title: Minas Gerais

text: In the state, tennis players Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares were born, who were respectively the nº1 and nº2 of the world in doubles; Ronaldo da Costa, former holder of the marathon world record; Olympic medalists such as Maicon de Andrade en taekwondo, Marcus Mattioli in swimming, Moysés Blás and Cláudia Pastor in basketball; Adenízia da Silva, Ana Carolina da Silva, Ana Flávia Sanglard, Ana Paula Henkel, Anderson Rodrigues, Camila Brait, Érika Coimbra, Fabiana Claudino, Gabriela Guimarães, Giovane Gavio, Hilma, Marcia Fu, Xandó, Maurício Souza , Lucarelli, Sassá, Sheilla Castro, Talmo and Walewska in volleyball; so as World Championship medalists like André Cordeiro, Henrique Barbosa, Larissa Oliveira, Nicolas Oliveira, Rodrigo Castro and Teófilo Ferreira in swimming.


title: Minas Gerais

text: Minas Gerais may be called "Deep Brazil" by analogy with "France profonde". It has a distinctly more native flavour than cosmopolitan São Paulo, a more traditional slant than flashy Rio de Janeiro, and is more Portuguese than the South and São Paulo with their great influx of Italians and other Central Europeans, the North with its Native Americans, or the Northeast with its heavy Afro-Brazilian influence.


title: Minas Gerais

text: Those born and raised in Minas Gerais, also called Mineiros, bear an unmistakable accent that sets them apart from fellow Brazilians, although people born in different regions of the state bear slightly different accents, some resembling those of neighboring states, such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. They are considered reserved, prudent, relatively silent to the point of melancholy but welcoming and family-focused. It is one of the most religious states, with a large proportion of staunch Roman Catholics and a burgeoning Evangelical and neo-Pentecostal population. The Spiritist doctrine is also professed by a significant portion of the population, partly due to the influence of Chico Xavier, the main spiritual icon of Brazil, who lived in Minas Gerais all his life.


title: Minas Gerais

text: The most spoken dialect (48,6%) in the state is mineiro. It is the dialect spoken in the capital, Belo Horizonte, and the historical cities (Ouro Preto, Mariana, Sabará, Diamantina, Tiradentes, São João del-Rei etc.). The vernacular, dialectical speech of Minas Gerais is playfully and informally referred to—particularly with regard to its most idiosyncratic features—as .


title: Minas Gerais

text: Other dialects are caipira, spoken near the states of São Paulo and Goiás by 33,0%, and baiano, spoken in the Northern region - near Bahia - by 18,4%.


title: Minas Gerais

text: Mariano Procópio Museum, in Juiz de Fora, and Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim, in Brumadinho, are among the most important cultural institutions.


title: Minas Gerais

text: Minas Gerais is known nationally for its cuisine. The cultural basis of its cuisine is the small farmhouse, and many of the dishes are prepared using locally produced vegetables and meats, especially chicken and pork. Traditional cooking is done using coal- or wood-fired ovens and cast iron pans, making for a particularly tasty flavor; some restaurant chains have adopted these techniques and made this type of food popular in other parts of the country.


title: Minas Gerais

text: Many of the cakes and appetizers of the local cuisine use corn or cassava (known there as "mandioca") flour instead of wheat, as the latter did not adapt well to the local weather. The best-known dish from Minas Gerais is "pão de queijo", a small baked roll (known internationally as "Brazilian cheese rolls") made with cheese and cassava flour that can be served hot as an appetizer or for breakfast.


title: Minas Gerais

text: The state is also recognized for its doce de leite, since Minas Gerais is the largest producer of milk in the country. Minas Gerais is also Brazil's most traditional producer of cheese. Minas cheese is renowned nationwide as the distinct Brazilian cheese. Cachaça is also a local produce of high importance, with the state owning hundreds of artisanal factories (in Minas and in the neighboring state of São Paulo, there is the world's largest production of sugar cane, the basis of cachaça production). Typical of the state are Tropeiro beans with torresmo, Tutu de Feijão (Bean's Tutu), chicken with okra stew, handmade cheeses, goiabada, paçoca, pamonha, arroz com leite and others. Outside of Minas Gerais it is common to find restaurants specializing in food from the state.


title: Minas Gerais

text: The state cuisine is showcased in various festivals year round and in many locations throughout the state, but the biggest festival is the month-long Comida de Buteco in Belo Horizonte, where 41 bars and restaurants are selected to create a dish using ingredients traditional to local cuisine. People from all over the country and abroad rate the food, the temperature of the beer, the ambiance and service. In 2007, over 400,000 people participated in the festival according to Vox Populi statistics.


title: Minas Gerais

text: Galinhada is one of the specialities in Minas Gerais. It's basically rice cooked with chicken, corn and peas.


title: Minas Gerais

text: Music is one of the most striking features of Minas Gerais and has been part of the history of the state since the early 16th and 17th centuries.


title: Minas Gerais

text: From the 18th century, composers including José Joaquim Emerico Lobo de Mesquita, Francisco Gomes da Rocha, Marcos Coelho Neto and Manoel de Oliveira Dias reinforced the musical tradition of Minas with the composition of baroque pieces that are now revered as masterpieces. For classical music, the state features productions and performances of various orchestras and choirs.Among them there are the Symphonic Orchestra of Minas Gerais and the Coral Lírico de Minas Gerais, a State Choir, maintained by Clovis Salgado Foundation, an institution linked to the Secretary of State for Culture. These and other groups have a strong presence in the capital and throughout the state, working for the popularization and democratization of classical music. One of the most prolific contemporary composers was born in Minas Gerais, Prof. Dr. Andersen Viana, which music has been recognized most frequently abroad.


title: Minas Gerais

text: The most varied rhythms and sounds have their origins in the state. Ary Barroso, who in 1939 composed one of Brazil's best known songs throughout the world, Aquarela do Brasil, was born in Ubá, in the Zona da Mata Mineira.


title: Minas Gerais

text: In the 1960s and 70s streets in the traditional neighborhood of Santa Tereza, Belo Horizonte, were the scene of one of the most important movements of national music: Clube da Esquina. With a unique blend of Brazilian popular music with pop and jazz, the club was met with talents like Milton Nascimento, Wagner Tiso, Toninho Horta, Fernando Brant, Lô Borges, Beto Guedes, and Flávio Venturini.


title: Minas Gerais

text: In the 1980s and 90s a scene of heavy metal bands has been held in Belo Horizonte. It is the origin of important Brazilian bands of this genre, many of them are known worldwide, such as Sepultura, Sarcófago, Overdose, Mutilator, Holocausto and Chakal.


title: Minas Gerais

text: The current scenario continues reflecting the vibrancy and dynamism of its culture. A new generation of artists is represented by names like Skank, Pato Fu, Jota Quest, Vander Lee, Uakti, Marina Machado, Maurício Tizumba, Berimbrown, Copo Lagoinha and Amaranto.


title: Minas Gerais

text: Moving freely through different rhythms like rock, reggae, heavy metal, samba and MPB, among others, the music in Minas Gerais continues the excellence and diversity that has always been a staple in the country.


title: Minas Gerais

text: The important International Festival of Colonial Brazilian Music and Ancient Music takes place in Juiz de Fora since 1989. Brazil's most prestigious dance company, Grupo Corpo is also from Minas Gerais, having its headquarters in Belo Horizonte.


title: Minas Gerais

text: The flag of the state of Minas Gerais is the oldest one adopted in Brazil that was devised by Brazilians. It was remembered by the Republican Party, which opposed the Brazilian Imperial Government, and adopted unofficially as the flag of the state. It has been the official state flag since 1963.


title: Minas Gerais

text: The flag's Latin inscription, "Libertas quæ sera tamen", means "Freedom albeit late", and was the motto of the Minas Gerais Conspiracy, which fought for Minas' independence from Portugal in the 18th century. The phrase was taken from Virgil's "Eclogues" 1.30. The triangle is said to represent the Holy Trinity. The colors were chosen for their revolutionary meaning: white represents the desire to form a peaceful nation, discarding all colonial institutions, and red the flame of liberty or the blood of the revolutionary martyrs such as Tiradentes.


title: Minas Gerais

text: In spite of not being the largest state of Brazil and ranking second in population, Minas Gerais has the largest number of cities. Of the more than 5,500 municipalities in the country, Minas has 853 of them, a fact explained by the number of inhabitants and by the vast territory, comparable in area to Madagascar and larger than Metropolitan France. The most notable cities are: the capital Belo Horizonte, Contagem, Betim, Juiz de Fora, Varginha, Muriaé, Montes Claros, Uberlândia, Governador Valadares, Ipatinga, Ouro Preto, Sete Lagoas, Uberaba, Araxá, Patos de Minas, Divinópolis, Barbacena, Pouso Alegre, Janaúba, Teófilo Otoni, Conselheiro Lafaiete, Mariana, Poços de Caldas and São João del-Rei.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish, of the class Myxini (also known as Hyperotreti) and order Myxiniformes , are eel-shaped, slime-producing marine fish (occasionally called slime eels). They are the only known living animals that have a skull but no vertebral column, although hagfish do have rudimentary vertebrae. Along with lampreys, hagfish are jawless; the two form the sister group to jawed vertebrates, and living hagfish remain similar to hagfish from around 300 million years ago.


title: Hagfish

text: The classification of hagfish had been controversial. The issue was whether the hagfish was a degenerate type of vertebrate-fish that through evolution had lost its vertebrae (the original scheme) and was most closely related to lampreys, or whether hagfish represent a stage that precedes the evolution of the vertebral column (the alternative scheme) as is the case with lancelets. Recent DNA evidence has supported the original scheme.


title: Hagfish

text: The original scheme groups hagfish and lampreys together as cyclostomes (or historically, Agnatha), as the oldest surviving class of vertebrates alongside gnathostomes (the now-ubiquitous jawed vertebrates). The alternative scheme proposed that jawed vertebrates are more closely related to lampreys than to hagfish (i.e., that vertebrates include lampreys but exclude hagfish), and introduced the category craniata to group vertebrates near hagfish.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish are typically about in length. The largest known species is "Eptatretus goliath", with a specimen recorded at , while "Myxine kuoi" and "Myxine pequenoi" seem to reach no more than . Some have been seen as small as .


