title: Coonskin (film)

text: Originally produced under the titles "Harlem Nights" and "Coonskin No More..." at Paramount Pictures, "Coonskin" encountered controversy before its original theatrical release when the Congress of Racial Equality accused the film of being racist. When the film was released, Bryanston gave it limited distribution and it initially received mixed reviews. Later re-released under the titles "Bustin' Out" and "Street Fight", "Coonskin" has since been re-appraised, recontextualizing the film as the condemnation of racism that the director intended, rather than a product of a racist imagination, as its detractors had claimed. A "New York Times" review said, ""Coonskin" could be Ralph Bakshi's masterpiece." Bakshi has stated that he considers "Coonskin" to be his best film.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: In a small town in Oklahoma, Sampson (Barry White) and the local Preacher (Charles Gordone) plan to bust out their friend Randy (Philip Michael Thomas) from prison. As they rush to the prison, the two are stopped by a roadblock and have a shootout with the police. Meanwhile, Randy and another cellmate named Pappy (Scatman Crothers) escape from inside the prison and wait for Sampson and the Preacher to help them get out. While waiting for them, Randy unwillingly listens to Pappy tell a story about three guys that resemble Randy and his friends. Pappy's story is told in animation set against live-action background photos and footage.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: Brother Rabbit (Philip Michael Thomas), Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox (Barry White and Charles Gordone) are forced to pack up and leave their Southern settings after the bank mortgages their home and sells it to a man who turns it into a brothel, only to run off with the trio's money. The sheriff and deputy arrived as customers only to find that one of the prostitutes was the sheriff's daughter. After shooting his deputy in rage, the sheriff turned his gun on Rabbit, who threw a knife killing the sheriff. The trio ran off deciding to move to Harlem, "home to every black man". When they arrive, Rabbit, Bear, and Fox find that it is not all that it is made out to be. They encounter a con man named Simple Savior, a phony revolutionary leader who claims to be the cousin of "Black Jesus", and that he gives his followers "the strength to kill whites". In a flashy stage performance in his "church", Savior acts out being brutalized by symbols of black oppression—represented by images of John Wayne, Elvis Presley, and Richard Nixon, before asking his parishioners for "donations". Rabbit and his friends quickly realize that Savior's "revolution" is merely a money-making scam. Rabbit openly steals a large portion of the donation money, prompting Savior to try to have him killed. After Rabbit tricks his would-be murderers (in a paraphrasing of the story of Br'er Rabbit and the brier patch), he and Bear kill Savior. This allows Rabbit to take over Savior's racket, putting him in line to become the head of all organized crime in Harlem. Rabbit lays out his plan to keep all organized crime money in Harlem. But first, he has to get rid of a few other opponents. Savior's former partners tell Rabbit they will join him but only if he can kill his opponents; otherwise they will kill him instead.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: Rabbit first goes up against Managan (Frank de Kova), a virulently racist and homophobic police officer and bagman for the Mafia, who demonstrates his contempt for African-Americans in various ways, including a refusal to bathe before an anticipated encounter with them (he believes that they are not worth it). When Managan finds out that Rabbit has been taking his payoffs, he and his cohorts, Ruby (Frank de Kova) and Bobby, are led to a nightclub called "The Cottontail". A black stripper distracts him while an LSD sugar cube is dropped into his drink. Managan, while under the influence of his spiked drink, is then maneuvered into a sexual liaison with a stereotypically effeminate gay man, and then shoved into women's clothing representative of the mammy archetype, adorned in blackface, and shoved out to the back of the club, where he discovers that Ruby and Bobby are dead. While recovering from being drugged, he fires his gun randomly in a fit of madness, and is brutally shot to death by the arriving police (who were either called in or alerted by the gunshots going off) after shooting one of the officers dead in his stupor. All of Harlem celebrated the death of Managan.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: Rabbit's final target is the Godfather (Al Lewis) who lives in the subway with his wife, daughter, and his cross-dressing, gay (and possibly incestuous) sons. The contract for killing Rabbit is given to his oldest and (possibly) only straight son, Sonny (Richard Paul). Arriving outside Rabbit's nightclub in blackface and clothing representative of minstrel show stereotypes, Sonny attempts to kill Rabbit, but Bear defends Rabbit, at the cost of getting shot by Sonny several times. When Sonny then attempts to escape in his car, he is shot multiple times by Rabbit before crashing into a wall and dying in the subsequent explosion. Rabbit then helps the injured Bear to safety. Sonny's body is cremated and taken back home, where his mother weeps over his ashes. She then tries to kill the Godfather in revenge for her son's death, only to be shot and killed by one of his henchmen, Mario the clown.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: During his recovery, Bear becomes torn between staying with Rabbit or starting a new crime-free life. Bear decides to look for Fox in order to seek his advice. Upon arriving at Fox's newly acquired brothel, Bear is "married" to a girl that he, Fox, and Rabbit met during the fight with Savior's men. Under the advisement of Fox, Bear becomes an undefeated heavy weight boxer for the Mafia. Soon an invitation was sent to Rabbit to challenge a fighter against Bear. During the fight at the Godfather's lair, Rabbit sets up a melting imitation of himself made out of tar. As the Godfather and Mafiosos take turns stabbing at the "tar rabbit", they become stuck together. Rabbit leaves a bomb next to them and then he, Bear, Fox, and the opponent boxer rush out of the boxing arena as it blows up; vaporizing the Godfather and his associates. As they drove through the streets of Harlem, Bear was angry that Rabbit and Fox had planned everything and not tell Bear about it. The trio laughed knowing that it all worked out.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: The live-action story ends with Randy and Pappy escaping from the prison with the aid of Sampson and the Preacher who finally arrive while being shot at by various white cops, but managing to make it out alive.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: The main plot of the film is interspersed with animated vignettes depicting a white, blonde, large-breasted "Miss America" (Jesse Welles) who serves as a personification of the United States. In each of these short scenes, she seduces a black man (meant to depict the African-American populace), only to instead beat or kill him.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: During the production of "Heavy Traffic", filmmaker Ralph Bakshi met and developed an instant friendship with producer Albert S. Ruddy during a screening of "The Godfather", and pitched "Harlem Nights", a satirical adaptation of the Uncle Remus storybook, to Ruddy. In 1973, production of "Harlem Nights" began, with Paramount Pictures (where Bakshi once worked as the head of its cartoon studio) originally attached to distribute the film. Bakshi hired several black animators to work on "Harlem Nights", including graffiti artists, at a time when black animators were not widely employed by major animation studios. Production concluded in the same year. During production, the film went under several titles, including "Harlem Days" and "Coonskin No More..."


title: Coonskin (film)

text: "Coonskin" uses a variety of racist caricatures from blackface minstrelsy and darky iconography, including stereotypes featured in Hollywood films and cartoons. In the book "That's Blaxploitation! Roots of the Baadasssss 'Tude (Rated X by an All-Whyte Jury)", Darius James writes that "Bakshi pukes the iconographic bile of a racist culture back in its stupid, bloated face, wipes his chin and smiles "Dirty Harry" style. [...] He subverts the context of Hollywood's entire catalogue of racist black iconography through a series of swift cross-edits of original and appropriated footage." The film also features equally exaggerated portrayals of white Southerners, Italians, and homosexuals. The depiction of Jewish characters stems from stereotypes portrayed in Nazi propaganda, including "The Eternal Jew".


title: Coonskin (film)

text: In his review for "The Hollywood Reporter", Arthur Knight wrote ""Coonskin" is not anti-black. Nor is it anti-Jewish, anti-Italian, or anti-American, all of whom fall prey to Bakshi's wicked caricaturist's pen as intensely as any of the blacks in his movie. What Bakshi is against, as this film makes abundantly clear, is the cheats, the rip-off artists, the hypocrites, the phonies, the con men, and the organized criminals of this world, regardless of race, color, or creed." The film is most critical in its portrayal of the Mafia. According to Bakshi, "I was incensed at all the hero worship of those guys in "The Godfather"; Pacino and Caan did such a great job of making you like them. [...] One thing that stunned me about "The Godfather" movie: here's a mother who gives birth to children, and her husband essentially gets all her sons killed. In "Coonskin", she gets her revenge, but also gets shot. She turns into a butterfly and gets crushed. [...] These [Mafia] guys don't give you any room."


title: Coonskin (film)

text: The live-action sequences feature singers Barry White and Scatman Crothers, actor and playwright Charles Gordone, and actors Philip Michael Thomas, Danny Rees, and Buddy Douglas. Thomas, Gordone, and White also provide the voices of the film's main animated characters. In the film's ending credits, the actors were only credited for their live-action roles, and all voice actors who did not appear in the live-action sequences were left uncredited. Among the voices featured in the film was Al Lewis, best known for appearing as Grandpa on "The Munsters". Bakshi also worked with Gordone on the film "Heavy Traffic", and worked with Thomas again on the film "Hey Good Lookin'". The film's opening credits feature a long take of Scatman Crothers performing a song on vocals and guitar called "Coonskin No More".


title: Coonskin (film)

text: "Coonskin" uses a variety of different styles of artwork, filmmaking and storytelling techniques. Film critic Leonard Maltin wrote that "Coonskin" "remains one of [Bakshi's] most exciting films, both visually and conceptually." Darius James writes that "Coonskin" "reads like an Uncle Remus folktale rewritten by Chester Himes with all the Yoruba-based surrealism of Nigerian author Amos Tutuola." The film directly references the original African folk tales that the Uncle Remus storybooks were based on in two scenes that are directly reminiscent of the stories "The Briar Patch" and "The Tar Baby". Writer and former pimp Iceberg Slim is briefly referenced in the dialogue of Preacher Fox, and the Liston–Ali fights are referenced in the film's final act, in which Brother Bear, like Sonny Liston, is sold out to the Mafia. The film also features a pastiche of cartoonist George Herriman and columnist Don Marquis' "archy and mehitabel", in a monologue about a cockroach that leaves the woman who loves him. Bakshi has stated that Herriman, a Biracial American Creole, is his favorite cartoonist.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: When the film was finished, a showing was planned at the Museum of Modern Art. However, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) surrounded the building, in a protest led by Elaine Parker. Gregg Kilday of the "Los Angeles Times" interviewed Larry Kardish, a museum staff member, and Kardish recalled that "About halfway into the film about ten members of CORE showed up. They walked up and down the aisles and were very belligerent. In my estimation they were determined not to like the film. Apparently some of their friends had read the script of the movie and in their belief it was detrimental to the image of blacks [...] The question-and-answer session with Bakshi that followed quickly collapsed into the chaos of a shouting match." Animation historian Jerry Beck did not recall any disturbance during the screening, but said there were racist catcalls during the question-and-answer session, and Bakshi's talk was cut short. "It wasn't much of a madhouse, but it was kind of wild for the Museum of Modern Art."


