title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: Camilla Long of "The Times" wrote that the film's "story has been told countless times, against countless backdrops", and that the film is not "relevant" to a predominantly "straight, white, middle class" audience. Catherine Shoard, however, pointed out that "critics' opinions are subjective, and are supposed to be," but also noted her dismay for Long's "struggle to feel for those who aren't like you." Moreover, David McAlmont referred to Long's review as "not a review ... [but] a waspish response to other reviews."


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" included "Moonlight" in his list of the best 27 films of the decade.


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: On a list of top ten lists of the decade on Metacritic, it was tied for most second most number ones and second on overall mentions of lists of top ten films of the decade.


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: The website "They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?" lists "Moonlight" as the 22nd most acclaimed film of the 21st century.


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: "Moonlight" was listed on over 180 critics' top-ten lists for 2016, including 65 first-place rankings and 33 second-place rankings.


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: IndieWire writers ranked "Moonlight" as the 16th best American screenplay of the 21st century, stating that Jenkins and McCraney "dig deep into three brief moments and ask the audience to make connections [...] the bold and risky choices of the "Moonlight" screenplay pay off in ways that make this masterpiece only improve with time and repeat viewings."


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: At the 74th Golden Globe Awards, "Moonlight" received six nominations, the second highest of all film nominees. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, with additional nominations for five more: Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (for Ali), Best Supporting Actress (for Harris), Best Screenplay (for Jenkins) and Best Original Score (for Britell).


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: "Moonlight" received four nominations at the 70th British Academy Film Awards: Best Film, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Original Screenplay.


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: "Moonlight" received eight nominations at the 89th Academy Awards, the second highest of all nominees, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (for Ali), Best Supporting Actress (for Harris) and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film won three awards: for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. At the ceremony, presenter Faye Dunaway read "La La Land" as the winner of Best Picture. Co-presenter Warren Beatty subsequently stated that he had been mistakenly given the duplicate envelope for the Best Actress award, which Emma Stone had won for her role in "La La Land" several minutes earlier. When the mistake was realized, "La La Land" producer Jordan Horowitz came forward to announce "Moonlight" as the actual winner. The Best Picture envelope is on display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Beatty wrote a congratulatory note to Jenkins, which is also on display at the Academy Museum.


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: During his keynote presentation at the 2018 SXSW Festival, Jenkins read the acceptance speech he had prepared in the event of "Moonlight" winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards. He had been unable to deliver the intended speech at the ceremony due to the confusion over "La La Land" being mistakenly announced as the winner.


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: Because the film's screenplay was based on a play that had not been previously produced or published, different awards had different rules as to whether "Moonlight" qualified in the original or adapted screenplay categories. It was classified as an original screenplay by both the Writers Guild of America Awards and the BAFTAs, but was ruled an adapted screenplay according to Academy Award rules.


title: Moonlight (2016 film)

text: Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon were nominated for Best Film Editing, making McMillon the first black woman to earn an Academy Award nomination in film editing. It is also the first LGBTQ film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Erica Abi Wright (born February 26, 1971), known professionally as Erykah Badu (), is an American singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. Influenced by R&B, soul, and hip hop, Badu rose to prominence in the late 1990s when her debut album "Baduizm" (1997), placed her at the forefront of the neo soul movement, earning her the honorific nickname "Queen of Neo Soul" by music critics.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu's career began after she opened a show for D'Angelo in 1994 in Fort Worth; leading to record label executive Kedar Massenburg signing her to Kedar Entertainment. Her first album, "Baduizm", was released in February 1997. It spawned four singles: "On & On", "Appletree", "Next Lifetime" and "Otherside of the Game". The album was certified triple Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Her first live album, "Live", was released in November 1997 and was certified double Platinum by the RIAA.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Her second studio album, "Mama's Gun", was released in 2000. It spawned three singles: "Bag Lady", which became her first top 10 single on the "Billboard" Hot 100 peaking at #6, "Didn't Cha Know?" and "Cleva". The album was certified Platinum by the RIAA. Badu's third album, "Worldwide Underground", was released in 2003. It generated three singles: "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)", "Danger" and "Back in the Day (Puff)" with 'Love' becoming her second song to reach the top 10 of the "Billboard" Hot 100, peaking at #9. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA. Badu's fourth album, "New Amerykah Part One", was released in 2008. It spawned two singles: "Honey" and "Soldier". "New Amerykah Part Two" was released in 2010 and fared well both critically and commercially. It contained the album's lead single "Window Seat", which led to controversy.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu's voice has been compared to jazz singer Billie Holiday. Early in her career, Badu was recognizable for her eccentric style, which often included wearing very large and colorful headwraps. She was a core member of the Soulquarians. As an actress, she has played a number of supporting roles in movies including "Blues Brothers 2000", "The Cider House Rules" and "House of D". She also has appeared in the documentaries "Before the Music Dies" and "The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975."


title: Erykah Badu

text: Erykah Badu was born Erica Abi Wright in Dallas, Texas. Her mother raised her, her brother Eevin, and her sister alone after separating from their father, William Wright Jr. The children's maternal and paternal grandmothers often helped look after them. Badu had her first taste of show business at the age of four, singing and dancing at the Dallas Theater Center and The Black Academy of Arts and Letters (TBAAL) under the guidance of her godmother, Gwen Hargrove, and uncle TBAAL founder Curtis King.


title: Erykah Badu

text: By the age of 14, Badu was freestyling for a local radio station alongside such talent as Roy Hargrove. In her youth, she had decided to change the spelling of her first name from Erica to Erykah, as she believed her original name was a "slave name". The term "kah" signifies the inner self. She adopted the surname "Badu" because it is her favorite jazz scat sound; also, among the Akan people in Ghana, it is the term for the 10th-born child.


title: Erykah Badu

text: After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Badu went on to study theater at Grambling State University, a historically black university. She left the university in 1993 before graduating, to focus more fully on music. During this time, Badu took several minimum-wage jobs to support herself. She taught drama and dance to children at the South Dallas Cultural Center. Working and touring with her cousin, Robert "Free" Bradford, she recorded a 19-song demo, "Country Cousins", which attracted the attention of Kedar Massenburg. He set Badu up to record a duet with D'Angelo, "Your Precious Love", and eventually signed her to a record deal with Universal Records.


title: Erykah Badu

text: "Baduizm", Badu's debut album, was released in early 1997. The album met with critical and commercial success, debuting at number two on the "Billboard" charts and number one on the US "Billboard" Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. "Baduizm"s commercial and critical success helped establish Badu as one of the emerging neo soul genre's leading artists. Her particular style of singing drew many comparisons to Billie Holiday.


title: Erykah Badu

text: "Baduizm" was certified three times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, Gold by the British Phonographic Industry and the Canadian Recording Industry Association.


title: Erykah Badu

text: The album produced four singles; the lead single "On & On" was released in December 1996, and reached number 12 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 charts and the UK Singles Charts, as well as making an appearance on the New Zealand charts. The album and lead single also gave Badu her first nomination and win at the Grammy Awards, where "On & On" won Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and the album won Best R&B Album.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu recorded her first live album, "Live", while pregnant with Seven, and the release of the recording coincided with his birth. The album was released on November 18, 1997 and reached number four on the US "Billboard" 200


title: Erykah Badu

text: and number one on the US "Billboard" Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. The album was certified two times platinum by RIAA for shipments of over two million copies. The album's lead single, "Tyrone", was released in October 1997 and became another R&B hit single. "Tyrone", lyrically, is a song chiding a selfish, cheap, and inattentive boyfriend.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu also collaborated with the Roots (who had previously handled production duties on a number of tracks on "Baduizm") on their breakthrough 1999 release "Things Fall Apart". She was featured on the song "You Got Me", by The Roots and American female rapper Eve. Co-written by Jill Scott, the song peaked at 39 in the US and 31 in the UK. The song went on to win The Roots and Badu a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group in 1999.


title: Erykah Badu

text: After taking some time off to raise her child, Badu returned in 2000 with "Mama's Gun." The album was characterized as more organic in sound than her previous studio album, and primarily produced by the Soulquarians and noted bassist Pino Palladino. A remix of one of the album's songs, "Bag Lady", was issued as the first single and topped the R&B charts for seven weeks. The album was well-received, with the lyrical content winning notices from many publications. Reviewers found some of her lyrics hard to decipher on her initial releases. Despite not charting as high as her first two albums, "Mama's Gun" was another platinum-selling success, and "Bag Lady" was nominated for a Grammy Award.


title: Erykah Badu

text: By 2000, Badu was in a romantic relationship with fellow Soulquarian Common. The two released "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" as a collaboration on the "Brown Sugar" soundtrack. "Love of My Life" hit #9 on the pop charts, topped the R&B listings, and in 2003 Badu was awarded her fourth Grammy Award for it.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2001 Badu embarked on the "Mama's Gun World Tour". The tour started in North America on February 10 in Cleveland, Ohio at the Allen Theatre.


title: Erykah Badu

text: On September 16, 2003, she released her third studio album, "Worldwide Underground." The album was more jam-oriented than any of her prior releases, and Badu said that the album was designed to be "one continuous groove." Upon its release "Worldwide Underground" met with some criticism for its loose, unconventional structure and songwriting, but the album received generally positive reviews from critics.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Commercially the album fared well and debuted at number three on the U.S. "Billboard" 200 chart in the week of October 4, 2003, selling 143,561 copies in its first week. Ultimately spending 11 weeks on the "Billboard" 200, it also entered at number two on "Billboard"s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and spent 30 weeks on the chart. By December 2003, the album had sold 394,000 copies domestically. On October 28, 2003, "Worldwide Underground" was certified gold in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America, following sales in excess of 500,000 copies in the United States. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album has sold 609,000 copies in the United States.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Its first single, "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip Hop)", peaked at number nine on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single "Danger" reached number 82 on the Hot 100 and number 27 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, while the third single "Back in the Day (Puff)" peaked at number 62 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Badu received four further Grammy nominations for the album. She also contributed to Zap Mama's album "Ancestry in Progress" (2004), adding her vocals to the track "Bandy Bandy."


