with 18 artworks displayed across its 16 stations. The stations are wheelchair-accessible, and most of them are Civil Defence shelters designed to withstand airstrikes and chemical attacks.
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The Battle of Lake Trasimene was fought when a Carthaginian force under Hannibal ambushed a Roman army commanded by Gaius Flaminius on 21 June 217 BC, during the Second Punic War. The battle took place on the north shore of Lake Trasimene, to the south of Cortona, and resulted in a heavy defeat for the Romans. War had broken out between Rome and Carthage early in 218 BC. Hannibal, ruler of the Carthaginian territories in south-east Iberia, marched an army through Gaul, crossed the Alps and arrived in Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) later that year. The Romans rushed reinforcements north from Sicily but were badly defeated at the Battle of the Trebia.
The following spring the Romans positioned an army on each side of the Appenine Mountains, but were surprised when a Carthaginian army more than 50,000 strong crossed the range by a difficult but unguarded route. The Carthaginians moved south into Etruria, plundering, razing the villages and killing all adult males encountered. Flaminius, in charge of the nearest Roman army, set off in pursuit. Hannibal arranged an ambush on the north shore of Lake Trasimene and trapped the Romans. With the Carthaginians attacking unexpectedly from the flank and the rear, possibly in poor visibility, there was no chance for the Romans to form even a rudimentary fighting line and they were defeated after three hours hard fighting. The trap failed to close on the 6,000 Romans at the front of the column, who escaped; later in the day they were surrounded by pursuing Carthaginians and surrendered. Thus all 25,000 Romans in Flaminius's army were killed or captured. This destruction of an entire army as a result of an ambush by another army is widely considered a unique occurrence. Several days later the Carthaginians wiped out the entire cavalry force of the second Roman army, who were not yet aware of the earlier disaster.
The Carthaginians then marched towards southern Italy in the hope of winning over some of the ethnic Greek and Italic city-states. News of the defeat caused a panic in Rome and led to the election of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus as dictator. Impatient with his Fabian strategy of avoiding major battles, the next year the Romans elected Lucius Paullus and Gaius Varro as consuls. These more aggressive commanders engaged Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, resulting in a third and even worse disaster for Rome; it was followed by thirteen more years of war.
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Cerro Tuzgle (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈse.ro ˈtus.ɡle]) is a dormant stratovolcano in the Susques Department of Jujuy Province in northwestern Argentina. Tuzgle is a prominent volcano of the back arc of the Andes and lies about 280 kilometres (170 mi) east of the main volcanic arc. Part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, its summit is 5,486 metres (17,999 ft) above sea level and it grew during different stages over a caldera and lava domes. Some major lava flows emanate from the summit crater, and one confirmed and one possible flank collapse unit as well as an ignimbrite sheet are associated with Tuzgle.
The first volcanic activity at Tuzgle occurred 650,000 years ago and formed the Tuzgle Ignimbrite. Subsequently, lava domes and several lava flows were erupted; scientists have proposed two different schemes of naming the units. The most recent lava flows are dated at 300,000 years ago and volcanic activity may have continued into the Holocene.[a] Several thermal springs are associated with the volcano, and some have been investigated for possible geothermal energy production. Sulfur was formerly mined on the mountain.
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Banksia grossa is a species of shrub in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to Southwest Australia. It is one of fourteen species of banksia of the series Abietinae, all of which bear predominantly cylindrical or oval inflorescences. Collected in 1965, it was first formally described in 1981 by Alex George. Its thick leaves and large seeds distinguish it from other members of the Abietinae, and are the basis of its species name.
Found in sand or sand over laterite among heath between Eneabba and Badgingarra in Western Australia, it grows as a many-stemmed shrub to 1 m (3.3 ft) high with narrow leaves and oval brownish flower spikes up to 10 cm (4 in) high, composed of hundreds of individual flowers. Flowering occurs throughout the cooler months of March to September. Flower spikes develop woody follicles which bear the seeds. After bushfire, Banksia grossa regenerates from its woody lignotuber; bushfires also stimulate the release of seeds, which germinate after disturbance. Visitors to (and likely pollinators of) inflorescences include insects and a nocturnal mammal, the white-tailed dunnart.
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The Goodwin Fire was a wildfire that burned 28,516 acres (115.40 km2) in the U.S. state of Arizona over 16 days, from June 24 to July 10, 2017. The fire destroyed 17 homes and damaged another 19 structures, but it did not injure or kill any firefighters or civilians. Investigators did not determine any particular cause for the fire.
The fire was first detected on June 24, 2017, by a two-man fire patrol that spotted smoke in the Bradshaw Mountains near Prescott, Arizona. Benefiting from undisturbed chaparral and high winds, the fire spread rapidly and forced the evacuation of several townships within Yavapai County and the closure of Arizona State Route 69. Despite firefighting aircraft being twice grounded by civilian drones operating in the burn area, firefighters made rapid progress containing the fire's spread after June 28. The fire was fully contained on July 10 and had lasting environmental consequences.
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Panagiotis Kavvadias or Cawadias[a] (Greek: Παναγιώτης Καββαδίας) (14 May [O.S. 2 May] 1850 – 20 July 1928)[b] was a Greek archaeologist. He was responsible for the excavation of ancient sites in Greece, including Epidaurus in Argolis and the Acropolis of Athens, as well as archaeological discoveries on his native island of Kephallonia. As Ephor General (the head of the Greek Archaeological Service) from 1885 until 1909, Kavvadias oversaw the expansion of the Archaeological Service and the introduction of Law 2646 of 1899, which increased the state's powers to address the illegal excavation and smuggling of antiquities.
Kavvadias's work had a particular impact on the Acropolis of Athens; he has been credited with completing its "transformation ... from castle to monument".[3] Between 1885 and 1890, he removed almost all of the Acropolis' remaining medieval and modern structures, uncovering many ancient monuments. He also played a role in the extensive reconstruction of the site by the architect and engineer Nikolaos Balanos. Though praised initially, the work caused considerable damage to several temples and was almost completely deconstructed and rebuilt during the later 20th and early 21st centuries. Kavvadias oversaw the opening of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, organised its first collections, and wrote some of its first catalogues.
As an administrator, Kavvadias was regarded as energetic, centralising and autocratic. His career saw significant modernisation in the practice of archaeology in Greece, and he reformed and professionalised the Archaeological Service. His patronage of Athens's foreign archaeological schools was credited with promoting the development of Greek archaeology, but was also criticised by native Greek archaeologists. He created further discontent among the Archaeological Society of Athens by reducing its role in favour of the governmental Archaeological Service. After the Goudi coup of 1909, dissatisfaction in the Greek press and among his subordinates in the Archaeological Service led to his removal from office, from the Archaeological Society and from his professorship at the University of Athens, though he was able to return to public and academic life from 1912, and remained active in Greek archaeology until his death in 1928.
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