title: Coonskin (film)

text: Following the showing, the Paramount Building in New York City was picketed by CORE. Elaine Parker, chairman of the Harlem chapter of CORE, had spoken out against the film in January 1975. She told "Variety" that the film "depicts us as slaves, hustlers and whores. It's a racist film to me, and very insulting." The Los Angeles chapter of CORE demanded that Paramount not release the film, claiming that it was "highly objectionable to the black community." The NAACP had written a letter describing the film as a difficult satire, but supported it.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: With Paramount's permission, Bakshi and Ruddy were contractually released, and the Bryanston Distributing Company was assigned the rights to the film. Ironically, two weeks after the film opened, the distributor went bankrupt. According to a May 1975 issue of "The Hollywood Reporter", Ben Gage was hired to re-record some of Barry White's voice tracks, in order to remove "racist references and vulgarity." "Coonskin" was given limited distribution, advertised as a blaxploitation film. Roger Ebert wrote in his review of the film:


title: Coonskin (film)

text: "Coonskin" is said by its director to be about blacks and for whites, and by its ads to be for blacks and against whites. Its title was originally intended to break through racial stereotypes by its bluntness, but now the ads say the hero and his pals are out "to get the Man to stop calling them coonskin." The movie's original distributor, Paramount, dropped it after pressure from black groups. Now it's being sold by Bryanston as an attack on the system. [...] "Coonskin" is provocative, original and deserves better than being sold as the very thing it's not.


title: Coonskin (film)

text: In a 1982 article published in "The Village Voice", Carol Cooper wrote ""Coonskin" was driven out of theaters by a misguided minority, most of whom had never seen the film. CORE's pickets at Paramount's Gulf and Western headquarters and, later, a few smoke bombs lobbed into packed Broadway theaters were enough; theater owners were intimidated, and the auxiliary distributor, Bryanston, couldn't book the film."


title: Coonskin (film)

text: Initial reviews of the film were mixed. "Playboy" said of the film, "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." A review published in "The Village Voice" called the film "the product of a crippled hand and a paralyzed mind." Arthur Cooper wrote in "Newsweek", "[Bakshi] doesn't have much affection for man or woman kind—black or white." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in "The New York Times", "The Hollywood Reporter", the "New York Amsterdam News" (an African American newspaper), and elsewhere, but the film died at the box office. Richard Eder of "The New York Times" wrote, "["Coonskin"] could be his masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined—to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence." "Variety" called the film a "brutal satire from the streets. Not for all tastes [...] not avant-garde. [...] The target audience is youth who read comics in the undergrounds." A reviewer for "The Los Angeles Herald Examiner" wrote "Certainly, it will outrage some and indeed it's not Disney. I liked it. The dialogue it has obviously generated—if not the box office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy."


title: Coonskin (film)

text: Stanley Kauffmann of "The New Republic" wrote ""Coonskin" is a flawed but fierce little work of art, at a high level of imaginative energy and with some touches of brilliance".


title: Coonskin (film)

text: "Coonskin" was later re-released under the title "Bustin' Out", but it was not a success. In 2003, the Online Film Critics Society ranked the film as the 97th greatest animated film of all time. "Coonskin" was released on VHS by Academy Entertainment in late 1987, and later by Xenon Entertainment Group in the 1990s, both under the re-release title, "Street Fight". The 1987 edition carried the disclaimer, "Warning: This film offends everybody!".


title: Coonskin (film)

text: In 2010, Shout! Factory announced that "Coonskin" would be released on DVD in November 2010, intending to release it with a reversible cover with both titles of the film, but the release was cancelled due to a legal issue involving ownership of the rights to the film, resolved with Xenon's eventual DVD release in 2012. The 2012 release was the first official home video release to carry the film's original title. In September 2012, Bakshi incorporated animation from "Coonskin" into a new short film, "Trickle Dickle Down", criticizing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.


title: Metasearch engine

text: A metasearch engine (or search aggregator) is an online information retrieval tool that uses the data of a web search engine to produce its own results. Metasearch engines take input from a user and immediately query search engines for results. Sufficient data is gathered, ranked, and presented to the users.


title: Metasearch engine

text: Problems such as spamming reduces the accuracy and precision of results. The process of fusion aims to improve the engineering of a metasearch engine.


title: Metasearch engine

text: Examples of metasearch engines include Skyscanner and Kayak.com, which aggregate search results of online travel agencies and provider websites and Searx, a free and open-source search engine which aggregates results from internet search engines.


title: Metasearch engine

text: The first person to incorporate the idea of meta searching was Daniel Dreilinger of Colorado State University . He developed SearchSavvy, which let users search up to 20 different search engines and directories at once. Although fast, the search engine was restricted to simple searches and thus wasn't reliable. University of Washington student Eric Selberg released a more "updated" version called MetaCrawler. This search engine improved on SearchSavvy's accuracy by adding its own search syntax behind the scenes, and matching the syntax to that of the search engines it was probing. Metacrawler reduced the amount of search engines queried to 6, but although it produced more accurate results, it still wasn't considered as accurate as searching a query in an individual engine.


title: Metasearch engine

text: On May 20, 1996, HotBot, then owned by Wired, was a search engine with search results coming from the Inktomi and Direct Hit databases. It was known for its fast results and as a search engine with the ability to search within search results. Upon being bought by Lycos in 1998, development for the search engine staggered and its market share fell drastically. After going through a few alterations, HotBot was redesigned into a simplified search interface, with its features being incorporated into Lycos' website redesign.


title: Metasearch engine

text: A metasearch engine called Anvish was developed by Bo Shu and Subhash Kak in 1999; the search results were sorted using instantaneously trained neural networks. This was later incorporated into another metasearch engine called Solosearch.


title: Metasearch engine

text: In August 2000, India got its first meta search engine when HumHaiIndia.com was launched. It was developed by the then 16 year old Sumeet Lamba. The website was later rebranded as Tazaa.com.


title: Metasearch engine

text: Ixquick is a search engine known for its privacy policy statement. Developed and launched in 1998 by David Bodnick, it is owned by Surfboard Holding BV. In June 2006, Ixquick began to delete private details of its users following the same process with Scroogle. Ixquick's privacy policy includes no recording of users' IP addresses, no identifying cookies, no collection of personal data, and no sharing of personal data with third parties. It also uses a unique ranking system where a result is ranked by stars. The more stars in a result, the more search engines agreed on the result.


title: Metasearch engine

text: In April 2005, Dogpile, then owned and operated by InfoSpace, Inc., collaborated with researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania State University to measure the overlap and ranking differences of leading Web search engines in order to gauge the benefits of using a metasearch engine to search the web. Results found that from 10,316 random user-defined queries from Google, Yahoo!, and Ask Jeeves, only 3.2% of first page search results were the same across those search engines for a given query. Another study later that year using 12,570 random user-defined queries from Google, Yahoo!, MSN Search, and Ask Jeeves found that only 1.1% of first page search results were the same across those search engines for a given query.


title: Metasearch engine

text: By sending multiple queries to several other search engines this extends the coverage data of the topic and allows more information to be found. They use the indexes built by other search engines, aggregating and often post-processing results in unique ways. A metasearch engine has an advantage over a single search engine because more results can be retrieved with the same amount of exertion. It also reduces the work of users from having to individually type in searches from different engines to look for resources.


title: Metasearch engine

text: Metasearching is also a useful approach if the purpose of the user's search is to get an overview of the topic or to get quick answers. Instead of having to go through multiple search engines like Yahoo! or Google and comparing results, metasearch engines are able to quickly compile and combine results. They can do it either by listing results from each engine queried with no additional post-processing (Dogpile) or by analyzing the results and ranking them by their own rules (IxQuick, Metacrawler, and Vivismo).


title: Metasearch engine

text: A metasearch engine can also hide the searcher's IP address from the search engines queried thus providing privacy to the search.


title: Metasearch engine

text: Metasearch engines are not capable of parsing query forms or able to fully translate query syntax. The number of hyperlinks generated by metasearch engines are limited, and therefore do not provide the user with the complete results of a query.


title: Metasearch engine

text: The majority of metasearch engines do not provide over ten linked files from a single search engine, and generally do not interact with larger search engines for results. Pay per click links are prioritised and are normally displayed first.


title: Metasearch engine

text: Metasearching also gives the illusion that there is more coverage of the topic queried, particularly if the user is searching for popular or commonplace information. It's common to end with multiple identical results from the queried engines. It is also harder for users to search with advanced search syntax to be sent with the query, so results may not be as precise as when a user is using an advanced search interface at a specific engine. This results in many metasearch engines using simple searching.


title: Metasearch engine

text: A metasearch engine accepts a single search request from the user. This search request is then passed on to another search engine's database. A metasearch engine does not create a database of web pages but generates a Federated database system of data integration from multiple sources.


title: Metasearch engine

text: Since every search engine is unique and has different algorithms for generating ranked data, duplicates will therefore also be generated. To remove duplicates, a metasearch engine processes this data and applies its own algorithm. A revised list is produced as an output for the user. When a metasearch engine contacts other search engines, these search engines will respond in three ways:


title: Metasearch engine

text: Web pages that are highly ranked on many search engines are likely to be more relevant in providing useful information. However, all search engines have different ranking scores for each website and most of the time these scores are not the same. This is because search engines prioritise different criteria and methods for scoring, hence a website might appear highly ranked on one search engine and lowly ranked on another. This is a problem because Metasearch engines rely heavily on the consistency of this data to generate reliable accounts.