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu embarked on the "Worldwide Underground Tour" in 2004. The U.S. trek kicked off February 3 in New Orleans and ran through the winter and spring with supporting act "Floetry" joining the tour February 5 in Houston. "The Roots" made a special opening act appearance at the February 11 show in Los Angeles. Badu resumed the tour during the fall with additional dates in America and Europe.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2005, she was a judge for the 4th Annual Independent Music Awards, to support independent artists' careers. Badu co-founded the "Sugar Water Festival" with Queen Latifah and Jill Scott. The trek played to amphitheaters and arenas in the United States during the summer of 2005 and 2006. It began in 2005 as an event to bring awareness to health issues to African-American women. British duo Floetry opened shows during the 2005 run. The festival was relaunched briefly in 2006 with Kelis opening the show and comedian Mo'Nique hosting the festival. 2006 was its final year. The festival had plans to expand into Europe and Asia, but this did not come to fruition. The "Summer Tour" was a concert tour in 2006 by Badu. The tour started on June 10, in Knoxville, TN, with three shows in the U.S., and resumed in July for several shows in Europe. Badu co-headlined on dates in August with Jill Scott and Queen Latifah at the Sugar Water Festival.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Erykah received the concept in 2005 from underground artist 1080Temu and was due to start production of the CD, but a contract was never finalized by Badu; she took the concept and moved forward without official authorization. After receiving her first computer as a Christmas gift, Badu began communicating with and receiving music from Questlove, Q-Tip and J Dilla, among others. She later began to use her laptop as a mini recording studio to construct various backing tracks for songs, which led to the album's primary recording sessions at Electric Lady Studios in New York City.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2007 Badu was said to have three albums in the works for release during 2007 and 2008. "Honey", a new single produced by 9th Wonder, was leaked online in November 2007. The fourth studio album, "New Amerykah Part One", was released by Universal Motown Records, in the United States on February 26, 2008, Badu's 37th birthday. It was released in European countries on February 29, in Australia and the United Kingdom on March 3, and in Japan on March 12. Both Japanese and Australian editions contain the bonus track "Real Thang". The album's digital release on the iTunes Store featured the song's "Tumbling Dice Remix" as a bonus track. "New Amerykah Part One" was also released as a double vinyl LP on March 11, and on USB stick format.


title: Erykah Badu

text: The album's lead single, "Honey", was released on December 11, 2007. It reached number 88 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, on which it spent three weeks. The song also charted at number 22 and spent 17 weeks on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In the United States, the album debuted at number two on the "Billboard" 200 chart, selling 125,000 copies in its first week. It was Badu's best opening week since her debut album "Baduizm" in 1997. It also entered at number two on the "Billboard" Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.


title: Erykah Badu

text: According to Nielsen Soundscan, "New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)" sold 359,000 copies in the United States by early 2010.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Erykah Badu performed at the 10th annual Voodoo Experience in New Orleans the weekend before Halloween 2008. In the United Kingdom, the album charted at number 55 on the UK Albums Chart, on which it spent one week. In France, it debuted at number 49 and spent 11 weeks on the French Albums Chart. In Switzerland, it debuted at number 10 and spent six weeks on the Swiss Albums Top 100. In the Netherlands, the album entered at number 25 and spent seven weeks on the Mega Album Top 100. In Poland, it reached number nine and spent eight weeks on the Polish Albums Chart. The album's highest international charting was number five in Sweden, where it charted for seven weeks.


title: Erykah Badu

text: During 2008 and 2009, Badu embarked on two world tours. The Vortex Tour (2008) was a tour in support of "New Amerykah Part One". The U.S. tour kicked off May 4 in Detroit, MI, ending on June 15 in Albuquerque, NM. The second leg of tour reached Europe on June 25, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Badu toured across Europe playing shows that included an itinerary for the month of July. Several more shows were added throughout August in the U.S. The Jam Tour was a summer music concert tour in 2009. The tour started in March; Badu played dates across North America twice and Europe, and the tour ended in Dallas, Texas on October 16. During the second U.S. leg, Badu was featured as a special guest co-headliner on hip-hop artist Mos Def's "Ecstatic Tour" on select September dates.


title: Erykah Badu

text: "New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)", Badu's fifth studio album, was released March 30, 2010, on Universal Motown in the United States. It was released in Japan on April 14, 2010. Upon release the album was met with general acclaim from critics. The album debuted at number four on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, selling 110,000 copies in its first week. It also entered at number two on "Billboard"s R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. In the United Kingdom, "New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)" debuted at number 56 on the UK Albums Chart and at number nine on the R&B Albums Chart. In Canada, the album debuted at number 36 on the Top 100 and at number five on the R&B Top 50 chart. "New Amerykah Part Two" achieved moderate chart success in international markets, peaking within the top 50 in several countries, including Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark.


title: Erykah Badu

text: During March 2010, Badu promoted the album through television performances on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", "The Wendy Williams Show", "Chelsea Lately", "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", and "Good Day New York". She also appeared on the April issue cover of "EQ" magazine and was featured in issues of "Nylon", "Playboy", "Rolling Stone", "Entertainment Weekly", "Time Out New York", "Spin", "Vibe", "Paste", and "People", among others. Badu performed at a surprise midnight show on March 31, 2010 at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles.


title: Erykah Badu

text: The internet-only promotional single "Jump up in the Air (Stay There)", featuring Lil Wayne and Bilal, was released on Badu's official website in January 2010. RC Williams, Badu's musical director, said that a music video for the track was shot in Dallas. The album's first official single, "Window Seat", was released by Badu through a downloadable link on her Twitter page. The song peaked at number 16 on "Billboard" R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The album's second single, "Turn Me Away (Get MuNNY)", was released March 24, 2010 by Badu as a free download online. It spent three weeks on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, peaking at number 87.


title: Erykah Badu

text: On Wednesday, February 9, 2011, Vimeo.com released a new video for "Gone Baby, Don't Be Long", directed by Flying Lotus. The video was tweeted by Badu herself and friend and associated music act Questlove from the Roots.


title: Erykah Badu

text: On March 13, 2010, Badu filmed the video for her song "Window Seat", at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, the site of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. She wrote on her Twitter feed that the video "was shot guerrilla style, no crew, 1 take, no closed set, no warning, 2 min., Downtown Dallas, then ran like hell." The team did not acquire permission or permits from the city. In the video, Badu shed her clothes as she walked along a Dallas sidewalk until she was nude at the site where Kennedy was shot. A shot rang out as the song ended, Badu's head jerked back, and she fell to the ground. Children with their families could be seen nearby as Badu stripped. When asked about stripping nude in the presence of minors, Badu said, "I didn't think about them until I saw them, and in my mind I tried to telepathically communicate my good intent to them. That's all I could do, and I hoped they wouldn't be traumatized."


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu said on "The Wanda Sykes Show" on April 3, 2010, that it was not her intention to insult the memory of the late President John F. Kennedy (JFK): "My point was grossly misunderstood all over America. JFK is one of my heroes, one of the nation's heroes. John F. Kennedy was a revolutionary; he was not afraid to butt heads with America, and I was not afraid to show America my butt-naked truth." Coodie and Chike, directors of the "Window Seat" video, said they had bail money ready during filming in case Badu was arrested. Badu said the video was a protest against "groupthink" and was inspired by Matt and Kim's music video "Lessons Learned." Badu has also said she has "no regrets".


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2011 Badu appeared on Flying Lotus's fourth album, "Until the Quiet Comes". Badu appeared on the debut album by the supergroup Rocketjuice and The Moon, which was released in March 2012 and the album "Black Radio" by Robert Glasper.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2013, Badu appeared on "Treehome95" from Tyler, The Creator's second studio album, "Wolf" as well as on the song "Heaven for the Sinner" from Bonobo's album "The North Borders". Badu featured on Janelle Monáe's first single from her second studio album, "The Electric Lady", "Q.U.E.E.N." The song premiered on SoundCloud and was made available for download purchase at the iTunes Store on April 23, 2013. The song peaked at 47 on the US "Billboard" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In May 2013, Badu announced she was writing her next project, but not placing a time constraint on it.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In July 2014, Badu revealed she was still working on the album and had been recording in April in Africa where she was "laying down drum tracks". Badu also said that prior to her trip to Africa she would have meetings with her record label to set a deadline for the album.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Later that year Badu expanded on the album, stating she was working with producer Flying Lotus, who she met via MySpace years ago; they later met in L.A. at guitarist Steve Wilson's house.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2015, Badu appeared on "Rememory", a song from Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment's album "Surf".


title: Erykah Badu

text: In July 2015, Badu released a free mixtape of her favorite recordings, describing the set as "carefully and lovingly selected high frequency tones for the soul." The mixtape features mostly vintage funk, soul and jazz songs.