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish have elongated, eel-like bodies, and paddle-like tails. The skin is naked and covers the body like a loosely fitting sock. They are generally a dull pink color and look quite worm-like. They have cartilaginous skulls (although the part surrounding the brain is composed primarily of a fibrous sheath) and tooth-like structures composed of keratin. Colors depend on the species, ranging from pink to blue-grey, and black or white spots may be present. Eyes are simple eyespots, not lensed eyes that can resolve images. Hagfish have no true fins and have six or eight barbels around the mouth and a single nostril. Instead of vertically articulating jaws like Gnathostomata (vertebrates with jaws), they have a pair of horizontally moving structures with tooth-like projections for pulling off food. The mouth of the hagfish has two pairs of horny, comb-shaped teeth on a cartilaginous plate that protracts and retracts. These teeth are used to grasp food and draw it toward the pharynx.


title: Hagfish

text: Its skin is only attached to the body along the center ridge of the back and at the slime glands, and is filled with close to a third of the body's blood volume, giving the impression of a blood-filled sack. It is assumed this is an adaptation to survive predator attacks. The Atlantic hagfish, representative of the subfamily Myxininae, and the Pacific hagfish, representative of the subfamily Eptatretinae, differ in that the latter has muscle fibers embedded in the skin. The resting position of the Pacific hagfish also tends to be coiled, while that of the Atlantic hagfish is stretched.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish are long and vermiform, and can exude copious quantities of a milky and fibrous slime or mucus from about 100 glands or invaginations running along their flanks. Hagfish are able to produce a lot of slime, which combines with seawater, when they are in danger as a defense mechanism. This slime that hagfish excrete has very thin fibers that make it more durable and retentive than the slime excreted by other animals. The fibers are made of proteins and also make the slime flexible. If they are caught by a predator, they can quickly release a large amount of slime to escape. If they remain captured, they can tie themselves in an overhand knot, and work their way from the head to the tail of the animal, scraping off the slime and freeing themselves from their captor. Rheological investigations showed that hagfish slime viscosity increases in elongational flow which favors gill clogging of suction feeding fish, while its viscosity decreases in shear which facilitates scraping off the slime by the travelling-knot.


title: Hagfish

text: Recently, the slime was reported to entrain water in its keratin-like intermediate filaments, creating a slow-to-dissipate, viscoelastic substance, rather than a simple gel. It has been shown to impair the function of a predator fish's gills. In this case, the hagfish's mucus would clog the predator's gills, disabling their ability to respire. The predator would release the hagfish to avoid suffocation. Because of the mucus, few marine predators target the hagfish. Other predators of hagfish are varieties of birds or mammals.


title: Hagfish

text: Free-swimming hagfish also slime when agitated, and later clear the mucus using the same travelling-knot behavior. The reported gill-clogging effect suggests that the travelling-knot behavior is useful or even necessary to restore the hagfish's own gill function after sliming.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish thread keratin (EsTKα and EsTKγ; and ), the protein that make up its slime filaments, is under investigation as an alternative to spider silk for use in applications such as body armor. These alpha-keratin proteins in hagfish slime transform from an α-helical structure to a stiffer β sheet structure when stretched. With combined draw-processing (stretching) and chemical crosslinking, recombinant slime keratin turns into a very strong fiber with an elastic modulus reaching 20 GPa.


title: Hagfish

text: When in 2017 a road accident on U.S. Highway 101 resulted in 7500 pounds of hagfish being spilled, they emitted sufficient slime to cover the road and a nearby car.


title: Hagfish

text: A hagfish generally respires by taking in water through its pharynx, past the velar chamber, and bringing the water through the internal gill pouches, which can vary in number from five to 16 pairs, depending on species. The gill pouches open individually, but in" Myxine", the openings have coalesced, with canals running backwards from each opening under the skin, uniting to form a common aperture on the ventral side known as the branchial opening. The esophagus is also connected to the left branchial opening, which is therefore larger than the right one, through a pharyngocutaneous duct (esophageocutaneous duct), which has no respiratory tissue. This pharyngocutaneous duct is used to clear large particles from the pharynx, a function also partly taking place through the nasopharyngeal canal. In other species, the coalescence of the gill openings is less complete, and in "Bdellostoma", each pouch opens separately to the outside, as in lampreys. The unidirectional water flow passing the gills is produced by rolling and unrolling velar folds located inside a chamber developed from the nasohypophyseal tract, and is operated by a complex set of muscles inserting into cartilages of the neurocranium, assisted by peristaltic contractions of the gill pouches and their ducts. Hagfish also have a well-developed dermal capillary network that supplies the skin with oxygen when the animal is buried in anoxic mud, as well as a high tolerance for both hypoxia and anoxia, with a well developed anaerobic metabolism. The skin has also been suggested to be capable of cutaneous respiration.


title: Hagfish

text: The origins of the vertebrate nervous system are of considerable interest to evolutionary biologists, and cyclostomes (hagfish and lampreys) are an important group for answering this question. The complexity of the hagfish brain has been an issue of debate since the late 19th century, with some morphologists suggesting that they do not possess a cerebellum, while others suggest that it is continuous with the midbrain. It is now considered that the hagfish neuroanatomy is similar to that of lampreys. A common feature of both cyclostomes is the absence of myelin in neurons. The brain of a hagfish has specific parts similar to the brains of other vertebrates. The dorsal and ventral muscles located towards the side of the hagfish body are connected to spinal nerves. The spinal nerves that connect to the muscles of the pharyngeal wall grow individually to reach them.


title: Hagfish

text: The hagfish eye lacks a lens, extraocular muscles, and the three motor cranial nerves (III, IV, and VI) found in more complex vertebrates, which is significant to the study of the evolution of more complex eyes. A parietal eye is also absent in extant hagfish. Hagfish eyespots, when present, can detect light, but as far as it is known, none can resolve detailed images. In "Myxine" and "Neomyxine", the eyes are partly covered by the trunk musculature. Paleontological evidence suggests, however, that the hagfish eye is not plesiomorphic but rather degenerative, as fossils from the Carboniferous have revealed hagfish-like vertebrates with complex eyes. This would suggest that ancestrally Myxini possessed complex eyes.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish are known to have one of the lowest blood pressures among the vertebrates. One of the most primitive types of fluid balance found is among these creatures, whenever a rise in extracellular fluid occurs, the blood pressure rises and this, in turn, is sensed by the kidney, which excretes excess fluid. They also have the highest blood volume to body mass of any chordate, with 17 ml of blood per 100 g of mass.


title: Hagfish

text: The hagfish circulatory system has been of considerable interest to evolutionary biologists and present day readers of physiology. Some observers first believed that the hagfish heart was not innervated like jawed vertebrates. Further investigation revealed that the hagfish did have a true innervated heart. The hagfish circulatory system also consists of multiple accessory pumps throughout the body, which are considered auxiliary "hearts".


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish are the only known vertebrates with osmoregulation isosmotic to their external environment. Renal function of the Hagfish remains poorly described. Hypothetically, they excrete ions in bile salts.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish musculature differs from jawed vertebrates in that they do not have a horizontal septum nor vertical septum, junctions of connective tissue that separate the hypaxial musculature and epaxial musculature. They do, however, have true myomeres and myosepta like all vertebrates. The mechanics of their craniofacial muscles in feeding have been investigated, revealing advantages and disadvantages of the dental plate. In particular, hagfish muscles have increased force and gape size compared to similar-sized jawed vertebrates, but lack the speed amplification, suggesting that jaws are faster acting.


title: Hagfish

text: The hagfish skeleton comprises the skull, the notochord, and the caudal fin rays. The first diagram of the hagfish endoskeleton was made by Frederick Cole in 1905. In Cole's monograph, he described sections of the skeleton that he termed "pseudo-cartilage", referring to its distinct properties compared to jawed chordates. The lingual apparatus of hagfish is composed of a cartilage base bearing two teeth-covered plates (dental plate) articulated with a series of large cartilage shafts. The nasal capsule is considerably expanded in hagfish, comprising a fibrous sheath lined with cartilage rings. In contrast to lampreys, the braincase is noncartilaginous. The role of the branchial arches is highly speculative, as hagfish embryos undergo a caudal shift of the posterior pharyngeal pouches; thus, the branchial arches do not support gills. While parts of the hagfish skull are thought to be homologous with lampreys, they are thought to have very few homologous elements with jawed vertebrates.


title: Hagfish

text: Very little is known about hagfish reproduction. Obtaining embryos and observing reproductive behavior are difficult due to the deep-sea habitat of many hagfish species. In the wild females outnumber males, with the exact sex-ratio differing depending on the species. "E. burgeri", for example, has nearly a 1:1 ratio, while "M. glutinosa" females are significantly more common than males. Some species of hagfish are sexually undifferentiated before maturation, and possess gonadal tissue for both ovaries and testis. It has been suggested that females develop earlier than males, and that this may be the reason for unequal sex ratios. Hagfish testis are relatively small.


title: Hagfish

text: Depending on species, females lay from one to 30 tough, yolky eggs. These tend to aggregate due to having Velcro-like tufts at either end. It is unclear how hagfish go about laying eggs, although researchers have proposed three hypotheses based on observations of the low percentage of males and small testis. The hypotheses are that female hagfish lay eggs in small crevices in rock formations, the eggs are laid in burrow beneath the sand, and the slime produced by the hagfish is used to hold the eggs in a small area. It is worth noting that no direct evidence has been found to support any of these hypotheses. Hagfish do not have a larval stage, in contrast to lampreys.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish have a mesonephric kidney and are often neotenic of their pronephric kidney. The kidney(s) are drained via mesonephric/archinephric duct. Unlike many other vertebrates, this duct is separate from the reproductive tract, and the proximal tubule of the nephron is also connected with the coelom, providing lubrication. The single testicle or ovary has no transportation duct. Instead, the gametes are released into the coelom until they find their way to the posterior end of the caudal region, whereby they find an opening in the digestive system.