title: Metasearch engine

text: A metasearch engine uses the process of Fusion to filter data for more efficient results. The two main fusion methods used are: Collection Fusion and Data Fusion.


title: Metasearch engine

text: Spamdexing is the deliberate manipulation of search engine indexes. It uses a number of methods to manipulate the relevance or prominence of resources indexed in a manner unaligned with the intention of the indexing system. Spamdexing can be very distressing for users and problematic for search engines because the return contents of searches have poor precision. This will eventually result in the search engine becoming unreliable and not dependable for the user. To tackle Spamdexing, search robot algorithms are made more complex and are changed almost every day to eliminate the problem.


title: Metasearch engine

text: It is a major problem for metasearch engines because it tampers with the Web crawler's indexing criteria, which are heavily relied upon to format ranking lists. Spamdexing manipulates the natural ranking system of a search engine, and places websites higher on the ranking list than they would naturally be placed. There are three primary methods used to achieve this:


title: Metasearch engine

text: Content spam are the techniques that alter the logical view that a search engine has over the page's contents. Techniques include:


title: Metasearch engine

text: This is a SEO technique in which different materials and information are sent to the web crawler and to the web browser. It is commonly used as a spamdexing technique because it can trick search engines into either visiting a site that is substantially different from the search engine description or giving a certain site a higher ranking.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: Lacey Dawn Adkisson (born July 17, 1986) is an American professional wrestler best known by her ring name Lacey Von Erich. She is the daughter of Kerry Von Erich and the granddaughter of Fritz Von Erich. She is best known for her time in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where she is a one-time TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champion.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: Adkisson signed a developmental contract with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in August 2007. She was assigned to their then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) in Tampa, Florida, and became the first third generation wrestler from the Von Erich family. She made her debut for FCW on September 15, managing Billy Kidman under the ring name "Lacey Von Erich". On September 25, Von Erich then appeared as the valet for Ryan O' Reilly along with Maryse Ouellet. On October 9, Von Erich made her in-ring debut in a loss against Nattie Neidhart. On October 23, Von Erich managed Victoria Crawford in her match against Nicole Bella, and the following month at the November 13 television tapings, Von Erich teamed with Neidhart and Maryse Ouellet in a loss to Crawford and The Bella Twins. Von Erich was then released from her development contract in late 2007.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: Von Erich made an appearance at WrestleMania XXV on April 5, 2009, where the Von Erich family was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. She was seen in the audience while her uncle, Kevin Von Erich, accepted the induction.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: Von Erich made her debut for Women Superstars Uncensored (WSU) on the March 7, 2008 at the WSU "Dawn of the Day" event, where she defeated Angel Orsini in a singles match. On March 8, 2008 at the ECPW Arena in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey, Lacey made her return to wrestling (accompanied by Missy Hyatt) where she defeated Angel Orsini. On March 22, Von Erich made her debut in Professional Championship Wrestling (PCW) in Arlington, Texas. She teamed up with Action Jackson to defeat Mike Foxx and Claudia in a mixed tag team match. Before her debut in PCW, she wrestled in a mixed tag team match against JT Lamotta and Miss Diss Lexia at South West Wrestling Alliance (SWWA) in Granbury, Texas. Von Erich made her debut for Pro Wrestling Revolution (PWR) on July 7 at a PWR event, where she defeated Cheerleader Melissa. In December 2008, she defeated Melissa at a PWR event in San Francisco, California.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: On July 10, 2009, Von Erich made her debut for Windy City Pro Wrestling (WCPW), winning the WCPW Ladies Championship in a four-way match against Faith, Huntress, and Kimberly Kash. On September 26, Von Erich vacated the WCPW Ladies Championship after she signed a contract with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). Von Erich made her debut for CWF Wrestling, on the July 25, 2009 episode of "CWF Wrestling", where she defeated Simply Luscious. In November 2009, Von Erich took part in the Australian tour "" created by Hulk Hogan. On November 21 she won a bikini contest, which also included Koa Marie Turner, Stephanie Pietz and Kiara Dillon. She also interfered in the main event between Hogan and Ric Flair, on Flair's behalf. In other matches on the tour, she was used as Flair's manager.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: In 2009, Von Erich began working for the all-female wrestling promotion Wrestlicious, which was created by Jimmy Hart and started airing in March 2010. She, however, had to be released by the company after the tapings of the first season of episodes, after signing with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). She debuted on March 17 episode of "Takedown" in a tag team main event, where she and Amber Lively defeated Draculetta and White Magic by disqualification. On the April 7 episode of "Takedown", Von Erich participated in a battle royal to determine the top two contenders for the Wrestlicious Crown, but was eliminated by Kickstart Katie. On the May 19 episode of "Takedown", Von Erich helped Alexandra the Great in her submission match against Kickstart Katie. She ended up putting Brooke Lynne in the Von Erich Claw to make her drop her towel and give Alexandra the victory over Katie.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: On the October 1, 2009, episode of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)'s "Impact!", Von Erich debuted as a villainous character by aligning herself with The Beautiful People (Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne) and attacking the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions, Taylor Wilde, and Sarita. On the October 15 episode of "Impact!", she made her in-ring debut teaming with Sky and Rayne in a six-Knockout tag team match, where they defeated the team of Awesome Kong, ODB, and Tara. Two weeks later on "Impact!", she once again teamed with Sky and Rayne in a six-Knockouts tag team match, where they defeated ODB, Christy Hemme, and Hamada, when Von Erich pinned Hemme, scoring her first victory in TNA. On November 5, Von Erich began carrying a pink nightstick with her to the ring, which was dubbed "Lacey's Ugly Stick". At Turning Point, the Beautiful People were unsuccessful in gaining both the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship and the TNA Knockouts Championship, as ODB pinned Rayne in a six-way tag team match with all the titles on the line to win the match for the reigning champions. The Beautiful People began appearing in backstage segments they dubbed as their reality show "The Meanest Girls", an allusion to the 2004 teen comedy "Mean Girls". On the December 10 episode of "Impact!", Von Erich was defeated by Velvet Sky in a mud wrestling match refereed by Madison Rayne. The match was booked by Kevin Nash, who was in charge for the evening, in an attempt to garner ratings. On December 17 episode of "Impact!", Von Erich had a backstage confrontation with interviewer Lauren Brooke, which ended with Brooke slapping Von Erich. The following week, Von Erich claimed that she had gotten Brooke fired from TNA.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: On the January 14, 2010, episode of "Impact!", Sky, Rayne, and Von Erich were attacked by the returning Angelina Love, whom Von Erich had replaced in the Beautiful People. On the March 8 episode of "Impact!", Rayne and Sky defeated the teams of Love and Tara and Sarita and Taylor Wilde in a three-way match to win the vacant TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship, which they defended with Von Erich under the Freebird rule. Von Erich's first title defense was on the April 19 episode of "Impact!", where she teamed with Velvet Sky to defeat the team of Daffney and ODB. On the May 8 episode of "Impact!", Von Erich, Sky, and Rayne successfully defended their titles against Sarita, Taylor Wilde, and Tara. On the May 17 episode of "Impact!", Von Erich and Sky successfully defended their titles against Sarita and Taylor Wilde. On the June 17 episode of "Impact!", Von Erich competed in her second singles match in TNA against Angelina Love, who was making a return from an injury, and won by disqualification after she was dropped on a steel chair with a DDT.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: On July 11 at Victory Road, Madison Rayne lost her TNA Knockouts Championship to Angelina Love by disqualification, due to outside interference from a person disguised with a motorcycle helmet. Prior to the match, it was announced that the title would change hands via disqualification, if either Velvet Sky or Lacey Von Erich interfered in the match. On the following episode of "Impact!", The Beautiful People imploded, as Sky said she didn't approve of Rayne's recent attitude, behavior, and apparent affiliation with the mystery woman at the pay-per-view, to which Rayne responded by saying that she didn't need Sky anymore. Sky and Von Erich then walked out on Rayne, as she and the mystery woman ganged up on Love. On the July 22 episode of "Impact!", the Knockouts Championship was returned to Rayne, when it was declared that there was no proof that the person who had interfered in the match was either Sky or Von Erich. Later that same night, Rayne convinced Von Erich to abandon Sky and leave with her and the mystery woman. On the August 5 episode of "Impact!", Von Erich and Sky lost the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship to Hamada and Taylor Wilde, when Rayne's and the mystery woman's interference backfired. Later that night, Sky and Rayne were seen fighting backstage, during which Sky shoved Von Erich, who tried to make peace between her teammates, inadvertently knocking her unconscious. The following week, it was announced that Von Erich had suffered a broken cheek bone in the altercation.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: Von Erich returned from injury on the September 16 episode of "Impact!", teaming with Madison Rayne against Wilde and Hamada for the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship. Von Erich and Rayne were unsuccessful in regaining the championships, after which Von Erich was attacked by Rayne and Tara, before being saved by Velvet Sky and Angelina Love, thus turning Von Erich into a fan favorite. On the September 23 episode of "Impact!", Von Erich teamed with Sky against Wilde and Hamada for the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship, but were unsuccessful in regaining the championships, after Rayne hit Von Erich with the motorcycle helmet. On the October 14 episode of "Impact!", Von Erich appeared in an in-ring segment with Love, Sky and "Jersey Shore" cast member and guest star Jennifer "JWoww" Farley, where they attacked Cookie and Robbie E. On the October 28 episode of "Impact!", it was announced that Von Erich had agreed to train Miss Tessmacher to wrestle, after her stable mates had turned her down the previous week. However, on November 11, 2010, the angle ended abruptly when Adkisson announced her departure from TNA.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: On January 25, 2010, Adkisson was a guest on the weekly "Right After Wrestling" radio program on Hardcore Sports Radio on SIRIUS Radio Channel 98 with host Arda Ocal. In November 2010, she was a contestant on an all TNA week of "Family Feud", teaming with Angelina Love, Christy Hemme, Tara and Velvet Sky against Jay Lethal, Matt Morgan, Mick Foley, Mr. Anderson and Rob Van Dam.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: In 2021, Adkisson became a part-owner of SWE Fury along business partner Tom Lance. SWE Fury is a Texas-based promotion billed as delivering “in-your-face, Texas-style wrestling,”.