title: Erykah Badu

text: On March 26, 2015, Erykah Badu performed at The Bomb Factory in her hometown, Dallas, Texas, for the Deep Ellum venue's grand opening. The sold-out show also featured fellow Dallas native, singer-songwriter Sarah Jaffe.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In early October, Badu released a remix of Drake's single "Hotline Bling", and later released a mixtape, "But You Caint Use My Phone", on November 27, 2015, making it available for digital download and streaming exclusively through Apple Music. After one week of exclusive release on iTunes, "But You Caint Use My Phone" was released to other digital retailers and streaming services on December 4, 2015. The mixtape was released without the knowledge of her label Universal, due to Badu sending the record straight to iTunes. It also marked Badu's first release under her own record label, Control Freaq. "But You Caint Use My Phone" received generally positive reviews from critics and debuted at number 14 on the "Billboard" 200, selling 35,000 equivalent album units in its first week. Badu also hosted the 2015, 2016 and the 2017 Soul Train Music Awards.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Within two months of the release of "But You Caint Use My Phone" in 2016, Badu announced a follow up mixtape titled "This $hit Too Easy" was to be released; however, this mixtape hasn't surfaced. The same year, Badu released new three tracks on SoundCloud, including "Trill Friends", "Thru It All" and "Come See Badu". On January 24, 2018, she announced a release of a new mixtape, but like the aforementioned mixtape, remains unreleased. In a publication on "Vulture", Badu announced she was slowly making progress on her sixth studio album.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu held her annual "Still Boomin'" sold-out birthday bash concert at The Bomb Factory on February 26, 2016, marking her second performance at the venue since its grand opening 11 months earlier. The event was hosted by Badu's close friend Dave Chappelle and featured a surprise appearance by André 3000 of the duo Outkast. Badu enlisted Dallas' local hip hop acts Zach Witness and Cameron McCloud as her supporting acts. In 2016, Badu also starred as Turquoise in the film "The Land". For the film, Badu also released the title track "The Land", which featured rapper Nas.


title: Erykah Badu

text: On August 15, 2018, the NPR video series Tiny Desk Concerts, released a new episode featuring Erykah Badu and her band performing live. The same day, NPR released the What's Good with Stretch & Bobbito podcast episode featuring a fresh interview with Erykah Badu where she spoke of being a certified Doula, her inherited sense of humor from her mother, stand-up comedy, her avoidance of print interviews after her 2008 experience being misquoted, and Prince. On November 7, while hosting NTS series "Sound of Color" Badu debuted a studio recording of a previously unreleased and untitled song that has been dubbed "Money Can't Buy Me Love" by fans.


title: Erykah Badu

text: On June 2, 2019, Badu teased the release of a new song which she performed live at Barcelona's Primavera Sound Festival, tentatively titled "The Work (The Way She Sees)". The following day on June 3, 2019, Badu released a new single titled "Tempted", a cover of "Tempted" by Squeeze in collaboration with instrumentalist James Poyser. This song marks her first official single since "Phone Down" in 2015. In September, Badu confirmed her plans to release her sixth studio album "soon" via a comment to a fan on Instagram.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In May 2020, she featured on a single titled "Beehoove" alongside D'Angelo on Slingbaum's vinyl-only release debut studio album, "Slingbaum One". On June 19, 2020 Badu featured on the song "Lowkey" by singer <nowiki>Teyana Taylor</nowiki>.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In August 2020, Badu contributed to the live streamed recording of Bilal's EP "VOYAGE-19", created remotely during the COVID-19 lockdowns. It was released the following month with proceeds from its sales going to participating musicians in financial hardship from the pandemic.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu has also ventured into acting. She made her debut as a supporting role in the 1998 film "Blues Brothers 2000", playing Queen Mousette. The film gained mostly mixed to negative reviews from film critics and was considered a commercial failure. Badu made her second appearances in "The Cider House Rules" (1999), where she played the character of Rose Rose. The film fared well both critically and commercially, with Badu receiving numerous awards and nominations including a win at the 2000 Black Reel Awards for best supporting actress as well as nominations for Screen Actors Guild Awards and Satellite Awards.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2004, Badu returned to the screen playing Lady/Bernadette in "House of D". Badu also had small roles in "Before the Music Dies" (2005), and "Dave Chappelle's Block Party" (2006). She is reported to have a leading role alongside Mos Def in the upcoming indie film, "Bobby Zero", which tells a story of a struggling couple, who hit rock bottom after Mos Def's character gives up his artistic dream to pursue an advertising corporate job to live on. She also appeared in scenes of the music video of Miko Marks' 2006 recording "Mama" and Common's video for "The Light," as well as making a special appearance on the sitcom "Girlfriends".


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2008, Badu became the face of fashion designer Tom Ford White Patchouli fragrance. Ford, longtime friends with Badu, considered her the best choice for the campaign. "I have always considered her a true beauty ... she just fits", says Ford. In late December 2013, it was announced that Badu would become the face of Givenchy's 2014 Spring collection. Badu made her New York Fashion Week debut alongside designer Kerby Jean-Raymond in 2016, styling for his Pyer Moss collection titled "Double Bind." Erykah Badu and Kerby Jean-Raymond titled this collection after Gregory Bateson's idea Double bind. Badu called this collection a "movement" against issues including depression, racism, and hatred.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In Nation19 Magazine Badu talked about why she set up her own charity organization, titled Beautiful Love Incorporated Non Profit Development (B.L.I.N.D. 501c3). The charity was established in 1997 and aims to provide "community-driven development for inner-city youth" through the use of music, dance, theater and visual arts. The organization's first endeavor was to establish a base of operations. Erykah chose to renovate and reopen the Black Forest Theater in South Dallas.


title: Erykah Badu

text: The Black Forest serves as a community center, bringing people together in order to celebrate the art and culture of south Dallas.


title: Erykah Badu

text: The Black Forest's stage is equipped for shows and performances, and has hosted both free and fundraising concerts by music artists including Prince, Snoop Dogg, Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild, Dead Prez, Talib Kweli and Questlove from The Roots. All of the artists volunteered their time to help with the charity.


title: Erykah Badu

text: As an outreach for B.L.I.N.D., Erykah traveled to Africa in February 2003, where she worked with children affected by AIDS and poverty. Badu has also received the Key to the City of Dallas and been recognized in Philanthropy Magazine for her efforts in community service.


title: Erykah Badu

text: On February 20, 2020, Badu opened an online store named Badu World Market. Badu World Market features bespoke clothing, apothecary goods, musical merchandise, clothing accessories, and more. She also began selling a line of incense; one scent is named "Badu Pussy" because Badu claimed she "took lots of pairs of [her] panties, cut them up into little pieces and burned them."


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu's work draws from R&B, 1970s soul, and 1980s hip hop, and became associated with the neo soul subgenre in the 1990s along with artists like D'Angelo. For her musical sensibilities, she has often been compared to jazz great Billie Holiday. Badu's has been described as an experimental R&B singer, and her work explores contemporary forms of soul and hip hop. "Mama's Gun" is a neo soul album, that incorporates funk, soul, and jazz styles. The album has been viewed by critics as a female companion to neo soul artist D'Angelo's second album "Voodoo" (2000), which features a similar musical style and direction. "Worldwide Underground" followed in the same vein as Badu's previous efforts: the album is neo-soul and prominently incorporates hip hop and funk elements, while also featuring an unconventional musical structure.


title: Erykah Badu

text: "New Amerykah Part One" has a dense stylistic amalgam that primarily incorporates funk, soul, and hip hop genres, as well as jazz and electronica. In contrast to its predecessor, "New Amerykah Part One" (2008), which was digitally produced and political in tone, "New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)" incorporates sampling and live instrumentation.


title: Erykah Badu

text: The majority of Badu's music is greatly influenced by her beliefs of the Nation of Gods and Earths and her exploration of her African heritage. The songs in her album "Baduizm" express her personal take on life. Her philosophy is influenced by African ideology, African-centered and Five Percent theologies, and Southern African-American folk traditions. "Mama's Gun" has a confessional lyrical theme, covering themes of insecurity, social issues, and personal relationships. "Worldwide Underground" contains minimalist songwriting concerning hip hop culture, love, ghetto life, and gang culture. "New Amerykah Part One" is an esoteric concept album with sociopolitical themes and mostly downbeat subject matter, featuring more impersonal topics and social commentary than on Badu's previous work. Its subject matter deals with social concerns and struggles within the African-American community, exploring topics such as institutional racism, religion, poverty, urban violence, the abuse of power, complacency, cultural identity, drug addiction, and nihilism. Badu has said that the album discusses "religion, [...] poor families, the undermining of the working class, the so-called minority", Lyrically, "New Amerykah Part Two" is more personal than its predecessor, focusing on themes of romance and relationships. Badu has described its sound as "very analog".


title: Erykah Badu

text: During Badu's childhood and school years, she drew influences from a variety of hip-hop artists including Kool Herc, Kool DJ Red Alert, DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Spinderella and Salt 'n' Pepa; expanding on this she noted the previous rappers as being "very inspiring to me, because they were the people who conducted feelings". Badu is inspired by "stimulating" experiences. She was also influenced greatly by her music teacher Ms. Goodman, who encouraged her to take up music. Badu also takes influence from her grandmother and her religious views which Erykah described as a lesson saying "When you do it, it gotta be real, or that's not it."


