title: Mumbai Indians

text: American multinational corporation – MasterCard was the official founding sponsor of the Mumbai Indians, while Adidas was their official apparel sponsor until 2014. Since then, the UAE's national carrier Etihad Airways signed a three-year contract and took over as one of the principle sponsors of Mumbai Indians. In 2015, Performax, the in-house brand of Reliance Trends, took over as the apparel sponsors. Associate sponsors and official partners include Bridgestone, Dheeraj and East Coast LLC, Kingfisher, Wrigley's Orbit, Wrigley's Boomer, Royal Stag, Air India, MSN and Red FM 93.5.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: Hero MotoCorp was also one of the main sponsors of Mumbai Indians for 2011 and 2012 seasons. The principal sponsors of Mumbai Indians are Videocon d2h since 2013. In 2015, companies such as USHA, Jack & Jones, HTC, Tiny Owl, Paytm, Ola Cabs, DNA and Fever 104 FM came on board. From 2016, DHFL and Samsung joined as the new associate sponsors. Along with them, Pepsi, yatra.com, Radio City, LYF smartphones and Guvera came in as the new official sponsors. The global fashion brand Diesel's first ever association with cricket will produce a limited edition collection which will be available globally across popular cricket playing nations.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians have played against each other more number of times than any other two teams in the IPL. They are the two most successful IPL teams and often termed as "big spenders" at the players auction. The two sides have met each other at the final of the IPL four times, with Mumbai winning thrice and Chennai winning once. The rivalry is often referred to as the El Clasico of IPL.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: Both the teams play in major markets, as the Mumbai Indians play in Mumbai and the Kolkata Knight Riders play in Kolkata. The Mumbai Indians is the most successful IPL franchise with five championships, but until Mumbai's third championship, both the teams were tied with two championships. In the first two seasons of the IPL, Mumbai swept Kolkata in all four games. It was not until the 2010 IPL Season that Kolkata won against Mumbai. Both sides have been captained by Indian cricket legends at one point (Mumbai was captained by Sachin Tendulkar, and Kolkata was captained by Sourav Ganguly). This rivalry has often played out in Mumbai's favour, as they have won 22 games compared to Kolkata's seven wins. Both have played each other twice in the playoffs.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: In 2011, both teams played against each other in the Eliminator round, as both franchises made their first playoff appearances. This was the first time that the two teams met in the playoffs. Mumbai won the match by four wickets and advanced to the next round, ultimately losing to the Royal Challengers Bangalore.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: In 2012, both the teams were chasing a playoff spot in the tournament. The game started out poorly for KKR as their batting side did not score runs. KKR picked up the pace and ended the innings with 140/7. Mumbai was expected to win at that point and started to attack quickly, and started 60/2 with more than 10 overs left to play. Mumbai quickly collapsed and finished their innings with 108 runs and all out. Sunil Narine was named Man of the Match with 4 wickets, and KKR eliminated MI from the playoffs. KKR won its first championship that season. Knight Riders owner Shah Rukh Khan was handed a 5-year ban at Wankhede Stadium, home of the Mumbai Indians. He was accused of walking on the field post-match and abusing the security guards. In 2015, the ban was lifted.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: Mumbai and Kolkata faced off in the opening match of the 2015 season. Mumbai was up to bat in the first innings as they scored 168/3. This charge was led by captain Rohit Sharma with his 98 runs. Kolkata captain, Gautam Gambhir had 57 runs and led his side to victory. Suryakumar Yadav's 46 runs were crucial to KKR's chase.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: In 2017, Mumbai earned its 100th T20 win against KKR. Later that season, both sides met in the playoffs in the Qualifier 2 round. KKR had a poor batting performance as they posted 107 runs and all out. Mumbai was able to capitalise and won the match. Mumbai went onto the finals to beat Rising Pune Supergiant to claim their third championship.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: From 2015 to 2018, Mumbai Indians held an eight-game winning streak against the Kolkata Knight Riders. That streak was broken on 29 April 2019, as KKR posted a total of 232 runs and won by 34 runs. KKR's Andre Russell scored 80 runs, and MI's Hardik Pandya scored 91 runs. KKR holds the record for highest total for an IPL match played at Eden Gardens. This victory was KKR's 100th T20 win. Mumbai have won all three games between them since then.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: Mumbai Indians have supported the social cause of education to the underprivileged. They have raised funds for the cause via selling merchandise like wristbands signed by their players. The NGOs supported are Pratham, Ummeed, Akanksha, Teach For India and Nanhi Kali.


title: Mumbai Indians

text: In the 2019 Netflix documentary series "", the journey of the team was covered. This was the first sports related show from India to be produced by Netflix and also the first IPL side to be featured in a documentary.


"With great power comes great responsibility" is an adage popularized by Spider-Man in Marvel comics, films, and related media. Introduced by Stan Lee, it originally appeared as a closing narration in the 1962 "Amazing Fantasy" #15, and was later attributed to Uncle Ben as advice to the young Peter Parker. The ideasimilar to the 1st century BC parable of the Sword of Damocles and the medieval principle of "noblesse oblige"is that power cannot simply be enjoyed for its privileges alone but necessarily makes its holders morally responsible both for what they choose to do with it and for what they fail to do with it. After it was popularized by the Spider-Man franchise, similar formulations have been noticed in the work of earlier writers and orators. The formulationusually in its Marvel Comics formhas been used by journalists, authors, and other writers, including the Supreme Court of the United States.


title: With great power comes great responsibility

text: Reminders that power is not only fun and games are at least as old as the legend of the Sword of Damocles preserved in the 1st century BC Tusculan Disputations of the Roman orator Cicero. Probably retold from earlier but now lost accounts by Timaeus and Diodorus, Cicero relates that the courtier Damocles was overjoyed at the chance to trade places with the 4th century BC tyrant of Syracuse Dionysius the Younger for a day. His happiness was abruptly ended when he found that a sword had been suspended above the throne by a single horsehair, indicating the worry of monarchsparticularly tyrantsover the precariousness of their rule. The historical Dionysius was known for treating his subjects harshly and was deposed twice, eventually dying in exile and poverty in Corinth.


text: An early Christian parallel appears at the end of Jesus's Parable of the Faithful Servant as related in Luke 12:48: (Greek:"pantì dè hō̂i edóthē polý, polý zētēthḗsetai par'autoû, kai hō̂i paréthento polý, perissóteron aitḗsousin autón"). This is rendered in the King James Version as "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more" and in the New International Version as "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked".


text: An Islamic parallel appears in a hadith traditionally attributed via Ibn Umar to the prophet Muhammad: (Arabic:"Kullkum rāʿin wa kullkum masʾūl ʿan raʿiyyatta"), "All of you are shepherds and each of you is responsible for his flock" or "herd". The full hadith describes the responsibility of leaders, imams, husbands, and wives both for the actions and well-being of those entrusted to their care.


text: During the French Revolution, the Committee of Public Safety published the following as part of its 8 May 1793 "Plan of Work, Surveillance, and Correspondence" (): "Ils doivent envisager qu'une grande responsabilité est la suite inséparable d'un grand pouvoir", "[The representatives of the Convention] must understand that a great responsibility is the inseparable result of a great power". Similar phrasing is sometimes misattributed to the French writer Voltaire.


text: On 27 June 1817, the British member of Parliament William Lamb proclaimed that "the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility" during debate over the suspension of "habeas corpus" amid the rioting and disorder of the economic crisis and poor harvests following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Relating Lamb's speech, Hansard retold his argument that "his friends would, perhaps reproach him with instigating ministers to curb the press; but nothing, he assured them, was farther from his mind. He was aware of the great benefit the country derived from the liberty of the press, and nothing could induce him to concur in any measure that might tend to injure it; at the same time he was free to confess, that its state had an influence on the vote he gave on the present question". While undersecretary of the Colonial Office, Winston Churchill stated that "I submit respectfully to the House as a general principle that our responsibility in this matter is directly proportionate to our power. Where there is great power there is great responsibility, where there is less power there is less responsibility, and where there is no power there can, I think, be no responsibility... in South Africa, above all other Colonies, we are provided with a most sure foothold for intervention in behalf of the natives. We have greater power and therefore greater responsibility. A self-governing Colony is not entitled to say one day, 'Hands off; no dictation in our internal affairs,' and the next day to telegraph for the protection of a brigade of British infantry." during a 1906 debate about the native people of South Africa. Railing against Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook's "Daily Mail" and "Daily Express", the prime minister Stanley Baldwin complained in a 17 March 1937 speech: "What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, but power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages". As prime minister himself, Churchill addressed Harvard in 6 September 1943 to encourage Americans to greater efforts in World War II, particularly in cooperation with the British Empire. "Twice in my lifetime the long arm of destiny has reached across the oceans and involved the entire life and manhood of the United States in a deadly struggle... The price of greatness is responsibility. If the people of the United States had continued in a mediocre station, struggling with the wilderness, absorbed in their own affairs, and a factor of no consequence in the movement of the world, they might have remained forgotten and undisturbed beyond their protecting oceans: but one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilised world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes. If this has been proved in the past, as it has been, it will become indisputable in the future. The people of the United States cannot escape world responsibility."


text: Various presidents of the United States have expressed similar ideas. Recalling press complaints of his prosecution of the Vicksburg campaign, Ulysses S. Grant wrote in his 1885 memoirs that "I took no steps to answer these complaints, but continued to do my duty, as I understood it, to the best of my ability. Every one has his superstitions. One of mine is that in positions of great responsibility every one should do his duty to the best of his ability where assigned by competent authority, without application or the use of influence to change his position." After discussion of banking and shipping reforms, antilynching legislation, and other issues, President William McKinley's 1899 State of the Union letter closed with the admonition that "Presented to this Congress are great opportunities. With them come great responsibilities. The power confided to us increases the weight of our obligations to the people, and we must be profoundly sensible of them as we contemplate the new and grave problems which confront us. Aiming only at the public good, we cannot err." A 1908 letter from Theodore Roosevelt to the British historian George Trevelyan noted that "I believe in a strong executive; I believe in power, but I believe that responsibility should go with power, and that it is not well that the strong executive should be a perpetual executive". In a radio address summarizing his 1945 State of the Union letter, Franklin Roosevelt spoke against "power politics", stating that "in a democratic world, as in a democratic Nation, power must be linked with responsibility, and obliged to defend and justify itself within the framework of the general good".