title: Lacey Von Erich

text: Adkisson is part of the famed Von Erich family. Her grandfather was Fritz Von Erich, and she is the daughter of Kerry Von Erich and cousin of Marshall Von Erich and Ross Von Erich She has an older sister named Hollie. She has three children: a daughter and two sons. Adkisson runs her own advertising company in Southern California. In early 2009, she was diagnosed with meningitis after complaining of a migraine, but made a full recovery.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: Andoni Zubizarreta Urreta (, ; born 23 October 1961) is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: The all-time most capped player for the Spain national team for several years, he played with individual and team success for Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona (eight years with the latter, he would later work with the club in directorial capacities), appearing in more than 950 official professional matches during his club career and holding the records for most appearances and clean sheets in La Liga for several years.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: Zubizarreta represented Spain in seven major international tournaments, four World Cups and three European Championships, starting in six of those. He won the European Cup with Barcelona in 1992 and six La Liga titles, two with Athletic and four with Barcelona.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: Born in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Álava, Zubizarreta spent his childhood in Aretxabaleta in Gipuzkoa, where he began his football career. After a brief passage at another Basque club, Deportivo Alavés, he joined Athletic Bilbao, where he would spend the following six seasons.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: Zubizarreta's debut in La Liga occurred on 19 September 1981 as manager Javier Clemente handed him a start in a 2–0 away loss against Atlético Madrid, one month shy of his 20th birthday. He went on to be an undisputed starter for the remainder of his spell, being an instrumental part in the team's conquests, most notably the back-to-back national championships.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: In 1986, Zubizarreta signed with FC Barcelona for a record for a player in the position €1.7 million, quickly removing established Urruti from the starting lineup and rarely missing a match afterwards – for example, only four in the Catalans' four consecutive league wins combined. He added their first ever European Cup in 1992, following a 1–0 win over U.C. Sampdoria.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: After the 1993–94 UEFA Champions League, where "Barça" lost 0–4 to A.C. Milan in the final, Zubizarreta was deemed surplus to requirements and finished his career at Valencia CF, still playing at a high level. He retired after the 1997–98 campaign at nearly 37, having played in over 1,000 competitive games (622 in the league alone – the all-time record – conceding 626 goals).


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: Zubizarreta was named Barcelona's director of football by president Sandro Rosell on 2 July 2010, taking over from former club and national teammate Txiki Begiristain. Over the previous decade, he had served in the same capacity at Athletic Bilbao, while also working as a radio and television commentator.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: On 5 January 2015, Zubizarreta was sacked as Barcelona director of football by club president Josep Maria Bartomeu. On 27 October 2016, he signed with Ligue 1 side Olympique de Marseille in the same capacity, leaving four years later by mutual consent.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: Zubizarreta made his debut for Spain on 23 January 1985, in a 3–1 friendly victory with Finland. He went on to collect a further 125 caps in the following 13 years.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: Zubizarreta represented the nation in four consecutive FIFA World Cups: 1986, 1990, 1994 and 1998 – his last competition, where he scored an own goal in a 2–3 group stage loss against Nigeria– also appearing, always as a starter, at UEFA Euro 1988 and 1996. He and his deputy Francisco Buyo once held the national team record for the longest unbeaten run in international games, until Iker Casillas and Pepe Reina broke that record in October 2008; he was also surpassed by the former in total of caps on 15 November 2011.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: Nicknamed "Zubi" throughout his career, Zubizarreta was regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in the world in his prime, and was considered to be one of Spain's and Barcelona's greatest and most successful goalkeepers ever. He was highly consistent, level-headed and effective, with an excellent positional sense above all things, and he favoured an efficient rather than spectacular style although he was also capable of producing decisive saves due to his good shot-stopping abilities. He also stood out for his intelligence, composure and charismatic leadership in goal, which enabled him to organise his back-line and inspire a sense of calm and confidence in his defenders; he was also known for his work-rate and longevity, as well as his ability to rush off his line.


title: Andoni Zubizarreta

text: In spite of Barcelona's passing-based playing style under Johan Cruyff, which also saw his defenders and goalkeepers given more responsibilities in terms of retaining possession and playing the ball out from the back, Zubizarreta was not particularly adept with the ball at his feet. His limited technical skills were a frequent source of criticism from his manager, and eventually led to the former's departure from the club in 1994.


title: Neko Case

text: Neko Richelle Case (; born September 8, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter and member of the Canadian indie rock group the New Pornographers. Case has a powerful, untrained contralto voice, which has been described by contemporaries and critics as a "flamethrower," "a powerhouse [which] seems like it might level buildings," "a 120-mph fastball," and a "vocal tornado". Critics also note her idiosyncratic, "cryptic," "imagistic" lyrics, and credit her as a significant figure in the early 21st-century American revival of the tenor guitar. Case's body of work has spanned and drawn on a range of traditions including country, folk, art rock, indie rock, and pop and is frequently described as defying or avoiding easy generic classification.


title: Neko Case

text: Born in Alexandria, Virginia, Case is the daughter of James Bamford Case and Diana Mary Dubbs. Case's paternal family surname was originally Shevchenko; her great-aunt was the professional wrestler Ella Waldek. Her father, a Vietnam veteran serving in the United States Air Force, was based in Virginia at the time of her birth. Case's parents, who were teenagers when they had her, are of Ukrainian ancestry. Her parents divorced when Case began school.


title: Neko Case

text: Case's family relocated several times during her childhood due to her stepfather's work as an archaeologist. She has lived in Western Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon and Washington. She considers Tacoma, Washington to be her hometown.


title: Neko Case

text: Case left home at age 15. By the age of 18 she was performing as a drummer for the Del Logs and the Propanes, playing in venues including a punk club called the Community World Theater.


title: Neko Case

text: In 1994, Case moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, to attend the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. While attending, she played drums in several local bands, including the Del Logs, the Propanes, the Weasels, Cub, and Maow. These bands were, for the most part, local punk groups. Case said of the vibrant Vancouver punk rock scene at that time, "A lot of women wanted to play music because they were inspired, because it was an incredibly good time for music in the Northwest. There was a lot of clubs, a lot of bands, a lot of people coming through, a lot of all-ages stuff—it was a very exciting time to live there."


title: Neko Case

text: In 1998, Case left without finishing her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, which meant the loss of her student visa eligibility. She left Canada for Seattle, Washington. Before going, Case recorded vocals for a few songs that ended up on "Mass Romantic", the New Pornographers' first album. Her lead vocals on songs like "Letter from an Occupant" are straightforward, full-volume power-pop performances, shedding any country elements. Released on November 28, 2000, "Mass Romantic" became a surprise success. Although the band was originally conceived as a side project for its members, the New Pornographers remain a prominent presence in the indie rock world, having released its eighth album "In the Morse Code of Brake Lights" on September 27, 2019.


title: Neko Case

text: In addition to recording with the New Pornographers, Case frequently collaborates with other Canadian musicians, including the Sadies and Carolyn Mark, and has recorded material by several noted Canadian songwriters, in particular on her 2001 EP "Canadian Amp". As a result, she is also considered a significant figure in Canadian music—both CBC Radio 3 and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada have referred to Case as an "honourary Canadian". In 2018 Case performed at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival.


title: Neko Case

text: Case embraced country music on her 1997 album, "The Virginian". The album contained original compositions as well as covers of songs by Ernest Tubb, Loretta Lynn and the 1974 Queen song "Misfire". When the album was released, critics compared Case to honky-tonk singers like Lynn and Patsy Cline, and to rockabilly pioneer Wanda Jackson, particularly in her vocal timbre.


title: Neko Case

text: On February 22, 2000, Case released her second solo album, "Furnace Room Lullaby". The album introduced the "country noir" elements that have defined Case's subsequent solo career. That tone was evident even from the cover photo, featuring Case sprawled out corpse-like on a concrete floor. On the album itself, her vocal style moves away from outright honky-tonk but retains her twang, garnering comparisons to musicians such as Cline, Lynn, Hazel Dickens, Tanya Tucker, and Dolly Parton. The title track was included on the soundtrack to Sam Raimi's film "The Gift", and "Porchlight" was featured on the soundtrack to "The Slaughter Rule".


title: Neko Case

text: Case sometimes tours with Canadian singer and songwriter Carolyn Mark as the Corn Sisters. One of their performances, at Seattle's Hattie's Hat restaurant in Ballard, was recorded and released as an album, "The Other Women", on November 28, 2000.


title: Neko Case

text: In October 1999, around the time "Furnace Room Lullaby" was released, Case left Seattle for Chicago because she felt that Seattle was no longer hospitable to its local artists.


title: Neko Case

text: Case's first work in Chicago was an eight-song EP that she recorded in her kitchen. "Canadian Amp", her first recording without Her Boyfriends, was released on her own Lady Pilot label in 2001. She wrote two of the tracks, with the remaining six being covers, including Neil Young's "Dreaming Man" and Hank Williams' "Alone and Forsaken". Four of the covers were written by Canadian artists. The EP was initially available only at Case's live shows and directly from Mint Records' website, but it eventually saw wider release.


title: Neko Case

text: In April 2003, Case was voted the "Sexiest Babe of Indie Rock" in a Playboy.com internet poll, receiving 32% of the vote. "Playboy" asked her to pose nude for the magazine, but she declined their offer. She told "Entertainment Weekly" that


title: Neko Case

text: I didn't want to be the girl who posed in "Playboy" and then—by the way—made some music. I would be really fucking irritated if after a show somebody came up to me and handed me some naked picture of myself and wanted me to sign it instead of my CD.