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 1997, Badu received twenty nominations and won three, Favorite Female Solo Single for "On & On", Favorite Female Solo Album for "Baduizm" and Best R&B/Soul or Rap Song of the Year for "On & On" at the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. In 1998, Badu received fourteen nominations and won eight, including Favorite R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist at the American Music Awards; Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "On & On" and Best R&B Album for "Baduizm" at the Grammy Awards; Outstanding New Artist and Outstanding Female Artist at the NAACP Image Awards; Favorite Female Soul/R&B Single for "On & On", Favorite Female Soul/R&B Album for "Baduizm" and Favorite New R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist for "On & On" at the Soul Train Music Awards.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2000, Badu received two nominations and won one, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the Grammy Awards.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2003, Badu received twelve nominations and won two, including Video of the Year for "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" at the BET Awards and Best Urban/Alternative Performance for "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" at the Grammy Awards.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 2008, Badu received eleven nominations and won two, including Best Director for "Honey" at the BET Awards and Best Direction in a Video for "Honey" at the MTV Video Music Awards. Overall, Badu has won 16 awards from 59 nominations.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Although she disputes the term, Erykah Badu has been dubbed "the first lady of neo-soul" and "the queen of neo-soul". "Baduizm"s commercial and critical success earned Erykah Badu popularity at the time and helped establish her as one of the emerging neo soul genre's leading artists. Along with D'Angelo's "Brown Sugar" (1995) and Maxwell's "Urban Hang Suite" (1996), the album has been recognized by music writers for beginning neo soul's popularity and helping the genre obtain commercial visibility at the time.


title: Erykah Badu

text: Erykah Badu's song "Master Teacher" popularized the expression "stay woke" in the meaning of to continue to be "self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better."


title: Erykah Badu

text: Badu became a vegan in 2006: "Vegan food is soul food in its truest form. Soul food means to feed the soul. And to me, your soul is your intent. If your intent is pure, you are pure."


title: Erykah Badu

text: In 1995, Badu became involved with rapper André 3000 of OutKast, with whom she had her first child, a son named Seven Sirius Benjamin, on November 18, 1997. Their relationship ended in 1999. In late 2000, OutKast released the song "Ms. Jackson", which was inspired by André 3000's then relationship with Badu and her mother. The song reached number one on "Billboard" Hot 100 and would go on to win a Grammy Award.


title: Erykah Badu

text: On July 5, 2004, Badu gave birth to a daughter, Puma Sabti Curry; Puma's father is Texas-based rapper The D.O.C. On February 1, 2009, Badu gave birth to her third child, a girl named Mars Merkaba Thedford, with her boyfriend of five years, rapper Jay Electronica.


title: Erykah Badu

text: For the 2014 Okayplayer platform and web television OkayAfrica TV, Badu had her DNA tested, and genealogists researched her family ancestry. Badu's DNA revealed from her mother's that she is partly of West and Central African descent, specifically the Bamileke people of Cameroon.


title: Erykah Badu

text: On April 2, 2010, Badu was charged with disorderly conduct for appearing nude in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas while filming the social-political, performance art, self-directed music video for her single "Window Seat". No witnesses called police at the time of the incident, but the Dallas Police Department actively sought witnesses after the release of the video. Sgt. Warren Mitchell said the decision to cite Badu for a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500 – came after witness Ida Espinosa, 32, of Vernon, offered a sworn statement to police Thursday, April 1. Espinosa declined to comment to The Associated Press. On April 28, 2010, Badu pleaded not guilty rather than paying the fee by mail. On August 13, she paid the $500 ticket and began a term of six months' probation.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In February 2012, Badu's concert was cancelled in Malaysia because it was found that she had applied a temporary tattoo of the word Allah on a part of her body.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In April 2014, Badu came under fire by the US-based Human Rights Foundation, for performing at the birthday celebration of King Mswati III, ruler and monarch of Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). Mswati, credited as Africa's last absolute monarch, is considered to be a serial human-rights abuser, ruling in luxury in a country infamous for its poverty and spiraling HIV rates. Badu presented Mswati with a $100 bill, and a good-luck stone.


title: Erykah Badu

text: In a January 2018 interview with "Vulture", Badu was asked about accusations of antisemitism based on a 2008 "Haaretz" article which describes her telling a Tel Aviv crowd, “[Louis] Farrakhan is not an anti-Semite. He loves all people." She denied being antisemitic, but said, "I'm a humanist. I see good in everybody. I saw something good in Hitler." After being asked to clarify her comments, Badu praised Hitler's paintings. She reacted differently than most other American celebrities about Bill Cosby's sexual predation, saying, "I love Bill Cosby, and I love what he's done for the world. But if he's sick, why would I be angry with him?"


title: Erykah Badu

text: In a January 2019 concert, Badu elicited boos from fans after giving support of musician R. Kelly, saying "I dunno how everybody else feel about it but I'm putting up a prayer right now for R. ... I love you. Unconditionally". Badu has been criticized for her perceived support of R. Kelly following the release of Lifetime's "Surviving R. Kelly". In 2019 R. Kelly was accused of running a "sex cult" and was arrested and charged with several counts of sex trafficking and prostitution.


title: Google Slides

text: Google Slides is a presentation program included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google. The service also includes: Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Google Slides is available as a web application, mobile app for: Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, BlackBerry OS and as a desktop application on Google's ChromeOS. The app is compatible with Microsoft PowerPoint file formats. The app allows users to create and edit files online while collaborating with other users in real-time. Edits are tracked by a user with a revision history presenting changes. An editor's position is highlighted with an editor-specific color and cursor and a permissions system regulates what users can do. Updates have introduced features using machine learning, including "Explore", offering and "tasks to other users.


title: Google Slides

text: In September 2007, Google released a presentation program for the Google Docs suite, which originated from the company's acquisition of Tonic Systems on April 17, 2007. In March 2010, Google acquired DocVerse, an online document collaboration company that allowed online collaboration between multiple users on Microsoft PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office-compatible document formats such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Improvements based on DocVerse were announced and deployed in April 2010. In June 2012, Google acquired Quickoffice, a freeware proprietary productivity suite for mobile devices. In October 2012, Google Presentations was renamed Google Slides and a Google Chrome app was released, which provided shortcuts to Slides on Chrome's new tab page.


title: Google Slides

text: Google Slides is available as a web application supported on the Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, and Safari web browsers. Users can access presentations, as well as other files, through the Google Drive website. In June 2014, Google rolled out a dedicated website homepage for Slides that contained only files created using the Drive suite. In 2014, Google launched a dedicated mobile app for Slides for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems. In 2015, the mobile website for Slides was updated with a "simpler, more uniform" interface and while users can read files through the mobile websites, users trying to edit presentations will be redirected towards the dedicated mobile app for Slides, thus preventing editing on the mobile web.


title: Google Slides

text: Google Slides serves as a collaborative tool for cooperative editing of presentations in real time. Presentations can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple users simultaneously and users can see slide-by-slide and character-by-character changes as other collaborators make edits. Changes are automatically saved to Google's servers and a revision history is automatically kept and users have the option of reverting to previous versions.


title: Google Slides

text: An editor's current position is represented with an editor-specific color/cursor, so if another editor happens to be viewing the same slide, they can see edits as they occur. A sidebar chat functionality allows collaborators to discuss edits. The revision history allows users to see the additions made to a document, with each author distinguished by color. Only adjacent revisions can be compared and users cannot control how frequently revisions are saved. Files can be exported to a user's local computer in a variety of formats, including HTML, .jpg, and PDF.


title: Google Slides

text: Launched in September 2016, "Explore" provides additional functionality to the Google Drive suite through machine learning. In Google Slides, Explore dynamically generates design suggestions based on the contents of each slide. The "Explore" features in the Drive suite follow the launch of a more basic research tool originally introduced in 2012.


title: Google Slides

text: In October 2016, Google announced the addition of "action items" to Slides. If a user writes the name of a person the presentation is shared within a comment, the service will intelligently assign that action to the person. Google states this will make it easier for other collaborators to see who is responsible for individual tasks. When a user visits Google Sheets or any of the other Google Drive applications, any files with tasks assigned to them will be highlighted with a badge.


title: Google Slides

text: To view and edit presentations offline, users need to be using the Google Chrome web browser. A Chrome extension, "Google Docs Offline", allows users to enable offline support for Slides files on the Google Drive website. The Android and iOS apps natively support offline editing.


title: Google Slides

text: Google Slides presentation files converted to .gslides Slides format cannot be larger than 100 MB. Images inserted cannot be larger than 50 MB and must be in either .jpg, .png, or .gif formats.


title: Google Slides

text: Google Slides is free to use for individuals, but it is also available as part of the business-centered Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) service by Google, which is a monthly subscription that enables additional business-focused functionality.


title: Google Slides

text: A simple find and replace tool is available and like all Google Drive suite programs, Slides includes a web clipboard tool that allows users to copy and paste content between Slides and the other Drive apps. The web clipboard can also be used for copying and pasting content between different computers. Copied items are stored on Google's servers for up to 30 days. For most copying and pasting, Google Slides also supports keyboard shortcuts, but sometimes due to them supporting this they will only let you use keyboard shortcuts.


title: Google Slides

text: Google offers an extension for the Google Chrome web browser called "Office editing for Docs, Sheets and Slides" that enables users to view and edit PowerPoint documents and other Microsoft Office documents on Google Chrome, via the Google Drive suite apps. The extension can be used for opening Office files stored on the computer using Chrome, as well as for opening Office files encountered on the web (in the form of email attachments, web search results, etc.) without having to download them. The extension is installed on ChromeOS by default.


title: Google Slides

text: Google Cloud Connect was a plug-in for Microsoft Office 2003, 2007, and 2010 that could automatically store and synchronize any PowerPoint presentation to Google Docs (before the introduction of Drive) in the Google Slides or PowerPoint formats. The online copy was automatically updated each time the PowerPoint document was saved. PowerPoint documents could be edited offline and synchronized later when online. Google Cloud Connect maintained previous document versions and allowed multiple users to collaborate by working on the same document at the same time. Google Cloud Connect has been discontinued as of April 30, 2013, as, according to Google, Google Drive achieves all of the above tasks, "with better results".