text: In the first episode of the 1948 serial "Superman", Eben Kent (Edward Cassidy) tells his adopted son Clark (Kirk Alyn) that "because of these great powersyour speed and strength, your x-ray vision and super-sensitive hearingyou have a great responsibility."


text: The specific phrasing "with great power comes great responsibility" evolved from Spider-Man's first appearance in the 1962 "Amazing Fantasy" #15, written by Stan Lee. It is not spoken by any character, but instead appears in a narrative caption of the comic book's last panel:


text: And a lean, silent figure slowly fades in the gathering darkness, aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come -- great responsibility!


text: The expression's connection to Spider-Man's Uncle Ben was a later development. While Uncle Ben had only two lines in the original story, later stories and flashbacks set when Ben was alive retroactively made the phrase one of his homilies to Peter. The first mention of Ben saying the phrase to Peter was in 1972, when Ron Dante (of The Archies) included it in his album "Spider-Man: A Rockomic". However, this attribution would not catch on in the comics for at least another decade. The earliest appearance of a direct reference to Ben telling Peter the phrase is the 1987 "Spider-Man vs. Wolverine" #1 by Jim Owsley, M. D. Bright, and Al Williamson. The first showing Ben saying this to Spider-Man was the February 2002 "Amazing Spider-Man" (Ser. 2) #38.


text: The phrase gained popularity and pop cultural significance following its utterance in the 2002 live action "Spider-Man" film directed by Sam Raimi, in which it is spoken by both Ben (portrayed by Cliff Robertson) and Peter (portrayed by Tobey Maguire). The phrase is spoken by Richard Parker (portrayed by Campbell Scott) in an extra scene from "The Amazing Spider-Man 2". The full phrase appears in the film "" (2021), spoken by Aunt May (portrayed by Marisa Tomei) to Peter (portrayed by Tom Holland) moments before the former's death. Maguire's Parker also recognizes and finishes the phrase when Holland's Parker tells his alternate versions about May saying it to him. Multiple different variations of the phrase were also spoken through out these films, including by Alfred Molina's Otto Octavius in 2004’s "Spider-Man 2", by Martin Sheen's Ben in 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man", and by Holland's Peter to Tony Stark in "" (2016).


text: "Intelligence is not a privilege, it's a gift. And you use it for the good of mankind." — Alfred Molina's Otto Octavius — "Spider-Man 2" (2004)


text: "You are a lot like your father. You really are, Peter, and that's a good thing. But your father lived by a philosophy, a principle, really. He believed that if you could do good things for other people, you had a moral obligation to do those things! That's what's at stake here. Not choice. "Responsibility"." — Martin Sheen's Ben Parker — "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012)


text: "When you can do the things that I can, but you don't... and then the bad things happen... they happen because of you." — Tom Holland's Peter Parker — " (2016)"


text: Contemporary reinterpretations of Spider-Man, including Raimi's 2002 film as well as the "Ultimate Spider-Man" comic, depict Ben as saying this phrase to Peter in their last conversation together. Comic book writer Greg Pak opined that the motto was "one of the greatest single moral injunctions in all of American pop culture."


text: The formulation created by Marvel has been used by journalists, authors, and other writers, including the United States Supreme Court.


title: Moss

text: Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) "sensu stricto". Bryophyta ("sensu lato", Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hornworts. Mosses typically form dense green clumps or mats, often in damp or shady locations. The individual plants are usually composed of simple leaves that are generally only one cell thick, attached to a stem that may be branched or unbranched and has only a limited role in conducting water and nutrients. Although some species have conducting tissues, these are generally poorly developed and structurally different from similar tissue found in vascular plants. Mosses do not have seeds and after fertilisation develop sporophytes with unbranched stalks topped with single capsules containing spores. They are typically tall, though some species are much larger. "Dawsonia", the tallest moss in the world, can grow to in height. There are approximately 12,000 species.


title: Moss

text: Mosses are commonly confused with liverworts, hornworts and lichens. Mosses are grouped with the hornworts and liverworts as "non-vascular" plants in a division, all of them having the haploid gametophyte generation as the dominant phase of the life cycle (though in fact many mosses have advanced vascular systems). This contrasts with the pattern in all vascular plants (seed plants and pteridophytes), where the diploid sporophyte generation is dominant. Lichens may superficially resemble mosses, and sometimes have common names that include the word "moss" (e.g., "reindeer moss" or "Iceland moss"), but they are not related to mosses.


title: Moss

text: The main commercial significance of mosses is as the main constituent of peat (mostly the genus "Sphagnum"), although they are also used for decorative purposes, such as in gardens and in the florist trade. Traditional uses of mosses included as insulation and for the ability to absorb liquids up to 20 times their weight.


title: Moss

text: Botanically, mosses are non-vascular plants in the land plant division Bryophyta. They are usually small (a few centimeters tall) herbaceous (non-woody) plants that absorb water and nutrients mainly through their leaves and harvest carbon dioxide and sunlight to create food by photosynthesis. With the exception of the ancient group Takakiopsida, no known mosses form mycorrhiza, but bryophilous fungi is widespread in moss and other bryophytes, where they live as saprotrophs, parasites, pathogens and mutualists, some of them endophytes. They differ from vascular plants in lacking water-bearing xylem tracheids or vessels. As in liverworts and hornworts, the haploid gametophyte generation is the dominant phase of the life cycle. This contrasts with the pattern in all vascular plants (seed plants and pteridophytes), where the diploid sporophyte generation is dominant. Mosses reproduce using spores, not seeds, and have no flowers.


title: Moss

text: Moss gametophytes have stems which may be simple or branched and upright or prostrate. The early divergent classes Takakiopsida, Sphagnopsida, Andreaeopsida and Andreaeobryopsida either lack stomata or have pseudostomata that do not form pores. In the remaining classes, stomata has been lost more than 60 times. Their leaves are simple, usually only a single layer of cells with no internal air spaces, often with thicker midribs. They do not have proper roots, but have threadlike rhizoids that anchor them to their substrate. Mosses do not absorb water or nutrients from their substrate through their rhizoids. They can be distinguished from liverworts (Marchantiophyta or Hepaticae) by their multi-cellular rhizoids. Spore-bearing capsules or sporangia of mosses are borne singly on long, unbranched stems, thereby distinguishing them from the polysporangiophytes, which include all vascular plants. The spore-bearing sporophytes (i.e. the diploid multicellular generation) are short-lived and usually capable of photosynthesis, but are dependent on the gametophyte for water supply and most or all of its nutrients. Also, in the majority of mosses, the spore-bearing capsule enlarges and matures after its stalk elongates, while in liverworts the capsule enlarges and matures before its stalk elongates. Other differences are not universal for all mosses and all liverworts, but the presence of a clearly differentiated stem with simple-shaped, non-vascular leaves that are not arranged in three ranks, all point to the plant being a moss.


title: Moss

text: Vascular plants have two sets of chromosomes in their vegetative cells and are said to be diploid, i.e. each chromosome has a partner that contains the same, or similar, genetic information. By contrast, mosses and other bryophytes have only a single set of chromosomes and so are haploid (i.e. each chromosome exists in a unique copy within the cell). There is a period in the moss life cycle when they do have a double set of paired chromosomes, but this happens only during the sporophyte stage.


title: Moss

text: The moss life-cycle starts with a haploid spore that germinates to produce a protonema ("pl." protonemata), which is either a mass of thread-like filaments or thalloid (flat and thallus-like). Massed moss protonemata typically look like a thin green felt, and may grow on damp soil, tree bark, rocks, concrete, or almost any other reasonably stable surface. This is a transitory stage in the life of a moss, but from the protonema grows the gametophore ("gamete-bearer") that is structurally differentiated into stems and leaves. A single mat of protonemata may develop several gametophore shoots, resulting in a clump of moss.


title: Moss

text: From the tips of the gametophore stems or branches develop the sex organs of the mosses. The female organs are known as archegonia ("sing." archegonium) and are protected by a group of modified leaves known as the perichaetum (plural, perichaeta). The archegonia are small flask-shaped clumps of cells with an open neck (venter) down which the male sperm swim. The male organs are known as antheridia ("sing." antheridium) and are enclosed by modified leaves called the perigonium ("pl." perigonia). The surrounding leaves in some mosses form a splash cup, allowing the sperm contained in the cup to be splashed to neighboring stalks by falling water droplets. Gametophore tip growth is disrupted by fungal chitin. Galotto "et al.", 2020 apply chitooctaose and find that tips detect and respond to this chitin derivative by changing gene expression. They find this defense response is probably conserved from the most recent common ancestor of bryophytes and tracheophytes. Orr "et al.", 2020 find that the microtubules of growing tip cells are structurally similar to F-actin and serve a similar purpose.


title: Moss

text: Mosses can be either dioicous (compare dioecious in seed plants) or monoicous (compare monoecious). In dioicous mosses, male and female sex organs are borne on different gametophyte plants. In monoicous (also called autoicous) mosses, both are borne on the same plant. In the presence of water, sperm from the antheridia swim to the archegonia and fertilisation occurs, leading to the production of a diploid sporophyte. The sperm of mosses is biflagellate, i.e. they have two flagellae that aid in propulsion. Since the sperm must swim to the archegonium, fertilisation cannot occur without water. Some species (for example "Mnium hornum" or several species of "Polytrichum") keep their antheridia in so called 'splash cups', bowl-like structures on the shoot tips that propel the sperm several decimeters when water droplets hit it, increasing the fertilization distance.