title: Neko Case

text: Case recorded and toured for several years as Neko Case & Her Boyfriends before performing solely under her name. She primarily performed her own material, but also performed and recorded cover versions of songs by artists such as My Morning Jacket, Harry Nilsson, Loretta Lynn, Tom Waits, Nick Lowe, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Scott Walker, Randy Newman, Queen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Sparks and Hank Williams.


title: Neko Case

text: The New Pornographers' second album, "Electric Version", was released on May 6, 2003. Case sang lead on even more of the songs on this album, and toured with the group again.


title: Neko Case

text: "Twin Cinema", the New Pornographers' third album, was released on August 23, 2005, with Case again providing vocals on several tracks. In addition to providing backing vocals on several songs, Case performs lead vocals on two ballads, "The Bones of an Idol" and "These Are the Fables". She opted out of most subsequent touring duties with the band; however, her parts were taken over by Kathryn Calder.


title: Neko Case

text: On "Challengers", released on August 21, 2007, Case contributes lead vocals to the title song as well as "Go Places", in addition to her backing vocals on the other tracks.


title: Neko Case

text: The 2014 album "Brill Bruisers" features Case as lead vocalist on "Champions of Red Wine" and "Marching Orders."


title: Neko Case

text: The 2017 album "Whiteout Conditions" features Case as lead vocalist on "Play Money" and "This is the World of the Theater."


title: Neko Case

text: In 2016, Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs announced the case/lang/veirs project, with an album released in June 2016.


title: Neko Case

text: Case recorded her third full-length album, "Blacklisted", in Tucson, Arizona. It was the first full-length album credited to Case alone, without Her Boyfriends, and was released on Bloodshot Records on August 20, 2002. Some believe the title "Blacklisted" alludes to Case being banned for life from the "Grand Ole Opry" because she took her shirt off during a performance on August 4, 2001 at one of their outdoors "Opry Plaza" concerts, though Case herself has denied this. Asked about the incident in 2004, Case said "I had heatstroke. People would love it to be a 'fuck you' punk thing. But it was actually a physical ailment thing."


title: Neko Case

text: Most of the album's fourteen songs are originals; the exceptions being covers of "Running Out of Fools", previously a hit for Aretha Franklin, and "Look for Me (I'll Be Around)" previously performed by Sarah Vaughan. "Blacklisted" finds Case even deeper in a "country noir" mood, and was described by critics as lush, bleak, and atmospheric. Case cited filmmaker David Lynch, composer Angelo Badalamenti, and Neil Young's soundtrack to the film "Dead Man" as influences.


title: Neko Case

text: 2003's "Live from Austin, TX" was an album of live recordings made for the "Austin City Limits" television series.


title: Neko Case

text: In April 2004, Case played several shows with longtime collaborators the Sadies in Chicago and Toronto. These shows were recorded and released as a live album, "The Tigers Have Spoken", by Anti Records in October 2004.


title: Neko Case

text: "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" was released on March 7, 2006. The album was recorded primarily in Tucson, over the course of two years as Case worked on the live "The Tigers Have Spoken" and continued to play with the New Pornographers. Critics hailed the record not only for Case's trademark vocals but also her use of stark imagery and non-standard song structures. "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" wound up on many "Best of 2006" lists, such as No.1 on the Amazon.com music editors' picks and No. 2 on NPR's "All Songs Considered". The album debuted at No. 54 on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart. It contains Case's most autobiographical song, "Hold On, Hold On". Case said: "the song is actually about me. It's not metaphorical about other people. It's not little pieces of my life made into a story about someone else or someone fictitious."


title: Neko Case

text: "Hold On, Hold On" has since been covered by Marianne Faithfull on her 2009 album "Easy Come, Easy Go".


title: Neko Case

text: "Hold On, Hold On" was used over an episode of "The Killing" (Season 1 Episode 6) before the final credits.


title: Neko Case

text: Case's next album, "Middle Cyclone", was released on March 3, 2009. In advance of a U.S. and European tour, Case appeared as a musical guest on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Later in 2009 she also appeared on "Late Show with David Letterman", "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" and "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". Amazon.com rated "Middle Cyclone" the number one album of 2009. "Middle Cyclone" debuted at No. 3 on the "Billboard" charts in its first week of release, making it Case's first album ever to reach the top ten in the United States.


title: Neko Case

text: At the time of its release, no other record from an independent record company had debuted at a higher position in 2009. She toured extensively to promote "Middle Cyclone" with dates in North America, Europe, and Australia, as well as a performance at Lollapalooza 2009 in Grant Park, Chicago.


title: Neko Case

text: In June 2013, Case announced a new album, "The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You", which was released on September 3.


title: Neko Case

text: In early March, 2018, Case released a teaser for an album titled "Hell-On", her first solo work in almost five years. The teaser featured Case lying down singing a song of the same name while snakes move around her. The album was released on June 1, 2018.


title: Neko Case

text: On November 13, 2015, Case released a compilation vinyl box set containing eight of her solo albums. The set contains her first six studio albums, including the first vinyl pressing of "The Virginian," as well as a live album.


title: Neko Case

text: On April 19, 2022, Case released "Wild Creatures", described as "digital-only, career retrospective". The album contains 22 tracks from Case's discography, plus one new song, "Oh, Shadowless".


title: Neko Case

text: Case was honored as the Female Artist of the Year at the PLUG Independent Music Awards on February 2, 2006.


title: Neko Case

text: Case's album, Middle Cyclone, was nominated for Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Recording Package (with Kathleen Judge) at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2010.


title: Neko Case

text: In 2014, "The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You" was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Neko Case

text: In 2008, Case guest starred alongside Kelly Hogan on the season 5 episode of the adult animated television series "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", "Sirens", in which she (as "Chrysanthemum") and Hogan (as "The B.J. Queen") take the role of sirens who have taken former Philadelphia Phillies first baseman John Kruk (as himself) captive for arcane sexual purposes.


title: Neko Case

text: Case also voiced the character of Cheyenne Cinnamon in "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" co-creator Dave Willis's "Cheyenne Cinnamon and the Fantabulous Unicorn of Sugar Town Candy Fudge".


title: Neko Case

text: On March 3, 2010, Case appeared as a guest on the Australian music quiz show "Spicks and Specks". Her team, led by Alan Brough, won 18–16. At the end of the show she sang a cover of Heart's "Magic Man", backed by Kelly Hogan and Paul Rigby.


title: Neko Case

text: In July 2011, "I Wish I Was the Moon" was featured in the fourth season of the HBO show "True Blood"'s sixth episode of the same name.


title: Neko Case

text: On September 3, 2013, Case appeared on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" performing "Man" and "Night Still Comes" from her album "The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You".


title: Neko Case

text: Neko Case has appeared on NPR's weekly news quiz show, "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me", as a guest on July 11, 2009 and as a panellist on September 6, 2013 and again on December 12, 2015.


title: Neko Case

text: On May 10, 2013, Case appeared as a guest on American Public Media's variety show "Wits", where she ended the program with a rendition of Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast". On February 7, 2014, Case appeared again as a guest on "Wits", this time alongside Andy Richter, where she finished the program with a rendition of the Bee Gees' "Nights on Broadway".


title: Neko Case

text: In December 2015, Case appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Woman's Hour", where she talked about her career and performed her single "I'll Be Around".


title: Neko Case

text: In a 2013 NPR interview, while discussing her single "Man", Case described having complicated feelings of gender and femininity: "I don't really think of myself specifically as a woman, you know? I'm kind of a critter" and "I'm probably a little imbalanced in that if you were to look at a human creature as kind of a vase or something, my glass is a little bit more full of the man stuff than the woman stuff". As of September 2021 her Twitter bio listed her pronouns as "She/Sir".


title: Taweret

text: In Ancient Egyptian religion, Taweret (also spelled Taurt, Tuat, Tuart, Ta-weret, Tawaret, Twert and Taueret, and in Greek, Θουέρις – Thouéris, Thoeris, Taouris and Toeris) is the protective ancient Egyptian goddess of childbirth and fertility. The name "Taweret" ("Tȝ-wrt") means "she who is great" or simply "great one", a common pacificatory address to dangerous deities. The deity is typically depicted as a bipedal female hippopotamus with feline attributes, pendulous female human breasts, the limbs and paws of a lion, and the back and tail of a Nile crocodile. She commonly bears the epithets "Lady of Heaven", "Mistress of the Horizon", "She Who Removes Water", "Mistress of Pure Water", and "Lady of the Birth House".


title: Taweret

text: Archaeological evidence demonstrates that hippopotamuses inhabited the Nile well before the dawn of Early Dynastic Period (before 3000 BCE). The violent and aggressive behavior of these creatures intrigued the people that inhabited the region, leading the ancient Egyptians both to persecute and to venerate them. From a very early date, male hippopotamuses were thought to be manifestations of chaos; consequently, they were overcome in royal hunting campaigns, intended to demonstrate the divine power of the king. However, female hippopotamuses were revered as manifestations of apotropaic deities, as they studiously protect their young from harm. Protective amulets bearing the likenesses of female hippopotamuses have been found dating as far back as the Predynastic period (c. 3000–2686 BCE). The tradition of making and wearing these amulets continued throughout the history of Egypt into the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Roman period (c. 332 BCE – 390 CE).


title: Taweret

text: From her ideological conception, Taweret was closely grouped with (and is often indistinguishable from) several other protective hippopotamus goddesses: Ipet, Reret, and Hedjet. Some scholars even interpret these goddesses as aspects of the same deity, considering their universally shared role as protective household goddesses. The other hippopotamus goddesses have names that bear very specific meanings, much like Taweret (whose name is formed as a pacificatory address intended to calm the ferocity of the goddess): Ipet's name ("the Nurse") demonstrates her connection to birth, child rearing, and general caretaking, and Reret's name ("the Sow") is derived from the Egyptians' classification of hippopotami as water pigs. However, the origin of Hedjet's name ("the White One") is not as clear and could justly be debated. Evidence for the cult of hippopotamus goddesses exists from the time of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 – 2181 BCE) in the corpus of ancient Egyptian funerary texts entitled the Pyramid Texts. Spell 269 in the "Pyramid Texts" mentions Ipet and succinctly demonstrates her nurturing role; the spell announces that the deceased king will suck on the goddess's "white, dazzling, sweet milk" when he ascends to the heavens. As maternal deities, these goddesses served to nurture and protect the Egyptian people, both royal (as seen in the Pyramid Texts) and non-royal.