title: Pornographic film

text: Pornographic films (pornos), erotic films, sex films, and 18+ films are films that present sexually subject matter in order to arouse and satisfy the viewer. Pornographic films present sexual fantasies and usually include erotically stimulating material such as nudity (softcore) and sexual intercourse (hardcore). A distinction is sometimes made between "erotic" and "pornographic" films on the basis that the latter category contains more explicit sexuality, and focuses more on arousal than storytelling; the distinction is highly subjective.


title: Pornographic film

text: Pornographic films are produced and distributed on a variety of media, depending on the demand and technology available, including traditional film stock in various formats, home video, DVDs, Internet download, cable TV, in addition to other media. Today, pornographic films are sold or rented on DVD; shown through Internet streaming, special channels and pay-per-view on cable and satellite; and viewed in rapidly disappearing adult theaters. By law, they are generally not permitted to be shown in mainstream media, or on free-to-air television.


title: Pornographic film

text: Films with risqué content have been produced since the invention of motion picture in the 1880s. Production of such films was profitable, and a number of producers began to specialize in their production. Various groups within society considered such depictions immoral, labeled them "pornographic", and attempted to have them suppressed under obscenity laws, with varying degrees of success. Such films continued to be produced, and could only be distributed by underground channels. Because the viewing of such films carried a social stigma, they were viewed at brothels, adult movie theaters, stag parties, home, private clubs, and night cinemas.


title: Pornographic film

text: In the 1970s, during the Golden Age of Porn, pornographic films were semi-legitimized; by the 1980s, pornography on home video achieved wider distribution. The rise of the Internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s changed the way pornographic films are distributed, complicating censorship regimes around the world and legal prosecutions of "obscenity".


title: Pornographic film

text: Pornographic films are typically categorized as either softcore or hardcore pornography. In general, softcore pornography is pornography that does not depict explicit sexual activity, sexual penetration or extreme fetishism. It generally contains nudity or partial nudity in sexually suggestive situations. Hardcore pornography is pornography that depicts penetration or extreme fetish acts, or both. It contains graphic sexual activity and visible penetration. A pornographic work is characterized as hardcore if it has any hardcore content.


title: Pornographic film

text: Pornographic films are generally classified into subgenres which describe the sexual fantasy which the film and actors attempt to create. Subgenres can also be classified into the characteristics of the performers or the type of sexual activity on which it concentrates and not necessarily on the market to which each subgenre appeals. The subgenres usually conform to certain conventions, and each may appeal to a particular audience.


title: Pornographic film

text: Production of erotic films commenced almost immediately after the invention of the motion picture. Two of the earliest pioneers were Frenchmen Eugène Pirou and Albert Kirchner. Kirchner (under the name "Léar") directed the earliest surviving erotic film for Pirou. The 7-minute 1896 film had Louise Willy performing a bathroom striptease. Other French filmmakers also considered that profits could be made from this type of risqué films, showing women disrobing.


title: Pornographic film

text: Also in 1896 "Fatima's Coochie-Coochie Dance" was released as a short nickelodeon kinetoscope/film featuring a gyrating belly dancer named Fatima. Her gyrating and moving pelvis was censored, one of the earliest films to be censored. At the time, there were numerous risque films that featured exotic dancers. In the same year, "The May Irwin Kiss" contained the very first kiss on film. It was a 47-second film loop, with a close-up of a nuzzling couple followed by a short peck on the lips ("the mysteries of the kiss revealed"). The kissing scene was denounced as shocking and obscene to early moviegoers and caused the Roman Catholic Church to call for censorship and moral reform - because kissing in public at the time could lead to prosecution. Perhaps in defiance and "to spice up a film", this was followed by many kiss imitators, including "The Kiss in the Tunnel" (1899) and "The Kiss" (1900). A tableau vivant style was used in short film "The Birth of the Pearl" (1901) featuring an unnamed long-haired young model wearing a flesh-colored body stocking in a direct frontal pose that provides a provocative view of the female body. The pose is in the style of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus".


title: Pornographic film

text: In Austria, cinemas organised men-only theatre nights (called ) at which adult films were shown. Johann Schwarzer formed his Saturn-Film production company which between 1906 and 1911 produced 52 erotic productions, each of which contained young local women fully nude, to be shown at those screenings. Before Schwarzer's productions, erotic films were provided by the Pathé brothers from French produced sources. In 1911, Saturn was dissolved by the censorship authorities which destroyed all the films they could find, though some have since resurfaced from private collections. There were a number of American films in the 1910s which contained female nudity in film.


title: Pornographic film

text: Because Pirou is nearly unknown as a pornographic filmmaker, credit is often given to other films for being the first. In "Black and White and Blue" (2008), one of the most scholarly attempts to document the origins of the clandestine 'stag film' trade, Dave Thompson recounts ample evidence that such an industry first had sprung up in the brothels of Buenos Aires and other South American cities by the turn of the 20th century, and then quickly spread through Central Europe over the following few years. However, none of these earliest pornographic films are known to have survived. According to Patrick Robertson's "Film Facts", "the earliest pornographic motion picture which can definitely be dated is " made in France in 1908. The plot depicts a weary soldier who has a tryst with a servant girl at an inn. The Argentinian , whose original title could have been ("The Satyr"), might be even older; it has been dated to somewhere between 1907 and 1912. He also notes that "the oldest surviving pornographic films are contained in America's Kinsey Collection. One film demonstrates how early pornographic conventions were established. The German film (1910) is a ten-minute film which begins with a woman masturbating alone in her bedroom, and progresses to scenes of her with a man performing straight sex , fellatio, and penile anal penetration."


title: Pornographic film

text: Pornographic movies were widespread in the silent movie era of the 1920s, and were often shown in brothels. Soon illegal, stag films, or blue films, as they were called, were produced underground by amateurs for many years starting in the 1940s. Processing the film took considerable time and resources, with people using their bathtubs to wash the film when processing facilities (often tied to organized crime) were unavailable. The films were then circulated privately or by traveling salesmen, but anyone caught viewing or possessing them risked a prison sentence.


title: Pornographic film

text: The post-war era saw technological developments that further stimulated the growth of a mass market and amateur film-making, particularly the introduction of the 8 mm and super-8 film gauges, popular for the home movie market.


title: Pornographic film

text: Entrepreneurs emerged to meet the demand. In Britain, in the 1950s, Harrison Marks produced films which were considered risqué, and which today would be described as "soft core". In 1958, as an offshoot of his magazines, Marks began making short films for the 8mm market of his models undressing and posing topless, popularly known as "glamour home movies". To Marks, the term "glamour" was a euphemism for nude modeling/photography.


title: Pornographic film

text: On the European continent, sex films were more explicit. Starting in 1961, Lasse Braun was a pioneer in quality colour productions that were, in the early days, distributed by making use of his father's diplomatic privileges. Braun was able to accumulate funds for his lavish productions from the profit gained with so-called loops, ten-minute hardcore movies which he sold to Reuben Sturman, who distributed them to 60,000 American peep show booths. Braun was always on the move, and made his hardcore movies in a number of countries, including Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.


title: Pornographic film

text: In December 1960, American female director Doris Wishman began producing a series of eight pornographic films, or nudist films without sex scenes, including "Hideout in the Sun" (1960), "Nude on the Moon" (1961) and "Diary of a Nudist" (1961). She also produced a series of sexploitation films.


title: Pornographic film

text: In the 1960s, social and judicial attitudes towards the explicit depiction of sexuality began to change. For example, Swedish film "I Am Curious (Yellow)" (1967) included numerous frank nude scenes and simulated sexual intercourse. In one particularly controversial scene, Lena kisses her lover's flaccid penis. The film was exhibited in mainstream cinemas, but in 1969 it was banned in Massachusetts allegedly for being pornographic. The ban was challenged in the courts, with the Supreme Court of the United States ultimately declaring that the film was not obscene, paving the way for other sexually explicit films. Another Swedish film "Language of Love" (1969) was also sexually explicit, but was framed as a quasi-documentary sex educational film, which made its legal status uncertain though controversial.


title: Pornographic film

text: In 1969, Denmark became the first country to abolish all censorship laws, enabling pornography, including hardcore pornography. The example was followed by toleration in the Netherlands, also in 1969. There was an explosion of pornography commercially produced in those countries, including, at the very beginning, child pornography and bestiality porn. Now that being a pornographer was legal, there was no shortage of businessmen who invested in plant and equipment capable of turning out a mass-produced, cheap, but quality product. Vast amounts of this new pornography, both magazines and films, needed to be smuggled into other parts of Europe, where it was sold "under the counter" or (sometimes) shown in "members only" cinema clubs.


title: Pornographic film

text: In the United States, producers of pornographic films formed the Adult Film Association of America in 1969, after the release of "Blue Movie" by Andy Warhol, to fight against censorship, and to defend the industry against obscenity charges.


title: Pornographic film

text: In the 1970s, there was a more tolerant judicial attitude to non-mainstream films. Mainstream theatres did normally not screen even softcore films, leading to a rise of adult theaters in the United States and many other countries. There was also a proliferation of coin-operated "movie booths" in sex shops that displayed pornographic "loops" (so called because they projected a movie from film arranged in a continuous loop).


title: Pornographic film

text: Denmark started producing comparatively big-budget theatrical feature film sex comedies such as "Bordellet" (1972), the "Bedside"-films (1970–1976) and the "Zodiac"-films (1973–1978), starring mainstream actors (a few of whom even performed their own sex scenes) and usually not thought of as "porno films" though all except the early "Bedside"-films included hardcore pornographic scenes. Several of these films still rank among the most seen films in Danish film history and all remain favourites on home video.