title: Moss

text: After fertilisation, the immature sporophyte pushes its way out of the archegonial venter. It takes about a quarter to half a year for the sporophyte to mature. The sporophyte body comprises a long stalk, called a seta, and a capsule capped by a cap called the operculum. The capsule and operculum are in turn sheathed by a haploid calyptra which is the remains of the archegonial venter. The calyptra usually falls off when the capsule is mature. Within the capsule, spore-producing cells undergo meiosis to form haploid spores, upon which the cycle can start again. The mouth of the capsule is usually ringed by a set of teeth called peristome. This may be absent in some mosses.


title: Moss

text: Most mosses rely on the wind to disperse the spores. In the genus "Sphagnum" the spores are projected about off the ground by compressed air contained in the capsules; the spores are accelerated to about 36,000 times the earth's gravitational acceleration "g".


title: Moss

text: It has recently been found that microarthropods, such as springtails and mites, can effect moss fertilization and that this process is mediated by moss-emitted scents. Male and female fire moss, for example emit different and complex volatile organic scents. Female plants emit more compounds than male plants. Springtails were found to choose female plants preferentially, and one study found that springtails enhance moss fertilization, suggesting a scent-mediated relationship analogous to the plant-pollinator relationship found in many seed plants. The stinkmoss species "Splachnum sphaericum" develops insect pollination further by attracting flies to its sporangia with a strong smell of carrion, and providing a strong visual cue in the form of red-coloured swollen collars beneath each spore capsule. Flies attracted to the moss carry its spores to fresh herbivore dung, which is the favoured habitat of the species of this genus.


title: Moss

text: In many mosses, e.g., "Ulota phyllantha", green vegetative structures called gemmae are produced on leaves or branches, which can break off and form new plants without the need to go through the cycle of fertilization. This is a means of asexual reproduction, and the genetically identical units can lead to the formation of clonal populations.


title: Moss

text: Moss dwarf males (also known as nannandry or phyllodioicy) originate from wind-dispersed male spores that settle and germinate on the female shoot where their growth is restricted to a few millimeters. In some species, dwarfness is genetically determined, in that all male spores become dwarf. More often, it is environmentally determined in that male spores that land on a female become dwarf, while those that land elsewhere develop into large, female-sized males. In the latter case, dwarf males that are transplanted from females to another substrate develop into large shoots, suggesting that the females emit a substance which inhibits the growth of germinating males and possibly also quickens their onset of sexual maturation. The nature of such a substance is unknown, but the phytohormone auxin may be involved


title: Moss

text: Having the males growing as dwarfs on the female is expected to increase the fertilization efficiency by minimizing the distance between male and female reproductive organs. Accordingly, it has been observed that fertilization frequency is positively associated with the presence of dwarf males in several phyllodioicous species.


title: Moss

text: Dwarf males occur in several unrelated lineages and is showing to be more common than previously thought. For example, it is estimated that between one quarter and half of all dioicous pleurocarps have dwarf males.


title: Moss

text: The moss "Physcomitrella patens" has been used as a model organism to study how plants repair damage to their DNA, especially the repair mechanism known as homologous recombination. If the plant cannot repair DNA damage, e.g., double-strand breaks, in their somatic cells, the cells can lose normal functions or die. If this occurs during meiosis (part of sexual reproduction), they could become infertile. The genome of "P. patens" has been sequenced, which has allowed several genes involved in DNA repair to be identified. "P. patens" mutants that are defective in key steps of homologous recombination have been used to work out how the repair mechanism functions in plants. For example, a study of "P. patens" mutants defective in "Rp"RAD51, a gene that encodes a protein at the core of the recombinational repair reaction, indicated that homologous recombination is essential for repairing DNA double-strand breaks in this plant. Similarly, studies of mutants defective in "Ppmre11" or "Pprad50" (that encode key proteins of the MRN complex, the principal sensor of DNA double-strand breaks) showed that these genes are necessary for repair of DNA damage as well as for normal growth and development.


title: Moss

text: More recently, mosses have been grouped with the liverworts and hornworts in the division Bryophyta (bryophytes, or Bryophyta "sensu lato"). The bryophyte division itself contains three (former) divisions: Bryophyta (mosses), Marchantiophyta (liverworts) and Anthocerotophyta (hornworts); it has been proposed that these latter divisions are de-ranked to the classes Bryopsida, Marchantiopsida, and Anthocerotopsida, respectively. The mosses and liverworts are now considered to belong to a clade called Setaphyta.


title: Moss

text: Six of the eight classes contain only one or two genera each. Polytrichopsida includes 23 genera, and Bryopsida includes the majority of moss diversity with over 95% of moss species belonging to this class.


title: Moss

text: The Sphagnopsida, the peat-mosses, comprise the two living genera "Ambuchanania" and "Sphagnum", as well as fossil taxa. "Sphagnum" is a diverse, widespread, and economically important one. These large mosses form extensive acidic bogs in peat swamps. The leaves of "Sphagnum" have large dead cells alternating with living photosynthetic cells. The dead cells help to store water. Aside from this character, the unique branching, thallose (flat and expanded) protonema, and explosively rupturing sporangium place it apart from other mosses.


title: Moss

text: Andreaeopsida and Andreaeobryopsida are distinguished by the biseriate (two rows of cells) rhizoids, multiseriate (many rows of cells) protonema, and sporangium that splits along longitudinal lines. Most mosses have capsules that open at the top.


title: Moss

text: Polytrichopsida have leaves with sets of parallel lamellae, flaps of chloroplast-containing cells that look like the fins on a heat sink. These carry out photosynthesis and may help to conserve moisture by partially enclosing the gas exchange surfaces. The Polytrichopsida differ from other mosses in other details of their development and anatomy too, and can also become larger than most other mosses, with e.g., "Polytrichum commune" forming cushions up to high. The tallest land moss, a member of the Polytrichidae is probably "Dawsonia superba", a native to New Zealand and other parts of Australasia.


title: Moss

text: The fossil record of moss is sparse, due to their soft-walled and fragile nature. Unambiguous moss fossils have been recovered from as early as the Permian of Antarctica and Russia, and a case has been made for Carboniferous mosses. It has further been claimed that tube-like fossils from the Silurian are the macerated remains of moss calyptræ. Mosses also appear to evolve 2–3 times slower than ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms.


title: Moss

text: Recent research shows that ancient moss could explain why the Ordovician ice ages occurred. When the ancestors of today's moss started to spread on land 470 million years ago, they absorbed CO from the atmosphere and extracted minerals by secreting organic acids that dissolved the rocks they were growing on. These chemically altered rocks in turn reacted with the atmospheric CO and formed new carbonate rocks in the ocean through the weathering of calcium and magnesium ions from silicate rocks. The weathered rocks also released significant amounts of phosphorus and iron which ended up in the oceans, where it caused massive algal blooms, resulting in organic carbon burial, extracting more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Small organisms feeding on the nutrients created large areas without oxygen, which caused a mass extinction of marine species, while the levels of CO dropped all over the world, allowing the formation of ice caps on the poles.


title: Moss

text: Since moss gametophytes are autotrophic they require enough sunlight to perform photosynthesis. Shade tolerance varies by species, just as it does with higher plants. In most areas, mosses grow chiefly in moist, shaded areas, such as wooded areas and at the edges of streams, but they can grow anywhere in cool, humid, cloudy climates, and some species are adapted to sunny, seasonally dry areas like alpine rocks or stabilized sand dunes.


title: Moss

text: Choice of substrate varies by species as well. Moss species can be classed as growing on: rocks, exposed mineral soil, disturbed soils, acid soil, calcareous soil, cliff seeps and waterfall spray areas, streamsides, shaded humusy soil, downed logs, burnt stumps, tree trunk bases, upper tree trunks, and tree branches or in bogs. Moss species growing on or under trees are often specific about the species of trees they grow on, such as preferring conifers over broadleaf trees, oaks over alders, or vice versa. While mosses often grow on trees as epiphytes, they are never parasitic on the tree.


title: Moss

text: Mosses are also found in cracks between paving stones in damp city streets, and on roofs. Some species adapted to disturbed, sunny areas are well adapted to urban conditions and are commonly found in cities. Examples would be "Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus", a garden weed in Vancouver and Seattle areas; "Bryum argenteum", the cosmopolitan sidewalk moss, and "Ceratodon purpureus", red roof moss, another cosmopolitan species. A few species are wholly aquatic, such as "Fontinalis antipyretica", common water moss; and others such as "Sphagnum" inhabit bogs, marshes and very slow-moving waterways. Such aquatic or semi-aquatic mosses can greatly exceed the normal range of lengths seen in terrestrial mosses. Individual plants or more long are common in "Sphagnum" species for example. But even aquatic species of moss and other bryophytes needs their mature capsules to be exposed to air by seta elongation or seasonal lowering of water level to be able to reproduce.


title: Moss

text: Wherever they occur, mosses require liquid water for at least part of the year to complete fertilisation. Many mosses can survive desiccation, sometimes for months, returning to life within a few hours of rehydration.


title: Moss

text: It is generally believed that in the Northern Hemisphere, the north side of trees and rocks will generally have more luxuriant moss growth on average than other sides. The reason is assumed to be because sunshine on the south side causes a dry environment. The reverse would be true in the Southern Hemisphere. Some naturalists feel that mosses grow on the damper side of trees and rocks. In some cases, such as sunny climates in temperate northern latitudes, this will be the shaded north side of the tree or rock. On steep slopes, it may be the uphill side. For mosses that grow on tree branches, this is generally the upper side of the branch on horizontally growing sections or near the crotch. In cool, humid, cloudy climates, all sides of tree trunks and rocks may be equally moist enough for moss growth. Each species of moss requires certain amounts of moisture and sunlight and thus will grow on certain sections of the same tree or rock.