title: Hagfish

text: The hagfish embryo can develop for as long as 11 months before hatching, which is shorter in comparison to other jawless vertebrates. Not much was known about hagfish embryology until recently, when husbandry advances enabled considerable insight into the group's evolutionary development. New insights into the evolution of neural crest cells, support the consensus that all vertebrates share these cells, which might be regulated by a common subset of genes. Hagfish possess Gonadotropins which secrete from pituitary glands to the gonads to stimulate development. This suggests that hagfish have an early version of the Hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis, a system which once thought to be exclusive to the Gnathostomes.Some species of Hagfish reproduce seasonally, stimulated by hormones from their pituitary gland. "E. burgeri" is known to reproduce and migrate annually.


title: Hagfish

text: While polychaete marine worms on or near the sea floor are a major food source, hagfish can feed upon and often even enter and eviscerate the bodies of dead and dying/injured sea creatures much larger than themselves. They are known to devour their prey from the inside. Hagfish have the ability to absorb dissolved organic matter across the skin and gill, which may be an adaptation to a scavenging lifestyle, allowing them to maximize sporadic opportunities for feeding. From an evolutionary perspective, hagfish represent a transitory state between the generalized nutrient absorption pathways of aquatic invertebrates and the more specialized digestive systems of aquatic vertebrates.


title: Hagfish

text: Like leeches, they have a sluggish metabolism and can survive months between feedings; their feeding behavior, however, appears quite vigorous. Analysis of the stomach content of several species has revealed a large variety of prey, including polychaetes, shrimp, hermit crabs, cephalopods, brittle stars, bony fishes, sharks, birds, and whale flesh.


title: Hagfish

text: In captivity, hagfish are observed to use the overhand-knot behavior in reverse (tail-to-head) to assist them in gaining mechanical advantage to pull out chunks of flesh from carrion fish or cetaceans, eventually making an opening to permit entry to the interior of the body cavity of larger carcasses. A healthy larger sea creature likely would be able to outfight or outswim this sort of assault.


title: Hagfish

text: This energetic opportunism on the part of the hagfish can be a great nuisance to fishermen, as they can devour or spoil entire deep drag-netted catches before they can be pulled to the surface. Since hagfish are typically found in large clusters on and near the bottom, a single trawler's catch could contain several dozen or even hundreds of hagfish as bycatch, and all the other struggling, captive sea life make easy prey for them.


title: Hagfish

text: The digestive tract of the hagfish is unique among the chordates because the food in the gut is enclosed in a permeable membrane, analogous to the peritrophic matrix of insects.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish have also been observed actively hunting the red bandfish, "Cepola haastii", in its burrow, possibly using their slime to suffocate the fish before grasping it with their dental plates and dragging it from the burrow.


title: Hagfish

text: Originally, "Myxine" was included by Linnaeus (1758) in Vermes. The fossil hagfish "Myxinikela siroka" from the Late Carboniferous of the United States in the oldest known member of the group. It is in some respects more similar to lampreys, but shows key autapomorphies of hagfish. In recent years, hagfish have become of special interest for genetic analysis investigating the relationships among chordates. Their classification as agnathans places hagfish as elementary vertebrates in between invertebrates and gnathostomes. However, discussion has long occurred in scientific literature about whether the hagfish were even invertebrate. Using fossil data, paleontologists posited that lampreys are more closely related to gnathostomes than hagfish. The term "Craniata" was used to refer to animals that had a developed skull, but were not considered true vertebrates. Molecular evidence in the early 1990s first began suggesting that lampreys and hagfish were more closely related to each other than to gnathostomes. The validity of the taxon "Craniata" was further examined by Delarbre et al. (2002) using mtDNA sequence data, concluding the Myxini are more closely related to the Hyperoartia than to the Gnathostomata – i.e., that modern jawless fishes form a clade called the Cyclostomata. The argument is that if the Cyclostomata are indeed monophyletic, Vertebrata would return to its old content (Gnathostomata + Cyclostomata) and the name Craniata, being superfluous, would become a junior synonym. Nowadays, molecular data are almost unanimously in consensus of cyclostome monophyly, with more recent work being directed at shared microRNAs between cyclostomes and gnathostomes. The current classification supported by molecular analyses (which show that lampreys and hagfishes are sister taxa), as well as the fact that hagfishes do, in fact, have rudimentary vertebrae, which places hagfishes in Cyclostomata.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish are in the group Cyclostomata which includes jawless fish. The group Cyclostomata is characterized by two significant characteristics; keratinous tooth plates and movement of postotic myomeres to the orbitals. According to fossil record, Hagfish and Lampreys have been estimated to have diverged from one another during the Paleozoic period. An experiment used an estimation of synonymous and nonsynonymous substitutions for nucleotides and supplemented that data with pre-existing data into a clock that would calculate divergence times for the taxons "Myxine" and "Eptatretus". This data found that the lineage diverged around 93-28 Mya. Hagfish are excluded from the subphylum Gnathostomata because of morphological characteristics including the Hagfish arched tongue. Hagfish embryos have characteristics of Gnathostomes and may be plesiomorphic, however these characteristics drastically change morphologically as the Hagfish matures. The following hagfish and lamprey phylogeny is an adaptation based on the 2019 work of Miyashita et al.


title: Hagfish

text: In most of the world, hagfish are not often eaten. But in Korea, the hagfish is a valued food, where it is generally skinned, coated in spicy sauce, and grilled over charcoal or stir-fried. It is especially popular in the southern port cities of the peninsula, such as Busan and coastal cities in South Gyeongsang Province.


title: Hagfish

text: Due to their being eaten in Korea, most hagfish caught for food elsewhere in the world is fished with intent of being exported to South Korea. The inshore hagfish, found in the Northwest Pacific, is eaten in Japan and South Korea. As hagfish slime binds vast amounts of liquid even at low temperatures, it was proposed as an energy-saving alternative for the production of tofu that does not require heating.


title: Hagfish

text: The hagfish slime threads can be used as ultra-strong fiber for clothing. Douglas Fudge, of Chapman University, has conducted research in this area.


title: Hagfish

text: Hagfish skin, used in a variety of clothing accessories, is usually referred to as "eel skin". It produces a particularly durable leather, especially suitable for wallets and belts.


title: Tracy Reiner

text: Tracy Reiner ( Henry; born July 7, 1964) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in "When Harry Met Sally...", "Masque of the Red Death", "A League of Their Own", and "Apollo 13".


title: Tracy Reiner

text: Reiner was born Tracy Henry on July 7, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the daughter of actress and director Penny Marshall and Michael Henry. She is filmmaker Garry Marshall's niece. Her mother was married for 10 years to Rob Reiner, who adopted her and raised her as his own. Her mother was of Italian, English, German, and Scottish descent. Reiner's adoptive paternal grandparents are actor and comedian Carl Reiner (1922–2020) and actress Estelle Reiner (1914–2008). Growing up, 15 of Reiner's relatives were employed at labs run by the United States Atomic Energy Commission.


title: Tracy Reiner

text: Reiner starred in the 1989 film "Masque of the Red Death" in the role of Lucretia. She has appeared in nearly 30 films, among them "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1986), "Die Hard" (1988), "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989), "A League of Their Own" (1992), and "Apollo 13" (1995).


title: John Dalton

text: John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into colour blindness, which he had. Colour blindness is known as "Daltonism" in several languages, being named after him.


title: John Dalton

text: John Dalton was born into a Quaker family in Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth, in Cumberland, England. His father was a weaver. He received his early education from his father and from Quaker John Fletcher, who ran a private school in the nearby village of Pardshaw Hall. Dalton's family was too poor to support him for long and he began to earn his living, from the age of ten, in the service of wealthy local Quaker Elihu Robinson.


title: John Dalton

text: When he was 15, Dalton joined his older brother Jonathan in running a Quaker school in Kendal, Westmorland, about from his home. Around the age of 23, Dalton may have considered studying law or medicine, but his relatives did not encourage him, perhaps because being a Dissenter, he was barred from attending English universities. He acquired much scientific knowledge from informal instruction by John Gough, a blind philosopher who was gifted in the sciences and arts. At 27, he was appointed teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy at the "Manchester Academy" in Manchester, a dissenting academy (the lineal predecessor, following a number of changes of location, of Harris Manchester College, Oxford). He remained for seven years when the college's worsening financial situation led to his resignation. Dalton began a new career as a private tutor in the same two subjects.


title: John Dalton

text: Dalton's early life was influenced by a prominent Quaker, Elihu Robinson, a competent meteorologist and instrument maker, from Eaglesfield, Cumbria, who interested him in problems of mathematics and meteorology. During his years in Kendal, Dalton contributed solutions to problems and answered questions on various subjects in "The Ladies' Diary" and the "Gentleman's Diary". In 1787 at age 21 he began his meteorological diary in which, during the succeeding 57 years, he entered more than 200,000 observations. He rediscovered George Hadley's theory of atmospheric circulation (now known as the Hadley cell) around this time. In 1793 Dalton's first publication, "Meteorological Observations and Essays", contained the seeds of several of his later discoveries but despite the originality of his treatment, little attention was paid to them by other scholars. A second work by Dalton, "Elements of English Grammar" (or "A new system of grammatical instruction: for the use of schools and academies"), was published in 1801.


title: John Dalton

text: After leaving the Lake District, Dalton returned annually to spend his holidays studying meteorology, something which involved a lot of hill-walking. Until the advent of aeroplanes and weather balloons, the only way to make measurements of temperature and humidity at altitude was to climb a mountain. Dalton estimated the height using a barometer. The Ordnance Survey did not publish maps for the Lake District until the 1860s. Before then, Dalton was one of the few authorities on the heights of the region's mountains. He was often accompanied by Jonathan Otley, who also made a study of the heights of the local peaks, using Dalton's figures as a comparison to check his work. Otley published his information in his map of 1818. Otley became both an assistant and a friend to Dalton.