title: Taweret

text: It was not until the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2055–1650 BCE) that Taweret became featured more prominently as a figure of religious devotion. Her image adorns magical objects, the most notable of which being a common type of "wand" or "knife" carved from hippopotamus ivory that was likely used in rituals associated with birth and the protection of infants. Similar images appear also on children's feeding cups, once again demonstrating Taweret's integral role as the patron goddess of child rearing. Quite contrarily, she also took on the role of a funerary deity in this period, evidenced by the commonplace practice of placing hippopotami decorated with marsh flora in tombs and temples. Some scholars believe that this practice demonstrates that hippopotamus goddesses facilitated the process of rebirth after death, just as they aided in earthly births. These statues, then, assisted the deceased's passing into the afterlife.


title: Taweret

text: With the rise of popular piety in the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BCE), household deities like Taweret gained even more importance. Taweret's image has been found on an array of household objects, demonstrating her central role in the home. In fact, such objects were even found at Amarna from the reign of Akhenaten (c. 1352–1336 BCE), a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty who reorganized ancient Egyptian religion into a henotheistic religion focused on the worship of the sun disc, called the Aten. The worship of many traditional gods was proscribed during this period, so Taweret's survival in the artistic corpus found at the Aten's capital demonstrates her overwhelming significance in daily life. In this time period, her role as a funerary deity was strengthened, as her powers became considered not only life-giving, but regenerative as well. Various myths demonstrate her role in facilitating the afterlives of the deceased as the nurturing and purifying "Mistress of Pure Water". However, Taweret and her fellow hippopotamus goddesses of fertility should not be confused with Ammit, another composite hippopotamus goddess who gained prominence in the New Kingdom. Ammit was responsible for devouring the unjust before passing into the afterlife. Unlike Ammit, the other hippopotamus goddesses were responsible for nourishment and aid, not destruction.


title: Taweret

text: In the Ptolemaic and Roman periods (c. 332 BCE – 390 CE), Taweret maintained a central role in daily Egyptian life. In either the latter half of the Late Period (c. 664–332 BCE) or the early Ptolemaic period, a temple dedicated to Ipet was built at Karnak. This enigmatic temple was thought to witness the daily birth of the sun god from the hippopotamus goddesses that dwelled there. The sun god (Amun-Re) was conceived of as having multiple divine mothers, and by this later period in Egyptian history, Taweret and the other hippopotamus goddesses were included in this body of solar mothers. Taweret's image also appeared on the outside of temples dedicated to other deities due to her apotropaic ability to ward off malevolent forces. Outside of temple settings, the household cult of the goddesses remained strong, and amulets bearing their likenesses peaked in popularity during these years.


title: Taweret

text: Taweret developed a significant cult outside of Egypt as well. In the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BCE), economic and minimal political contact with the Asiatic cultures of the Levant led to the exchange of ideologies. Taweret was adopted into Levantine religions, serving the same maternal role in these foreign pantheons.


title: Taweret

text: Due to communication between Levantine coastal towns and Mediterranean localities, Taweret also became an integral part of Minoan religion in Crete, where it is known as the Minoan Genius.


title: Taweret

text: Like in Egypt, her image was featured most prominently on protective amulets. However, this image was altered slightly from the Egyptian one, as she was folded into the corpus of Minoan iconography in an artistic style that was congruent with other Minoan images. From Crete, this image spread to mainland Greece, where the goddess was featured in palatine art in Mycenae.


title: Taweret

text: The goddess was also adopted by the Nubians, the empire that laid directly south of Egypt in what is now Sudan. Like her Minoan counterpart, the Nubian Taweret became a part of the Nubian pantheon in the late Middle Kingdom of Egypt. She was evidently featured in royal rituals at Kerma, the capital of the empire.


title: Taweret

text: Although Ipet (aka Apet or Aptet) is mentioned in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts, and Taweret is seen frequently on Middle Kingdom ritual objects, hippopotamus goddesses did not gain a significant role in Egyptian mythology until the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BCE). Taweret is featured in some versions of a popular and widespread myth in which the Eye of Ra becomes angry with her father and retreats to Nubia in the form of a lioness. Upon the Eye of Ra's eventual return to Egypt, she assumes the form of a hippopotamus (presumably Taweret) and consequently brings the flooding of the Nile. This myth demonstrates Taweret's primary function as a goddess of fertility and rejuvenation. Some scholars feel that her role in the Nile inundation is one of the reasons she was given the epithet "Mistress of Pure Water". However, her similar role in the rejuvenation of the dead also cannot be overlooked with regards to this epithet – just as she provided life for the living through physical birth and the inundation, she also cleansed and purified the dead so they could pass safely into the afterlife.


title: Taweret

text: In the New Kingdom Taweret's image was frequently used to represent a northern constellation in zodiacs. This image is attested in several astronomical tomb paintings, including the Theban tombs of Tharwas (tomb 353), Hatshepsut's famed advisor Senenmut (tomb 232), and the pharaoh Seti I (KV17) in the Valley of the Kings. The image of this astral Taweret appears almost exclusively next to the Setian foreleg of a bull. The latter image represents the Big Dipper and is associated with the Egyptian god of chaos, Seth. The relationship between the two images is discussed in the "Book of Day and Night" (a cosmically focused mythological text from the Twentieth Dynasty, c. 1186–1069 BCE) as follows: "As to this foreleg of Seth, it is in the northern sky, tied down to two mooring posts of flint by a chain of gold. It is entrusted to Isis as a hippopotamus guarding it." Although the hippopotamus goddess is identified in this text as Isis, not Taweret, this phenomenon is not uncommon in later periods of Egyptian history. When assuming a protective role, powerful goddesses like Isis, Hathor, and Mut assumed the form of Taweret, effectively becoming a manifestation of this goddess. Likewise, Taweret gradually absorbed qualities of these goddesses and is commonly seen wearing the Hathoric sun disc that is iconographically associated with both Hathor and Isis.


title: Taweret

text: This cosmic image continues to be seen in later periods, although the tendency was to show such divine astral bodies more abstractly. One example can be found in the late Ptolemaic or early Roman "Book of the Faiyum", a local monograph dedicated to the Faiyum and its patron gods, namely Sobek-Re. Taweret is depicted in her standard form with a crocodile on her back and a small upright crocodile in her right hand. She is shown in the section of the papyrus that is meant to depict the Faiyum's central Lake Moeris. The papyrus depicts the solar journey of Re with Lake Moeris as the place into which the sun god descends for his nightly journey, traditionally thought of as the underworldly realm of the Amduat. Taweret appears here as a well known constellation to demonstrate the celestial and otherworldly properties of Lake Moeris. She also serves as a fine protective divine mother to Sobek-Re during his precarious journey. In this respect, she fulfills the role of Neith, the primary divine mother of Sobek. This Taweret figure is labeled as "Neith the Great, who protects her son", demonstrating the malleability of the hippopotamus goddess form. When in the role of a protective mother, it is not uncommon that other goddesses would appear in the form of Taweret.


title: Taweret

text: Taweret was featured in other myths as well during these later periods. In the famed Metternich Stela, Isis tells Horus that he was reared by a "sow and a dwarf", almost certainly referring to Taweret and her fellow apotropaic demon-god Bes, respectively. Although the date of this stela is relatively late, the central role of Taweret in the successful raising of children is still being stressed, showing the continuity of her character. She is also mentioned in Plutarch's notes on the central myth of Isis and Osiris. She joined the forces of order and helped Horus to defeat Set.


title: Taweret

text: Taweret bears physical aspects of both a fertility goddess and a fearsome protective deity. She takes the form of a female hippopotamus, a highly deadly creature. She is also often seen with features from other predatory creatures, most notably being the tail of a Nile crocodile and the paws of a lioness. These features directly parallel those of other ferocious protective ancient Egyptian deities, most notably the crocodile god Sobek and the lioness goddess Sekhmet. These violent theriomorphic deities take on some of the aspects of the animals that they represent – both to the benefit and detriment of humans. Taweret's predatory form allows her to ward away evil from the innocent. Likewise, Taweret's nurturing aspects are also reinforced in her iconography, as she frequently is shown with a bloated pregnant belly, and pendulous human breasts. These breasts are shared by the god of the Nile inundation, Hapi, and signify regenerative powers. Taweret's riverine form allows her to participate in that which annually revives the Nile Valley: the inundation personified by Hapi. It is partly due to her role in this event that may share this iconographic feature with Hapi. She frequently is seen holding the "sa" hieroglyphic sign (Gardiner V17), which literally means "protection".


title: Taweret

text: Taweret's image served a functional purpose on a variety of objects. The most notable of these objects are amulets, which protected mothers and children from harm. Such amulets, appearing before 3000 BCE, were popular for most of ancient Egyptian history. She also consistently appeared on household furniture throughout history, including chairs, stools, and headrests. Apotropaic objects became popular in the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BCE) and are thought to have been used in rituals related to pregnancy and birth. As is aforementioned, ivory wands and knives showing long processions of deities became widely used in this period. These objects have been shown on tomb paintings in the hands of nurses and wear patterns on the tips indicate that these nurses likely used them to draw protective patterns in the sand. Taweret is featured on almost all known wands, as her powers were invoked particularly to protect children and their mothers. The other deities are almost exclusively deities that accompany the mature sun god in his nightly journey through the dangerous Amduat (underworld). Taweret's inclusion among this company suggests a protective solar role. This is supported by later Ptolemaic (c. 332–30 BCE) conceptions of the goddess, which state that she reared – and in some traditions, birthed – the young sun god (cf. Metternich Stela).


title: Taweret

text: Ritual objects bearing Taweret's image were popular in Egyptian households for the remainder of Egyptian history. Vessels bearing Taweret's shape became popular in the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BCE). These vessels presumably purified the liquid that was poured from it, as Taweret was considered to be "She of the Pure Water". Often these vessels had openings through the nipples, emphasizing Taweret's maternal aspects.