title: Moss

text: Some mosses grow underwater, or completely waterlogged. Many prefer well-drained locations. There are mosses that preferentially grow on rocks and tree trunks of various chemistries.


title: Moss

text: In boreal forests, some species of moss play an important role in providing nitrogen for the ecosystem due to their relationship with nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria colonize moss and receive shelter in return for providing fixed nitrogen. Moss releases the fixed nitrogen, along with other nutrients, into the soil "upon disturbances like drying-rewetting and fire events," making it available throughout the ecosystem.


title: Moss

text: Moss is often considered a weed in grass lawns, but is deliberately encouraged to grow under aesthetic principles exemplified by Japanese gardening. In old temple gardens, moss can carpet a forest scene. Moss is thought to add a sense of calm, age, and stillness to a garden scene. Moss is also used in bonsai to cover the soil and enhance the impression of age. Rules of cultivation are not widely established. Moss collections are quite often begun using samples transplanted from the wild in a water-retaining bag. Some species of moss can be extremely difficult to maintain away from their natural sites with their unique requirements of combinations of light, humidity, substrate chemistry, shelter from wind, etc.


title: Moss

text: Growing moss from spores is even less controlled. Moss spores fall in a constant rain on exposed surfaces; those surfaces which are hospitable to a certain species of moss will typically be colonised by that moss within a few years of exposure to wind and rain. Materials which are porous and moisture retentive, such as brick, wood, and certain coarse concrete mixtures, are hospitable to moss. Surfaces can also be prepared with acidic substances, including buttermilk, yogurt, urine, and gently puréed mixtures of moss samples, water and ericaceous compost.


title: Moss

text: In the cool, humid, cloudy Pacific Northwest, moss is sometimes allowed to grow naturally as a moss lawn, one that needs little or no mowing, fertilizing or watering. In this case, grass is considered to be the weed. Landscapers in the Seattle area sometimes collect boulders and downed logs growing mosses for installation in gardens and landscapes. Woodland gardens in many parts of the world can include a carpet of natural mosses. The Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, Washington State, is famous for its moss garden. The moss garden was created by removing shrubby underbrush and herbaceous groundcovers, thinning trees, and allowing mosses to fill in naturally.


title: Moss

text: Mosses are sometimes used in green roofs. Advantages of mosses over higher plants in green roofs include reduced weight loads, increased water absorption, no fertilizer requirements, and high drought tolerance. Since mosses do not have true roots, they require less planting medium than higher plants with extensive root systems. With proper species selection for the local climate, mosses in green roofs require no irrigation once established and are low maintenance. Mosses are also used on green walls.


title: Moss

text: A passing fad for moss-collecting in the late 19th century led to the establishment of mosseries in many British and American gardens. The mossery is typically constructed out of slatted wood, with a flat roof, open to the north side (maintaining shade). Samples of moss were installed in the cracks between wood slats. The whole mossery would then be regularly moistened to maintain growth.


title: Moss

text: Aquascaping uses many aquatic mosses. They do best at low nutrient, light, and heat levels, and propagate fairly readily. They help maintain a water chemistry suitable for aquarium fish. They grow more slowly than many aquarium plants, and are fairly hardy.


title: Moss

text: Moss can be a troublesome weed in containerized nursery operations and greenhouses. Vigorous moss growth can inhibit seedling emergence and penetration of water and fertilizer to the plant roots.


title: Moss

text: The application of products containing ferrous sulfate or ferrous ammonium sulfate will kill moss; these ingredients are typically in commercial moss control products and fertilizers. Sulfur and iron are essential nutrients for some competing plants like grasses. Killing moss will not prevent regrowth unless conditions favorable to their growth are changed.


title: Moss

text: Laplanders, North American tribes, and other circumpolar people used mosses for bedding. Mosses have also been used as insulation both for dwellings and in clothing. Traditionally, dried moss was used in some Nordic countries and Russia as an insulator between logs in log cabins, and tribes of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada used moss to fill chinks in wooden longhouses. Circumpolar and alpine peoples have used mosses for insulation in boots and mittens. Ötzi the Iceman had moss-packed boots.


title: Moss

text: The capacity of dried mosses to absorb fluids has made their use practical in both medical and culinary uses. North American tribal people used mosses for diapers, wound dressing, and menstrual fluid absorption. Tribes of the Pacific Northwest in the United States and Canada used mosses to clean salmon prior to drying it, and packed wet moss into pit ovens for steaming camas bulbs. Food storage baskets and boiling baskets were also packed with mosses.


title: Moss

text: Recent research investigating the Neanderthals remains recovered from El Sidrón have provided evidence that their diet would have consisted primarily of pine nuts, moss and mushrooms. This is contrasted by evidence from other European locations which point to a more carnivorous diet.


title: Moss

text: There is a substantial market in mosses gathered from the wild. The uses for intact moss are principally in the florist trade and for home decoration. Decaying moss in the genus "Sphagnum" is also the major component of peat, which is "mined" for use as a fuel, as a horticultural soil additive, and in smoking malt in the production of Scotch whisky.


title: Moss

text: "Sphagnum" moss, generally the species "S. cristatum" and "S. subnitens", is harvested while still growing and is dried out to be used in nurseries and horticulture as a plant growing medium.


title: Moss

text: Some "Sphagnum" mosses can absorb up to 20 times their own weight in water. In World War I, "Sphagnum" mosses were used as first-aid dressings on soldiers' wounds, as these mosses said to absorb liquids three times faster than cotton, retain liquids better, better distribute liquids uniformly throughout themselves, and are cooler, softer, and be less irritating. It is also claimed to have antibacterial properties. Native Americans were one of the peoples to use "Sphagnum" for diapers and napkins, which is still done in Canada.


title: Moss

text: In rural UK, "Fontinalis antipyretica" was traditionally used to extinguish fires as it could be found in substantial quantities in slow-moving rivers and the moss retained large volumes of water which helped extinguish the flames. This historical use is reflected in its specific Latin/Greek name, the approximate meaning of which is "against fire".


title: Moss

text: "Physcomitrella patens" is increasingly used in biotechnology. Prominent examples are the identification of moss genes


title: Moss

text: with implications for crop improvement or human health and the safe production of complex biopharmaceuticals in the moss bioreactor, developed by Ralf Reski and his co-workers.


title: Moss

text: London installed several structures called "City Trees": moss-filled walls, each of which is claimed to have "the air-cleaning capability of 275 regular trees" by consuming nitrogen oxides and other types of air pollution and producing oxygen.


title: Moss

text: Kimmerer, Robin Wall (2003). "Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses". Oregon State University Press. ISBN .


title: Film genre

text: A film genre is a stylistic or thematic category for motion pictures based on similarities either in the narrative elements, aesthetic approach, or the emotional response to the film.


title: Film genre

text: Drawing heavily from the theories of literary-genre criticism, film genres are usually delineated by "conventions, iconography, settings, narratives, characters and actors." One can also classify films by the tone, theme/topic, mood, format, target audience, or budget. These characteristics are most evident in genre films, which are "commercial feature films [that], through repetition and variation, tell familiar stories with familiar characters and familiar situations" in a given genre.


title: Film genre

text: A film's genre will influence the use of filmmaking styles and techniques, such as the use of flashbacks and low-key lighting in film noir; tight framing in horror films; or fonts that look like rough-hewn logs for the titles of Western films. In addition, genres have associated film-scoring conventions, such as lush string orchestras for romantic melodramas or electronic music for science-fiction films. Genre also affects how films are broadcast on television, advertised, and organized in video-rental stores.


title: Film genre

text: With the proliferation of particular genres, film subgenres can also emerge: the legal drama, for example, is a sub-genre of drama that includes courtroom- and trial-focused films. Subgenres are often a mixture of two separate genres; genres can also merge with seemingly unrelated ones to form hybrid genres, where popular combinations include the romantic comedy and the action comedy film. Broader examples include the docufiction and docudrama, which merge the basic categories of fiction and non-fiction (documentary).


title: Film genre

text: Genres are not fixed; they change and evolve over time, and some genres may largely disappear (for example, the melodrama). Not only does "genre" refer to a type of film or its category, a key role is also played by the expectations of an audience about a film, as well as institutional discourses that create generic structures.


title: Film genre

text: Characteristics of particular genres are most evident in genre films, which are "commercial feature films [that], through repetition and variation, tell familiar stories with familiar characters and familiar situations" in a given genre.


title: Film genre

text: Drawing heavily from the theories of literary-genre criticism, film genres are usually delineated by conventions, iconography, narratives, formats, characters, and actors, all of which can vary according to the genre. In terms of standard or "stock" characters, those in film noir, for example, include the femme fatale and the "hardboiled" detective; while those in Westerns, stock characters include the schoolmarm and the gunslinger. Regarding actors, some may acquire a reputation linked to a single genre, such as John Wayne (the Western) or Fred Astaire (the musical). Some genres have been characterized or known to use particular formats, which refers to the way in which films are shot (e.g., 35 mm, 16 mm or 8 mm) or the manner of presentation (e.g., anamorphic widescreen).


title: Film genre

text: Genres can also be classified by more inherent characteristics (usually implied in their names), such as settings, theme/topic, mood, target audience, or budget/type of production.


title: Film genre

text: Screenwriters, in particular, often organize their stories by genre, focusing their attention on three specific aspects: atmosphere, character, and story. A film's atmosphere includes costumes, props, locations, and the visceral experiences created for the audience. Aspects of character include archetypes, stock characters, and the goals and motivations of the central characters. Some story considerations for screenwriters, as they relate to genre, include theme, tent-pole scenes, and how the rhythm of characters' perspective shift from scene to scene.


title: Film genre

text: From the earliest days of cinema in the 19th century the term "genre" (already in use in English with reference to works of art or literary production from at least 1770)


title: Film genre

text: By the 1950s André Bazin was discussing the concept of "genre" by using the Western film as an example; during this era, there was a debate over auteur theory versus genre. In the late 1960s the concept of genre became a significant part of film theory.