title: John Dalton

text: In 1794, shortly after his arrival in Manchester, Dalton was elected a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, the "Lit & Phil", and a few weeks later he communicated his first paper on "Extraordinary facts relating to the vision of colours", in which he postulated that shortage in colour perception was caused by discoloration of the liquid medium of the eyeball. As both he and his brother were colour blind, he recognised that the condition must be hereditary.


title: John Dalton

text: Although Dalton's theory was later disproven, his early research into colour vision deficiency was recognized after his lifetime. Examination of his preserved eyeball in 1995 demonstrated that Dalton had deuteranopia, a type of Congenital red-green color blindness in which the gene for medium wavelength sensitive (green) photopsins is missing. Individuals with this form of colour blindness see every color as mapped to blue, yellow or gray, or, as Dalton wrote in his seminal paper,


title: John Dalton

text: In 1800, Dalton became secretary of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and in the following year he presented an important series of lectures, entitled "Experimental Essays" on the constitution of mixed gases; the pressure of steam and other vapours at different temperatures in a vacuum and in air; on evaporation; and on the thermal expansion of gases. The four essays, presented between 2 and 30 October 1801, were published in the "Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester" in 1802.


title: John Dalton

text: After describing experiments to ascertain the pressure of steam at various points between 0 and 100 °C (32 and 212 °F), Dalton concluded from observations of the vapour pressure of six different liquids, that the variation of vapour pressure for all liquids is equivalent, for the same variation of temperature, reckoning from vapour of any given pressure.


title: John Dalton

text: He enunciated Gay-Lussac's law, published in 1802 by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (Gay-Lussac credited the discovery to unpublished work from the 1780s by Jacques Charles). In the two or three years following the lectures, Dalton published several papers on similar topics. "On the Absorption of Gases by Water and other Liquids" (read as a lecture on 21 October 1803, first published in 1805) contained his law of partial pressures now known as Dalton's law.


title: John Dalton

text: Arguably the most important of all Dalton's investigations are concerned with the atomic theory in chemistry. While his name is inseparably associated with this theory, the origin of Dalton's atomic theory is not fully understood. The theory may have been suggested to him either by researches on ethylene ("olefiant gas") and methane ("carburetted hydrogen") or by analysis of nitrous oxide ("protoxide of azote") and nitrogen dioxide ("deutoxide of azote"), both views resting on the authority of Thomas Thomson.


title: John Dalton

text: From 1814 to 1819, Irish chemist William Higgins claimed that Dalton had plagiarised his ideas, but Higgins' theory did not address relative atomic mass. Recent evidence suggests that Dalton's development of thought may have been influenced by the ideas of another Irish chemist Bryan Higgins, who was William's uncle. Bryan believed that an atom was a heavy central particle surrounded by an atmosphere of caloric, the supposed substance of heat at the time. The size of the atom was determined by the diameter of the caloric atmosphere. Based on the evidence, Dalton was aware of Bryan's theory and adopted very similar ideas and language, but he never acknowledged Bryan's anticipation of his caloric model. However, the essential novelty of Dalton's atomic theory is that he provided a method of calculating relative atomic weights for the chemical elements, which provides the means for the assignment of molecular formulas for all chemical substances. Neither Bryan nor William Higgins did this, and Dalton's priority for that crucial innovation is uncontested.


title: John Dalton

text: A study of Dalton's laboratory notebooks, discovered in the rooms of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, concluded that so far from Dalton being led by his search for an explanation of the law of multiple proportions to the idea that chemical combination consists in the interaction of atoms of definite and characteristic weight, the idea of atoms arose in his mind as a purely physical concept, forced on him by study of the physical properties of the atmosphere and other gases. The first published indications of this idea are to be found at the end of his paper "On the Absorption of Gases by Water and other Liquids" already mentioned. There he says:


title: John Dalton

text: He then proposes relative weights for the atoms of a few elements, without going into further detail. However, a recent study of Dalton’s laboratory notebook entries concludes he developed the chemical atomic theory in 1803 to reconcile Henry Cavendish’s and Antoine Lavoisier’s analytical data on the composition of nitric acid, not to explain the solubility of gases in water.


title: John Dalton

text: In his first extended published discussion of the atomic theory (1808), Dalton proposed an additional (and controversial) "rule of greatest simplicity". This rule could not be independently confirmed, but some such assumption was necessary in order to propose formulas for a few simple molecules, upon which the calculation of atomic weights depended. This rule dictated that if the atoms of two different elements were known to form only a single compound, like hydrogen and oxygen forming water or hydrogen and nitrogen forming ammonia, the molecules of that compound shall be assumed to consist of one atom of each element. For elements that combined in multiple ratios, such as the then-known two oxides of carbon or the three oxides of nitrogen, their combinations were assumed to be the simplest ones possible. For example, if two such combinations are known, one must consist of an atom of each element, and the other must consist of one atom of one element and two atoms of the other.


title: John Dalton

text: This was merely an assumption, derived from faith in the simplicity of nature. No evidence was then available to scientists to deduce how many atoms of each element combine to form molecules. But this or some other such rule was absolutely necessary to any incipient theory, since one needed an assumed molecular formula in order to calculate relative atomic weights. Dalton's "rule of greatest simplicity" caused him to assume that the formula for water was OH and ammonia was NH, quite different from our modern understanding (HO, NH). On the other hand, his simplicity rule led him to propose the correct modern formulas for the two oxides of carbon (CO and CO). Despite the uncertainty at the heart of Dalton's atomic theory, the principles of the theory survived.


title: John Dalton

text: Dalton published his first table of relative atomic weights containing six elements (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, sulfur and phosphorus), relative to the weight of an atom of hydrogen conventionally taken as 1. Since these were only relative weights, they do not have a unit of weight attached to them. Dalton provided no indication in this paper how he had arrived at these numbers, but in his laboratory notebook, dated 6 September 1803, is a list in which he set out the relative weights of the atoms of a number of elements, derived from analysis of water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, etc. by chemists of the time.


title: John Dalton

text: The extension of this idea to substances in general necessarily led him to the law of multiple proportions, and the comparison with experiment brilliantly confirmed his deduction. In the paper "On the Proportion of the Several Gases in the Atmosphere", read by him in November 1802, the law of multiple proportions appears to be anticipated in the words:


title: John Dalton

text: But there is reason to suspect that this sentence may have been added some time after the reading of the paper, which was not published until 1805.


title: John Dalton

text: Compounds were listed as binary, ternary, quaternary, etc. (molecules composed of two, three, four, etc. atoms) in the "New System of Chemical Philosophy" depending on the number of atoms a compound had in its simplest, empirical form.


title: John Dalton

text: Dalton hypothesised the structure of compounds can be represented in whole number ratios. So, one atom of element X combining with one atom of element Y is a binary compound. Furthermore, one atom of element X combining with two atoms of element Y or vice versa, is a ternary compound. Many of the first compounds listed in the "New System of Chemical Philosophy" correspond to modern views, although many others do not.


title: John Dalton

text: Dalton used his own symbols to visually represent the atomic structure of compounds. They were depicted in the "New System of Chemical Philosophy", where he listed 21 elements and 17 simple molecules.


title: John Dalton

text: Dalton published papers on such diverse topics as rain and dew and the origin of springs (hydrosphere); on heat, the colour of the sky, steam and the reflection and refraction of light; and on the grammatical subjects of the auxiliary verbs and participles of the English language.


title: John Dalton

text: As an investigator, Dalton was often content with rough and inaccurate instruments, even though better ones were obtainable. Sir Humphry Davy described him as "a very coarse experimenter", who "almost always found the results he required, trusting to his head rather than his hands." On the other hand, historians who have replicated some of his crucial experiments have confirmed Dalton's skill and precision.


title: John Dalton

text: In the preface to the second part of Volume I of his "New System", he says he had so often been misled by taking for granted the results of others that he determined to write "as little as possible but what I can attest by my own experience", but this independence he carried so far that it sometimes resembled lack of receptivity. Thus he distrusted, and probably never fully accepted, Gay-Lussac's conclusions as to the combining volumes of gases.


title: John Dalton

text: He held unconventional views on chlorine. Even after its elementary character had been settled by Davy, he persisted in using the atomic weights he himself had adopted, even when they had been superseded by the more accurate determinations of other chemists.


title: John Dalton

text: He always objected to the chemical notation devised by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, although most thought that it was much simpler and more convenient than his own cumbersome system of circular symbols.


title: John Dalton

text: For "Rees's Cyclopædia" Dalton contributed articles on Chemistry and Meteorology, but the topics are not known.


title: John Dalton

text: He contributed 117 "Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester" from 1817 until his death in 1844 while president of that organisation. Of these the earlier are the most important. In one of them, read in 1814, he explains the principles of volumetric analysis, in which he was one of the earliest researchers. In 1840 a paper on phosphates and arsenates, often regarded as a weaker work, was refused by the Royal Society, and he was so incensed that he published it himself. He took the same course soon afterwards with four other papers, two of which ("On the quantity of acids, bases and salts in different varieties of salts" and "On a new and easy method of analysing sugar") contain his discovery, regarded by him as second in importance only to atomic theory, that certain anhydrates, when dissolved in water, cause no increase in its volume, his inference being that the salt enters into the pores of the water.


title: John Dalton

text: Even before he had propounded the atomic theory, Dalton had attained a considerable scientific reputation. In 1803, he was chosen to give a series of lectures on natural philosophy at the Royal Institution in London, and he delivered another series of lectures there in 1809–1810. Some witnesses reported that he was deficient in the qualities that make an attractive lecturer, being harsh and indistinct in voice, ineffective in the treatment of his subject, and singularly wanting in the language and power of illustration.