title: Pornographic film

text: In 1969, "Blue Movie" by Andy Warhol was the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. The film was a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn and, according to Warhol, a major influence in the making of "Last Tango in Paris", an internationally controversial erotic drama film, starring Marlon Brando, and released a few years after "Blue Movie" was made.


title: Pornographic film

text: The first explicitly pornographic film with a plot that received a general theatrical release in the U.S. is generally considered to be "Mona the Virgin Nymph" (also known as "Mona"), a 59-minute 1970 feature by Bill Osco, who created the relatively high-budget hardcore/softcore (depending on the release) 1974 cult film "Flesh Gordon" and later, in 1976, the X-rated musical-comedy film "Alice in Wonderland".


title: Pornographic film

text: The 1971 film "Boys in the Sand" represented a number of pornographic firsts. As the first generally available gay pornographic film, the film was the first to include on-screen credits for its cast and crew (albeit largely under pseudonyms), to parody the title of a mainstream film (in this case, "The Boys in the Band"), and, after the 1969 film "Blue Movie", one of the first to be reviewed by "The New York Times". Other notable American hardcore feature films of the 1970s include "Deep Throat" (1972), "Behind the Green Door" (1972), "The Devil in Miss Jones" (1973), Radley Metzger's "The Opening of Misty Beethoven" (1976) and "Debbie Does Dallas" (1978). These were shot on film and screened in mainstream movie theaters. The prediction that frank depictions of onscreen sex would soon become commonplace did not materialize. William Rotsler expressed this in 1973, "Erotic films are here to stay. Eventually they will simply merge into the mainstream of motion pictures and disappear as a labeled subdivision. Nothing can stop this." In Britain, "Deep Throat" was not approved in its uncut form until 2000 and not shown publicly until June 2005.


title: Pornographic film

text: The U.S. was "Miller v. California" was an important court case in 1973. The case established that obscenity was not legally protected, but the case also established the Miller test, a three-pronged test to determine obscenity (which is not legal) as opposed to indecency (which may or may not be legal).


title: Pornographic film

text: With the arrival of the home video cassette recorder in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the pornographic movie industry experienced massive growth and spawned adult stars like Traci Lords, Seka, Christy Canyon, Ginger Lynn, Nina Hartley, and directors such as Gregory Dark. By 1982, most pornographic films were being shot on the cheaper and more convenient medium of videotape. Many film directors resisted this shift at first because videotape produced a different image quality. Those who did change soon were collecting most of the industry's profits, since consumers overwhelmingly preferred the new format. The technology change happened quickly and completely when directors realized that continuing to shoot on film was no longer a profitable option. This change moved the films out of the theaters and into people's homes. This marked the end of the age of big-budget productions, and the beginning of the mainstreaming of pornography. It soon went back to its earthy roots and expanded to cover nearly every fetish possible, since the production of pornography was now inexpensive. Instead of hundreds of pornographic films being made each year, thousands were being made, including compilations of just the sex scenes from various videos. One could now not only watch pornography in the comfort and privacy of one's own home, but also find more choices available to satisfy specific fantasies and fetishes.


title: Pornographic film

text: Similarly, the camcorder spurred changes in pornography in the 1980s, when people could make their own amateur sex movies, whether for private use, or for wider distribution.


title: Pornographic film

text: The "de facto" result of the 1987 legal case California v. Freeman effectively legalized hardcore pornography in the U.S.. The prosecution of Harold Freeman was initially planned as the first in a series of legal cases to effectively outlaw the production of such movies.


title: Pornographic film

text: In the late 1990s, pornographic films were distributed on DVD. These offered better quality picture and sound than the previous video format (videotape) and allowed innovations such as "interactive" videos that let users choose such variables as multiple camera angles, multiple endings and computer-only DVD content.


title: Pornographic film

text: The introduction and widespread availability of the Internet further changed the way pornography was distributed. Previously, videos were ordered from an adult bookstore or through mail-order; with the Internet, people could watch pornographic movies on their computers, and instead of waiting weeks for an order to arrive, a movie could be downloaded within minutes (or, later, within a few seconds).


title: Pornographic film

text: Pornography can be distributed over the Internet in a number of ways, including paysites, video hosting services and peer-to-peer file sharing. While pornography had been traded electronically since the 1980s, the invention of the World Wide Web in 1991, as well as the opening of the Internet to the general public around the same time, led to an explosion in online pornography.


title: Pornographic film

text: Viv Thomas, Paul Thomas, Andrew Blake, Antonio Adamo, and Rocco Siffredi were prominent directors of pornographic films in the 1990s. In 1998, the Danish, Oscar-nominated film production company Zentropa became the world's first mainstream film company to openly produce hardcore pornographic films, starting with "Constance" (1998). That same year, Zentropa also produced "Idioterne" (1998), directed by Lars von Trier, which won many international awards and was nominated for a Golden Palm in Cannes. The film includes a shower sequence with a male erection and an orgy scene with close-up penetration footage (the camera viewpoint is from the ankles of the participants, and the close-ups leave no doubt as to what is taking place). "Idioterne" started a wave of international mainstream arthouse films featuring explicit sexual images, such as Catherine Breillat's "Romance", which starred pornstar Rocco Siffredi.


title: Pornographic film

text: In 1999, the Danish TV channel Kanal København started broadcasting hardcore films at night, uncoded and freely available to any viewer in the Copenhagen area (as of 2009, this is still the case, courtesy of Innocent Pictures, a company started by Zentropa).


title: Pornographic film

text: Once people could watch adult movies in the privacy of their own homes, a new adult market developed that far exceeded the scope of its theater-centric predecessor. The Internet served as catalyst for creating a still-larger market for porn, a market that is even less traditionally theatrical.


title: Pornographic film

text: By the 2000s, there were hundreds of adult film companies, releasing tens of thousands of productions, recorded directly on video, with minimal sets. The market was further expanded by webcams and webcam recordings, in which thousands of pornographic actors work in front of the camera to satisfy pornography consumers' demand.


title: Pornographic film

text: By the 2000s, the fortunes of the pornography industry had changed. With reliably profitable DVD sales being largely supplanted by streaming media delivery over the Internet, competition from bootleg, amateur and low-cost professional content on the Internet had made the industry substantially less profitable, leading to it shrinking in size. At the same time this gave rise to video sharing platforms such as Pornhub, YouPorn and XHamster.


title: Pornographic film

text: Globally, pornography is a large-scale business with revenues of nearly $100 billion, which includes the production of various media and associated products and services. The industry employs thousands of performers along with support and production staff. It is also followed by dedicated and trade groups as well as the mainstream press, private organizations (watchdog groups), government agencies, and political organizations. According to a 2005 Reuters article, "The multi-billion-dollar industry releases about 11,000 titles on DVD each year." Pornographic films can be sold or rented out on DVD, shown through Internet and special channels and pay-per-view on cable and satellite, and in adult theaters. However, by 2012, widespread availability of illegally copied content and other low-cost competition on the Internet had made the pornographic film industry smaller and reduced profitability.


title: Pornographic film

text: The global pornographic film industry is dominated by the United States, with the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles being the heart of the industry.


title: Pornographic film

text: In 1975, the total retail value of all the hardcore pornography in the United States was estimated at $5–10 million. The 1979, Revision of the Federal Criminal Code stated that "in Los Angeles alone, the porno business does $100 million a year in gross retain volume." According to the 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, American adult entertainment industry has grown considerably over the past thirty years by continually changing and expanding to appeal to new markets, though the production is considered to be low-profile and clandestine.


title: Pornographic film

text: "The Online Journalism Review", published by the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California, weighed in with an analysis that favored "Forbes"' number. The financial extent of adult films, distributed in hotels, is hard to estimate—hotels keep statistics to themselves or do not keep them at all.


title: Pornographic film

text: The world's largest adult movie studio Vivid Entertainment generates an estimated $100 million a year in revenue, distributing 60 films annually, and selling them in video stores, hotel rooms, on cable systems, and on the Internet. The Spanish-based studio Private Media Group was listed on the NASDAQ until November 2011. Video rentals soared from just under 80 million in 1985 to a half-billion by 1993. Some subsidiaries of major corporations are the largest pornography sellers, like News Corporation's DirecTV. Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, once pulled in $50 million from adult programming. Revenues of companies such as "Playboy" and "Hustler" were small by comparison.


title: Pornographic film

text: Pornographic films are produced and directed at the target audience, who buy and view the films. Traditionally, the audience of pornographic films has been predominantly the straight male. In this situation, the main male actor acted as proxy for the viewer enacting the sexual fantasy of the genre of the film. A typical pornographic film featured a female performer on whom the film focused. Her male partner traditionally had no distinctive features other than a large penis. However, there has been an increase in female viewers over time, and there have recently been efforts to increase the sexualization of male performers also. New features such as men with smaller penises, charming facial features and well-built bodies are becoming predominant in pornographic films, as well as the emergence of feminist pornography. In recent times a gay audience has also developed, and the scenarios of the films have adjusted accordingly.


title: Pornographic film

text: Pornographic films attempt to present a sexual fantasy and the actors selected for a particular role are primarily selected on their ability to create that fantasy. Depending on the genre of the film, the on-screen appearance and physical features of the main actors and their ability to create the sexual mood of the film is of critical importance. Most actors specialize in certain genres. In general, pornographic films follow a number of conventions. For example, irrespective of the genre, most actors are required to appear nude in pornographic films.