title: Film genre

text: Film genres draw on genres from other forms; Western novels existed before the Western film, and musical theatre pre-dated film musicals. The perceived genre of a film can change over time; for example, in the 21st century "The Great Train Robbery" (1903) classes as a key early Western film, but when released, marketing promoted it "for its relation to the then-popular genres of the chase film, the railroad film and the crime film".


title: Film genre

text: A key reason that the early Hollywood industrial system from the 1920s to the 1950s favoured genre films is that in "Hollywood's industrial mode of production, genre movies are dependable products" to market to audiences - they were easy to produce and it was easy for audiences to understand a genre film. In the 1920s to 1950s, genre films had clear conventions and iconography, such as the heavy coats worn by gangsters in films like "Little Caesar" (1931).


title: Film genre

text: The conventions in genre films enable filmmakers to generate them in an industrial, assembly-line fashion, an approach which can be seen in the James Bond spy-films, which all use a formula of "lots of action, fancy gadgets, beautiful woman and colourful villains", even though the actors, directors and screenwriters change.


title: Film genre

text: Films are rarely purely from one genre, which is in keeping with the cinema's diverse and derivative origins, it being a blend of "vaudeville, music-hall, theatre, photography" and novels. American film historian Janet Staiger states that the genre of a film can be defined in four ways. The "idealist method" judges films by predetermined standards. The "empirical method" identifies the genre of a film by comparing it to a list of films already deemed to fall within a certain genre. The apriori method uses common generic elements which are identified in advance. The "social conventions" method of identifying the genre of a film is based on the accepted cultural consensus within society. Martin Loop contends that Hollywood films are not pure genres because most Hollywood movies blend the love-oriented plot of the romance genre with other genres. Jim Colins claims that since the 1980s, Hollywood films have been influenced by the trend towards "ironic hybridization", in which directors combine elements from different genres, as with the Western/science fiction mix in "Back to the Future Part III".


title: Film genre

text: Many films cross into multiple genres. Susan Hayward states that spy films often cross genre boundaries with thriller films. Some genre films take genre elements from one genre and place them into the conventions of a second genre, such as with "The Band Wagon" (1953), which adds film noir and detective film elements into "The Girl Hunt" ballet. In the 1970s New Hollywood era, there was so much parodying of genres that it can be hard to assign genres to some films from this era, such as Mel Brooks' comedy-Western "Blazing Saddles" (1974) or the private eye parody "The Long Goodbye" (1973). Other films from this era bend genres so much that it is challenging to put them in a genre category, such as Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" (1974) and William Friedkin's "The French Connection" (1971).


title: Film genre

text: Film theorist Robert Stam challenged whether genres really exist, or whether they are merely made up by critics. Stam has questioned whether "genres [are] really 'out there' in the world or are they really the construction of analysts?". As well, he has asked whether there is a "... finite taxonomy of genres or are they in principle infinite?" and whether genres are "...timeless essences ephemeral, time-bound entities? Are genres culture-bound or trans-cultural?" Stam has also asked whether genre analysis should aim at being descriptive or prescriptive. While some genres are based on story content (the war film), other are borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). Some are performer-based (Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films) or budget-based (blockbusters, low budget film), while others are based on artistic status (the art film), racial identity (Race films), location (the Western), or sexual orientation (Queer cinema).


title: Film genre

text: Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites. For example, horror films have a well-established fanbase that reads horror magazines such as "Fangoria". Films that are difficult to categorize into a genre are often less successful. As such, film genres are also useful in the areas of marketing, film criticism and the analysis of consumption. Hollywood story consultant John Truby states that "...you have to know how to transcend the forms [genres] so you can give the audience a sense of originality and surprise."


title: Film genre

text: Some screenwriters use genre as a means of determining what kind of plot or content to put into a screenplay. They may study films of specific genres to find examples. This is a way that some screenwriters are able to copy elements of successful movies and pass them off in a new screenplay. It is likely that such screenplays fall short in originality. As Truby says, "Writers know enough to write a genre script but they haven't twisted the story beats of that genre in such a way that it gives an original face to it".


title: Film genre

text: Cinema technologies are associated with genres. Huge widescreens helped Western films to create an expansive setting of the open plains and desert. Science fiction and fantasy films are associated with special effects, notably computer generated imagery (e.g., the Harry Potter films).


title: Film genre

text: In 2017, screenwriter Eric R. Williams published a system for screenwriters to conceptualize narrative film genres based on audience expectations. The system was based upon the structure biologists use to analyze living beings. Williams wrote a companion book detailing his taxonomy, which claims to be able to identify all feature length narrative films with seven categorizations: film type, super genre, macro-genre, micro-genre, voice, and pathway.


title: Film genre

text: Because genres are easier to recognize than to define, academics agree they cannot be identified in a rigid way. Furthermore, different countries and cultures define genres in different ways. A typical example are war movies. In US, they are mostly related to ones with large U.S involvement such as World wars and Vietnam, whereas in other countries, movies related to wars in other historical periods are considered "war movies".


title: Film genre

text: Film genres may appear to be readily categorizable from the setting of the film. Nevertheless, films with the same settings can be very different, due to the use of different themes or moods. For example, while both "The Battle of Midway" and "All Quiet on the Western Front" are set in a wartime context and might be classified as belonging to the war film genre, the first examines the themes of honor, sacrifice, and valour, and the second is an anti-war film which emphasizes the pain and horror of war. While there is an argument that film noir movies could be deemed to be set in an urban setting, in cheap hotels and underworld bars, many classic noirs take place mainly in small towns, suburbia, rural areas, or on the open road.


title: Film genre

text: The editors of filmsite.org argue that animation, pornographic film, documentary film, silent film and so on are non-genre-based film categories.


title: Film genre

text: Linda Williams argues that horror, melodrama, and pornography all fall into the category of "body genres" since they are each designed to elicit physical reactions on the part of viewers. Horror is designed to elicit spine-chilling, white-knuckled, eye-bulging terror; melodramas are designed to make viewers cry after seeing the misfortunes of the onscreen characters; and pornography is designed to elicit sexual arousal. This approach can be extended: comedies make people laugh, tear-jerkers make people cry, feel-good films lift people's spirits and inspiration films provide hope for viewers.


title: Film genre

text: Eric R. Williams (no relation to Linda Williams) argues that all narrative feature length films can be categorized as one of eleven "super genres" (Action, Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Science Fiction, Slice of Life, Sports, Thriller, War and Western). Williams contends that labels such as comedy or drama are more broad than the category of super genre, and therefore fall into a category he calls "film type". Similarly, Williams explains that labels such as animation and musical are more specific to storytelling technique and therefore fall into his category of "voice". For example, according to Williams, a film like "Blazing Saddles" could be categorized as a Comedy (type) Western (super-genre) Musical (voice) while "Anomalisa" is a Drama (type) Slice of Life (super-genre) Animation (voice). Williams has created a seven-tiered categorization for narrative feature films called the Screenwriters Taxonomy.


title: Film genre

text: A genre movie is a film that follows some or all of the conventions of a particular genre, whether or not it was intentional when the movie was produced.


title: Film genre

text: In order to understand the creation and context of each film genre, we must look at its popularity in the context of its place in history. For example, the 1970s Blaxploitation films have been called an attempt to "undermine the rise of Afro-American's Black consciousness movement" of that era. In William Park's analysis of film noir, he states that we must view and interpret film for its message with the context of history within our minds; he states that this is how film can truly be understood by its audience. Film genres such as film noir and Western film reflect values of the time period. While film noir combines German expressionist filming strategies with post World War II ideals; Western films focused on the ideal of the early 20th century. Films such as the musical were created as a form of entertainment during the Great Depression allowing its viewers an escape during tough times. So when watching and analyzing film genres we must remember to remember its true intentions aside from its entertainment value.


title: Film genre

text: Over time, a genre can change through stages: the classic genre era; the parody of the classics; the period where filmmakers deny that their films are part of a certain genre; and finally a critique of the entire genre. This pattern can be seen with the Western film. In the earliest, classic Westerns, there was a clear hero who protected society from lawless villains who lived in the wilderness and came into civilization to commit crimes. However, in revisionist Westerns of the 1970s, the protagonist becomes an anti-hero who lives in the wilderness to get away from a civilization that is depicted as corrupt, with the villains now integrated into society. Another example of a genre changing over time is the popularity of the neo-noir films in the early 2000s ("Mulholland Drive" (2001), "The Man Who Wasn't There" (2001) and "Far From Heaven" (2002); are these film noir parodies, a repetition of noir genre tropes, or a re-examination of the noir genre?


title: Film genre

text: This is also important to remember when looking at films in the future. As viewers watch a film they are conscious of societal influence with the film itself. In order to understand it's true intentions, we must identify its intended audience and what narrative of our current society, as well as it comments to the past in relation with today's society. This enables viewers to understand the evolution of film genres as time and history morphs or views and ideals of the entertainment industry.


title: Bacteriophage

text: A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a phage (), is a duplodnaviria virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν (""), meaning "to devour". Bacteriophages are composed of proteins that encapsulate a DNA or RNA genome, and may have structures that are either simple or elaborate. Their genomes may encode as few as four genes (e.g. MS2) and as many as hundreds of genes. Phages replicate within the bacterium following the injection of their genome into its cytoplasm.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Bacteriophages are among the most common and diverse entities in the biosphere. Bacteriophages are ubiquitous viruses, found wherever bacteria exist. It is estimated there are more than 10 bacteriophages on the planet, more than every other organism on Earth, including bacteria, combined. Viruses are the most abundant biological entity in the water column of the world's oceans, and the second largest component of biomass after prokaryotes, where up to 9x10 virions per millilitre have been found in microbial mats at the surface, and up to 70% of marine bacteria may be infected by phages.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Phages have been used since the late 20th century as an alternative to antibiotics in the former Soviet Union and Central Europe, as well as in France. They are seen as a possible therapy against multi-drug-resistant strains of many bacteria (see phage therapy).