title: John Dalton

text: In 1810, Sir Humphry Davy asked him to offer himself as a candidate for the fellowship of the Royal Society, but Dalton declined, possibly for financial reasons. In 1822 he was proposed without his knowledge, and on election paid the usual fee. Six years previously he had been made a corresponding member of the French Académie des Sciences, and in 1830 he was elected as one of its eight foreign associates in place of Davy. In 1833, Earl Grey's government conferred on him a pension of £150, raised in 1836 to £300. Dalton was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1834.


title: John Dalton

text: A young James Prescott Joule, who later studied and published (1843) on the nature of heat and its relationship to mechanical work, was a pupil of Dalton in his last years.


title: John Dalton

text: Dalton never married and had only a few close friends. As a Quaker, he lived a modest and unassuming personal life.


title: John Dalton

text: For the 26 years prior to his death, Dalton lived in a room in the home of the Rev W. Johns, a published botanist, and his wife, in George Street, Manchester. Dalton and Johns died in the same year (1844).


title: John Dalton

text: Dalton's daily round of laboratory work and tutoring in Manchester was broken only by annual excursions to the Lake District and occasional visits to London. In 1822 he paid a short visit to Paris, where he met many distinguished resident men of science. He attended several of the earlier meetings of the British Association at York, Oxford, Dublin and Bristol.


title: John Dalton

text: Dalton suffered a minor stroke in 1837, and a second in 1838 left him with a speech impairment, although he remained able to perform experiments. In May 1844 he had another stroke; on 26 July he recorded with trembling hand his last meteorological observation. On 27 July, in Manchester, Dalton fell from his bed and was found lifeless by his attendant.


title: John Dalton

text: Dalton was accorded a civic funeral with full honours. His body lay in state in Manchester Town Hall for four days and more than 40,000 people filed past his coffin. The funeral procession included representatives of the city's major civic, commercial, and scientific bodies. He was buried in Manchester in Ardwick Cemetery; the cemetery is now a playing field, but pictures of the original grave may be found in published materials.


title: ATP Finals

text: The ATP Finals is the season-ending championship of the ATP Tour. It is the most significant event in the annual ATP calendar after the four majors as it features the top-eight singles players and top-eight doubles teams based on their results throughout the season. The eighth spot is reserved, if needed, for a player or team who won a major in the current year and are ranked from 8th–20th. The tournament is sometimes referred to as a "fifth Grand Slam," due to the prestige that comes with qualifying for and winning the event.


title: ATP Finals

text: The tournament uses a unique format not seen in other ATP Tour events: The players are separated into two groups of four, within which they each play three round-robin matches. The top two players from each group after the round-robin stage move on to the semifinals, followed by a final to determine the champion.


title: ATP Finals

text: The tournament was first held in 1970, although it was then known by a different name. Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic hold the record for the most singles titles with six, while Peter Fleming and John McEnroe jointly hold the record for the most doubles titles with seven.


title: ATP Finals

text: In the tournament's current format, the champion can earn a maximum of 1,500 ranking points, if they win the event as an undefeated champion in the round-robin stage.


title: ATP Finals

text: By winning the 2022 ATP Finals title, Djokovic earned a record $4,740,300, highest payday in singles. Also, Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury claimed $930,300, the highest payday in doubles prize money.


title: ATP Finals

text: The ATP Finals is the fifth iteration of a championship which began in 1970. It was originally known as the Masters Grand Prix and was part of the Grand Prix tennis circuit. It was organised by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) and ran alongside the competing WCT Finals. The Masters was a year-end showpiece event between the best players on the men's tour, but did not count for any world ranking points.


title: ATP Finals

text: In 1990, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) took over the running of the men's tour and replaced the Masters with the "ATP Tour World Championships". World ranking points were now at stake, with an undefeated champion earning the same number of points they would earn for winning one of the four Grand Slam events. The ITF, who continued to run the Grand Slam tournaments, created a rival year-end event known as the Grand Slam Cup, which was contested by the 16 players with the best records in specifically Grand Slam tournaments that year.


title: ATP Finals

text: In December 1999, the ATP and ITF agreed to discontinue the two separate events and create a new jointly-owned event called the "Tennis Masters Cup". As with the Masters Grand Prix and the ATP Tour World Championships, the Tennis Masters Cup was contested by eight players. However, the player who was ranked number eight in the ATP Champion's Race world rankings was not guaranteed spot. If a player who won one of the year's Grand Slam events finished the year ranked outside the top eight, but still within the top 20, he was included in the Tennis Masters Cup instead of the eighth-ranked player. If two players outside the top eight won Grand Slam events, the higher placed player of the two in the world rankings took the final spot in the Tennis Masters Cup. This accommodation for Grand Slam winners who are nevertheless ranked outside the top eight continues in the event's current form.


title: ATP Finals

text: In 2009, the championship was renamed the "ATP World Tour Finals" and was held at The O2 Arena in London. The contract ran through 2013, but was extended up to 2015 in 2012, and another time until 2018 in 2015. In 2017 the event was renamed the "ATP Finals" and the contract with the O2 Arena was extended to 2020. In December 2018 it was announced that London, along with Manchester, Singapore, Tokyo and Turin were on a shortlist of five cities which made the cut from an initial list of 40 cities to host the event starting from 2021. In April 2019, the ATP announced that Turin is going to host the ATP Finals from 2021 to 2025.


title: ATP Finals

text: For most of its history, the event has been considered the most important indoor tennis tournament in the world (there were a few exceptions when the event was held outdoors: 1974 in Melbourne & 2003-04 in Houston). The indoor atmosphere allows for controlled conditions of play, both in terms of the court surface and the court's illumination.


title: ATP Finals

text: In recent years it has been played on indoor hard courts, however, indoor carpet was used in some previous editions. On one occasion, when Melbourne hosted the event in 1974, the grass courts of Kooyong Stadium were used; the tournament was staged only a few weeks before the 1974 Australian Open, which was also played on grass. Apart from 1974, all tournaments have been on a hard court variant, which has prompted calls from some players (chiefly Rafael Nadal) to feature a greater variety of surfaces, including clay courts. However, others disagree and have argued that clay court events already comprise a large chunk of the tennis calendar. As it stands, the ATP is not apt to change the event from an indoor hard court competition.


title: ATP Finals

text: For many years, the doubles event was held as a separate tournament staged the week after the singles competition, but more recently both events have been held together during the same week and in the same venue.


title: ATP Finals

text: In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and in an effort to reduce the number of staff on-site, the ATP introduced live electronic line-calling powered by Hawk-Eye Live. Instead of line umpires, the system detects the relevant movements of the player and where the ball bounces on court. A pre-recorded voice announces "Out," "Fault," and "Foot fault." Video review can be used for suspected double bounces, touches, and other reviewable calls.


title: ATP Finals

text: The tournament has traditionally been sponsored by the title sponsor of the tour; however, in 1990–2008 the competition was not sponsored, even though the singles portion of the event, as part of the ATP Tour, was sponsored by IBM. In 2009, the tournament gained Barclays PLC as its title sponsor. Barclays confirmed in 2015 that they would not renew their sponsorship deal once it expires in 2016. On 25 May 2017, it was announced that Nitto Denko will be the main sponsor for the tournament, at least until 2020. On 10 September 2020, Nitto Denko announced it will extend its title partnership of the ATP Finals for another five years, until 2025.


title: ATP Finals

text: Two alternates also attend the ATP Finals. If the first alternate has already been selected according to (3) mentioned above, then the second alternate is the highest-ranked player who has not otherwise qualified for the event. If both alternate spots are available, they are awarded to the two highest-ranked players who did not otherwise qualify for the event.


title: ATP Finals

text: An alternate can replace a player who withdraws before the round-robin stage is over, so long as the player who withdraws still has at least one round-robin match left to play. When an alternate enters the competition, his results are considered separately, i.e. the alternate does not inherit the results of the player he is replacing. If an alternate's round-robin results qualify him for the semifinals, then he may continue into the single-elimination rounds.


title: ATP Finals

text: Unlike other events on the ATP Tour, the ATP Finals is not a straightforward single-elimination tournament. The eight players are divided into two groups of four and each play three round-robin matches against the other players in their group. After the round-robin stage, the top two players in each group advance to the semifinals. The two winners of the semifinals play a final to determine the champion. In this format, it is theoretically possible to advance to the semifinals even with as many as two round-robin losses, but no player in the history of the singles tournament has won the title after losing more than one round-robin match.


title: ATP Finals

text: To create the groups, the eight players are seeded according to rank. The #1 and #2 seeds are placed in Group A and Group B, respectively. The remaining seeds are drawn in pairs (#3 and #4, #5 and #6, #7 and #8); the first of the pair to be drawn goes to Group A and the other to Group B, and so on.


title: ATP Finals

text: The format described above has been in place for all editions of the tournament except the following years:


title: ATP Finals

text: If some players are tied, the following tiebreakers are used depending on how many players are tied (two or three):


title: ATP Finals

text: If three players are tied, then the following tiebreakers are used, in order, until all three players are no longer tied OR until only two players are tied, at which point the two-player tie is broken by the head-to-head round robin result:


title: ATP Finals

text: When calculating tiebreakers, a match that ended in a retirement is counted as a 0–2 sets loss for the retiring player and a 2–0 sets win for their opponent, regardless of the actual score when the retirement occurred. When calculating the "Highest % of games won" tiebreaker, a match that ended in a retirement is disregarded.


title: ATP Finals

text: Additional prizes include the ATP Finals trophy and the ATP year-end No. 1 trophy, all made by London-based silversmiths Thomas Lyte.


title: ATP Finals

text: The tournament has traditionally been sponsored by the title sponsor of the tour; however, in 1990–2008 the competition was non-sponsored, even though the singles portion of the event as part of the ATP tour was sponsored by IBM. In 2009, the tournament gained Barclays PLC as title sponsor. Barclays confirmed in 2015 that they would not renew their sponsorship deal once it expires in 2016.