title: Pornographic film

text: In films directed to a heterosexual male audience, the primary focus is on the female actors in them, who are mostly selected for their on-screen appearance. The female actors are commonly presented in erotic, provocative or suggestive clothing. If they are wearing shoes, they are usually high-heel. They do not normally wear jewellery or glasses. They are usually in the high range of physical attractiveness.


title: Pornographic film

text: Most male performers in heterosexual pornography are selected less for their looks than for their sexual prowess. They are presented as being able to fulfill the desires of the male watching audience as their on-screen proxies.


title: Pornographic film

text: In the United States, the Supreme Court held in 1969 that State laws making mere private possession of obscene material a crime are invalid. Further attempts were made in the 1970s in the United States to close down the pornography industry, this time by prosecuting those in the industry on prostitution charges. The prosecution started in the courts in California in the case of "People v. Freeman". The California Supreme Court acquitted Freeman and distinguished between someone who takes part in a sexual relationship for money (prostitution) versus someone whose role is merely "portraying" a sexual relationship on-screen as part of their acting performance. The State did not appeal to the United States Supreme Court making the decision binding in California, where most pornographic films are made today.


title: Pornographic film

text: At present, no other state in the United States has either implemented or accepted this legal distinction between commercial pornography performers versus prostitutes as shown in the Florida case where sex film maker Clinton Raymond McCowen, aka "Ray Guhn", was indicted on charges of "soliciting and engaging in prostitution" for his creation of pornography films which included "McCowen and his associates recruited up to 100 local men and women to participate in group sex scenes, the affidavit says." The distinction that California has in its legal determination in the Freeman decision is usually denied in most states' local prostitution laws, which do not specifically exclude performers from such inclusion.


title: Pornographic film

text: In some cases, some states have ratified their local state laws for inclusion to prevent California's "Freeman" decision to be applied to actors who are paid a fee for sexual actions within their state borders. One example is the state of Texas whose prostitution law specifically states:


title: Pornographic film

text: In the United States, federal law prohibits the sale, distribution or dissemination of obscene materials through the mail, over the broadcast airwaves, on cable or satellite TV, on the Internet, over the telephone or by any other means that cross state lines. Most states also have specific laws banning the sale or distribution of obscene pornography within state borders. The only protection for obscene material recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States is personal possession in the home ("Stanley v. Georgia").


title: Pornographic film

text: The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed in "Miller v. California" that obscenity was not protected speech. Further, the court ruled that each community is responsible for setting its own standards about what is considered to be obscene material. If pornographic material is prosecuted and brought to trial, a jury can deem it obscene based on:


title: Pornographic film

text: In many countries pornography is legal to distribute and to produce, but there are some restrictions. Pornography is also banned in some countries, in particular in the Muslim world and China, but can be accessed through the Internet in some of these nations.


title: Pornographic film

text: Sex acts in pornographic films have traditionally been performed without the use of condoms, with an accompanying risk of sexually transmitted disease among performers. In 1986, there was an outbreak of HIV infection which led to the deaths through AIDS of several actors and actresses. This led to the creation in 1998 of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which helped set up a monitoring system in the U.S. pornographic film industry, which required pornographic film actors to be tested for HIV every 30 days. , HIV infection of performers in the U.S. pornography industry has been rare, with only a few outbreaks being recorded over the subsequent three decades. The AIM closed its doors in May 2011 and filed for bankruptcy as a result of a court case arising from an inadvertent leak by it of confidential information on clients, including names and STD results.


title: Biology

text: Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary information encoded in genes, which can be transmitted to future generations. Another major theme is evolution, which explains the unity and diversity of life. Energy processing is also important to life as it allows organisms to move, grow, and reproduce. Finally, all organisms are able to regulate their own internal environments.


title: Biology

text: Biologists are able to study life at multiple levels of organization, from the molecular biology of a cell to the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, and evolution of populations. Hence, there are multiple subdisciplines within biology, each defined by the nature of their research questions and the tools that they use. Like other scientists, biologists use the scientific method to make observations, pose questions, generate hypotheses, perform experiments, and form conclusions about the world around them.


title: Biology

text: Life on Earth, which emerged more than 3.7 billion years ago, is immensely diverse. Biologists have sought to study and classify the various forms of life, from prokaryotic organisms such as archaea and bacteria to eukaryotic organisms such as protists, fungi, plants, and animals. These various organisms contribute to the biodiversity of an ecosystem, where they play specialized roles in the cycling of nutrients and energy through their biophysical environment.


title: Biology

text: The earliest of roots of science, which included medicine, can be traced to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions later entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle (384–322 BCE) contributed extensively to the development of biological knowledge. His works such as "History of Animals" were especially important because they revealed his naturalist leanings, and later more empirical works that focused on biological causation and the diversity of life. Aristotle's successor at the Lyceum, Theophrastus, wrote a series of books on botany that survived as the most important contribution of antiquity to the plant sciences, even into the Middle Ages.


title: Biology

text: Scholars of the medieval Islamic world who wrote on biology included al-Jahiz (781–869), Al-Dīnawarī (828–896), who wrote on botany, and Rhazes (865–925) who wrote on anatomy and physiology. Medicine was especially well studied by Islamic scholars working in Greek philosopher traditions, while natural history drew heavily on Aristotelian thought, especially in upholding a fixed hierarchy of life.


title: Biology

text: Biology began to quickly develop and grow with Anton van Leeuwenhoek's dramatic improvement of the microscope. It was then that scholars discovered spermatozoa, bacteria, infusoria and the diversity of microscopic life. Investigations by Jan Swammerdam led to new interest in entomology and helped to develop the basic techniques of microscopic dissection and staining.


title: Biology

text: Advances in microscopy also had a profound impact on biological thinking. In the early 19th century, a number of biologists pointed to the central importance of the cell. Then, in 1838, Schleiden and Schwann began promoting the now universal ideas that (1) the basic unit of organisms is the cell and (2) that individual cells have all the characteristics of life, although they opposed the idea that (3) all cells come from the division of other cells. However, Robert Remak and Rudolf Virchow were able to reify the third tenet, and by the 1860s most biologists accepted all three tenets which consolidated into cell theory.


title: Biology

text: Meanwhile, taxonomy and classification became the focus of natural historians. Carl Linnaeus published a basic taxonomy for the natural world in 1735 (variations of which have been in use ever since), and in the 1750s introduced scientific names for all his species. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, treated species as artificial categories and living forms as malleable—even suggesting the possibility of common descent. Although he was opposed to evolution, Buffon is a key figure in the history of evolutionary thought; his work influenced the evolutionary theories of both Lamarck and Darwin.


title: Biology

text: Serious evolutionary thinking originated with the works of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who was the first to present a coherent theory of evolution. He posited that evolution was the result of environmental stress on properties of animals, meaning that the more frequently and rigorously an organ was used, the more complex and efficient it would become, thus adapting the animal to its environment. Lamarck believed that these acquired traits could then be passed on to the animal's offspring, who would further develop and perfect them. However, it was the British naturalist Charles Darwin, combining the biogeographical approach of Humboldt, the uniformitarian geology of Lyell, Malthus's writings on population growth, and his own morphological expertise and extensive natural observations, who forged a more successful evolutionary theory based on natural selection; similar reasoning and evidence led Alfred Russel Wallace to independently reach the same conclusions. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection quickly spread through the scientific community and soon became a central axiom of the rapidly developing science of biology.


title: Biology

text: The basis for modern genetics began with the work of Gregor Mendel, who presented his paper, ""Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden"" ("Experiments on Plant Hybridization"), in 1865, which outlined the principles of biological inheritance, serving as the basis for modern genetics. However, the significance of his work was not realized until the early 20th century when evolution became a unified theory as the modern synthesis reconciled Darwinian evolution with classical genetics. In the 1940s and early 1950s, a series of experiments by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase pointed to DNA as the component of chromosomes that held the trait-carrying units that had become known as genes. A focus on new kinds of model organisms such as viruses and bacteria, along with the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, marked the transition to the era of molecular genetics. From the 1950s onwards, biology has been vastly extended in the molecular domain. The genetic code was cracked by Har Gobind Khorana, Robert W. Holley and Marshall Warren Nirenberg after DNA was understood to contain codons. Finally, the Human Genome Project was launched in 1990 with the goal of mapping the general human genome. This project was essentially completed in 2003, with further analysis still being published. The Human Genome Project was the first step in a globalized effort to incorporate accumulated knowledge of biology into a functional, molecular definition of the human body and the bodies of other organisms.


title: Biology

text: All organisms are made up of chemical elements; oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen account for 96% of all organisms, with calcium, phosphorus, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium constituting essentially all the remainder. Different elements can combine to form compounds such as water, which is fundamental to life. Biochemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including molecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions.


title: Biology

text: Life arose from the Earth's first ocean, which was formed approximately 3.8 billion years ago. Since then, water continues to be the most abundant molecule in every organism. Water is important to life because it is an effective solvent, capable of dissolving solutes such as sodium and chloride ions or other small molecules to form an aqueous solution. Once dissolved in water, these solutes are more likely to come in contact with one another and therefore take part in chemical reactions that sustain life.


title: Biology

text: In terms of its molecular structure, water is a small polar molecule with a bent shape formed by the polar covalent bonds of two hydrogen (H) atoms to one oxygen (O) atom (HO). Because the O–H bonds are polar, the oxygen atom has a slight negative charge and the two hydrogen atoms have a slight positive charge. This polar property of water allows it to attract other water molecules via hydrogen bonds, which makes water cohesive. Surface tension results from the cohesive force due to the attraction between molecules at the surface of the liquid. Water is also adhesive as it is able to adhere to the surface of any polar or charged non-water molecules.