title: Bacteriophage

text: Phages are known to interact with the immune system both indirectly via bacterial expression of phage-encoded proteins and directly by influencing innate immunity and bacterial clearance. Phage–host interactions are becoming increasingly important areas of research.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Bacteriophages occur abundantly in the biosphere, with different genomes and lifestyles. Phages are classified by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) according to morphology and nucleic acid.


title: Bacteriophage

text: There are also many unassigned genera of the class "Leviviricetes": "Chimpavirus", "Hohglivirus", "Mahrahvirus", "Meihzavirus", "Nicedsevirus", "Sculuvirus", "Skrubnovirus", "Tetipavirus" and "Winunavirus" containing linear ssRNA genomes and the unassigned genus "Lilyvirus" of the order "Caudovirales" containing a linear dsDNA genome.


title: Bacteriophage

text: In 1896, Ernest Hanbury Hankin reported that something in the waters of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India had a marked antibacterial action against cholera and it could pass through a very fine porcelain filter. In 1915, British bacteriologist Frederick Twort, superintendent of the Brown Institution of London, discovered a small agent that infected and killed bacteria. He believed the agent must be one of the following:


title: Bacteriophage

text: Twort's research was interrupted by the onset of World War I, as well as a shortage of funding and the discoveries of antibiotics.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Independently, French-Canadian microbiologist Félix d'Hérelle, working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, announced on 3 September 1917 that he had discovered "an invisible, antagonistic microbe of the dysentery bacillus". For d'Hérelle, there was no question as to the nature of his discovery: "In a flash I had understood: what caused my clear spots was in fact an invisible microbe... a virus parasitic on bacteria." D'Hérelle called the virus a bacteriophage, a bacteria-eater (from the Greek "", meaning "to devour"). He also recorded a dramatic account of a man suffering from dysentery who was restored to good health by the bacteriophages. It was d'Hérelle who conducted much research into bacteriophages and introduced the concept of phage therapy.


title: Bacteriophage

text: In 1969, Max Delbrück, Alfred Hershey, and Salvador Luria were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of the replication of viruses and their genetic structure. Specifically the work of Hershey, as contributor to the Hershey–Chase experiment in 1952 provided convincing evidence that DNA, not protein, was the genetic material of life. Delbrück and Luria carried out the Luria–Delbrück experiment which demonstrated statistically that mutations in bacteria occur randomly and thus follow Darwinian rather than Lamarckian principles.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Phages were discovered to be antibacterial agents and were used in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia (pioneered there by Giorgi Eliava with help from the co-discoverer of bacteriophages, Félix d'Hérelle) during the 1920s and 1930s for treating bacterial infections. They had widespread use, including treatment of soldiers in the Red Army. However, they were abandoned for general use in the West for several reasons:


title: Bacteriophage

text: The use of phages has continued since the end of the Cold War in Russia, Georgia, and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe. The first regulated, randomized, double-blind clinical trial was reported in the "Journal of Wound Care" in June 2009, which evaluated the safety and efficacy of a bacteriophage cocktail to treat infected venous ulcers of the leg in human patients. The FDA approved the study as a Phase I clinical trial. The study's results demonstrated the safety of therapeutic application of bacteriophages, but did not show efficacy. The authors explained that the use of certain chemicals that are part of standard wound care (e.g. lactoferrin or silver) may have interfered with bacteriophage viability. Shortly after that, another controlled clinical trial in Western Europe (treatment of ear infections caused by "Pseudomonas aeruginosa") was reported in the journal "Clinical Otolaryngology" in August 2009. The study concludes that bacteriophage preparations were safe and effective for treatment of chronic ear infections in humans. Additionally, there have been numerous animal and other experimental clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of bacteriophages for various diseases, such as infected burns and wounds, and cystic fibrosis-associated lung infections, among others. On the other hand, phages of "Inoviridae" have been shown to complicate biofilms involved in pneumonia and cystic fibrosis and to shelter the bacteria from drugs meant to eradicate disease, thus promoting persistent infection.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Meanwhile, bacteriophage researchers have been developing engineered viruses to overcome antibiotic resistance, and engineering the phage genes responsible for coding enzymes that degrade the biofilm matrix, phage structural proteins, and the enzymes responsible for lysis of the bacterial cell wall. There have been results showing that T4 phages that are small in size and short-tailed, can be helpful in detecting "E. coli" in the human body.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Therapeutic efficacy of a phage cocktail was evaluated in a mice model with nasal infection of multidrug-resistant (MDR) "A. baumannii". Mice treated with the phage cocktail showed a 2.3-fold higher survival rate compared to those untreated at seven days post-infection. In 2017, a patient with a pancreas compromised by MDR "A. baumannii" was put on several antibiotics; despite this, the patient's health continued to deteriorate during a four-month period. Without effective antibiotics, the patient was subjected to phage therapy using a phage cocktail containing nine different phages that had been demonstrated to be effective against MDR "A. baumannii". Once on this therapy the patient's downward clinical trajectory reversed, and returned to health.


title: Bacteriophage

text: D'Herelle "quickly learned that bacteriophages are found wherever bacteria thrive: in sewers, in rivers that catch waste runoff from pipes, and in the stools of convalescent patients." This includes rivers traditionally thought to have healing powers, including India's Ganges River.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Food industry – Phages have increasingly been used to safen food products and to forestall spoilage bacteria. Since 2006, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have approved several bacteriophage products. LMP-102 (Intralytix) was approved for treating ready-to-eat (RTE) poultry and meat products. In that same year, the FDA approved LISTEX (developed and produced by Micreos) using bacteriophages on cheese to kill "Listeria monocytogenes" bacteria, in order to give them generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status. In July 2007, the same bacteriophage were approved for use on all food products. In 2011 USDA confirmed that LISTEX is a clean label processing aid and is included in USDA. Research in the field of food safety is continuing to see if lytic phages are a viable option to control other food-borne pathogens in various food products.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Diagnostics – In 2011, the FDA cleared the first bacteriophage-based product for in vitro diagnostic use. The KeyPath MRSA/MSSA Blood Culture Test uses a cocktail of bacteriophage to detect "Staphylococcus aureus" in positive blood cultures and determine methicillin resistance or susceptibility. The test returns results in about five hours, compared to two to three days for standard microbial identification and susceptibility test methods. It was the first accelerated antibiotic-susceptibility test approved by the FDA.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Counteracting bioweapons and toxins – Government agencies in the West have for several years been looking to Georgia and the former Soviet Union for help with exploiting phages for counteracting bioweapons and toxins, such as anthrax and botulism. Developments are continuing among research groups in the U.S. Other uses include spray application in horticulture for protecting plants and vegetable produce from decay and the spread of bacterial disease. Other applications for bacteriophages are as biocides for environmental surfaces, e.g., in hospitals, and as preventative treatments for catheters and medical devices before use in clinical settings. The technology for phages to be applied to dry surfaces, e.g., uniforms, curtains, or even sutures for surgery now exists. Clinical trials reported in "Clinical Otolaryngology" show success in veterinary treatment of pet dogs with otitis.


title: Bacteriophage

text: The SEPTIC bacterium sensing and identification method uses the ion emission and its dynamics during phage infection and offers high specificity and speed for detection.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Phage display is a different use of phages involving a library of phages with a variable peptide linked to a surface protein. Each phage genome encodes the variant of the protein displayed on its surface (hence the name), providing a link between the peptide variant and its encoding gene. Variant phages from the library may be selected through their binding affinity to an immobilized molecule (e.g., botulism toxin) to neutralize it. The bound, selected phages can be multiplied by reinfecting a susceptible bacterial strain, thus allowing them to retrieve the peptides encoded in them for further study.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Antimicrobial drug discovery – Phage proteins often have antimicrobial activity and may serve as leads for peptidomimetics, i.e. drugs that mimic peptides. Phage-ligand technology makes use of phage proteins for various applications, such as binding of bacteria and bacterial components (e.g. endotoxin) and lysis of bacteria.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Basic research – Bacteriophages are important model organisms for studying principles of evolution and ecology.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Bacteriophages present in the environment can cause cheese to not ferment. In order to avoid this, mixed-strain starter cultures and culture rotation regimes can be used. Genetic engineering of culture microbes – especially "Lactococcus lactis" and "Streptococcus thermophilus" – have been studied for genetic analysis and modification to improve phage resistance. This has especially focused on plasmid and recombinant chromosomal modifications.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Some research has focused on the potential of bacteriophages as antimicrobial against foodborne pathogens and biofilm formation within the dairy industry. As the spread of antibiotic resistance is a main concern within the dairy industry, phages can serve as a promising alternative.


title: Bacteriophage

text: The life cycle of bacteriophages tends to be either a lytic cycle or a lysogenic cycle. In addition, some phages display pseudolysogenic behaviors.


title: Bacteriophage

text: With "lytic phages" such as the T4 phage, bacterial cells are broken open (lysed) and destroyed after immediate replication of the virion. As soon as the cell is destroyed, the phage progeny can find new hosts to infect. Lytic phages are more suitable for phage therapy. Some lytic phages undergo a phenomenon known as lysis inhibition, where completed phage progeny will not immediately lyse out of the cell if extracellular phage concentrations are high. This mechanism is not identical to that of the temperate phage going dormant and usually is temporary.


title: Bacteriophage

text: In contrast, the "lysogenic cycle" does not result in immediate lysing of the host cell. Those phages able to undergo lysogeny are known as temperate phages. Their viral genome will integrate with host DNA and replicate along with it, relatively harmlessly, or may even become established as a plasmid. The virus remains dormant until host conditions deteriorate, perhaps due to depletion of nutrients, then, the endogenous phages (known as prophages) become active. At this point they initiate the reproductive cycle, resulting in lysis of the host cell. As the lysogenic cycle allows the host cell to continue to survive and reproduce, the virus is replicated in all offspring of the cell. An example of a bacteriophage known to follow the lysogenic cycle and the lytic cycle is the phage lambda of "E. coli."