title: ATP Finals

text: On 25 May 2017, it was announced that Nitto Denko will be the main sponsor for the tournament, at least until 2020.


title: ATP Finals

text: On 10 September 2020, Nitto Denko announced it will extend its title partnership of the ATP Finals for another 5 years, until 2025.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: Motilal Nehru (6 May 1861 – 6 February 1931) was an Indian lawyer, activist and politician belonging to the Indian National Congress. He also served as the Congress President twice, 1919–1920 and 1928–1929. He was a patriarch of the Nehru-Gandhi family and the father of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: Motilal Nehru was born on 6 May 1861, the posthumous son of Gangadhar Nehru and his wife Indrani. The Nehru family had been settled for several generations in Delhi, and Gangadhar Nehru was a kotwal in that city. During India's independence struggle of 1857, Gangadhar left Delhi with his family and moved to Agra, where some of his relatives lived. By some accounts, the Nehru family home in Delhi had been looted and burnt down during the Mutiny. In Agra, Gangadhar quickly arranged the weddings of his two daughters, Patrani and Maharani, into Kashmiri Brahmin families. He died on 4 February 1861 and his youngest child, Motilal, was born three months later.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: At this time, Motilal's two older brothers, Bansidhar Nehru (b. 1842) and Nandlal Nehru (b. 1845), were nineteen and sixteen years old respectively. Since the family had lost nearly all its assets in the upheaval of 1857, Jeorani turned to her brother, Amarnath Zutshi of Bazaar Sitaram in old Delhi, for support until her sons could begin earning. She did receive some support from him, but all of Delhi had suffered hugely during the recent mutiny and assistance could not be open-ended. Within a couple of years, Nandlal secured a job as a clerk in the court of a Raja of Khetri and began supporting his mother and brother.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: Thus, Motilal came to spend his childhood in Khetri, second largest thikana (feudal estate) within the princely state of Jaipur, now in Rajasthan. His elder brother, Nandlal gained the favour of Raja Fateh Singh of Khetri, who was the same age as him, and rose to the position of Diwan (Chief Minister; effectively the manager) of the vast feudal estate. In 1870, Fateh Singh died childless and was succeeded by a distant cousin, who had little use for his predecessor's confidants. Nandlal left Khetri for Agra and found that his prior career at Khetri equipped him to advise litigants regarding their legal suits. Once he realised this, he exhibited his industry and resilience again by studying for and passing the necessary examinations so that he could practice law in the British colonial courts. He then began practising law at the provincial High Court at Agra. Subsequently, the High Court shifted base to Allahabad, and the family (including Motilal) moved to that city.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: Motilal passed the bar examination in 1883 and began practicing law at Kanpur. Three years later, he moved to Allahabad to join the lucrative practice already established by his brother Nandlal. The following year, in April 1887, his brother died at the age of forty-two, leaving behind five sons and two daughters. Thus Motilal at the age of 25 became sole bread-earner of the extended Nehru family.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: Many of Motilal's suits were civil cases concerning large land-owning families. He soon made a name for himself in the civil society of Allahabad. With the success of his practice, in 1900, he bought a large family home in the Civil Lines area of the city, rebuilt it and named it Anand Bhavan (lit. Joy house). In 1909, he reached the pinnacle of his legal career by gaining the approval to appear in the Privy Council of Great Britain. His frequent visits to Europe angered the Kashmiri Brahmin community as he refused to perform the traditional "prayashchit", or reformation ceremony, after crossing the ocean (according to Strict Hinduism, one lost one's caste after crossing the ocean, and was required to perform certain penance rites to regain caste). He was the first chairman of the board of directors of The Leader, a leading daily published from Allahabad.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: On 5 February 1919 he launched a new daily paper, The Independent, as a counterpoint to 'The Leader', which was much too liberal for Motilal's standard and articulate thought in 1919.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: He started on the path to become wealthy among the few leaders of the Indian National Congress. Under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi in 1918, Nehru became one of the first to transform his life to exclude western clothes and material goods, adopting a more native Indian lifestyle.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: To meet the expenses of his large family and large family homes (he built Swaraj Bhavan later), Nehru had to occasionally return to his practice of law. Swaraj Bhawan originally belonged to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the 19th century Muslim leader and educationist. At the house-warming party, Sir William Moor hoped that this large palatial home in Civil Lines of Allahabad would become the cement holding together the British Empire in India. Paradoxically, the house was bought by Motilal Nehru in 1900, and went on to become a cradle to the Indian Freedom Struggle which was to destroy British rule in India.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: Motilal Nehru twice served as President of the Congress Party, once in Amritsar (1919) and the second time in Calcutta (1928). The Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 left a deep impression on him where it has been reported that he wrote in its aftermath: "My blood is boiling". In December that year, he was elected to preside over the Amritsar Congress. Motilal was in the centre of the gathering storm which pulled down many familiar landmarks during the following year. He was the only front rank leader to lend his support to non-co-operation at the special Congress at Calcutta in September 1920. The Calcutta Congress (December 1928) over which Motilal presided was the scene of a head-on clash between those who were prepared to accept Dominion Status and those who would have nothing short of complete independence. A split was averted by a proposal by Mahatma Gandhi, according to which if Britain did not concede Dominion Status within a year, the Congress was to demand complete independence and to fight for it, if necessary, by launching civil disobedience. He was arrested during the Non-Cooperation Movement. Although initially close to Gandhi, he openly criticised Gandhi's suspension of civil resistance in 1922 due to the murder of policemen by a riotous mob in Chauri Chaura in Uttar Pradesh.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: Motilal later joined the Swaraj Party, which sought to enter the British-sponsored councils. Motilal had been elected to the United Provinces Legislative Council where he staged the first walk-out in protest of the rejection of a resolution he had moved. In 1923, Nehru was elected to the new Central Legislative Assembly of British India in New Delhi and became leader of the Opposition. In that role, he was able to secure the defeat, or at least the delay, of Finance bills and other legislation. He agreed to join a Committee with the object of promoting the recruitment of Indian officers into the Indian Army, but this decision contributed to others going further and joining the Government itself.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: In March 1926, Nehru demanded a representative conference to draft a constitution conferring full Dominion status on India, to be enacted by the British parliament. This demand was rejected by the Assembly, and as a result Nehru and his colleagues resigned their Assembly seats and returned to the Congress party.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: The entry of Motilal's son Jawaharlal Nehru into politics in 1916, started the most powerful and influential Indian political dynasty. When, in 1929, Jawaharlal Nehru was elected as Congress president it greatly pleased Motilal and Nehru family admirers to see the son take over from his father. Jawaharlal had opposed his father's preference for dominion status, and had not left the Congress Party when Motilal helped found the Swaraj Party.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: Motilal Nehru chaired the famous Nehru Commission in 1928, a counter to the all-British Simon Commission. The Nehru Report, the first constitution written only by Indians, envisioned a dominion status for India within the Empire, akin to Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It was endorsed by the Indian National Congress, but rejected by more nationalist Indians who sought complete independence. The report was rejected by the Muslim leadership of India, especially Muhammad Ali Jinnah, for its supposed unfairness towards Muslims.


title: Motilal Nehru

text: Paying tribute to Motilal Nehru, the British Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court, Sir Grimwood Mears, stated:


title: Fear Factor

text: Fear Factor is an American stunt/dare game show that first aired on NBC from 2001 to 2006 and was initially hosted by comedian and UFC commentator Joe Rogan. The show was adapted by Endemol USA from the original Dutch series titled "Now or Neverland".


title: Fear Factor

text: For the first five seasons, the contestants consisted regularly of three men and three women pitted against each other in a variety of three stunts for a grand prize, usually of $50,000. In the sixth season, the show's format was modified to feature four competing teams of two people who have a pre-existing relationship with one another.


title: Fear Factor

text: "Fear Factor" was cancelled by NBC in 2006 after six seasons (142 episodes excluding specials with highlights); NBC would briefly revive the series for a nine-episode run in 2011. In 2017, MTV revived the series with rapper and actor Ludacris assuming the host role; this incarnation ran two seasons (thirty-three episodes) before being cancelled in 2018. The show has since spawned many spin-offs, creating its own media franchise.


title: Fear Factor

text: As NBC's answer to the CBS television series "Survivor," the show was initially a hit for the network in the summer of 2001 and built strong ratings and popularity in the following seasons. Joe Rogan, then known for his role on the sitcom "NewsRadio" (1995–1999) and as a commentator for Ultimate Fighting Championship, was hired as the host. According to a 2015 interview with Art Bell, Rogan expected "Fear Factor" to be cancelled after a few episodes due to objections to some of the content and further stated that he took the job mainly to obtain observations and anecdotes for his stand-up comedy career. The series had a runaway success during the first few seasons, but after the series' fourth season (2003–2004), the popularity and ratings began to decline. By the time the series was in its sixth season, the ratings were in steep decline as a result of content concerns and a growing loss of viewer interest, coupled with the series facing tough competition with other TV shows in the same time slot. As a result, the series was only averaging a 2.6 in the ratings. Later that year, "Fear Factor" faced tough competition with the TV ratings champion, Fox's talent series "American Idol" on Tuesday nights and the ratings declined even further and continued to trend further downward during this period. Despite much publicity concerning an improved format and better stunts for season six, the series' ratings continued to drop and consequently, NBC put the struggling program on hiatus for the remainder of the season to make room for the sitcom "Joey," the "Friends" spin-off that was itself removed from the NBC lineup a few weeks later. After a continuous and steep drop in the series' ratings, it was officially cancelled by NBC in May 2006 after six seasons ("Joey" was cancelled in April) and the network began airing the remainder of the season on June 13, 2006, with the remaining episodes to be aired throughout the summer, with its last episode airing on September 12, 2006. Over its six seasons, "Fear Factor" earned NBC a reported $600 million in advertising revenue. Currently only the first season has been released on DVD; in early 2009 a box set release containing the entire series on DVD was planned. The project was put on hold for an unknown reason in March 2010. On June 5, 2010, it was announced that the project was cancelled because of the low sales of the first season DVD.