title: Taweret

text: A giant statue of Taweret appears in the science-fiction television series "Lost" and plays an important role in the backstory of the show's mysterious island.


title: Taweret

text: Antonia Salib portrays Taweret in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) television series "Moon Knight" (2022).


title: Earthrise

text: Earthrise is a photograph of Earth and some of the Moon's surface that was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. Nature photographer Galen Rowell described it as "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken".


title: Earthrise

text: Anders's color image had been preceded by a crude black-and-white 1966 raster image taken by the Lunar Orbiter 1 robotic probe, the first American spacecraft to orbit the Moon.


title: Earthrise

text: "Earthrise" was taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, the first crewed voyage to orbit the Moon. Before Anders found a suitable 70 mm color film, mission commander Frank Borman took a black-and-white photograph of the scene, with the Earth's terminator touching the horizon. The land mass position and cloud patterns in this image are the same as those of the color photograph entitled "Earthrise".


title: Earthrise

text: The photograph was taken from lunar orbit on December 24, 1968, 15:40 UTC, with a highly modified Hasselblad 500 EL with an electric drive. The camera had a simple sighting ring rather than the standard reflex viewfinder and was loaded with a 70 mm film magazine containing custom Ektachrome film developed by Kodak. Immediately prior, Anders had been photographing the lunar surface with a 250 mm lens; the lens was subsequently used for the "Earthrise" images.


title: Earthrise

text: There were many images taken at that point. The mission audio tape establishes several photographs were taken, on Borman's orders, with the enthusiastic concurrence of Jim Lovell and Anders. Anders took the first color shot, then Lovell who notes the setting (1/250th of a second at ), followed by Anders with another very similar shot (AS08-14-2384).


title: Earthrise

text: A black and white reproduction of Borman's image appeared in his 1988 autobiography, captioned, "One of the most famous pictures in photographic history – taken after I grabbed the camera away from Bill Anders". Borman noted that this was the image "the Postal Service used on a stamp, and few photographs have been more frequently reproduced". The photograph reproduced is not the same image as the Anders photograph; aside from the orientation, the cloud patterns differ. Borman later recanted this story and agreed that the black and white shot was also taken by Anders, based on evidence presented by transcript and a video produced by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio employee, Ernie Wright.


title: Earthrise

text: After Apollo 8's momentous return, NASA technicians – not able to wait for normal film processing – drove four hours from Houston to Corpus Christi Texas to the family-owned R & R Photo Studio & Color Labs (later known as R & R PhotoTechnics) which at that time was the first and only place in South Texas with color photo processing equipment.  More importantly, R&R featured the rare 4-hour Ektachrome slide processing capability for the professional 220-size film used by the astronauts’ Hasselblad, making R&R a convenient same-day trip for NASA’s critical need.


title: Earthrise

text: There, the late owner Raul Rodriguez took the precious film which had travelled to the far side of the moon and back.  He personally developed the slides and copied them to regular 220 negatives, which he then also had to develop. Then he exposed and printed the requested photos in quick 8” x 10” glossy size, one of which would eventually be known as "Earthrise." Raul then returned the slides, negatives & photos to the appreciative NASA technicians to rush back to Houston.


title: Earthrise

text: For the "Earthrise" slides, then later the "Earthrise" negatives, Raul used a German-made Merz S2A dual-rocking-drum developer. To print the first "Earthrise" photo, he used an Auto-focus Chromega D4 enlarger that had modern dial-in color filters. It sat on a motorized-drive, lightproof, 11” wide, roll-paper carrier.  The images came to life via Raul’s then state-of-the-art, self-replenishing, mylar-leader, continuous-feed roll-photo paper processor produced by the Nord photo company then based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


title: Earthrise

text: The stamp issue reproduces the cloud, color, and crater patterns of the Anders picture. Anders is described by Borman as holding "a masters degree in nuclear engineering"; Anders was thus tasked as "the scientific crew member ... also performing the photography duties that would be so important to the Apollo crew who actually landed on the Moon".


title: Earthrise

text: On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission in 2018, Anders stated: "It really undercut my religious beliefs. The idea that things rotate around the pope and up there is a big supercomputer wondering whether Billy was a good boy yesterday? It doesn't make any sense. I became a big buddy of [atheist scientist] Richard Dawkins."


title: Earthrise

text: The original image was rotated 95 degrees clockwise to produce the published "Earthrise" orientation to better convey the sense of the Earth rising over the moonscape. The published photograph shows Earth rotated clockwise approximately 135° from the typical north–south-Pole-oriented perspective, with south to the left.


title: Earthrise

text: In "Life"s 2003 book "100 Photographs that Changed the World", wilderness photographer Galen Rowell called "Earthrise" "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken". Another author called its appearance the beginning of the environmental movement. Fifty years to the day after taking the photo, William Anders observed, "We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth."


title: Earthrise

text: In October 2018, two of the craters seen in the photo were named Anders' Earthrise and 8 Homeward by the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) of the International Astronomical Union. The craters had previously been designated only with letters.


title: Earthrise

text: Joni Mitchell sings on her 1976 song "Refuge of the Roads": "In a highway service station / Over the month of June / Was a photograph of the Earth / Taken coming back from the Moon / And you couldn't see a city / On that marbled bowling ball / Or a forest or a highway / Or me here least of all …"


title: Earthrise

text: In 1969, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp (Scott# 1371) commemorating the Apollo 8 flight around the Moon. The stamp featured a detail (in color) of the "Earthrise" photograph, and the words, "In the beginning God...", recalling the Apollo 8 Genesis reading.


title: Earthrise

text: In 2013, in commemoration of the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission, NASA issued a video about the taking of the photograph. This computer-generated visualization used data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, which had provided detailed images of the lunar surface that could be matched with those taken every 20 seconds by an automatic camera on Apollo 8. The resulting video, re-creating what the astronauts would have seen (rotated 90 degrees clockwise to match the perspective presented in the photograph), was synchronized with the recording of the crew's conversation as they became the first humans to witness an Earthrise. The video included explanatory narration written and read by Andrew Chaikin. Chaikin writes that all the photographs of the rising Earth on Apollo 8's fourth orbit were taken by Anders.


title: Earthrise

text: The Earth "rose" because the spacecraft was traveling over the Moon's surface. An earthrise that might be witnessed from the "surface" of the Moon would be quite unlike moonrises on Earth. Because the Moon is tidally locked with the Earth, one side of the Moon always faces toward Earth. Interpretation of this fact would lead one to believe that the Earth's position is fixed on the lunar sky and no earthrises can occur; however, the Moon librates slightly, which causes the Earth to draw a Lissajous figure on the sky. This figure fits inside a rectangle 15°48' wide and 13°20' high (in angular dimensions), while the angular diameter of the Earth as seen from Moon is only about 2°. This means that earthrises are visible near the edge of the Earth-observable surface of the Moon (about 20% of the surface). Since a full libration cycle takes about 27 days, earthrises are very slow, and it takes about 48 hours for Earth to clear its diameter. During the course of the month-long lunar orbit, an observer would additionally witness a succession of "Earth phases", much like the lunar phases seen from Earth. That is what accounts for the half-illuminated globe, the ashen glow, seen in the photograph.


title: DNA methylation

text: DNA methylation is a biological process by which methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule. Methylation can change the activity of a DNA segment without changing the sequence. When located in a gene promoter, DNA methylation typically acts to repress gene transcription. In mammals, DNA methylation is essential for normal development and is associated with a number of key processes including genomic imprinting, X-chromosome inactivation, repression of transposable elements, aging, and carcinogenesis.


title: DNA methylation

text: As of 2016, two nucleobases have been found on which natural, enzymatic DNA methylation takes place: adenine and cytosine. The modified bases are N-methyladenine, 5-methylcytosine and N-methylcytosine.


title: DNA methylation

text: Two of DNA's four bases, cytosine and adenine, can be methylated. Cytosine methylation is widespread in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes, even though the rate of cytosine DNA methylation can differ greatly between species: 14% of cytosines are methylated in "Arabidopsis thaliana", 4% to 8% in "Physarum", 7.6% in "Mus musculus", 2.3% in "Escherichia coli", 0.03% in "Drosophila", 0.006% in "Dictyostelium" and virtually none (0.0002 to 0.0003%) in "Caenorhabditis" or fungi such as "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" and "S. pombe" (but not "N. crassa"). Adenine methylation has been observed in bacterial, plant, and recently in mammalian DNA, but has received considerably less attention.


title: DNA methylation

text: Methylation of cytosine to form 5-methylcytosine occurs at the same 5 position on the pyrimidine ring where the DNA base thymine's methyl group is located; the same position distinguishes thymine from the analogous RNA base uracil, which has no methyl group. Spontaneous deamination of 5-methylcytosine converts it to thymine. This results in a T:G mismatch. Repair mechanisms then correct it back to the original C:G pair; alternatively, they may substitute A for G, turning the original C:G pair into a T:A pair, effectively changing a base and introducing a mutation. This misincorporated base will not be corrected during DNA replication as thymine is a DNA base. If the mismatch is not repaired and the cell enters the cell cycle the strand carrying the T will be complemented by an A in one of the daughter cells, such that the mutation becomes permanent. The near-universal use of thymine exclusively in DNA and uracil exclusively in RNA may have evolved as an error-control mechanism, to facilitate the removal of uracils generated by the spontaneous deamination of cytosine. DNA methylation as well as many of its contemporary DNA methyltransferases have been thought to evolve from early world primitive RNA methylation activity and is supported by several lines of evidence.


title: DNA methylation

text: In plants and other organisms, DNA methylation is found in three different sequence contexts: CG (or CpG), CHG or CHH (where H correspond to A, T or C). In mammals however, DNA methylation is almost exclusively found in CpG dinucleotides, with the cytosines on both strands being usually methylated. Non-CpG methylation can however be observed in embryonic stem cells, and has also been indicated in neural development. Furthermore, non-CpG methylation has also been observed in hematopoietic progenitor cells, and it occurred mainly in a CpApC sequence context.