title: Bacteriophage

text: Sometimes prophages may provide benefits to the host bacterium while they are dormant by adding new functions to the bacterial genome, in a phenomenon called lysogenic conversion. Examples are the conversion of harmless strains of "Corynebacterium diphtheriae" or "Vibrio cholerae" by bacteriophages, to highly virulent ones that cause diphtheria or cholera, respectively. Strategies to combat certain bacterial infections by targeting these toxin-encoding prophages have been proposed.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Bacterial cells are protected by a cell wall of polysaccharides, which are important virulence factors protecting bacterial cells against both immune host defenses and antibiotics.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Host growth conditions also influence the ability of the phage to attach and invade them. As phage virions do not move independently, they must rely on random encounters with the correct receptors when in solution, such as blood, lymphatic circulation, irrigation, soil water, etc.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Myovirus bacteriophages use a hypodermic syringe-like motion to inject their genetic material into the cell. After contacting the appropriate receptor, the tail fibers flex to bring the base plate closer to the surface of the cell. This is known as reversible binding. Once attached completely, irreversible binding is initiated and the tail contracts, possibly with the help of ATP present in the tail, injecting genetic material through the bacterial membrane. The injection is accomplished through a sort of bending motion in the shaft by going to the side, contracting closer to the cell and pushing back up. Podoviruses lack an elongated tail sheath like that of a myovirus, so instead, they use their small, tooth-like tail fibers enzymatically to degrade a portion of the cell membrane before inserting their genetic material.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Within minutes, bacterial ribosomes start translating viral mRNA into protein. For RNA-based phages, RNA replicase is synthesized early in the process. Proteins modify the bacterial RNA polymerase so it preferentially transcribes viral mRNA. The host's normal synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids is disrupted, and it is forced to manufacture viral products instead. These products go on to become part of new virions within the cell, helper proteins that contribute to the assemblage of new virions, or proteins involved in cell lysis. In 1972, Walter Fiers (University of Ghent, Belgium) was the first to establish the complete nucleotide sequence of a gene and in 1976, of the viral genome of bacteriophage MS2. Some dsDNA bacteriophages encode ribosomal proteins, which are thought to modulate protein translation during phage infection.


title: Bacteriophage

text: In the case of the T4 phage, the construction of new virus particles involves the assistance of helper proteins that act catalytically during phage morphogenesis. The base plates are assembled first, with the tails being built upon them afterward. The head capsids, constructed separately, will spontaneously assemble with the tails. During assembly of the phage T4 virion, the morphogenetic proteins encoded by the phage genes interact with each other in a characteristic sequence. Maintaining an appropriate balance in the amounts of each of these proteins produced during viral infection appears to be critical for normal phage T4 morphogenesis. The DNA is packed efficiently within the heads. The whole process takes about 15 minutes.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Phages may be released via cell lysis, by extrusion, or, in a few cases, by budding. Lysis, by tailed phages, is achieved by an enzyme called endolysin, which attacks and breaks down the cell wall peptidoglycan. An altogether different phage type, the filamentous phage, make the host cell continually secrete new virus particles. Released virions are described as free, and, unless defective, are capable of infecting a new bacterium. Budding is associated with certain "Mycoplasma" phages. In contrast to virion release, phages displaying a lysogenic cycle do not kill the host and instead become long-term residents as prophages.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Research in 2017 revealed that the bacteriophage Φ3T makes a short viral protein that signals other bacteriophages to lie dormant instead of killing the host bacterium. Arbitrium is the name given to this protein by the researchers who discovered it.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Given the millions of different phages in the environment, phage genomes come in a variety of forms and sizes. RNA phages such as MS2 have the smallest genomes, with only a few kilobases. However, some DNA phages such as T4 may have large genomes with hundreds of genes; the size and shape of the capsid varies along with the size of the genome. The largest bacteriophage genomes reach a size of 735 kb.Bacteriophage genomes can be highly mosaic, i.e. the genome of many phage species appear to be composed of numerous individual modules. These modules may be found in other phage species in different arrangements. Mycobacteriophages, bacteriophages with mycobacterial hosts, have provided excellent examples of this mosaicism. In these mycobacteriophages, genetic assortment may be the result of repeated instances of site-specific recombination and illegitimate recombination (the result of phage genome acquisition of bacterial host genetic sequences). Evolutionary mechanisms shaping the genomes of bacterial viruses vary between different families and depend upon the type of the nucleic acid, characteristics of the virion structure, as well as the mode of the viral life cycle.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Some marine roseobacter phages contain deoxyuridine (dU) instead of deoxythymidine (dT) in their genomic DNA. There is some evidence that this unusual component is a mechanism to evade bacterial defense mechanisms such as restriction endonucleases and CRISPR/Cas systems which evolved to recognize and cleave sequences within invading phages, thereby inactivating them. Other phages have long been known to use unusual nucleotides. In 1963, Takahashi and Marmur identified a "Bacillus" phage that has dU substituting dT in its genome, and in 1977, Kirnos et al. identified a cyanophage containing 2-aminoadenine (Z) instead of adenine (A).


title: Bacteriophage

text: The field of systems biology investigates the complex networks of interactions within an organism, usually using computational tools and modeling. For example, a phage genome that enters into a bacterial host cell may express hundreds of phage proteins which will affect the expression of numerous host gene or the host's metabolism. All of these complex interactions can be described and simulated in computer models.


title: Bacteriophage

text: For instance, infection of "Pseudomonas aeruginosa" by the temperate phage PaP3 changed the expression of 38% (2160/5633) of its host's genes. Many of these effects are probably indirect, hence the challenge becomes to identify the direct interactions among bacteria and phage.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Several attempts have been made to map protein–protein interactions among phage and their host. For instance, bacteriophage lambda was found to interact with its host, "E. coli", by dozens of interactions. Again, the significance of many of these interactions remains unclear, but these studies suggest that there most likely are several key interactions and many indirect interactions whose role remains uncharacterized.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Bacteriophages are a major threat to bacteria and prokaryotes have evolved numerous mechanisms to block infection or to block the replication of bacteriophages within host cells. The CRISPR system is one such mechanism as are retrons and the anti-toxin system encoded by them. The Thoeris defense system is known to deploy a unique strategy for bacterial antiphage resistance via NAD+ degradation.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Temperate phages are bacteriophages that integrate their genetic material into the host as extrachromosomal episomes or as a prophage during a lysogenic cycle. Some temperate phages can confer fitness advantages to their host in numerous ways, including giving antibiotic resistance through the transfer or introduction of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), protecting hosts from phagocytosis, protecting hosts from secondary infection through superinfection exclusion, enhancing host pathogenicity, or enhancing bacterial metabolism or growth. Bacteriophage–host symbiosis may benefit bacteria by providing selective advantages while passively replicating the phage genome.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Also, bacteriophages have been used in hydrological tracing and modelling in river systems, especially where surface water and groundwater interactions occur. The use of phages is preferred to the more conventional dye marker because they are significantly less absorbed when passing through ground waters and they are readily detected at very low concentrations. Non-polluted water may contain approximately 2×10 bacteriophages per ml.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Bacteriophages are thought to contribute extensively to horizontal gene transfer in natural environments, principally via transduction, but also via transformation. Metagenomics-based studies also have revealed that viromes from a variety of environments harbor antibiotic-resistance genes, including those that could confer multidrug resistance.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Although phages do not infect humans, there are countless phage particles in the human body, given our extensive microbiome. Our phage population has been called the human phageome, including the "healthy gut phageome" (HGP) and the "diseased human phageome" (DHP). The active phageome of a healthy human (i.e., actively replicating as opposed to nonreplicating, integrated prophage) has been estimated to comprise dozens to thousands of different viruses.


title: Bacteriophage

text: There is evidence that bacteriophages and bacteria interact in the human gut microbiome both antagonistically and beneficially.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Preliminary studies have indicated that common bacteriophages are found in 62% of healthy individuals on average, while their prevalence was reduced by 42% and 54% on average in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). Abundance of phages may also decline in the elderly.


title: Bacteriophage

text: The most common phages in the human intestine, found worldwide, are crAssphages. CrAssphages are transmitted from mother to child soon after birth, and there is some evidence suggesting that they may be transmitted locally. Each person develops their own unique crAssphage clusters. CrAss-like phages also may be present in primates besides humans.


title: Bacteriophage

text: Among the countless phage, only a few have been studied in detail, including some historically important phage that were discovered in the early days of microbial genetics. These, especially the T-phage, helped to discover important principles of gene structure and function.


title: Jack Benny

text: Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American entertainer who evolved from a modest success playing violin on the vaudeville circuit to one of the leading entertainers of the twentieth century with a highly popular comedic career in radio, television, and film. He was known for his comic timing and the ability to cause laughter with a long pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated summation ""Well!""


title: Jack Benny

text: His radio and television programs, popular from 1932 until his death in 1974, were a major influence on the sitcom genre. Benny portrayed himself as a miser who obliviously played his violin badly and claimed perpetually to be 39 years of age.


title: Jack Benny

text: Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Chicago, Illinois, on February 14, 1894, and grew up in nearby Waukegan. He was the son of Jewish immigrants Meyer Kubelsky (1864–1946) and Emma Sachs Kubelsky (1869–1917), sometimes called "Naomi." Meyer was a saloon owner and later a haberdasher who had emigrated to the United States of America from Poland. Emma had emigrated from Lithuania. At the age of 6, Benny began studying violin, an instrument that became his trademark; his parents hoped for him to become a professional violinist. He loved the instrument but hated to practice. His music teacher was Otto Graham Sr., a neighbor and father of football player Otto Graham. At 14, Benny was playing in dance bands and his high school orchestra. He was a dreamer and poor at his studies, ultimately getting expelled from high school. He later did poorly in business school and in attempts to join his father's business. In 1911, he began playing the violin in local vaudeville theaters for $7.50 a week (about $ in 2020 dollars). He was joined on the circuit by Ned Miller, a young composer and singer.