title: Fear Factor

text: In 2004, "Fear Factor" became the first network reality show to be syndicated. In the fall of that year, NBCUniversal Television Distribution put it into barter syndication and it aired on Fox, The WB and UPN affiliates and on the cable channel FX. However, as of fall 2006, "Fear Factor" had left local syndication due to lack of sales of NBCUniversal and was not renewed for another season next fall since NBC canceled "Fear Factor" after six seasons due to low ratings. In addition to FX, reruns of "Fear Factor" have aired in syndication on Chiller, MTV2 and TBD, with TBD airing a "Fear Factor" marathon the weekend of May 15–16, 2021. The series also has a YouTube channel, where previously unaired footage is shown.


title: Fear Factor

text: With Chiller airing reruns of "Fear Factor" every Sunday night, the ratings led to Comcast informing "Entertainment Weekly" in a May 31, 2011 report that "Fear Factor" would be revived for a seventh season. Eight episodes were ordered, including two two-hour episodes and Rogan returning to hosting duties. The revival was shot in high-definition and owing to concerns over the then-ongoing NFL Lockout and the loss of "NBC Sunday Night Football" episodes, TV Guide reported in early July the show could be ready as early as September as lockout replacement programming (NBC eventually lost one episode, the season premiere Hall of Fame Game, because of the lockout that ended in late July). The series revival began airing on December 12, 2011; the two premiere episodes were viewed by 8.7 million and 8.5 million viewers, respectively. This makes the premiere the highest rated non-sports programming to air on NBC at 8:00 p.m. since February 2008. Following Rogan's verbal disclaimer, the narrator gives a statement and this is one most commonly used:


title: Fear Factor

text: The revival featured four teams of two people with a preexisting relationship per episode, rather than the original versions' six people (three males and three females). The first five seasons had typically used the three male, three female grouping, but the sixth and final pre-revival season always utilized four teams of two people each. The stunts remained basically the same, with the "gross" one in between the two physical ones. NBC pulled a two-hour, five team, five stunt episode entitled "Leeches & Shaved Heads & Tear Gas, Oh My!" which featured a stunt where teams spun a wheel to determine whether they would have to shave their heads and eyebrows, get tattooed or be tear gassed. This episode was scheduled to air in two parts on January 23 and 30, 2012, but it was postponed after Part 1 was replaced by a GOP debate. Another episode, entitled "Hee Haw! Hee Haw!" and featuring a stunt where contestants drink the urine and semen of a donkey, was then scheduled to air January 30, 2012. Hesitant about airing the stunt, NBC eventually pulled the episode after pictures of the stunt appeared online. Video footage of the stunt appeared online after the episode aired on Danish TV in June 2012 and "Fear Factor" eventually posted short clips of all three stunts on their YouTube channel in July 2014. The sixth episode, entitled "The Bees Are So Angry," was two hours instead of the usual one and included five teams, five stunts and a $100,000 prize instead of the usual four teams, three stunts and $50,000 prize. Following this episode, "The Voice" replaced the series' slot on Monday nights. On May 13, 2012, NBC announced that "Fear Factor" was officially cancelled. NBC rescheduled the two hour "Leeches & Shaved Heads & Tear Gas, Oh My!" episode, which aired in two parts over the nights of July 9 and 16. The first part ended with the "To Be Continued" subtitle followed by a preview for the second part.


title: Fear Factor

text: In April 2017, MTV announced that it would be reviving "Fear Factor" a second time for a 12-episode season. The first season of MTV's "Fear Factor" premiered on May 30, 2017, and concluded on August 22, 2017. Just prior to the first-season finale, it was announced that MTV had renewed the series for a second season consisting of 20 episodes. The first half of Season 2, subtitled "Season From Hell," began airing on February 25, 2018; the second half, subtitled "Celebrity Fear Factor," premiered on July 17, 2018. The MTV revival was hosted by Ludacris and continued to use the format of four teams competing for a $50,000 prize. The stunts drew inspiration from elements of pop culture, such as horror movies, urban legends and viral videos.


title: Fear Factor

text: Before the contestants are introduced (and at the half-way point of a two-hour special), Rogan presents a verbal disclaimer. The wording has changed with certain versions, but this is one most commonly used:


title: Fear Factor

text: The normal format involves three men and three women-- or four teams of two people with a pre-existing relationship-- who have to complete three professional stunts to win US$50,000. Rogan noted that the stunts not only test any contestants/teams physically, but mentally as well. Any contestants or teams who were too scared to attempt a stunt, failed to complete a stunt or underperformed a stunt were eliminated from the competition. If only one contestant or team successfully completed the first or the second stunt, they automatically win $25,000 and the other contestants eliminated in the stunt along with the winner of the stunt return for the next stunt to compete for the remaining $25,000. If no one successfully completed the first or the second stunt, then all of the contestants and teams eliminated in the stunt would return to the next stunt to compete for a reduced $25,000. This rule did not apply for non-elimination stunts; in those cases, the prize would be carried over to the next stunt. The only exception to this was in season one, where if one person completed the stunt, the contestant won $10,000 and the $50,000 grand prize was not reduced. There were no instances during the first season where all contestants failed a stunt, so it was never revealed how this would have been handled (however Rogan did state 'as usual' in an early episode of the second season, when nobody completed the second stunt—even though it was the first time it had happened--that the prize would be reduced by 50%). In the final episode of season one, it was implied by Rogan during the second stunt that involved eating various pig parts that if only one person won the stunt (after only one contestant, Martin Beech, successfully completed the previous stunt), then that person would get the $50,000 prize without the need to complete the final stunt. Only once in the history of "Fear Factor" did the $50,000 prize go unclaimed in an episode; On September 27, 2004, a "Best Friends" edition, none of the remaining teams were able to complete the final stunt. In the stunt, one member of each team had to drive a ramp car, while the other member had to drive a sports car. The one driving the sports car had to drive it onto the truck bed via the ramp car. If the sports car fell off of the truck bed at any time, the team was automatically eliminated. Had it been successfully completed, the team who did this the fastest would have won. However, the last remaining contestants walked away with two Mazda vehicles for winning a previous stunt (see Second stunt). After the acquisition of Universal Studios of Vivendi by NBC's parent company General Electric in 2004, contestants could win vacations in order to promote the theme park division of NBCUniversal at Universal Orlando or win trips to Universal Studios in Hollywood.


title: Fear Factor

text: First stunt: The first stunt is designed to physically test each of the contestants or teams (for example, jumping from one building to the next or hanging from a helicopter and collecting flags on a ladder). Usually, the two men and the two women or the three teams, that gave the best performance (such as the fastest time, farthest distance or number of flags collected in under a certain time) will move on to the second stunt. The others are eliminated. In the sixth season, a sometimes-used rule was that the best-performing team won the ability to eliminate the team of their choice, meaning that teams who failed to complete the stunt or had the worst performance could still advance to the next round if the winning team did not choose to eliminate them.


title: Fear Factor

text: Second stunt: The second stunt is meant to mentally challenge the contestants or teams. The three most common types of stunts in the second round are eating stunts, animal stunts and retrieval or transfer stunts. Eating stunts entail ingesting vile animal parts, live bugs or a blended concoction of multiple items; animal stunts entail immersing one's head or entire body in animals considered to be disgusting or intimidating (such as rats, spiders, snakes or worms); retrieval or transfer stunts involve retrieving items or gross objects (often by mouth) hidden in disgusting substances (for example, blood or lard) or live animals. On rare occasions, the 'mental' challenge would be of a completely different nature, and not be an objectively gross stunt (such as eating undesirable animal parts). Rather, it would be a test of pain endurance, for instance walking barefoot on broken glass or ingesting habanero peppers. Even less often still, the second stunt would be a test of the contestants' tolerance of (sometimes long-term) public humiliation, such as parading nude down a catwalk in front of an audience of photographers, getting a tattoo, or, in one episode of season 6, receiving a humiliating hair cut, such as a mohawk or "taco" style. At the time of broadcast, many fans commented that the latter stunt was amongst the most unreasonable stunts in the show's history.


title: Fear Factor

text: With the exception of retrieval or transfer stunts, contestants are usually not eliminated after this stunt unless they fail to complete it or vomit before finishing. In the case of teams, one team may be eliminated for having the worst performance. In later episodes, a common (but not always used) rule was that no one would be eliminated after the second stunt; instead, the contestant or team that performed the best would receive a prize, such as a vehicle or a prize package similar in value. More often than not, the contestant or team with the best performance had the privilege of choosing the order that the contestants or teams had to go in to perform the next stunt [for the following day]. Extremely rarely during the show's original run, Rogan would participate in the second stunt, most often as a way of encouraging contestants to take part. However, during a stunt involving tear gas in the third season, the wind changed direction and tear gas blew in the direction of Rogan, the camera crew and the other contestants that were not taking part at that particular moment. On another occasion during the first series, though it was not aired, Rogan ate three sheep eyes exactly like the contestants had to, as it was the first 'gross' stunt to be taped in the series' run and he did not feel it fair that the contestants should go at it alone, while he sat cheering them on.


title: Fear Factor

text: Third stunt: The third and final stunt is usually something from an extreme type of stunt seen in an action film. Like the first stunt, it usually involves heights, water, vehicles, or some combination of the three. In order to avoid ties, this stunt is always competitive. The player or team with the best performance this round wins the grand prize, usually $50,000 and has the privilege of being informed by Rogan that "evidently, fear is not a factor for you." Naturally, on the one occasion that the $50,000 prize went unclaimed (the season 5 Best Friends episode), Rogan instead informed the contestants that "evidently, fear "is" a factor for you." However, Rogan would also do this when nobody completed one of the earlier stunts, even when the stunt in question was not an elimination round.