title: DNA methylation

text: The DNA methylation landscape of vertebrates is very particular compared to other organisms. In mammals, around 75% of CpG dinucleotides are methylated in somatic cells, and DNA methylation appears as a default state that has to be specifically excluded from defined locations. By contrast, the genome of most plants, invertebrates, fungi, or protists show “mosaic” methylation patterns, where only specific genomic elements are targeted, and they are characterized by the alternation of methylated and unmethylated domains.


title: DNA methylation

text: High CpG methylation in mammalian genomes has an evolutionary cost because it increases the frequency of spontaneous mutations. Loss of amino-groups occurs with a high frequency for cytosines, with different consequences depending on their methylation. Methylated C residues spontaneously deaminate to form T residues over time; hence CpG dinucleotides steadily deaminate to TpG dinucleotides, which is evidenced by the under-representation of CpG dinucleotides in the human genome (they occur at only 21% of the expected frequency). (On the other hand, spontaneous deamination of unmethylated C residues gives rise to U residues, a change that is quickly recognized and repaired by the cell.)


title: DNA methylation

text: In mammals, the only exception for this global CpG depletion resides in a specific category of GC- and CpG-rich sequences termed CpG islands that are generally unmethylated and therefore retained the expected CpG content. CpG islands are usually defined as regions with: 1) a length greater than 200bp, 2) a G+C content greater than 50%, 3) a ratio of observed to expected CpG greater than 0.6, although other definitions are sometimes used. Excluding repeated sequences, there are around 25,000 CpG islands in the human genome, 75% of which being less than 850bp long. They are major regulatory units and around 50% of CpG islands are located in gene promoter regions, while another 25% lie in gene bodies, often serving as alternative promoters. Reciprocally, around 60-70% of human genes have a CpG island in their promoter region. The majority of CpG islands are constitutively unmethylated and enriched for permissive chromatin modification such as H3K4 methylation. In somatic tissues, only 10% of CpG islands are methylated, the majority of them being located in intergenic and intragenic regions.


title: DNA methylation

text: DNA methylation was probably present at some extent in very early eukaryote ancestors. In virtually every organism analyzed, methylation in promoter regions correlates negatively with gene expression. CpG-dense promoters of actively transcribed genes are never methylated, but, reciprocally, transcriptionally silent genes do not necessarily carry a methylated promoter. In mouse and human, around 60–70% of genes have a CpG island in their promoter region and most of these CpG islands remain unmethylated independently of the transcriptional activity of the gene, in both differentiated and undifferentiated cell types. Of note, whereas DNA methylation of CpG islands is unambiguously linked with transcriptional repression, the function of DNA methylation in CG-poor promoters remains unclear; albeit there is little evidence that it could be functionally relevant.


title: DNA methylation

text: DNA methylation may affect the transcription of genes in two ways. First, the methylation of DNA itself may physically impede the binding of transcriptional proteins to the gene, and second, and likely more important, methylated DNA may be bound by proteins known as methyl-CpG-binding domain proteins (MBDs). MBD proteins then recruit additional proteins to the locus, such as histone deacetylases and other chromatin remodeling proteins that can modify histones, thereby forming compact, inactive chromatin, termed heterochromatin. This link between DNA methylation and chromatin structure is very important. In particular, loss of methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MeCP2) has been implicated in Rett syndrome; and methyl-CpG-binding domain protein 2 (MBD2) mediates the transcriptional silencing of hypermethylated genes in "cancer."


title: DNA methylation

text: DNA methylation is a powerful transcriptional repressor, at least in CpG dense contexts. Transcriptional repression of protein-coding genes appears essentially limited to very specific classes of genes that need to be silent permanently and in almost all tissues. While DNA methylation does not have the flexibility required for the fine-tuning of gene regulation, its stability is perfect to ensure the permanent silencing of transposable elements. Transposon control is one of the most ancient functions of DNA methylation that is shared by animals, plants and multiple protists. It is even suggested that DNA methylation evolved precisely for this purpose.


title: DNA methylation

text: DNA methylation of transposable elements has been known to be related to genome expansion. However, the evolutionary driver for genome expansion remains unknown. There is a clear correlation between the size of the genome and CpG, suggesting that the DNA methylation of transposable elements led to a noticeable increase in the mass of DNA.


title: DNA methylation

text: A function that appears even more conserved than transposon silencing is positively correlated with gene expression. In almost all species where DNA methylation is present, DNA methylation is especially enriched in the body of highly transcribed genes. The function of gene body methylation is not well understood. A body of evidence suggests that it could regulate splicing and suppress the activity of intragenic transcriptional units (cryptic promoters or transposable elements). Gene-body methylation appears closely tied to H3K36 methylation. In yeast and mammals, H3K36 methylation is highly enriched in the body of highly transcribed genes. In yeast at least, H3K36me3 recruits enzymes such as histone deacetylases to condense chromatin and prevent the activation of cryptic start sites. In mammals, DNMT3a and DNMT3b PWWP domain binds to H3K36me3 and the two enzymes are recruited to the body of actively transcribed genes.


title: DNA methylation

text: DNA methylation patterns are largely erased and then re-established between generations in mammals. Almost all of the methylations from the parents are erased, first during gametogenesis, and again in early embryogenesis, with demethylation and remethylation occurring each time. Demethylation in early embryogenesis occurs in the preimplantation period in two stages – initially in the zygote, then during the first few embryonic replication cycles of morula and blastula. A wave of methylation then takes place during the implantation stage of the embryo, with CpG islands protected from methylation. This results in global repression and allows housekeeping genes to be expressed in all cells. In the post-implantation stage, methylation patterns are stage- and tissue-specific, with changes that would define each individual cell type lasting stably over a long period.


title: DNA methylation

text: Whereas DNA methylation is not necessary "per se" for transcriptional silencing, it is thought nonetheless to represent a “locked” state that definitely inactivates transcription. In particular, DNA methylation appears critical for the maintenance of mono-allelic silencing in the context of genomic imprinting and X chromosome inactivation. In these cases, expressed and silent alleles differ by their methylation status, and loss of DNA methylation results in loss of imprinting and re-expression of Xist in somatic cells. During embryonic development, few genes change their methylation status, at the important exception of many genes specifically expressed in the germline. DNA methylation appears absolutely required in differentiated cells, as knockout of any of the three competent DNA methyltransferase results in embryonic or post-partum lethality. By contrast, DNA methylation is dispensable in undifferentiated cell types, such as the inner cell mass of the blastocyst, primordial germ cells or embryonic stem cells. Since DNA methylation appears to directly regulate only a limited number of genes, how precisely DNA methylation absence causes the death of differentiated cells remain an open question.


title: DNA methylation

text: Due to the phenomenon of genomic imprinting, maternal and paternal genomes are differentially marked and must be properly reprogrammed every time they pass through the germline. Therefore, during gametogenesis, primordial germ cells must have their original biparental DNA methylation patterns erased and re-established based on the sex of the transmitting parent. After fertilization, the paternal and maternal genomes are once again demethylated and remethylated (except for differentially methylated regions associated with imprinted genes). This reprogramming is likely required for totipotency of the newly formed embryo and erasure of acquired epigenetic changes.


title: DNA methylation

text: In many disease processes, such as cancer, gene promoter CpG islands acquire abnormal hypermethylation, which results in transcriptional silencing that can be inherited by daughter cells following cell division. Alterations of DNA methylation have been recognized as an important component of cancer development. Hypomethylation, in general, arises earlier and is linked to chromosomal instability and loss of imprinting, whereas hypermethylation is associated with promoters and can arise secondary to gene (oncogene suppressor) silencing, but might be a target for epigenetic therapy.


title: DNA methylation

text: Global hypomethylation has also been implicated in the development and progression of cancer through different mechanisms. Typically, there is hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes and hypomethylation of oncogenes.


title: DNA methylation

text: Generally, in progression to cancer, hundreds of genes are silenced or activated. Although silencing of some genes in cancers occurs by mutation, a large proportion of carcinogenic gene silencing is a result of altered DNA methylation (see DNA methylation in cancer). DNA methylation causing silencing in cancer typically occurs at multiple CpG sites in the CpG islands that are present in the promoters of protein coding genes.


title: DNA methylation

text: Altered expressions of microRNAs also silence or activate many genes in progression to cancer (see microRNAs in cancer). Altered microRNA expression occurs through hyper/hypo-methylation of CpG sites in CpG islands in promoters controlling transcription of the microRNAs.


title: DNA methylation

text: Silencing of DNA repair genes through methylation of CpG islands in their promoters appears to be especially important in progression to cancer (see methylation of DNA repair genes in cancer).


title: DNA methylation

text: Epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation have been implicated in cardiovascular disease, including atherosclerosis. In animal models of atherosclerosis, vascular tissue, as well as blood cells such as mononuclear blood cells, exhibit global hypomethylation with gene-specific areas of hypermethylation. DNA methylation polymorphisms may be used as an early biomarker of atherosclerosis since they are present before lesions are observed, which may provide an early tool for detection and risk prevention.


title: DNA methylation

text: Two of the cell types targeted for DNA methylation polymorphisms are monocytes and lymphocytes, which experience an overall hypomethylation. One proposed mechanism behind this global hypomethylation is elevated homocysteine levels causing hyperhomocysteinemia, a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. High plasma levels of homocysteine inhibit DNA methyltransferases, which causes hypomethylation. Hypomethylation of DNA affects genes that alter smooth muscle cell proliferation, cause endothelial cell dysfunction, and increase inflammatory mediators, all of which are critical in forming atherosclerotic lesions. High levels of homocysteine also result in hypermethylation of CpG islands in the promoter region of the estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) gene, causing its down regulation. ERα protects against atherosclerosis due to its action as a growth suppressor, causing the smooth muscle cells to remain in a quiescent state. Hypermethylation of the ERα promoter thus allows intimal smooth muscle cells to proliferate excessively and contribute to the development of the atherosclerotic lesion.