title: Jack Benny

text: That same year, Benny was playing in the same theater as the young Marx Brothers. Minnie, their mother, enjoyed Benny's violin playing and invited him to accompany her boys in their act. Benny's parents refused to let their son go on the road at 17, but it was the beginning of his long friendship with the Marx Brothers, especially Zeppo Marx.


title: Jack Benny

text: The next year, Benny formed a vaudeville musical duo with pianist Cora Folsom Salisbury, who needed a partner for her act. This angered famous violinist Jan Kubelik, who feared that the young vaudevillian with a similar name would damage his reputation. Under legal pressure, Benjamin Kubelsky agreed to change his name to Ben K. Benny, sometimes spelled Bennie. When Salisbury left the act, Benny found a new pianist, Lyman Woods, and renamed the act "From Grand Opera to Ragtime." They worked together for five years and slowly integrated comedy elements into the show. They reached the Palace Theater, the "Mecca of Vaudeville," and did not do well. Benny left show business briefly in 1917 to join the United States Navy during World War I, often entertaining fellow sailors with his violin playing. One evening, his violin performance was booed by the sailors, so with prompting from fellow sailor and actor Pat O'Brien, he ad-libbed his way out of the jam and left them laughing. He received more comedy spots in the revues and did well, earning a reputation as a comedian and musician. Despite stories to the contrary, no reliable evidence indicates Jack Benny was aboard during the 1915 Eastland disaster or scheduled to be on the excursion; possibly the basis for this report was that Eastland was a training vessel during World War I and Benny received his training in the Great Lakes naval base where Eastland was stationed.


title: Jack Benny

text: Shortly after the war, Benny developed a one-man act, "Ben K. Benny: Fiddle Funology." He then received legal pressure from Ben Bernie, a "patter-and-fiddle" performer, regarding his name, so he adopted the sailor's nickname of Jack. By 1921, the fiddle was more of a prop, and the low-key comedy took over.


title: Jack Benny

text: Benny had some romantic encounters, including one with dancer Mary Kelly, whose devoutly Catholic family forced her to turn down his proposal because he was Jewish. Benny was introduced to Kelly by Gracie Allen.


title: Jack Benny

text: In 1922, Benny accompanied Zeppo Marx to a Passover Seder in Vancouver at the residence where he met 17-year-old Sadie Marks (whose family was friends with, but not related to, the Marx family). Their first meeting did not go well when he tried to leave during Sadie's violin performance. They met again in 1926. Jack had not remembered their earlier meeting and instantly fell for her. They married the following year. She was working in the hosiery section of the Hollywood Boulevard branch of the May Company, where Benny courted her. Called on to fill in for the "dumb girl" part in a Benny routine, Sadie proved to be a natural comedienne. Adopting the stage name Mary Livingstone, Sadie collaborated with Benny throughout most of his career. They later adopted a daughter, Joan (1934–2021). Sadie's older sister Babe would often be the target of jokes about unattractive or masculine women, while her younger brother Hilliard would later produce Benny's radio and TV work.


title: Jack Benny

text: In 1929, Benny's agent, Sam Lyons, convinced Irving Thalberg, American film producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, to watch Benny at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. Benny signed a five-year contract with MGM, where his first role was in "The Hollywood Revue of 1929". The next film, "Chasing Rainbows", did not do well, and after several months Benny was released from his contract and returned to Broadway in Earl Carroll's "Vanities". At first dubious about the viability of radio, Benny grew eager to break into the new medium. In 1932, after a four-week nightclub run, he was invited onto Ed Sullivan's radio program, uttering his first radio spiel "This is Jack Benny talking. There will be a slight pause while you say, 'Who cares?


title: Jack Benny

text: Benny had been a minor vaudeville performer before becoming a national figure with "The Jack Benny Program", a weekly radio show that ran from 1932 to 1948 on NBC and from 1949 to 1955 on CBS. It was among the most highly rated programs during its run.


title: Jack Benny

text: Benny's long radio career began on April 6, 1932, when the NBC Commercial Program Department auditioned him for the N. W. Ayer & Son agency and their client Canada Dry, after which Bertha Brainard, head of the division, said, "We think Mr. Benny is excellent for radio and, while the audition was unassisted as far as orchestra was concerned, we believe he would make a great bet for an air program." Recalling the experience in 1956, Benny said Ed Sullivan had invited him to guest on his program (1932), and "the agency for Canada Dry ginger ale heard me and offered me a job."


title: Jack Benny

text: With Canada Dry ginger ale as a sponsor, Benny came to radio on "The Canada Dry Program", on May 2, 1932, broadcast on Mondays and Wednesdays on the NBC Blue Network, featuring George Olsen and his orchestra. After a few shows, Benny hired Harry Conn as writer. The show continued on Blue for six months until October 26, moving to CBS on October 30, now airing Thursdays and Sundays. With Ted Weems leading the band, Benny stayed on CBS until January 26, 1933, when Canada Dry opted not to renew Benny's contract after it attempted to replace Conn with Sid Silvers, who would have also gotten a co-starring role. Unlike later incarnations of the Benny show, "The Canada Dry" "Program" was primarily a musical program.


title: Jack Benny

text: Benny then appeared on "The Chevrolet Program", airing on the NBC Red Network between March 17, 1933, until April 1, 1934, initially airing on Fridays (replacing Al Jolson), moving to Sunday nights in the fall. The show, which featured Benny and Livingstone alongside Frank Black's orchestra and vocalists James Melton and (later) Frank Parker, ended after General Motors' president insisted on a musical program. He continued with sponsor General Tire on Fridays through the end of September.


title: Jack Benny

text: The show switched networks to CBS on January 2, 1949, as part of CBS president William S. Paley's notorious "raid" on NBC talent in 1948–1949. It stayed there for the remainder of its radio run, ending on May 22, 1955. CBS aired repeat episodes from 1956 to 1958 as "The Best of Benny".


title: Jack Benny

text: After making his television debut in 1949 on local Los Angeles station KTTV, then a CBS affiliate, the network television version of "The Jack Benny Program" ran from October 28, 1950, to 1965, all but the last season on CBS. Initially scheduled as a series of five "specials" during the 1950–1951 season, the show appeared every six weeks for the 1951–1952 season, every four weeks for the 1952–1953 season and every three weeks in 1953–1954. For the 1953–1954 season, half the episodes were live and half were filmed during the summer, to allow Benny to continue doing his radio show. From the fall of 1954 to 1960, it appeared every other week, and from 1960 to 1965 it was seen weekly.


title: Jack Benny

text: On March 28, 1954, Benny co-hosted "" with Groucho Marx and Mary Martin. In September 1954, CBS premiered Chrysler's "Shower of Stars" co-hosted by Jack Benny and William Lundigan. It enjoyed a successful run from 1954 until 1958. Both television shows often overlapped the radio show. In fact, the radio show alluded frequently to its television counterparts. Often as not, Benny would sign off the radio show in such circumstances with the line "Well, good night, folks. I'll see you on television."


title: Jack Benny

text: When Benny moved to television, audiences learned that his verbal talent was matched by his controlled repertory of dead-pan facial expressions and gesture. The program was similar to the radio show (several of the radio scripts were recycled for television, as was somewhat common with other radio shows that moved to television), but with the addition of visual gags. Lucky Strike was the sponsor. Benny did his opening and closing monologues before a live audience, which he regarded as essential to timing of the material. As in other TV comedy shows, a laugh track was added to "sweeten" the soundtrack, as when the studio audience missed some close-up comedy because of cameras or microphones obstructing their view. Television viewers became accustomed to live without Mary Livingstone, who was afflicted by a striking case of stage fright that didn't lessen even after performing with Benny for 20 years. Hence, Livingstone appeared rarely if at all on the television show. In fact, for the last few years of the radio show, she pre-recorded her lines and Jack and Mary's daughter, Joan, stood in for the live taping, with Mary's lines later edited into the tape replacing Joan's before broadcast. Mary Livingstone finally retired from show business permanently in 1958, as her friend Gracie Allen had done.


title: Jack Benny

text: Benny's television program relied more on guest stars and less on his regulars than his radio program. In fact, the only radio cast members who appeared regularly on the television program as well were Don Wilson and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. Singer Dennis Day appeared sporadically, and Harris had left the radio program in 1952, although he did make a guest appearance on the television show (Bob Crosby, Phil's "replacement", frequently appeared on television through 1956). A frequent guest was the Canadian-born singer-violinist Gisele Mackenzie.


title: Jack Benny

text: As a gag, Benny made a 1957 appearance on the then-wildly popular "$64,000 Question". His category of choice was "Violins", but after answering the first question correctly Benny opted out of continuing, leaving the show with just $64; host Hal March gave Benny the prize money out of his own pocket. March made an appearance on Benny's show the same year.


title: Jack Benny

text: Benny was able to attract guests who rarely, if ever, appeared on television. In 1953, both Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart made their television debuts on Benny's program.


title: Jack Benny

text: Another guest star on the Jack Benny show was Rod Serling, who starred in a spoof of "The Twilight Zone" in which Benny goes to his own house and finds that no one knows who he is; Jack runs away screaming in panic; Serling breaks the fourth wall and remarks not to worry about Benny on the grounds that anyone who has been 39 years old as long as he has is a citizen of the "Twilight Zone."


title: Jack Benny

text: Canadian singer Gisele MacKenzie, who toured with Benny in the early 1950s, guest starred seven times on "The Jack Benny Program". Benny was so impressed with MacKenzie's talents that he served as co-executive producer and guest starred on her 1957–1958 NBC variety show, "The Gisele MacKenzie Show".