title: Biology

text: Water is denser as a liquid than it is as a solid (or ice). This unique property of water allows ice to float above liquid water such as ponds, lakes, and oceans, thereby insulating the liquid below from the cold air above. The lower density of ice compared to liquid water is due to the lower number of water molecules that form the crystal lattice structure of ice, which leaves a large amount of space between water molecules. In contrast, there is no crystal lattice structure in liquid water, which allows more water molecules to occupy the same amount of volume.


title: Biology

text: Water also has the capacity to absorb energy, giving it a higher specific heat capacity than other solvents such as ethanol. Thus, a large amount of energy is needed to break the hydrogen bonds between water molecules to convert liquid water into water vapor.


title: Biology

text: As a molecule, water is not completely stable as each water molecule continuously dissociates into hydrogen and hydroxyl ions before reforming into a water molecule again. In pure water, the number of hydrogen ions balances (or equals) the number of hydroxyl ions, resulting in a pH that is neutral.


title: Biology

text: Organic compounds are molecules that contain carbon bonded to another element such as hydrogen. With the exception of water, nearly all the molecules that make up each organism contain carbon. Carbon can form covalent bonds with up to four other atoms, enabling it to form diverse, large, and complex molecules. For example, a single carbon atom can form four single covalent bonds such as in methane, two double covalent bonds such as in carbon dioxide (), or a triple covalent bond such as in carbon monoxide (CO). Moreover, carbon can form very long chains of interconnecting carbon–carbon bonds such as octane or ring-like structures such as glucose.


title: Biology

text: The simplest form of an organic molecule is the hydrocarbon, which is a large family of organic compounds that are composed of hydrogen atoms bonded to a chain of carbon atoms. A hydrocarbon backbone can be substituted by other elements such as oxygen (O), hydrogen (H), phosphorus (P), and sulfur (S), which can change the chemical behavior of that compound. Groups of atoms that contain these elements (O-, H-, P-, and S-) and are bonded to a central carbon atom or skeleton are called functional groups. There are six prominent functional groups that can be found in organisms: amino group, carboxyl group, carbonyl group, hydroxyl group, phosphate group, and sulfhydryl group.


title: Biology

text: In 1953, the Miller-Urey experiment showed that organic compounds could be synthesized abiotically within a closed system mimicking the conditions of early Earth, thus suggesting that complex organic molecules could have arisen spontaneously in early Earth (see abiogenesis).


title: Biology

text: Macromolecules are large molecules made up of smaller molecular subunits that are joined. Small molecules such as sugars, amino acids, and nucleotides can act as single repeating units called monomers to form chain-like molecules called polymers via a chemical process called condensation. For example, amino acids can form polypeptides whereas nucleotides can form strands of nucleic acid. Polymers make up three of the four macromolecules (polysaccharides, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids) that are found in all organisms. Each of these macromolecules plays a specialized role within any given cell.


title: Biology

text: Carbohydrates (or sugar) are molecules with the molecular formula , with "n" being the number of carbon-hydrate groups. They include monosaccharides (monomer), oligosaccharides (small polymers), and polysaccharides (large polymers). Monosaccharides can be linked together by glycosidic linkages, a type of covalent bond. When two monosaccharides such as glucose and fructose are linked together, they can form a disaccharide such as sucrose. When many monosaccharides are linked together, they can form an oligosaccharide or a polysaccharide, depending on the number of monosaccharides. Polysaccharides can vary in function. Monosaccharides such as glucose can be a source of energy and some polysaccharides can serve as storage material that can be hydrolyzed to provide cells with sugar.


title: Biology

text: Lipids are the only class of macromolecules that are not made up of polymers. The most biologically important lipids are steroids, phospholipids, and fats. These lipids are organic compounds that are largely nonpolar and hydrophobic. Steroids are organic compounds that consist of four fused rings. Phospholipids consist of glycerol that is linked to a phosphate group and two hydrocarbon chains (or fatty acids). The glycerol and phosphate group together constitute the polar and hydrophilic (or head) region of the molecule whereas the fatty acids make up the nonpolar and hydrophobic (or tail) region. Thus, when in water, phospholipids tend to form a phospholipid bilayer whereby the hydrophobic heads face outwards to interact with water molecules. Conversely, the hydrophobic tails face inwards towards other hydrophobic tails to avoid contact with water.


title: Biology

text: Proteins are the most diverse of the macromolecules, which include enzymes, transport proteins, large signaling molecules, antibodies, and structural proteins. The basic unit (or monomer) of a protein is an amino acid, which has a central carbon atom that is covalently bonded to a hydrogen atom, an amino group, a carboxyl group, and a side chain (or R-group, "R" for residue). There are twenty amino acids that make up the building blocks of proteins, with each amino acid having its own unique side chain. The polarity and charge of the side chains affect the solubility of amino acids. An amino acid with a side chain that is polar and electrically charged is soluble as it is hydrophilic whereas an amino acid with a side chain that lacks a charged or an electronegative atom is hydrophobic and therefore tends to coalesce rather than dissolve in water. Proteins have four distinct levels of organization (primary, secondary, tertiary, and quartenary). The primary structure consists of a unique sequence of amino acids that are covalently linked together by peptide bonds. The side chains of the individual amino acids can then interact with each other, giving rise to the secondary structure of a protein. The two common types of secondary structures are alpha helices and beta sheets. The folding of alpha helices and beta sheets gives a protein its three-dimensional or tertiary structure. Finally, multiple tertiary structures can combine to form the quaternary structure of a protein.


title: Biology

text: Nucleic acids are polymers made up of monomers called nucleotides. Their function is to store, transmit, and express hereditary information. Nucleotides consist of a phosphate group, a five-carbon sugar, and a nitrogenous base. Ribonucleotides, which contain ribose as the sugar, are the monomers of ribonucleic acid (RNA). In contrast, deoxyribonucleotides contain deoxyribose as the sugar and are constitute the monomers of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). RNA and DNA also differ with respect to one of their bases. There are two types of bases: purines and pyrimidines. The purines include guanine (G) and adenine (A) whereas the pyrimidines consist of cytosine (C), uracil (U), and thymine (T). Uracil is used in RNA whereas thymine is used in DNA. Taken together, when the different sugar and bases are take into consideration, there are eight distinct nucleotides that can form two types of nucleic acids: DNA (A, G, C, and T) and RNA (A, G, C, and U).


title: Biology

text: Cell theory states that cells are the fundamental units of life, that all living things are composed of one or more cells, and that all cells arise from preexisting cells through cell division. Most cells are very small, with diameters ranging from 1 to 100 micrometers and are therefore only visible under a light or electron microscope. There are generally two types of cells: eukaryotic cells, which contain a nucleus, and prokaryotic cells, which do not. Prokaryotes are single-celled organisms such as bacteria, whereas eukaryotes can be single-celled or multicellular. In multicellular organisms, every cell in the organism's body is derived ultimately from a single cell in a fertilized egg.


title: Biology

text: Every cell is enclosed within a cell membrane that separates its cytoplasm from the extracellular space. A cell membrane consists of a lipid bilayer, including cholesterols that sit between phospholipids to maintain their fluidity at various temperatures. Cell membranes are semipermeable, allowing small molecules such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water to pass through while restricting the movement of larger molecules and charged particles such as ions. Cell membranes also contains membrane proteins, including integral membrane proteins that go across the membrane serving as membrane transporters, and peripheral proteins that loosely attach to the outer side of the cell membrane, acting as enzymes shaping the cell. Cell membranes are involved in various cellular processes such as cell adhesion, storing electrical energy, and cell signalling and serve as the attachment surface for several extracellular structures such as a cell wall, glycocalyx, and cytoskeleton.


title: Biology

text: Within the cytoplasm of a cell, there are many biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. In addition to biomolecules, eukaryotic cells have specialized structures called organelles that have their own lipid bilayers or are spatially units. These organelles include the cell nucleus, which contains most of the cell's DNA, or mitochondria, which generates adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to power cellular processes. Other organelles such as endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus play a role in the synthesis and packaging of proteins, respectively. Biomolecules such as proteins can be engulfed by lysosomes, another specialized organelle. Plant cells have additional organelles that distinguish them from animal cells such as a cell wall that provides support for the plant cell, chloroplasts that harvest sunlight energy to produce sugar, and vacuoles that provide storage and structural support as well as being involved in reproduction and breakdown of plant seeds. Eukaryotic cells also have cytoskeleton that is made up of microtubules, intermediate filaments, and microfilaments, all of which provide support for the cell and are involved in the movement of the cell and its organelles. In terms of their structural composition, the microtubules are made up of tubulin (e.g., α-tubulin and β-tubulin whereas intermediate filaments are made up of fibrous proteins. Microfilaments are made up of actin molecules that interact with other strands of proteins.


title: Biology

text: All cells require energy to sustain cellular processes. Energy is the capacity to do work, which, in thermodynamics, can be calculated using Gibbs free energy. According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy is conserved, i.e., cannot be created or destroyed. Hence, chemical reactions in a cell do not create new energy but are involved instead in the transformation and transfer of energy. Nevertheless, all energy transfers lead to some loss of usable energy, which increases entropy (or state of disorder) as stated by the second law of thermodynamics. As a result, an organism requires continuous input of energy to maintain a low state of entropy. In cells, energy can be transferred as electrons during redox (reduction–oxidation) reactions, stored in covalent bonds, and generated by the movement of ions (e.g., hydrogen, sodium, potassium) across a membrane.