title: Fear Factor

text: This was typically a 90-minute episode featuring four stunts instead of three. The first such episode aired in season 3 and was notable for a stunt involving body piercing. In seasons 4–6, at least one of the four stunts was a non-elimination stunt in which contestants competed for a prize. The four-stunt format was sometimes used in conjunction with themed episodes, such as Family Fear Factor, Twins Fear Factor and Thanksgiving Fear Factor. In season 5, six contestants from other reality shows competed in a two-hour, four-stunt episode for $50,000.


title: Fear Factor

text: Some "Fear Factor" competitions consisted of five or more stunts and featured an increased grand prize. These competitions were always presented as multi-part episodes or single two-hour episodes. The first such competitions were the Tournaments of Champions in seasons 2 and 3 (see below). Season 4 included a two-hour season premiere in which 12 contestants competed in six stunts for a grand prize of $1,000,000; and a two-part, six-stunt Las Vegas episode where the winner would have a chance to win up to $100,000 based on his or her performance in the final stunt (they would then have to bet half their winnings on a hand of blackjack). Season 6 featured two three-episode, six-stunt competitions ("Psycho Fear Factor" and "Reality Stars Fear Factor"). Season 7 included two five-stunt competitions in which five teams competed for a grand prize of $100,000; the first aired as a single two-hour episode, and the second aired in two parts.


title: Fear Factor

text: Tournament of Champions: Seasons 2–3 concluded with a Tournament of Champions featuring the winners of each episode of those respective seasons and a $100,000 grand prize. In season two, the 13 non-celebrity winners were divided into groups of eight men and five women. For the first four stunts, men competed amongst men and women competed amongst women in two stunts each. The men had to release a flag from a locked box while hanging suspended in the air and eat three different items from a table. The women had to collect flags while on top of an aircraft and retrieve three poles from a tank with alligators. The stunts narrowed the contestants down from eight men and five women to two men and two women who will, in the end, compete against each other for the grand prize by using a key to activate a horn while riding on a speeding truck. In season three, the 24 winners were divided into two groups of 12, each containing seven men and five women. In the first semifinal episode, the group was cut from 12 to six to three to two finalists. In the second semifinal episode, the group was cut from 12 to six in the first stunt, then the men competed amongst the men and the women competed amongst the women in the second stunt and then the final four contestants, two men and two women, were cut to two finalists. Each finalist won a 2004 Mazda RX-8 and a chance at the $100,000. In the finals, the four finalists competed in three stunts. Each stunt eliminated one contestant and the final stunt determined the winner.


title: Fear Factor

text: Couples Fear Factor: Seasons 4–5 both included "Couples Fear Factor" competitions that played out over seven episodes and featured a grand prize of $1,000,000. Nine couples competed in 17 stunts in season 4 and eight couples competed in 14 stunts in season 5. In season 4, each episode contained two or three stunts, with at least one stunt being a non-elimination stunt. In season 5, each episode featured two stunts; the first was always a non-elimination stunt and the second usually eliminated the team with the worst performance. In contrast to the regular format, only one team was eliminated in each elimination stunt; if multiple teams failed the stunt, then the teams that succeeded would vote on which failing team to eliminate. Almost every stunt offered a prize (e.g., cars, vacations, pre-loaded credit cards, a chance to steal a desired prize from another team) or a $10,000 incentive to the team with the best performance. "Couples Fear Factor" episodes had certain stylistic differences from the regular format, including a different opening sequence and onscreen interviews with the contestants (regular episodes usually presented interviews in voiceover format only).


title: Fear Factor

text: Psycho Fear Factor: A three-episode series in which six couples competed in six stunts for various cash and prizes, including a grand prize of $250,000. The stunts were centered around the Bates Motel on the set of the original "Psycho" horror movie from Paramount Pictures. Unlike other Fear Factor episodes, contestants were required to sleep in the filthy Bates Motel between stunts and were subjected to Fear Factor pranks and mini-challenges while in the motel.


title: Fear Factor

text: Reality Stars Fear Factor: A three-episode series in which five teams of Reality TV stars competed in six stunts for various cash and prizes, including a grand prize of $150,000. Featured the teams were Jonny Fairplay and Twila Tanner from "Survivor," Jonathan Baker and Victoria Fuller from "The Amazing Race," Craig Williams and Tana Goertz from "The Apprentice," The Miz and Trishelle Cannatella from "The Real World" and Anthony Fedorov and Carmen Rasmusen from "American Idol." The series was won by The Miz and Cannatella.


title: Fear Factor

text: In seasons 2–3, episodes with celebrity contestants were played in the normal format, except that contestants were playing for charity. The winning contestant's charity would receive $50,000 and other contestants' charities would receive a lesser amount ($10,000 or $25,000). In season 6, eight celebrity contestants paired up into teams of two for the first two stunts but competed individually in the final stunt. Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Richardson and Alan Thicke are among the celebrities who have competed on "Fear Factor." Season 2 included an episode featuring six WWF/E stars; it was won by Matt Hardy.


title: Fear Factor

text: All three stunts on this show followed the format of the second (gross) stunt as described above. The first such episode involved bobbing for objects in a vat containing 50 gallons of cow blood. In seasons 4–5, the all-gross format was used for Halloween-themed episodes. In season six, a "Farm Fear Factor" episode featured all gross stunts.


title: Fear Factor

text: In most episodes, contestants competed individually or in teams of two for the entire competition. However, there were three episodes in which contestants paired up into teams for the first and/or second stunt but competed individually in the final stunt. The first instance of this was a season 2 episode in which three pairs of twins competed as teams in the first stunt and competed individually in the other two stunts. In season 5's "New York vs. L.A." episode, the first stunt narrowed a pool of eight contestants down to four (one man and one woman from each city); contestants from the same city then teamed up in the second stunt and all contestants competed as individuals in the final stunt. A season 6 celebrity episode had contestants competing as teams in the first two stunts and individually in the final stunt. In the latter episode, contestants were allowed to attempt the stunts alone if their partner quit before the stunt started.


title: Fear Factor

text: Over the course of the series, Fear Factor produced three Christmas episodes, two Halloween episodes and a Thanksgiving episode. The Christmas episodes featured Christmas-themed stunts but were otherwise played in the normal format. The Halloween episodes followed the all-gross format and the Thanksgiving episode followed the four-stunt format.


title: Fear Factor

text: Stunts took place at various hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. The show's winner was required to bet at least half of their winnings on one hand of Blackjack, with the chance to continue gambling if successful.


title: Fear Factor

text: Some episodes featured a specific type of contestant (notably models, all-female, twins, military members, reality television stars, freaks and geeks, young and old, returning contestants) or teams with a specific type of relationship (e.g., couples, newlyweds, siblings, best friends, parent/child teams, exes). Many of these episodes were played in the regular format, although some used a four-stunt or extended competition format.


title: Fear Factor

text: Played in the normal format with "Playboy" Playmates. The first stunt aired as counter programming to the Super Bowl halftime show and ended right before the third quarter of the game started. The remaining two stunts were shown immediately after the game as counter programming to the Super Bowl lead-out show.


title: Fear Factor

text: Played in the normal format with Miss USA contestants, with the winning contestant keeping $25,000 and giving $25,000 to a charity of their choice. There was no Miss USA edition in the sixth season of "Fear Factor," as NBC produced a Miss USA edition of "Deal or No Deal" instead; the Miss USA contestants were the briefcase models for the entire episode. The next time that Miss USA delegates would be involved in a game show was in 2010 on "Minute to Win It." The Miss USA edition was not present in the show's final two seasons, as the current format had four teams of two people.


title: Fear Factor

text: Four single men were introduced to four single women and either the women (in the first episode) or the men (in the second episode) got to choose their partner among the available contestants of the opposite sex. The game was then played in the regular format, with the winning team dividing the prize.


title: Fear Factor

text: Five co-ed pairs of contestants competed as teams in the normal format, with one exception: contestants had to stay awake for the 48-hour duration of the competition. If a contestant fell asleep at any time before the final stunt was completed, his or her team would be eliminated. This was the only episode in the entire series (original or revived) in which contestants could be eliminated in the downtime between stunts.


title: Fear Factor

text: Million Dollar Heist: (season 6): Played in the regular teams format, but instead of competing for the normal $50,000 prize, teams would race head-to-head to "steal" up to $1,000,000 worth of gold from an armored truck submerged in water for their final stunt. The team that "stole" the most money's worth of gold within the time limit would win the combined amount of money collected by both teams.


title: Fear Factor

text: Home Invasion: This short segment was included at the end of each episode in season six. It involved Rogan going to different homes across America and challenging a family to compete in a stunt. Each stunt usually involved the contestants under a time limit (usually one minute) ingesting or bobbing in something foul or undesirable. If successful, the family would win up to $5,000 in the form of pre-loaded credit cards from Capital One.


title: Fear Factor

text: MTV's "Fear Factor" revival continued to use the format of four teams of two people competing in three challenges for a $50,000 grand prize, as in the last two seasons of the NBC series. As the show started, Ludacris gives a verbal disclaimer. The wording has changed with certain versions, but this is one commonly used:


title: Fear Factor

text: However, the order of the stunts, as well as some of the rules, differ from the original format. Each episode in first season of the MTV version had three named rounds: Beat the Beast, Face Your Fear and The Final Fear.


title: Fear Factor

text: Beat the Beast: This stunt challenges the contestants to conquer their fear of something creepy (usually live creatures considered gross or intimidating) and generally follows the same format as animal stunts from the second stunt of the original version. The team with the best performance in this round wins a "FearVantage," which is an advantage in the next round (such as picking the order).


title: Fear Factor

text: Face Your Fear: This is a challenge tailored to a common fear shared by all of the contestants on a particular episode. The nature of this stunt varies widely depending on the fears of the contestants.


title: Fear Factor

text: The Final Fear: This is an extreme physical stunt that follows the same format as the first and third stunts from the original version of the show. The team with the best performance wins the $50,000 grand prize.


title: Fear Factor

text: The second season abandoned categorized rounds and FearVantages but continued to follow the general format of the first two rounds consisting of gross stunts and/or small-scale physical stunts, followed by an extreme physical stunt in the final round.